by T I WADE
She was older than he, VIN noticed, about ten years older, but she was tall, as tall as he was; her striking eyes instantly captivated him as she looked directly at him in his fancy car.
VIN instinctively leapt out of the car and saluted, forgetting that he was now a civilian and didn’t need to. “Waiting for Colonel Sinclair, Colonel,” he stated looking back straight into those big green eyes.
“Well you just found her soldier…civilian, whichever,” she replied. “And I’m supposed to get into this mafia-looking car with a complete stranger?”
“Lieutenant Victor Noble, Colonel. United States Marine Corp, retired,” he stated still standing at attention.
Not bad, Lieutenant,” she replied smiling. Can you show me where I can load my stuff into this thing?” VIN took the garment bag holding her uniforms and placed in the front compartment. The pack was the same size as a set of golf clubs and he placed that on the carpet to hide his purchases behind the seats. He held the passenger door for her and she nimbly slid in.
He waved at the guard as they exited the gate, turned right onto the dual lane highway, and headed north. VIN hadn’t expected a female pilot, and remembering what Ryan had said earlier, nor did he.
“Do we have far to go, Lieutenant?” she asked.
“About an hour’s drive, Ma’am,” VIN replied driving at the speed limit.
“Cops on the road?” Maggie asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“You have a car that looks like an F-16, and you are driving it at the speed limit. That’s why I asked.”
“I saw one an hour earlier about forty miles ahead,” VIN replied.
“Well, that means we have thirty miles of open road, Lieutenant. Show me what this thing can do.”
VIN smiled, knowing the road pretty well by now and floored the accelerator. He felt her stiffen as they were pushed back in their seats and the speedometer quickly hit 150 and kept climbing. There wasn’t another vehicle in front of them for the next couple miles; the dual highway extended in front of them, and for the first time, he let her go all the way.
The speedometer slowly climbed over 180 before he felt a light hand on his arm and he eased off. The end of the dual highway was rushing up a mile or so in front, and another truck was about to get in their way. Also there was the “black and white” in the middle where the two lanes joined, and as he approached, now adding braking to slow the car, he was relieved to see it was still facing the other way.
“Not bad for a jet without wings, Lieutenant. You may now drive at the speed limit,” the colonel said to him as the cop watched them pass. It was the same cop he had seen on the way south.
For the next hour they talked about what they did. The colonel, as VIN knew, was a C-5 pilot and he found out that she had flown since she was a teenager. He told her about Iraq and how he had been discharged because he had been wounded. She asked about his unit and was impressed with the five medals he had been awarded.
“Most of us don’t get a chance to meet a three-time holder of the Purple Heart, Lieutenant. Well done! And I’m sorry to hear about your legs.”
They reached the turnoff, and he explained the drill she was to expect at the gate.
The car, now known to the guards, was allowed in through the outer gate. VIN was asked to leave the colonel at the inner gate after he reminded the guardhouse to phone Ryan. Without anybody looking inside the vehicle, he took the colonel’s gear out and handed it to a guard and was allowed to drive back to the carport. The guard had ordered him to return the keys to the inner gate, so he “forgot” to lock the vehicle, returned the keys, and went back to hand them in.
An hour later, looking very innocent, VIN walked towards Hangar Five where he was hoping that he would find Suzi. He saw that the C-5 had been pulled out of Hangar Three and continued on past it, walking across the apron underneath one wing. It was a darn big aircraft.
Suzi was not there, but he was welcomed by a few white coats that seemed to be expecting him. One introduced himself as Professor Muller from Hamburg, Germany and then introduced his female assistant, Professor-Doctor Ivanovna who, with a broad Russian accent, asked him to call her Tatyana. She was about the same age as VIN, maybe a year or two older, had long blonde hair and light blue eyes. “What’s with all these pretty girls and their eyes?” he thought to himself.
Professor Muller, about seventy or so, was curt, direct and told him that Tatyana would be VIN’s prosthesis doctor, she was good at what she did, and he walked off.
VIN spent the afternoon with his new doctor. She was fun, nearly as much fun as Suzi, especially when she ordered him to take his clothes off to be measured, he standing at attention in just his underwear.
As life always does, Suzi wheeled herself into the room just as the sexy Russian was taking measurements of his upper leg muscles, still stiff from the earlier walk. VIN blushed and closed his eyes, expecting trouble.
There wasn’t any. All he heard was Suzi laugh and wolf whistle at him. “Pretty sexy guy! What do you think, Tat?” Suzi called the doctor. VIN again blushed a rosy red color.
“Da!” the Russian replied smiling. “Pity we aren’t allowed to take measurements of all of his body, Superfraülein.”
The two ladies smiled at him, and Suzi watched from her wheelchair as Tatyana continued, like a tailor measuring him for a suit.
Once he was allowed to dress, without the two ladies leaving the room, his composure came back.
For the next couple of hours both Suzi and VIN had their lower suits refitted and this time another couple of white coats entered to measure his lower body, again around the mechanical legs. Suzi explained that this fitting was for his external space suit, which would fit over the exoskeleton.
Both then practiced walking, kneeling, jumping, and even tried dancing together. The mechanical legs worked well and VIN wasn’t happy when he was ordered by Doctor Da, as he now called her, to sit down and revert to his old legs. Doctor Da gave him some good news.
“I think that in a week or so, VIN, we throw out those plastic legs. Ryan asked us to do for you, what we are doing for Suzi. He wants us to reduce the unnecessary systems around your legs for strength, and see if we can blend the mechanics of the legs to the shape of these plastic ones. In other words, you will have mechanical legs for everyday use, and a second exoskeleton set can be added to your body for space training. If you wear normal trousers over your new legs, nobody will even know that you have metal legs.”
“Just don’t go through any American airport metal detectors!” Suzi laughed. “Ryan has also got a few others working on a skin polymer, which might encase your new legs and make them look like normal human skin; then you could even wear shorts. But even with shorts, Tat and I will know what you have underneath.” It took VIN a few seconds to understand what Suzi meant, and once it hit him, their giggling made him turn red again.
“Want a beer?” VIN asked Jonesy when the two returned their rooms after work. Jonesy looked at VIN carefully, put two and two together and smiled.
“I bet you hit the PX at Creech, kid,” said Jonesy laughing. “Sure I’ll take one!”
VIN had just opened the two now cold bottles and taken a long swig when there was a knock on his door. He handed his bottle to his partner who was sitting at the table and went over to open the door. It was his worst nightmare; Ryan was standing there, alone. “May I come in?” he asked. VIN had nothing else he could do, and let his boss in. “Pity you have only beer,” stated Ryan when he saw the bottles in Jonesy’s hands. “I’m a whiskey drinker myself.” The two men just stood there shocked and stared at the man who always seemed to surprise them.
“I purchased a small bottle of Jack Daniels at the base. I could put some of that in a glass with some ice,” he offered, still not knowing what to do.
“That sounds perfect. Mr. Noble, there is an ice machine at the end of the hall. Would you be so kind?” and the younger man happily headed out with the room’s ice bucket. On his
return, VIN had regained his composure, enough to get two fresh beers out of his refrigerator and search for the bottle under one of the pillows on the couch.
“I don’t mind a few drinks now and again,” said Ryan as he watched VIN pour a decent amount into a glass. “It’s just that the foreign scientists were drunk every night for the first two weeks while we waited for our equipment to arrive. I realized that this could put our whole project in jeopardy and limited them to Saturday nights. I follow the same rules I give out, but sometimes I need a drink as much as the next guy. Just keep your stash secret and enjoy it; when it’s gone, you will be back to Saturday nights only.”
The three men stood and toasted the project and space travel.
“Mr. Noble, Mr. Jones, it’s a pleasure to have a drink with you. First, VIN, what did you make of Colonel Sinclair?”
“She looks like a nice person…”
“She! The pilot’s a she?” Jonesy asked.
“Correct, partner; and with her asking me to hit over 180 miles an hour out of Creech, I reckon she’s a good pilot,” responded VIN. “I’m a pretty good judge of people.”
“Good,” added Ryan. “I’ve spent a couple of hours with her. Mr. Jones, she has also flown the C-5 outside for over a hundred hours like you, and I’m thinking of bringing her into our inner circle, like we did with Captain Pitt. We need good flyers and the pilot flying with you sitting in the shuttle needs to be as good as you are. Don’t you agree?”
“Like that dirt bag you sent back? I think I would have met her if she’s flown the Dead Chicken,” Jonesy replied.
“Good, you gentlemen check her out and let me know. If she can be persuaded to join our team, then we just have a couple more pilots to work on. Mr. Jones, if we can trust her, maybe she knows of an engineer or another pilot we can swop out the current engineer and that gives Mr. Noble a reason to hit the base store again,” he said, smiling, putting the empty glass on the table. He thanked the men for the drink, told him that they had twenty-four hours to work on the colonel, and left the room.
“Oh, God!” sighed Colonel Sinclair when VIN introduced her to his partner after breakfast the next morning. The C-5 was already out on the apron as they walked up, entered and went up to the flight deck. “The test pilot who thinks he’s God’s personal pilot.”
“The tall, devil-eyed captain, I think you were, when I last flew with you,” returned Jonesy in his usual friendly manner. “Now a full colonel, I see. I’d better watch my Ps and Qs, Colonel, what was your name… Superair?”
“Sinclair, Colonel Sinclair, Major…?”
“Jones is the name, flying is my game!”
“That’s right,” she replied. “Gee, I hated that phrase. You said it every damn time I ever flew with you. The other pilots hated it as well, and hated you as much as I did. Hopefully you have grown up a little since they let you out of the Air Force.”
“And why didn’t you say that to me back then?”
“Because you were a rank higher than me, and I was only the co-pilot,” she retorted sarcastically.
“Glad you guys are happy to see each other again,” interjected VIN, enjoying the friendly reunion. “Jonesy is there anybody you haven’t pissed off on this earth?”
“Only the maker of Budweiser,” he replied. “Colonel Sinclair, has your flying improved any since I last flew with you?”
“About 5,000 hours better, and what do I call you? Colonel, Major or Captain? Wasn’t captain the lowly rank attached to you once they threw your butt out of the Air Force for beating up that piece of crap you had as a commander?”
“Here we go again,” interjected VIN, hearing all this rank stuff for the second time.
“At least you said something right,” replied Jonesy to the colonel.
“I know. I had him as a supply-desk superior at Travis for a couple of months, until he was sent over to you. He was a lousy piece of work!” she added.
VIN looked at both pilots. They were both tall, Jonesy only taller by a couple of inches. She certainly wasn’t going to take any crap from this test pilot, and for once, maybe Jonesy’s mouth had met its match. Poor Captain Pitt was white-faced watching these two senior pilots have a go at each other, and the bickering didn’t stop until the flight engineer entered the flight deck.
From then on they got down to the business of flying the C-5. Jonesy knew that the new colonel and the flight engineer hadn’t been cleared by the boss yet, and didn’t go further on their actual flight projections, other than to discuss the actual flying of the aircraft.
“Kid,” Jonesy looked over in VIN’s direction. “You and the colonel here seem to speak the same language; why don’t you invite her over for a milkshake with that useless barman Mr. Rose, and talk about something other than flying while I talk to the flight engineer and Captain Pitt here.” VIN and Jonesy had planned what to do to approach the colonel about joining the team, and he got up and with Maggie to go to the bar.
He didn’t even know if it was open, but the door swung open when he tried it. VIN was quite surprised to see Suzi in there, working on a low table in her wheelchair with a few very large glass bottles about five gallons each, which held a bubbling brown liquid.
“Herr. Noble, the bar is closed. This beer is not yet ready and we are busy!”
“Colonel Sinclair and I will sit out of your way, Mr. Rose. Two chocolate milkshakes, please, and we will leave you to your privacy.” Suzi looked at VIN, he winked at her, and she seemed to understand that VIN being here might be important.
“All right. Mr. Rose, two of your best milkshakes please, and two slices of the fresh chocolate cake for me and you while you are at it.”
“Thank you, Suzi, I would like you to come over in a few minutes and join us,” VIN added.
For ten minutes VIN questioned Maggie, asking how important her job in the Air Force was to her. It seemed that she was a lifer, a person who would stay until retirement.
“I think that I could get as far as general in a few years and maybe command a base somewhere,” she told him as the milkshakes came.
“I suppose the money, your income, doesn’t really mean anything to you?” VIN asked.
“Not really,” she replied. “I do miss having a family though, and think myself young enough to still have children. Unfortunately, I had better hurry up.”
May I be honest with you?” VIN asked. She nodded. “This is a big project, far bigger than you understand right now, and will ever understand if you don’t belong here. You have less than a week before you go back to whatever base you came from.” She looked at him, puzzled. “The flight engineer will leave tomorrow, or the next day. Captain Pitt will stay. The captain, like Jonesy and I, are part of the project. You, I would assume, are a spy for the Air Force. Am I correct, that they asked you to report what is happening here at this base? Just nod your head if I’m right or wrong.” She nodded that he was correct. “The boss thought so and that was why the last guy was sent home. We are in a space race. The race is top secret. Jonesy is going to fly a space shuttle into space; he will teach Captain Pitt to be the C-5 pilot, dropping him out of the Dead Chicken’s butt. He is going to fly into lower space at up to 17,000 miles an hour. Jonesy is going to buzz around space, and then reenter the shuttle into the atmosphere and return to land at this airfield. Do you have any interest in joining him to fly the shuttle, or shall I say the spacecraft of a lifetime? Before you answer that, Colonel Sinclair, this is your one and only chance to join our team, and maybe add “astronaut” to your flying career, or, you can go back to the Air Force and fly milk runs with the Air Force for the rest of your life.”
“Do I have time to think it over, and what do I need to do to accept the offer?” Maggie asked.
“As far as I have seen, the best aerospace brains from around the world are here, Russian, German and American. Now we just need the best pilots to get us up there one day. All I was asked, was to keep what is seen here top secret. The Air Force will be told what
Ryan will tell you to tell them. This isn’t a bunch of bad guys wanting to take over Earth; this is a group of scientists, who are trying to push the envelope on space travel. This is the new NASA, thanks to budget cuts. Many of the people I have been introduced to either worked at NASA, the European Space system, or the Russian Space Agency. If anybody is going to space, we are, and we need to keep it a secret before the government or the Air Force decide to get involved, or try to commandeer it for their own purposes. You need to sign an agreement that what you see here will never be turned over to the Air Force. Captain Pitt signed that one extra piece of paper, much like our official secrets act, and he was in. That’s all, except that if you do sign, we will need a trustworthy and exceptional replacement for the flight engineer, it seems even another pilot will fit the bill, somebody you think would be the final member to put together a full C-5 team of the top talent.”
“And what happens when this is all over?” asked Maggie, totally shocked, but excited at the same time.
“The term is twenty-four months. After that I suppose we will all be rich and good friends. The boss has impressive contacts, extending to the president himself, and can keep you here.”
“Is the president in on this?” Maggie asked. “The elections are pretty soon.”
“No, the current president is his friend who needs to get a space program running and the boss believes that other powerful people want it, might want to take it over, and then maybe call it their pet secret project or something and get all the credit. Hell, I don’t know, but as an ex-Special Forces guy, we always acted on our hunches, our gut feel, you might call it, and this feels right to me. Suzi and I are going to get a beautiful set of legs out of this, Jonesy gets to fly again, and maybe we all go to space. I don’t know, but what do I have to lose?”
“I believe you, VIN; tell whomever that I am in. It sounds like fun, and I want “astronaut” on my resume. I was very sad when Neil Armstrong died. He was one of the people I wanted to be when, as a kid, I sat at home in California on summer nights looking at the stars. And tell your boss that I do have a replacement, my last flight engineer and co-pilot at Nellis. She’s a young captain, Like Captain Pitt, a darn good flight pilot, also has a degree in engineering, in aerospace engineering, like me, from the Air Force Academy.”