by L. S. Wood
She had worked so rigorously on refitting herself into this new world and forgetting the past, and over the last year or so had had a very trying time to readjust herself back into the ways of this new way of life for her in this new world she had been so cruelly cast back into.
It was like being cast back in time, back into the dark ages of mankind and was just now starting to enjoy her every precious moments she shared with her children, her husband, Ben, and her mother and father as a family. She did not hate Colonel Anderson for who he was, but if she had never heard his name mentioned ever again in her lifetime, it would have been too soon. The mere mention of his name always brought back those lost moments without her precious children, and now it was too soon to hear his name mentioned again.
She was no longer dutifully bound to the United States Air force, or connected to NASA for that fact because her required contracted time of service to her country had long been expired. She was under no obligation to her country or anyone else except the obligation she had to help and protect her immediate family.
This person representing stringent authority standing at her door was an infringement upon her, and she did not like it one single bit. Tears rushed from her already swollen tear ducts after hearing his name mentioned. She wiped away the streaming flow of teardrops from her beautiful eyes with her apron. She picked up the spatula from the stove and whipped it into the sink halfway across the kitchen in total anger. She did not say or utter a damn word as she swiftly passed by her mother standing beside her, the children, and Ben sitting once happy at the kitchen table while they all were beginning to eat their early morning breakfast.
The look on Ann’s face said it all, as did the changed looks on everyone else’s stern-looking and frowning faces at the table, knowing damn well right what the early morning knock at the door meant to them all. It is funny how silence can say so much at times in one’s life as this one did. Time stood still for a moment as she passed by her loving family members looking at each one of their very concerned eyes with theirs staring back at hers. With happy smiles on their faces, the children did not quite understand who this person was at the front door. They had felt quite content in having their mommy back home from outer space. They had their good old happy acting father back in the same old happy way he once was before the big bang occurred, and all was well living happily at their grandparents’ farm. They had finally lost the fear they had once developed when at first their loving mother was so cruelly taken away from them for so long. The two were both cast into a life of turmoil into an unselected foster home not of their own making. Everything was as it was supposed to be now as a friendly family unit. They would not want it any other way, and if they had suspected by chance who was knocking at the door, their faces would have also been frowning with harsh looks of despair at their mother when she passed them in the room looking like she had just been stung by a whole bunch of angered bees.
It had been an extremely hard choice to make the last time, when she left her family the second time to return to space, and they were very cold to her again when she returned home from being gone only a few weeks. It had taken almost a whole year of the time from then till now to get their fullest confidence back that she would never leave them never again, and now came that damned dreaded knock at the front door she feared one day would come, wishing it would never happen.
Ann’s mother had that caring motherly look spread wide all across her face with a slight bent smile looking very concerned what Ann would do to herself and them this time. Her mother still felt like Ann somehow felt she owed the remaining crewmembers aboard the ailing space station her life somehow, and would probably be gone for yet another spell of time on another mission of mercy. Ann was stubborn and would do whatever the hell she damn well pleased in suiting her own needs and those of others in need.
Ben’s look of instant fear, along with the anxiety in his loud vibrating very nervous voice, said it all. “What the hell does that man want from you now, Ann?” Ann didn’t say a word. She just listened to the hot tempered words coming steam rolling from out his vibrating mouth, echoing out like an angry lion. He had a look of most deep concern imbedded in his deep old frowning wrinkled up face of total anguish. He had a similar look to the little boy’s face who had adopted one of his dad’s farm animals raised for meat for the family. A special little piglet for his own pet, and the day had come to have the now grown up pig to be slaughtered at the local butchers for meat for the freezer for the winter.
Ann closed her eyes and ears to her family as she quickly passed out the kitchen door and into the sitting room to meet her not so wanted guest at the front door this time. “Good morning, Commander. Would you like to have some breakfast with us?”
“That would be nice, Captain, thank you very much. At the farm this time Ann and her family were not as friendly toward him as they had once been on his last visit to Vermont.
Commander Anderson inquired how everything in life was going for her and her family living on the farm. He seemed very interested in what was taking place in the general public life outside military life on Earth for everyone these days. He was amazed at the progress Ben had made with all the old farm equipment that had been stored outback the barn, just left out there in the weather to rust when. The equipment was old, almost antique, but it did a fine job of running the farm again.
Ann had a very hard time explaining to Commander Anderson what the last several months back on the farm meant to her and how long it had taken her two little girls to readjust to her finally returning home to them. They both had been very skeptical about her presence most of the time this year. It was not until most recently that they had finally adjusted to her being there for them all of the time again, and how she had promised the two, including Ben, that she would never ever leave them ever again. She was sure that they would not ever get over a third time of their mother gone or Ben with her not being there for them. She felt in her heart that she would never return to them a third time. Just the very short few weeks away the last time caused such a drastic change in everyone toward her, she didn’t think she could ever do that to the girls, Ben, or to her parents ever again, or to Ben, or to her parents.
“I sure hope, sir, this is just a social visit and not a demand that I return to active duty once again with you. I don’t think I am quite ready for that kind of commitment just yet, and I know my family is not ready for it either. I can guarantee you that much, sir. So with all due respect, I do hope you are not here by the military or for the military to request my services again.”
Ann had tears in her eyes as she spoke these words of truth to Colonel Anderson, almost begging him with her pleading eyes of mercy to reassure her that he was not there on a military request she could not possibly turn down or want to.
Colonel Anderson reassured Ann that he was there only on a personal note and not that of a military purpose. It was not a demand on her to return to the military or back to active duty or anything similar to that. This visit was just a friendly visit. “I am here as a friend, Ann, and that is all. I know you are no longer obligated to the armed forces in any way, and you have completed your tour of duty and your obligation to our country is well over. I am here to tell you about another mission I am about to undertake back to the International Space Station. This will be my last and final mission of my entire career. This will be my last grand pupa of all missions that I have had in order to help bring back all the cosmonauts aboard the space station. It is a mission of rescue and mercy to save all the lives still left up there in their lost orbit who are quickly running out of time to live, and will soon die. The Soviet Union, Ann, is not capable, they say, or are unable or very reluctant to help us out at this time. They are letting us use their only two Soviet-made space modules that they have stored away in mothballs to help us save their people. Rescue of the cosmonauts from the International Space Station is now been left up to the good people of our coun
try to help you and me in saving our friends in space. We have the only capable rockets left to lift the last workable space shuttle to space and place it into orbit. We have the working knowledge and ability to reenergize its electrical power packs back to life which will enable us to have a very success mission this time. Without working electronics onboard, it would be truly impossible to send any other kind of recovery unit up there to the space station, other than through our existing space shuttle program. Yesterday morning, I left the airfield at Cape Canaveral after sending off several rescued crewmembers from the space module Commander Khrushchev sent back to Earth. He sent them back home to try and rescue his fellow Russians. There were nine of them on board all together.” Ann wondered how nine cosmonauts could possibly fit into a module built for six.
“Six cosmonauts and three unborn space children, Ann,” he said. What a story they will have to tell their children and children’s children when they grow up.”
He told the fairytale-sounding story about the rescue that he and his wife Becky made of the cosmonauts out at sea to Ann and her family. He was glad it was he and his wife who had found the Russians adrift on the sea and not some irate group of foreign sailors from another country who had lost loved ones to the big blast. They could have easily have taken out their wretchedness of grief and sorrow out on them, and blaming them for what had happened to the world around.
“There was almost as tragic an ending to their mission, as there was in their returning back home to Earth.” He went on to explain to Ann and her family about the shark attack on Ludwitz leg, and how Chenco had to sew his torn apart leg back together using regular sewing thread, and some clothing. How Sebastian was knocked unconscious when they landed and unable to remember the hurricane or anything else about the horrid ordeal other than the last couple of days before their rescue. How if it wasn’t for his wife Becky barely catching a glimpse of their distress flair for help, they would have probably all died out there all alone on the sea in a matter of a few more short days. He told how Commander Ivan gave up his lottery ticket so another life may be saved.
Ann could not believe all these parable fictitious sounding words coming out of Commander Anderson’s mouth. The story sounded like a horrific tale right out of a science fiction writer’s storybook portfolio of stories. Just like the neutron monster of the sky or the creature thing that wasn’t fictitious at all roaming around up in the atmosphere of the earth’s sky, controlling, absorbing, and draining every electrical impulse and power of the planet, and animal life alike. It was truly amazing; not every creature around the planet lost their minute electrical impulses in their insignificant little bodies, and not leaving all creatures of the universe destroyed.
The story about the cosmonauts sounded so unreal and made up that no one possibly could have survived such a horrific travesty as he had described, especially to have come through what they did and live to tell a tale about it.
“Several lucky winners of the lottery that Commander Ivan ran aboard the space station, flew home that very morning on a Galaxy 500 Paymaster cargo aircraft back to Russia. With a little luck if they had any at all, they should possibly make Moscow in the light of day, if they follow the light of the earth’s rotation of daylight hours without having to fly into any darkness. If the dark of night was to have overtaken the aircraft, it would be lost to the fate of the darkness of night, unless there was a full moon out. Even then it would take a miracle to land any aircraft, especially one its size, without the use of runway landing lights. If the pilots were to feel they would be running out of proper daylight time before the end of their flight, they will have to put the aircraft down in Anchorage, Alaska at the Elmendorf Air Force Station’s airfield, and wait out the night till the light of day was upon them once again. The news media around the world have not been told about the flight, and did not have the slightest in clues what United States was up to in its last rescue mission. The rescue news would have probably infuriated most the people of our country if they knew that our government was trying to help any Russian to live. The people of our country could care less what happens to those poor souls up there.”
Commander Anderson told Ann that he would personally risk his own life one more time to save the ones in space who had so unselfishly set themselves aside in order to save the Twitchel’s crew in their time of need. “Wouldn’t you have, Ann?”
Ann did not say a word in reply to his suggestive quest of kindness. The world had become bittersweet, and Ann could not help but wonder about her stranded friends still held prisoner in orbit.
“This particular mission back into space is top secret,” he explained to Ann and her family, and none at this table are at liberty to say a word to anyone about it.”
He hoped his mention of it would not leave the mouths of anyone, especially Ann’s dad who liked to brag about his daughter or Ben in his coming and going in town, or out around the countryside helping his neighbors at their farms. Commander Anderson explained to Ann and her family his visit to their farm was twofold. The first was as a friend, to inform her and her family of the progress her friends who were still living in orbit were holding out and doing. The situation with the cosmonauts aboard the space station was not very good at the time.
The folder he brought with him with information was to inform her of the last mission of his career. He hoped she would consider joining him in his last mission as his sole navigating officer, she having performed the job in a crisis of navigator so well in the past. The service performed on this mission would be strictly voluntary. There was no money or strings attached to it this time, and she was under no obligation to anyone to partake in it if she didn’t choose to do so. He was not there ordering or making anyone on his last crew list make this last and final risky mission into orbit. There was always the possibility of something going wrong in any mission, and without her help as his navigator as in the past, this mission would be more likely to have something of a mishap happen than not, but he was going anyway. He owed his life to the ones still in orbit, and hoped she felt the same as he did.
The sounds of his words were more a plea than an order to Ann, but his words sounded the same as an order to her family. He shook their hands, and gave Ann a big long lasting hug as only a father would give his own child, and then kissed her on her cheek. He thought the absolute world of Ann, more as a daughter than he did a fellow officer. If he had the slightest inclining that this mission would go wrong especially on this particular rescue mission, he would not have gone all this way up to Vermont to ask her to join him in it. He told her to think about the special mission. He gave her the secret code to use in notifying him if she so chose to join him on this last secret mission of rescue. “This is strictly up to you Ann, and your family. Please give it some very serious thought before you decide what you are going to do one way or the other. With this in mind, I will leave you now. Now please give it some very serious thought, Ann. Friday, 0800-hours, Ann is the latest if you are going to go with us. If we do not hear from you by then, Captain, we all will respect your decision. Thank you and to your family also for having both of us in for a lovely breakfast, Ann. 0800-hours Friday, Ann, and please give it some very serious consideration?”
He then informed Ann she was the first on his list of the Twitchel’s last crew he was going to visit in trying to fill this crew of his for the upcoming rescue mission. Bill would be his next officer of the crew to visit and so on. By Friday, he had planned to visit all past crewmembers, every one of them personally, except for Lieutenant Charles. “That damn thing up in the sky took yet another good man away from us, Ann, as it has so many others. He was about to step into the cockpit of a converted fighter jet to test flight it. They modified the ignition system and the rocket-firing capabilities of it in order to protect the country from an invasion from any hostile country that might want to take over our land. It was unique in how they fire everything up now days. They use diesel power to do
everything instead of electricity. Just as Ben has done so very well with everything around the farm here, they bring out a truck to the aircraft on the tarmac, and hook a piped up chute to the aircraft’s turbine engine, and then begin forcing an enormous wind flow through it and then ignite the mixture of #2 fuels with a torch. If they happen to have a flame out during flight, they can re-ignite the turbine by the use of a flair gun mounted just outside the engine on its shroud. Ingenuity of the imagination has come a long way over the last few months, and years now, since the neutron creature has taken away all electrical power above the earth’s crust.
Anyway Ann, back to what I was saying about the lieutenant. Lieutenant Charles and Captain Morris were about to go for their first flights in this new outfitted trainer jet since the poor landing of the Twitchel. Captain Morris had recovered fully from the injuries he had sustained in our dreaded landing. Lieutenant Charles was first up the ladder just about to climb into the cockpit of the trainer jet, when the neutron monster struck him dead. Captain Morris observed everything from about ten or better yards away, after having returned to the flight preparation room to retrieve the gloves he had left, and was retuning at a flat out run to catch up with Lieutenant Charles. Captain Morris literally watched Lieutenant Charles fry and die by being struck by that neutron thing. Lieutenant Charles went right into convulsions. His hands flouncing in the air, his body swaggering back and forth on the top rungs of the ladder to the aircraft, and then fell to the pavement and died. He was probably dead well before he even hit the ground, but nobody knows for sure. As I was saying, Captain Morris was about ten yards away from the lieutenant, when suddenly the thing from out the air struck him dead. Captain Morris heard this horrible buzzing crackling and moaning sound ahead of him. When he looked up to see what was making the gruesome sound, he saw that Lieutenant Charles was making the noise, more like the thing in the air was eating him when it took his life. Captain Morris saw an orange-greenish flourescent sheen of light that had engulfed the lieutenant, and then of course, he was dead. It happens the same way every time I hear of it happening. It does not matter if it is a bird in the air, an animal on the ground, or a human being. They smoke with a misty cloud of orange around them. The smoke smells similar to phosgene gas, similar the burning of hydrocarbon refrigerants or of ammonia. It is all so very strange. They say the smell of it is enough to gag a maggot, making anyone who smells it want to vomit.