by L. S. Wood
With heartfelt tears streaming down her cheeks while sobbing, Ann abruptly turned in place and ran upstairs to pack her few military clothing still left hanging loosely in the closet. Her heart was aching as it had never hurt before. She really did not want to leave her family this time, but felt as deeply about not going as going. She would have felt torn between two worlds in any decision she would have to make, but felt very strong that this choice was the more ethical choice at a time like this, besides there were other lives that counted on her than just the four at the farm.
Tears were steadily streaming down from her swollen eyes as Ben approached the open doorway to their bedroom, and he could see her body shake as she cried. He stood quietly, standing in the doorway watching her in pain as she wept, throwing her loose clothing from the bed and into her trunk and duffle bag. She did it with a frustrated force while she shed tear after tear of pain from being torn apart in her decision making.
Ben felt his pain and could feel the extreme pain she was going through as well, realizing what she must be going through in having to have made the unselfish choice of hers. She was breaking her promise he knew she never would have ever intended to break. He could sense her bitter grief growing deep inside her and see the torment she was going through as she put every item of clothing away with at least several tears for each item of clothing as she put it away into her bag.
He knew down deep inside she did not truly want to leave but had too, for it was her Christian duty to help those trapped above. She was to be the Good Samaritan. She looked to be in total divided torment with herself in her final decisions to leave her family on the farm for the short haul, and it was truly wearing on her. She did not want to leave him anymore than he wanted her not to stay.
Ben slowly walked up behind her gently putting his loving arms around her waist and gave her a soft kiss on the top of her aching throbbing head. He could feel her uncontrollable trembling inside and could feel her pain right through his own arms that mixed with his. She turned and they both embraced each other without saying a word to one another crying in each other’s arms, feeling the pain of missing each other until they could be as one again.
Ben had had it with her, and was going to her in leaps and bounds ascending the stairs three steps at a time in his own self-imposed rage. He was going to tell Ann he was done with her for good this time, forever! He was going to leave her and the kids, and the farm to start a new life all his own with someone new. With someone who cared for him the way it should be and would never leave him again, one that would love him for what he really was. He was going to find someone who would not just up and leave him all of the time at the drop of a damn pin. He was feeling betrayed by her career for her career meant more to her than him, like she was cheating on him with another man. He could not take this uncertainty in his life of not knowing if she would live or die each time she stepped out the damn doorway and went away. It was driving him absolutely crazy inside, and he had had enough.
Stopping short watching her from the doorway. Ben could see and sense that Ann was in agony. Her pain seemed more intense for her than the pain he was feeling in his hostility for himself. For a split moment after Ann said she was leaving them again for space, Ben had second thoughts about all the loving things she had said to him previously about not ever going to leave him or the children never again. They were nothing but a bunch of damn lies he thought until he witnessed her in heartfelt agony over her decision, and was crying her heart out as she packed.
When they each let go the other from their long emotionally weeping embrace, Ben stood back from her. He stretched out his arms placing his hands upon her shoulders. With a tender voice he asked her to be real careful and to please be safe for him and for the sake of their children. He never wanted anything bad to happen to her. He was going to miss the hell out of her more now for just the next few days or weeks than he had had all the rest of the time she had been away before.
Ben really felt this time looking down the length of his long arms that he would never ever see this lovely woman his wife Ann ever again. He could only hope and pray by some miraculous miracle that she would one day in the near off future return to them one more time unscathed, safe and sound. He had his doubts and what in the hell could he tell the kids this time? She was going anyway and if he made her feel terrible now she might not think clearly in her job, and he did not want it to be on his shoulders that is was he who caused her never to return. He could not live with that, and wished her luck.
Downstairs, Commander Anderson was going over everything with Ann’s mother and father about the shuttle’s next mission. He was trying to put the two of them at as much ease with what they were going to attempt to accomplish with this mission. He proceeded to explain how safe this mission would be; and if he did not think it safe, he would not have asked their only daughter to be a part of it. He told them what a wonderful girl she was and how talented she was in navigating such a wonderful piece of equipment such as the shuttle that could ascend itself way up into the high heavens. He explained how she was a fabulous pilot, probably the best pilot and navigator he had ever seen or flown with just as they said she had always wanted to be. They listened intently but frankly did not give a damn about any poor Russian bastard still trapped above in out space or liked the idea she was leaving them again, especially to fly off into outer space one more time.
He tried to ease their worried faces and minds by telling them this mission would be a piece of cake, much easier than the first mission was. They were definitely not going to be flying off into the unknown dark of space trying to snag any stray missiles this time that might turn around and attack anyone. There were no missiles left in space to descend back to Earth and attack the rest of the world as they had before.
Commander Anderson could tell by the sick worried looks and grief written all over their senior aging faces that his valiant efforts were coming across fruitlessly. Knowing he was not very convincing, he sat back quiet in his chair and waited for them to ask him a question or two about the mission, but they did not. Ann’s mother and father just sat there looking worried all the while staring into one another’s eyes feeling pain for the absence that was to come again of their only daughter being gone for a second time.
When Ann and Ben finally emerged back down the stairs from their bedroom, he was carrying her suitcase in one hand and her duffle bag slung over his other shoulder. Everyone in the parlor could tell both had been crying profusely. Commander Anderson understood as he had gone through the same damn thing with his wife only a few days ago, along with a good chewing out his children gave him back home when he informed them all what he was to be doing next. They like Ann’s mother, father, and Ben tried to convince him otherwise not to go, but their words fell upon deaf ears.
Ann, much like Commander Anderson, had free spirits and willing souls of their own. They would do whatever they thought and felt was right. No one in the world would ever change their minds once they made them up to do something, especially when it was this important a decision in saving those who had helped save them.
The trip back to the space agency was a constant session of questions and answers fired off between both Commander Anderson and by Ann. She went over the flight plan with Commander Anderson over and over again. She didn’t want to leave a nut, bolt, or tiny wire tie on this mission unturned in her mind during preflight. She wanted to know all the in’s, and out’s of the new manual controls that were installed on the Twitchel.
She had some very important input necessary for the Twitchel to make this mercy mission a safe flight. Commander Anderson knew Ann would have some very interesting direct dissecting answers to some very important parts of questions that needed addressing before the flight, such as the dry battery banks in the blast off phase of the mission. She addressed the necessities of not adding the electrolyte activating acid to the batteries until well after the Twitchel was far safe outside
of the earth’s atmosphere and in a secured orbit aligned up with hitching up to the space station.
For the next two long days’ travel back to Florida, just about every time one of them opened up their mouths, something new and important about the mission would come floating out of one. On occasion they would break away from the serious conversation about the mission, and reminisce about one’s own family’s affairs and how each family was coping with this new life style they all had to adapt to now.
Some of the other crewmembers had already arrived at the cape and were now training and going over all the necessities to make this mission a successful one. They all had volunteered and hoped Ann would too once Commander Anderson stressed the need for her abilities to her. Without her, this mission could be a very pressing and hard job to succeed.
Major Bill was the first of the old crew of the Twitchel to come out and greet Ann when she and Commander Anderson showed up at the launch sight facilities. Bill had finally, after several long hard lonely weeks of grieving, come out of his shell of lonely hurt and grieving, and was ready to help his fellow crew members take on the challenge of helping save the crewmembers of the International Space Station. Bill still felt the pain for his loss, but was convinced his wife and children would want him to help those who had helped save his life. This was the beginning of a great healing process for him to go through, and now it was time for him to get on with the remainder of his life.
Commander Anderson was not very reassuring to his crew about the Twitchel’s initial takeoff and its first stage section of the flight. These new solid-fuel rockets attached to the Twitchel’s fuselage had to be ignited by hand, and if only one of the two rockets were to fire and not the other, they would be spun around the launch site like a wild boomerang out of control and crash. The newly installed acid-activated battery banks had to have been installed because the old ones had been totally destroyed by the massive attack of the many neutrons on them.
The new batteries would each have to have their individual empty cells filled with automobile sulfuric acid, the agent used to activate the batteries after the shuttle was in orbit. They did not know if the neutron bomb explosions contaminated the activating sulfuric acid stored in the several small plastic drums or would adhere to the lead plates in the new batteries. With no accurate way of testing the acid solution for the batteries that was supposed to be tested before going into them when on Earth, they would have to wait until they were well into their new orbit and test them then.
If any electrical wires had been damage in reentry, they would have to find them and repair them aloft before they continued in their mission to the space station. Everything about this mission had been place in the hands of a couple of real good rocket scientists and this crew had to put their full faith in them and their abilities and their knowledge of flight in themselves as a crew, and a little help from the good man from above to make this mission a successful one.
Suddenly the entire crew, for no reason at all, began conversing with one another about their sole obligation to their many friends aboard the space station. It was their moral obligation to help, or the crew of the space station would all die except for a couple of lucky ones who might or might not survive. Seeing no one had returned to earth yet from the space station, all they could do was surmise everyone aboard had survived this long and all alive and doing well. Should the solid rockets fail during lift off, then what? They had no electrical back up to control the ignition. Without any electrical back up control, they would all be doomed to die. What if the electrical system didn’t work once they inserted the acid into the batteries when aloft, then what? They would all be lost in outer space, and the Twitchel would become a multiple tomb for them all. The chances were slim to none if anything would go wrong, but there was always the slimmest possibility that something might not work.
The risk of this mission was worth it. Commander Anderson was encouraged for the entire crew was all in favor of giving it their best to try to help rescue their comrades trapped in the space station. Commander Anderson ordered the Twitchel’s crew to attention from their conversations and were almost out of control expressing their own inner emotions and feelings about their obligations to their friends aloft.
“Attention!” The flight crew became instantly quiet as they all came to order. They all turned around to address whomever Commander Anderson was calling them to attention for.
“Men, please be seated. This is Dr. Smothers. Please give him your full undivided attention please.” “This is going to be the most dangerous of any mission you have ever participated in gentlemen”, said Dr. Smothers, “you, too, miss. We believe everything is in proper order for you for a very successful flight. It is unfortunate that we do not have at our disposal all of the conveniences of modern day technology we once had at our fingertips. Technology everyone is so accustomed to having a little while ago, but you will have it, once you have reached the outer limits of our stratosphere.
This “neutron thing”, this monster in the sky everyone calls it here on earth, consists of an overabundance of manmade condensed neutrons taken from the earth’s own natural waters and has mixed itself with all the natural neutrons floating freely in our atmosphere, causing things to happen here on earth no man would have ever expected to happen. It is not effective at high altitudes above our atmosphere yet, we hope. According to Commander Anderson, and your navigator, Captain Ann Mitchell, the neutron field didn’t affect the Twitchel’s electrical system until you all reached a height of about seventy-five to fifty -five thousand feet when you all had reentered the atmosphere on your return flight to Earth several weeks ago.
The Twitchel’s cargo bay has been partially filled with a maximum number in oxygen bottles to replenish the space station’s air supply. The rest of the cargo bay is almost filled to capacity with food and other supplies for their garden experiment which I hear was doing just fine when all of you were aboard, and had helped all of you to survive. It is also filled with the station’s stores of other necessary supplies to extend their stay in space.
There has been a special cargo container filled with the lifeblood supply of sulfuric acid, safely stored away in the cargo bay for use in the main battery banks power system aboard the Twitchel. You must carefully install and fill the battery banks with it once you are in orbit. I am quite sure Commander Anderson can fill you in on all the other details necessary for a safe flight.
The new solid fueled rockets have all been simultaneously preflight tested on a small-scale model of the shuttle and all pre-flight data has gone quite satisfactorily to our calculations. Everything on the scaled down models worked according to all the reduced measurements and scaled down weights and measures of the payload as planned. The only real problem that anyone can come up with is the proper flight path the Twitchel shall follow in order to place you all in a proper path to link you up with the orbiting space station. This work you will all accomplished once you have reached your proper orbiting height. This will happen when you all break out of the earth’s gravitational field and start to orbit around the earth in free flight.
When the g-force of flight releases you, you will have limited time in quickly activating the electrical supply to the ship’s mainframe computers. The time in speed will help secure your safe projectile and help you dock with the space station in a timely fashion. If you fail in this quickly required procedure, it may take you over a week or more for your projectile paths to realign again for your rendezvous.
According to our records, the crew of the space station will have already have used up or could have breathed in the last of their precious oxygen supply and would have already passed away. If you fail in your attempt to activate the electrical life line system of your craft, you all may be lost in an orbit that will allow you to travel out of your intended orbit, and spend the rest of your short lived days alive traveling deeper and deeper into the outer spaces void. It is extremely pertinen
t that you fill the battery banks quickly and get your power banks up and started as soon as possible. Let me now turn this meeting over to Commander Anderson. He will instruct you all on the changes we have made to the Twitchel for your conveyance of flight and safety. Commander Anderson.”
“Gentlemen, Captain Mitchell, there have been a few new systems in controls added to the Twitchel. There are a couple of new portal holes been drilled and cables added to her for controlling the projected travel course in her flight into outer space. The portal openings need sealing up once we rendezvoused with the space station. Once we make it that far, and I am sure we will. If we fail to seal these portals with heat shielding reflective tiles after docking, it may cause us to burn up on our reentry try back into the Earth’s atmosphere on our return trip back home to earth.
To get that far and forget a simple crucial task such as that would be a shame. Let that be the responsibility of us all to make sure these new tiles installed in place before we returning. I know I make this mission sound doubtful, but it really is not. All I want to do is instill in each and everyone of your minds, the importance in every detail about this mission. I want to instruct each and everyone of you to be looking out for your fellow astronauts. Let us cover each other’s backs just in case one or more of us do make a simple little deadly mistake that might cause this mission to fail. If we don’t, then we would have done all of this work for not. For the next few days, we will work hard at trying to perfect simple little tasks that sound so primitive but worked for Orville and Wilber Wright. Only they just flew for a few hundred feet above the ground for a very short period in time where we will be soaring many thousands of feet and miles above, and orbiting around the globe. We will start at 0600 hours sharp, tomorrow morning, men. I know you all would like to have your very own aircraft to practice on for this mission as I would myself, but we do not have one to do this with. This mission will be like flying by the seats of our britches, so the saying goes. It will be just like a want to be pilot getting into an unfamiliar airplane taking off for the first time in it and wanting to fly. This flight will be similar to a test pilot’s job. If he is lucky, he will be able to handle the new aircraft and land it safely back down with bouncing only once or twice. If he is not lucky, he might crash and burn. Let us be the lucky test pilot that takes his aircraft up and succeeds. Let us fly our bird successfully, and land this bird without getting her skived to pieces. This is my wish and prayers for us men. Let us fly our bird, and bring her home safely.