by Jeff Pollard
“I really don't know,” MJ says.
“Do you know what the seat layout will look like?” K asks.
“Just two more rows, two-by-two,” she says simply.
“So only a six-seater? I thought it was planned to be a seven-seater?”
“The seventh would lie between the seats in the aisle, that's really only for medical emergencies,” MJ says. “Wait, should I be telling you this?”
“It's fine, I'm not spying on you guys, just curious. What are the dimensions in here?”
“It's...” she thinks about not saying more, but gives in, “15 by 8 by 5.”
“You guys use feet? Way to go Sierra Nevada, really cutting-edge.”
“What's wrong with Imperial Units?” MJ asks defensively.
“Nothing, if you don't mind doing calculations in slugs per square inch. It's a nightmare. You know there's only three countries that still use Imperial. The US, Burma, and Liberia.”
“And one of those three countries has put foot prints on the Moon, so take that,” MJ says.
“Yeah, foot prints, not pansy meter prints,” K says, mocking American exceptionalism.
“MJ,” A voice calls from outside the hatch. A man enters, saying, “they said thirty minutes until the mating, so you can-” The man stops as he finds Kingsley inside the mock-up spacecraft. “What the hell are you doing in here, get out!”
“Nice to meet you too,” K says.
“I'm serious,” the bald middle-aged man says, looking out the front windows worriedly. “The ULA guys cannot see you in here, seriously, go!”
“Alright, alright,” K says, exiting the ship. The man walks with K, practically pushing him, briskly escorting him away from the Dream Chaser. “Usually I buy a girl a drink before she plays with my prostate,” K says as they get to the front of the hanger. The man looks over his shoulder.
“I really hope those ULA guys didn't see you in there.”
“What's the big deal? Why do you care if they see me?” K asks. The man doesn't reply, rushing back toward the Dream Chaser.
“What was that about?” Caroline asks K.
“Wish I knew,” K replies. “Hey Dick, who was that guy?”
“He's the Dream Chaser program manager. Gary something.”
“Why did he care if the ULA guys saw me in the Dream Chaser?” K asks.
“You'd have to ask him,” Richard says without giving anything away.
“So what have you two been up to?” K asks.
“Just admiring the ship,” Richard says, looking at WhiteKnightTwo.
“Must not be doing a lot of business with those sub-orbital flights if you're taking her out of service for these drop tests,” K says.
“Actually we've got two of these. Eve is in the next hangar over, we've got a passenger flight in a few hours. This is the new WhiteKnightTwo, The Spirit of Steve Fossey.”
“Well, sounds like things are going well then,” K says begrudgingly.
“You could say that. So what are you really doing here?” Richard asks.
“You know, stopping by, seeing what's up...you got a place to grab a drink around here, like a Spaceport cantina?” K asks.
“How would you like to go into orbit Richard?” Caroline asks. Richard laughs.
“What are you doing, what kind of sales technique is that? I was gonna warm him up and get him drunk and then sell him a twenty million dollar ticket to space,” K says.
“They're in some trouble Richard,” Caroline says, brushing off K. “They really need some paying customers on this flight to keep them afloat.”
“Don't tell him that!” K interrupts.
“You can be a huge help in keeping SpacEx afloat and you can be the first person paying passenger to orbit on a private spaceship. What do you say Richard?” Caroline flashes that royal smile.
“Twenty million?” Richard asks with a smile.
“Don't tell him we need the money, now he's not gonna do it,” K says.
“When's the flight?”
“Six weeks,” Caroline says. Richard thinks about it.
“We don't really need the money, I've got investors lined-” K says, Caroline covers his mouth with her hand.
“I'll be on the flight,” Caroline says.
“Will you take a check?” Richard Branson asks.
“I think crumpled ones would be more appropriate,” K says to Caroline. She gives him the look, shutting him up. Richard walks out of the hanger, back up toward the terminal, waving Caroline and K to follow him.
“You know Kingsley, we're not competitors, we do different things,” Richard says. “I don't know why you think I'd hold out on you. We're not Coke and Pepsi, fighting over market shares. We're making for a better future. I support what you guys are doing.”
“Thanks, that means a lot,” K says sarcastically. They walk in front of another hangar and find the first SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise, attached to VMS Eve with rocket fuel being carefully pumped into the tanks. the first WhiteKnightTwo, ready to take passengers on a sub-orbital arc in just a few hours.
Moments later, Kingsley, Caroline, and Richard exit the elevator and enter the Spaceport Observation Tower, a circular room encased in glass at the top of a five-story tower topped by a domed glass roof. There's a bar in the center and many reclining seats laid out under the observation dome. The tower is devoid of people except for these three. The observation tower is there for friends and family of those taking their short trips into space. Through the dome you can observe the rocket plane flying up into space. Several TV screens provide views from the mother ship, from inside SpaceShipTwo, and from other cameras pointed at the sky.
Richard leads them to the bar at the center of the observation deck. “What'll it be?” Richard asks. Richard makes them all drinks. “What do you think of the place? Just finished construction a few weeks ago.”
“Are droids welcome here?” K asks. With drinks in hand, they head over to the window, looking down on the runway. They watch as SpaceShipTwo and its mothership WhiteKnightTwo taxi out onto the runway, joined by a Scaled Composites Beechcraft Starship chase plane, the same plane Kingsley owns, minus the upgrade to jet engines.
The three of them take a seat and look down on the tarmac as the soon-to-be astronauts say goodbye to their families as they prepare to get into their spaceship.
“Kingsley, you know I started with Virgin Records. I had to fly a lot and airlines were just shit, really terrible experiences. So I went to the bank I had worked with for years at Virgin Records and said, I want to start my own airline. They said sure, we'll bankroll you. So we open up and we had our first flight, London to New York, on a Friday. The very next day my bank manager came to my house, Saturday morning, and told me it was over, we're foreclosing on Monday. I couldn't believe it. We had spent all this money to get set up, and just opened for business and now they wanted their money back. It was absurd. I threw him out of my house. I spent the rest of that weekend calling up everyone I did business with at Virgin Records, securing advance loans, and I was able to get out of debt with that piece of shit bank and move to a new bank that wasn't so short-sighted. So I know what it's like to be close to losing your company because of stupid investors. And that's why I'm writing you this check.” Richard pulls his checkbook from his suit pocket and writes out a check for twenty million dollars.
K takes the check. “For sexual favors?” K asks reading the check.
“I bet the people at the bank get a kick out of that,” Branson says.
“You wrote it out to me,” K says.
“Yeah, if I pay SpacEx it's subject to sales tax. But if I pay you directly, then you can transfer the money into your company and avoid the taxes.”
“I don't want to dodge taxes,” K says. “Write it out to SpacEx.”
“Alright, it's your loss,” Richard says. K shakes his head as Richard writes out a new check. “I'm just saying, it's not like the sales tax was meant to tax tickets to space, you're from a tax-haven,
you tell him,” Richard says to Caroline.
“Wanna hear a joke?” Caroline asks.
“Sure,” Branson says.
“A British Knight, a Monacan Duchess, and a South African named Kingsley walk into a spaceport,” Caroline says. “Then they discuss tax evasion while watching a rocket plane take passengers into space.”
“Was that a joke?” Branson asks. “There wasn't a punchline.”
“Same shit, different day,” Caroline says with a shrug.
“What?” Sir Richard asks.
“She's juxtaposing the futuristic quality of what's happening with the fact that the three of us are representative of the feudal system. A Knight, a Duchess, and a King are talking about taxes...and watching a spaceship. It's a weird combination.”
“That's not really a joke,” Branson says.
“I made it up on the spot, you do better,” Caroline elbows him.
“Alright,” Richard says. “A Knight, a Duchess, and a King walk into a spaceport bar. The bartender says, what is this a Star Wars prequel?”
“Eh,” K says.
“You two are always talking about making space accessible to the common man,” Caroline says. “But none of us are in any way common. Joe Schmo has a better shot of becoming a NASA astronaut. So, I'd keep the whole tax dodging thing a little quieter unless you wanna end up with your head on a pike.”
“Let them fly coach,” K says, taking a drink.
“Anyway, you two hang out here, I'm gonna go send off my customers,” Richard says as he exits, leaving Caroline and Kingsley looking out on the brightly lit desert landscape.
“How did you date him? He's like sixty-two.”
“Something like that,” Caroline admits.
“So he's almost thirty years older than you, when did that seem like a good idea?” K asks.
“You're seven years older than me,” Caroline says.
“Seven and thirty are pretty different,” K says.
“I don't know, thirty and fifty-something isn't that bad. It's not like I married him.”
“You'd just think the Duchess of Monaco would be a little better with math than that,” K says. Caroline slaps his arm playfully.
“Shows what you know,” she says sarcastically. “There's no such thing as a Duchess of Monaco. Technically I'm Her Serene Highness, Grace Louise Caroline Alexandra Junot the Duchess of Valentinois, and fourth in the line of succession to the House of Grimaldi.”
“Fourth?! You might as well be the Secretary of Agriculture,” K says.
“Higher than that,” Caroline says defensively.
“So...purely hypothetically...and this is mostly the scotch talking, if, and I stress, if we had kids, what would their titles be?” Caroline sighs and shakes her head.
“Not even going there,” Caroline says.
“Why do you go by Caroline?”
“Well, I don't want to be called Grace, since who wants to fill those shoes? My mom's name is Caroline, but she likes to go by Louise within the family. You know immediately how well someone knows her if they call her Caroline. I guess I want to be like her. She's pretty awesome. They've done museum exhibitions about her fashion. While she's alive. She's like Marie Antoinette without the whole oppression thing.”
“You ever think that maybe,” Kingsley starts to say something but stops himself.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?!”
“You ever think...maybe you're the one that's trying to date men to put notches in your belt?” K asks.
“Why would you say that?” Caroline seems genuinely hurt.
“I'm not saying you are, just...you look up to your mom, and she's great and all, don't get me wrong, but she's married a French venture capitalist, an Italian socialite, a German Prince, and that's before you get to the long line of men she's dated. She dated Ingrid Bergman's son, the son of a French president, a Brazilian tennis star, I mean, she's gotten around.”
Caroline is almost too stunned to respond.
“I didn't mean it like that. I mean, she dated a lot of interesting men, like she couldn't ever be satisfied, she would get bored and go try a different flavor of royalty. I'm just saying maybe when your mother is off doing that it could make you naturally unsuited to settling down and more likely to vacillate from one billionaire to another.”
“You know, you're saying all this shit to me the day after I was very cool about you being a total hypocrite about children, and making me feel like you don't want to settle down with me at all. Like I'm an amusement park ride for you. And I was very cool and didn't lose my shit with you. So where is this coming from?”
“I'm just trying to say that maybe that's why you've dated both me and Richard Branson and I read that you dated Vincent Cassel and like Prince William when you were sixteen. I mean, when I was nineteen I couldn't get laid with girls that worked at the coffee shop. The minimum-wage baristas had no interest in me, but you were like dating a Prince when you had your sweet sixteen. So I'm just saying, like, maybe it's just who you are that you're not the type to be interested in settling down. I just kind of figured when we started being a thing that it wouldn't last. Don't take it for granted, just enjoy it while you can, because no guy in the world is good enough for you to be with for more than a few years before you get bored of hearing about rockets and go date Thom Yorke or Sebastian Vettel for a while.”
“I feel like you don't know me at all,” Caroline says with disgust, trying to disguise the wavering in her throat that might betray how hurt she really is.
“I need another drink,” K says, getting up and walking to the bar. He returns with a tall glass of scotch and the two of them sit in silence and watch the mothership take off with the small rocket-plane suspended between its twin booms.
“Are we waiting here for a reason?” Kingsley asks after WhiteKnightTwo seems to disappear on the horizon. “We got the check, so let's go.”
“You go ahead,” Caroline says.
“And what are you going to do?”
“I need to be in Chicago tomorrow for the thing.”
“Right,” K says. “Well, tell Richard that he needs to be in Hawthorne on Monday, we've got less than six weeks to get him up to speed.”
“I'll tell him.”
“And you need to be there too.” K pauses for a moment before adding, “If you're still planning on going.”
“Alright,” she says without looking at him.
And with that Kingsley heads back to the hangar, putting fuel in his Starship and heading home to Hawthorne, leaving Caroline behind in Las Cruces.
Chapter 10
The Next Day
Kingsley, CFO Brittany Hammersmith, Pilot Tim Bowe, and Mission Director Eric Greenwood sit around a table in the main conference room just off of Kingsley's office.
“I thought you would be happier, I got a paying customer for you,” K says.
“Afraid I've got bad news K,” Hammersmith says.
“What? Did that snake back out?”
“No, we've gotten word from NASA,” Hammersmith says. “They're extending Soyuz another two years.”
“They're doing what?” K is stunned, jumping out of his seat. Tim Bowe's head drops.
“Congress cut the NASA budget, they took away the money set aside for all the commercial crew programs,” Hammersmith says. K walks to the window, looking at the Hummingbird on the horizon. Vapor streams off the cryogenic walls of the rocket as it prepares for a test.
“That's it, we're done,” Eric Greenwood says coldly. Tim doesn't disagree. Hammersmith won't exactly argue with that sentiment. “This was the whole deal. This gap between shuttle and Orion, this was the opportunity of a lifetime to finally open up space, to pry it away from the government. Without this, we're done.”
“We're not done,” K says quietly, looking into the distance. “How much are they paying Roscosmos?”
“Seventy million a seat,” Brittany says.
“How do they
sell that?” Bowe asks, “How do they tell the American people that, due to budget cuts, they're going to keep paying seventy million a seat to the Russians when there's an American company offering to do the same job 25 million a seat? How do they sell that?”
“They don't have to Tim,” K says. “Nobody votes based on how you appropriate NASA funds. Elections are about sound bytes. And if this gets any play, they'll just announce something like they plan to send a new probe to Mars and that'll shift all the press attention away from this.”
“There's more from NASA,” Brittany says. “Obama's going to announce this week that he's directing NASA to capture a small asteroid and bring it back to the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point and send a crew in an Orion up to study it.”
“What in like a decade?” K asks.
“Something like that,” Hammersmith says.
“They're trying to keep the Senate Launch System alive,” K says. “Our success has started to cast light onto the shady deals they made. They can't have a cheap alternative to their pork delivery system. Now god damn congress is trying to kill us.”
“I don't understand,” Bowe says, “Why would congress want to kill an American company? I mean with that money they're sending to the Russians, we could be doing a lot more with it right here. Why would congress be against us pushing the envelope?”
“It's all about power,” K says. “When it's NASA's rocket, NASA's ship, then congress controls where the pork goes. If we come along and show we can do it for far cheaper and NASA were to rely on us, then congressmen wouldn't have control on which districts get that money. I mean, go back and look at the shuttle. When they were selecting the Solid Rocket Boosters, Lockheed Martin and Aerojet looked like the front-runners. Aerojet was the only one that could make the SRB in one piece, not in segments that would have vulnerable seams. Remember, it was an o-ring between one of those seams that killed the Challenger. The Senate committee came back and picked Morton Thiokol to build the SRBs, despite the fact that their proposal finished last in the review panel. Morton Thiokol is in Utah. The senator in charge of the committee was from Utah. It's that simple. They want to be able to control exactly where the money goes. They'd rather have a bridge to nowhere in their district than a god damn space elevator in someone else's district. So this is what they do. They find an excuse to cut our funding, say it's going to take too long, be too expensive to develop, and meanwhile announce a mission to give their bloated development project at least the semblance of an actual purpose other than pork delivery.”