by T I WADE
“And the new president?” asked Ryan.
“That I don’t know, but Bishop has boasted about his new contacts in Washington several times, as if he could be directly reporting to somebody there. I heard that retired General Bishop was seen showing the new president, a governor then, around the base at one time several years ago. I think the president was a state governor at the time and maybe he was just doing his duty. I was returning from flight ops in Germany and dismissed the gossip as unimportant.”
Ryan thanked the base commander for the heads up and the jet taxied out and left twenty minutes later. He was satisfied about the success of the visit, also extremely happy that Saunders and Jonesy were old buddies, respected each other, and he might have found a possible ally in future times of need.
“Beware of Bishop,” added Jonesy as they watched the small jet takeoff and quickly disappear. “That piece of crap is a walking psychopath.”
“So are several others in Washington, Mr. Jones, and I hope General Saunders is a good man. I also have my contacts in Washington, but rather limited after the last elections.”
The next day, life got back to usual. Jonesy was still weak from space and didn’t do well in the morning’s run. VIN ran beside him, easily looking the more powerful runner with his metal legs, and Suzi ran at the rear for the first time ever, hanging out with her Herr Noble.
Later that morning, there was a phone call for Penny Sullivan. The call needed to be taken in the security office with a guard listening in. It was an old friend from McChord Air Force Base. Her old friend had decided to leave the Air Force due to a quick and already ended romance with another officer, and wanted to ask Penny what she was doing. Penny asked her how she had got this number, and her friend, Kathy Pringle, said that she had been given the number from the base commander at Nellis.
“Ryan, I have a friend looking for a job,” reported Penny at the pilot briefing later that morning. She was my flight teacher on C-17s for two years at McChord. It seems that a short romance has suddenly forced her to leave the Air Force. She is a darn good pilot, far more experienced than me. Maggie, you might know her, Colonel Kathy Pringle. She must have gone through the Academy the same time you were there.”
“Yes, she was a year behind me!” replied Maggie happily. “We flew gliders together at the Academy and then I instructed her on C-130s at Seymour Johnson in North Carolina a couple of years later.”
“I think we could use another pilot. You said that she got your number from Nellis?” Ryan asked. Penny nodded. “Mr. Jones, do you trust General Saunders?” Jonesy nodded that he did. “He is the only person there who I believe who has our number. Let’s see if this works out and we can trust both of them. Ms. Sullivan, ask your friend to call the Nellis base commander and see if he can get her to Creech for pickup ASAP. I’m sure Mr. Noble needs a new bottle of Jack Daniels.”
An hour later, the news came through to Ryan’s phone. The pilot briefing was still going on, with Jonesy describing the problems of living in space. VIN had just been debriefed on subjects like spacewalking and listening to Frank Sinatra, and Jonesy had just started his description of space and living with VIN when Ryan’s phone began to buzz. This didn’t happen very often and Ryan listened for several minutes, his face showing little emotion.
“Sorry about that, team” he said, after finishing the call. “It seems that the Earth-Exit team launched into space this morning and connected up with the International Space Station a few minutes ago. It is all over the news and there is live feed. Mr. Noble, please turn on the television.”
“…..we are so happy to be aboard the ISS with their crew and, as a gift from earth, we have brought a bottle of good Californian champagne, fresh orange juice and made-this-morning on earth, fresh Danish for the crew up here,” said a smiling man in a space suit holding up the gifts for the ISS crew.
“Well, the race has been won by team Earth-Exit, very closely following the failed attempt yesterday by the Astermine team out of Nevada,” carried on the news reporter with the space crew working on releasing the cork.
“He better put his finger on the top of the bottle. Oh! There it goes! Champagne all over the space station!” remarked VIN as they watched the floating liquid escape from the open top and head out in every direction in millions of droplets. “Jonesy and I are experts in the field of space drinking, aren’t we, partner?” Jonesy said nothing.
“We have reports in from yesterday’s launch, that the Astermine Company had difficulties with some magnetic field, which caused a problem with their shuttle space thrusters. These thrusters were to propel Astermine’s shuttle up to the space station. Even though Astermine’s shuttle completed twenty-one orbits of earth, it wasn’t enough to claim the ten million dollar prize money. The president himself is flying out on Air Force One to Earth-Exit headquarters later today to present its CEO with the trophy. Comments are already in from the British team in the race. It seems that there are no hard feelings from the other competitors, and their CEO said that the British project, to take passengers up at $200,000 each, was only weeks away. I’m sure congratulations from Astermine’s Ryan Richmond to Earth-Exit aren’t far behind. NASA, who has been watching the progress of all three companies, is expected to intern one of these companies into its new space program, and it looks like Earth-Exit is the current favorite. And now for the latest weather….”
Ryan got on the phone and congratulated the CEO of Earth-Exit.
A week later VIN waved at the same police cruiser in its usual place after picking up Colonel Pringle, a tall extremely good looking pilot, a bit younger than Maggie. It was good to feel his Audi around him again, but it had taken him a while to get his metal leg movements gentle enough not to spin the four tires on his way down to Creech Air Force Base.
After a day’s worth of the usual entry requirements into Ryan’s airfield, Kathy Pringle was the quickest person ever to be immediately present at the next day’s pilot briefing. Normally Ryan checked them out first, but it seemed he was a little taken with her, and she had happily signed a contract and agreement as soon as she arrived; her friends, Penny and Maggie, had completed all the same papers and she trusted them implicitly.
For the first time, Suzi and Mr. Rose also attended the pilot’s meeting. Bob Mathews wasn’t in attendance, nor were his pilots.
“I would like to welcome the newest member of our pilot staff, Colonel Kathy Pringle, who is leaving the United States Air Force in a week,” began Ryan. “She has the rest of the week to use up her leave and, General Saunders was most accommodating in allowing her to come over here on such short notice.”
He observed Maggie’s and Penny’s warm welcome to the new girl earlier at breakfast. They seemed very happy to reunite, and there was a lot of camaraderie between the three girls. Ryan thought Kathy Pringle was extremely good looking; a long-haired, six-foot tall California blonde with a deep raspy voice, green eyes and only two inches shorter than he. She was a year or two older than he was, had large laughing eyes and he immediately felt good that she had joined the crew. She also looked much like Sharon Stone. Now, his team of beautiful Air Force “she-pilots,” as the chauvinistic Mr. Jones always called them, looked more like Charlie’s Angels. Maybe he should call them “Ryan’s Angels” but decided to get on with business.
“Ms. Pringle, under the supervision of Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Sullivan, has signed the contracts to allow her into our inner pilot circle. Ms. Pringle is single, has no dependents and, I believe will become an asset to you, our flight crew. Ms. Pringle will immediately go into shuttle simulator training with Mr. Pitt for the next few months. She told me that she doesn’t have a fear of heights, even the dark Frank Sinatra heights of space!” There were some sniggers at his joke.
“We are six days away from our third launch, but first I must bring you up-to-date on our last week of outside news. As you know Earth-Exit won the competition, and it was amusing to watch the president tell the world on television that Earth-E
xit was his favorite company to win the race, and he was behind them all the way. He should be, he has over $50 million invested with them, and has been an investor for a couple of years now. His telling the world that NASA has the government’s blessing to take over Earth-Exit for two billion dollars is, in theory, giving him a 300 percent return on his money. Not very many people know this. It is very possible that he now finds himself in an awkward position, and I’m sure he doesn’t want the world to know about his previous dealings. We have all the necessary information on his investments as well as our friend General Mortimer’s even larger investment in the same company, and we will keep that information under lock and key until needed.
“Second, our friend General Mortimer phoned me from the Pentagon and wanted to know what our new plans were, and whether I was going to continue. I told him we were. An hour before his call, which I was expecting, I spoke to a friend, the current head of NASA, Bill Withers. We are on friendly terms, even though I employed most of his best scientists and engineers when he laid them off. Now he wants them back and naturally I declined his offer. What I did discuss with him is the failing Russian satellite. He considers it to be the most dangerous object about to fall back to earth, anticipated next year. I told him that my next attempt was in a week’s time and, since I now couldn’t win the race, my team could try and solve this dilemma. He was extremely positive about our team flying up there and seeing if we could lift the old beer can, as Mr. Jones calls it, into a higher orbit. He had an agreement from the Russian government an hour later, stating that we could destroy the station if we needed to.
“I also explained to him that within a year, and after one or two dozen more practice launches, I could complete a flight every ten days. He immediately asked my cost, I told him, and then suggested that I get on the phone to the Department of Energy. He suggested that I see if I can work out a way to help the U.S. dispose of its growing radioactive waste; there are thousands of tons sitting around waiting for Congress to pass some sort of bill to store this stuff. He thinks that the government would pay well for the expulsion of as much waste material as possible, and liked my idea of getting 3-ton loads in short-duration protective containers into outer orbit, and unloading the stuff in the direction of the sun.”
The pilots were looking at Ryan as if he had totally lost it. “Actually, I put this idea into his head about six weeks ago as an interesting alternative to merely taking passengers into space. I suggested that a better project would be to take our radioactive waste into space, release it at 19,000 miles an hour, and let it head into oblivion. The problem is that we need thousands of flights to get our current waste supplies out of here, but I told him ‘as with all crappy jobs, somebody has to do it!’ So he is enthusiastically working on getting more support in Washington for a new space program like this.”
“Now I’m going to drive a radioactive dump truck?” asked Jonesy.
“Mr. Jones, with the time it takes for anybody to make their minds up in Washington, I promise I’ll drive the dump truck myself!” Everybody laughed at the joke.
“These two ideas will show interested parties, that we might be beaten, but we are not out of ideas,” continued Ryan. I didn’t tell him about my ‘Project Gas Station’ yet. Part of my plan is to build a space gas station in a low to middle orbit, and anybody in the future can fuel up with xenon or liquid hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, helium and argon, when needed. This is where part of our mining project comes into play and brings us to our next mission.
“Mr. Jones and Ms. Sinclair will command Silver Bullet II, whose call sign, Ms. Pringle, is Sierra Bravo II, to fly her into space with the mining operation equipment in its hold. Suzi and Mr. Rose will be suited up and aboard the shuttle with several tests and experiments needed to be done while the space station ascends into outer space. Mr. Noble will be the fifth member on board, and will stay up there to help transfer our scientists into the safety of the station. Mr. Noble, I will figure out how to get an extra seat in the shuttle’s cockpit for you. There will be thirty-six canisters of cargo in the shuttle’s cargo hold. A dozen will be Astermine One’s mining equipment, food, water and liquid gas supplies, and you need to transfer them to Astermine One. Another dozen will hold supplies for the space station; six canisters are plants, soil and tests for Suzi and Mr. Rose, and six are empty. These are to replace the canisters removed from the mining craft to make sure Astermine One heads to DX2014 with her full quantity of thirty empty units for mining.
“Mr. Jones, your first job will be to connect Sierra Bravo II to the Russian Space Station’s Number 3 docking port with your rear rocket motors facing towards earth, the opposite way Sierra Bravo I is facing. Then, you and Ms. Sinclair will help the passengers exit, or leave them in the shuttle’s cockpit until the station can receive them. You will leave the computers of Sierra Bravo II on standby, pass through the space station into Sierra Bravo I, and reposition her to also face upwards into space. Next, you will link up both shuttles’ computer systems and control both rocket systems from Sierra Bravo I.
“Once the computers have completed the transfer of information, which will take about three minutes, you will use the side thruster of your shuttle to rotate the space station, and everything attached, to face the direction of orbit. Once the computers at ground control show that you have achieved that maneuver, we are ready for you to proceed with the mission. Timing is extremely important. Aiming in the direction of orbit, burn both of the shuttle’s rear hydrogen rockets for three minutes at 50 percent power; this first burn will increase her orbital speed by approximately 500 miles an hour after one orbit. When the first orbit is completed, get the computers to direct the nose to point outwards into space by three degrees and complete the exact same burn.
“After your second orbit, your speed should have risen to 14,000 miles an hour, instead of the 11,000 miles an hour she is currently orbiting at. After the second orbit—and this is important because at this time the ISS will be on the other side of earth—you increase the nose angle by another 12 percent to outer space, and burn the rear motors for exactly seven minutes at full power. This will increase the forward orbital speed of the space station to 20,000 miles an hour. The seven minutes of thrust will help her climb out of her current orbit and rapidly increase her orbital altitude by approximately 100,000 feet per orbit.
“Mr. Jones, your last maneuver will be the fourth burn of both shuttles’ liquid hydrogen rear motors on the sixth orbit for exactly ten minutes, allowing her to climb away from earth on an ever-widening orbit of 900 miles per day.
“For your information, Mr. Jones, your remaining bottles of vodka up there will be passing by the ISS orbit height on its third orbit, and with the added speed, 5,000 miles behind. By the time you pass close to each other again, two orbits later, the difference in altitude will be 200 miles; the “beer can” will be higher, there will be approximately 700 miles between the two stations, and one of the shuttles will have already returned to earth. These maneuvers, Mr. Jones, will leave you with just enough hydrogen for your usual low re-entry.
“Once your fourth burn is complete, you and Ms. Sinclair will return in Sierra Bravo I to your usual re-entry point. No Cloaking Device will be used on this trip. The idea is that we will have completed a perfect mission as we said we would; we will have propelled the space station upwards and returned to earth. Ms. Sullivan, Suzi and Mr. Rose will stay with Mr. Noble.
“Since your total flight time is twelve hours, the next flight up will be ten days, twelve hours after your return. This will be our fastest turn-around flight to date. The next cargo is the first set of eight flat aluminum panels into space. You will fly with Ms. Sinclair. Use the Cloaking Device while Ms. Sullivan, with Suzi as co-pilot, re-enter the other shuttle. We still need to hoodwink any interested parties into thinking that this launch was just another routine test flight. Shortly after that, Mr. Jones, you and Mr. Noble will be heading out to DX2014.”
After VIN’s suggestions abou
t banning Frank Sinatra, the meeting came to an end. Now it was time to train ten hours a day for the next flight.
Three days later the news was full of the British team reaching space and connecting with the International Space Station, and more bottles of champagne and smiling faces visiting the station for the first time. This news made Ryan a little subdued. Maybe he should have won the race for his team, but that would have brought the government closer; they would then be nipping at his heals. He knew that he was correct, especially when a member of the European government on the television feed stated that was what he was worried about. The high-ranking European government official stated that the British CEO would be working with them on their new projects, something the British CEO quickly declined on a news flash less than ten minutes later, adding that when he had asked for financial assistance the European Union had ignored him.
Eleven days since their last re-entry, the C-5 left Terra Firma for the next flight up to 50,000 feet. Ryan and Kathy Pringle were in the Galaxy’s cockpit to view the launch.
Inside the fully-loaded shuttle, Jonesy, Maggie, and VIN, were ready for their next trip. Suzi and VIN had a sort of double seat to squash into, on one side of the docking bay, while Penny and Mr. Rose had the other one.
VIN smuggled a fifth of Jack Daniels into Suzi’s cargo. He had told her that there were only three bottles of vodka left on the “beer can”, and he hoped that he could tempt his partner not to play Frank for the odd swig of bourbon every now and again. He laughed when her sealed cargo unit was finally weighed with the bottle hidden inside.