by Jeff Pollard
“Convert that to joules,” K says.
“A kilo-Watt is a kilo-Joule per second, for an hour, that's 3600 seconds, so 3600 times 34. That's about 120 mega-Joules.”
“Hop in,” K says, unlocking the door. The woman gets in the car and Kingsley peels out in reverse, whipping the car around in a J-turn and closing the garage door behind him. “So what are you 19?”
“24,” she says.
“What was your major?” K asks as he whips the car around onto the narrow tree-lined street.
“Physics,” she says.
“Really?”
“Actually it was poetry.”
“Does converting kilo-Watt-hours to mega-Joules in your head come in handy in poetry?” K asks.
“Sometimes.”
“So you got a name?” K asks.
Kingsley enters the office, met immediately by Hammersmith. “Where have you been?”
“Last I checked I'm your boss, so I don't know why you think you can hassle me,” K says.
“Who's this?” Brittany asks.
“This is my new assistant, Heather,” K says as he walks into his office.
“It's Stephanie,” the new girl says, correcting K.
“Whatever, you act like a Heather,” K says as he gets to his desk. Hammersmith stands over him as he sits. “What?”
“We have to talk, but not with her in the room,” Brittany says.
“She's my new assistant so get used to it,” K says.
“When did you hire her?”
“About thirty minutes ago when she broke into my house,” K replies simply as he checks his e-mail.
“And she's qualified?”
“You know I can hear you right?” Stephanie asks.
“She's qualified,” K says.
“How? Her bra size?”
“She's better at math than you,” K says. “And that's saying something for somebody's whose job is all about math, so I wouldn't be so cocky.”
“K, I've been running the numbers, and even if we win and make NASA pay up on this proving mission, without the coming crew missions, and without doing cargo missions, since you gave those away for some reason, we can't afford to continue the reusability program. We'll have to start laying people off and canceling projects.”
“Not happening,” K says simply while reading an e-mail.
“I knew you would say that, which is why I've lined up a meeting with a new investor.”
“Who?” K asks accusingly.
“Why do you say it like that? I haven't even told you who and you're already mad.”
“Who!?”
“The Koke Brothers.”
“Absolutely not,” K says. “No way, those guys are huge dick-bags. The same Koke brothers that are trying to destroy teacher's unions, lobbying against any environmental regulations, against green-energy, those Koke brothers?”
“They have money and we need it, does it matter what else they do?” Brittany asks.
“Yes! Their interest in SpacEx is in the hope of killing reusability and owning a monopoly on the the market thanks to the cheapest rockets. They don't care about Mars, hell they don't even care about the Earth.”
“If you want to keep this whole enterprise running, you need money from somewhere. This is an option. If you don't want to take dirty money, then don't take it, but you can't keep this reusability thing going. So, dirty money or layoffs, which do you want?”
“Sir, you can't bring animals in here,” the waitress says to Bill Koke, who is holding a pet pig in his lap.
“Do you know who I am?” Koke asks in the most dickish way imaginable. “Get your boss out here right now.”
“Fine,” the waitress says, leaving, knowing her boss will back her up since the restaurant can't allow people to just bring in a pig, otherwise they might lose their license.
“As I was saying,” Bob Koke says. The Koke brothers are both in their seventies, and worth a combined 60 billion dollars. “Five billion dollars, we're looking for a 51% share in the company.”
“Nope,” Kingsley says, eyeing Bill Koke's pet pig. “40%, that's it. Five billion, 40%, that's the deal, take it or leave it. I don't negotiate. Negotiations are just the asshole's way of bringing his ego into it. This isn't about ego, or who's holding the fatter pig. That's the deal, take it or leave it.”
“If we do a deal,” Bill Koke says while rubbing the nape of his pig's neck, “we won't be getting into bed with you.”
“I don't let pigs in my bed anyway,” K says.
“What my brother means,” Bob interrupts, “is that we don't invest that amount of money without making sure our interests are taken care of. So we want to stipulate that at any time, a simple 51% majority of shareholders can vote you out of your office.”
“So you're openly just telling me you want the company and not me,” K says. “Quite a deal,” K says sarcastically.
“Now hold on,” Bill says, “we're not saying we want you out, but if you go crazy or do something stupid, we want the ability to have the shareholders decide the path the company takes.”
“Is there a problem here?” The manager asks.
“This girl,” Bill says, “fire her.”
“Sarah, you're gone,” the manager says.
“What!?” The waitress protests.
“You heard me, you're gone,” the manager reiterates. “I'm very sorry Mr. Koke.”
“As I was saying, we've heard things about you, and we don't want to have our money taken hostage by a drug-addled crazy person. So, a simple majority of the shareholders, as well as a requirement that you regularly be evaluated by a psychiatrist.”
“Was it psychiatrist or psychologist?” Bob asks.
“Does it matter?” Bill asks.
“Okay, well,” K says, “if I agree to that, then I'll want something in return. I want the ability to buy-out your stake in the company at any point, even if you don't want to sell, at say 5% over the market value.”
“15%,” Bill says.
“Wait, I don't want him just buying out our share when he gets some cash,” Bob says.
“What's he gonna trip and have his dick land in five billion dollars? He can't raise that kind of capital.”
“Well if he can't, then why does he want the option?”
“Let's call it market +5%,” K says, “and you've got a deal.”
“Plus 10%,” Bill says.
“What did I just say about negotiating,” K asks.
Back at SpacEx offices, K stands over Brittany's desk as she is on a conference call with several lawyers. “I want you to sneak in some language into this contract,” K says.
“What?” Hammersmith asks.
“I want to be able to use SpacEx money to buy-out their stake.”
“You can't use company funds to buy-out the guys who own 40% of the company,” Hammersmith says.
“I can if the shareholders approve the transaction,” K says. “So sneak that in there, in the section where they stipulate the 51% can approve kicking me out, sneak it in by laying out what powers a 51% majority can do. As soon as we get this company making good money, we'll buy out their stake and return the shares to the company.”
“If I try to sneak that in there, and they catch wind of it, they'll back out of the deal,” Hammersmith says.
“Well I'm not making any deal where I have to live the rest of my life with these assholes waiting behind me to take me out.”
“Then why let them stipulate the 51% takeover clause, we could have fought on that, at least raise the percentage,” Hammersmith says.
“They own 40%, so they'd need to get 11% stake on their side. The people who invested in SpacEx were investing in me, they have absolutely no interest in putting the fucking Koke brothers in charge.”
“What about Kuznetzov?”
“Kuznetzov trusts me, he won't trust these guys. Have you ever met anyone more ruthless than these two? I'd rather deal with Kuznetzov any day of the week.”
King
sley stops by the simulator room at the end of the day, finding Arnold, Caroline, and Richard in the motion-control sim with Tim Bowe flying and Travis Clayton filling in for K in the flight engineer's seat. They're training up the passengers in the basics of the mission and the capsule, running them through simulations of launch, docking, reentry, giving them an idea of what it will be like. They're also trying to teach these three the very basics about the spacecraft, in the event that Kingsley and Tim are both incapacitated. The Griffin can be remotely piloted, as all Cargo Griffins are, and so their training is mostly predicated on making sure the computers are running, maintaining a radio link with the ground, how to re-establish contact if the link is lost, etc.
“Hey K!” Justin Timberlake says from behind Kingsley as he monitors the crew from the control console.
“JT,” K says simply.
“I'm playing the Staples Center tonight if you want to come, everybody's going.”
“Everybody?” K asks.
“Yeah, Richard, Robert, Arnold, just to unwind after this week. You down?”
“And what happened at the concert?” Kingsley's new Koke brothers mandated therapist asks.
“I didn't go to the concert,” K replies. “I showed up to the after-party late.”
“And?”
“And I hung out at the after-party,” K says.
“Come on, what happened with her?”
“Who?” K asks.
“Caroline, you were supposedly telling me about how you screwed things up with her, like three hours ago. You really need to learn to get to the point faster.”
“Hey, if I take all four hours telling the story then you can't spend any time telling me what to do. She was flirting with Robert and Justin all night.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Not really. Just a minute or two.”
“So what happened? You said it got worse after that night.”
“It wasn't that night as much as the next morning. I woke up and Caroline was standing over my bed. I guess she came over to get some of her stuff and found me in bed and she wasn't pleased about who was with me. She started yelling at me about banging groupies and I was like, well first-off, Stephanie's my new assistant, not a groupie, and secondly, the other girl wasn't a groupie, that's Scarlett Johansson. Don't call Scar-Jo a groupie. And thirdly, you're banging half the Backstreet Boys, but she didn't want to hear it and we haven't really talked since then. Which is kind of awkward because we're flying to space together in two weeks. I mean, how do normal people handle that? Like you book a vacation or buy concert tickets together and break up right before. What's the normal way of handling that?”
“I think most people cancel those plans.”
“Well, we're going to space together, it's not like you can cancel that at the last minute,” K says.
“Do you want her back?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Well, if it's just a matter of it being awkward because of a recent break-up, fine. But if this is a contentious break-up where one or both of you want to get back together, then it will be more painful than awkward. So are you more worried about emotional pain or awkwardness.”
“Awkwardness,” K says.
“So you don't want her back?”
“No.”
“Why not? You did so much to get her in the first place.”
“And then I got her and realized she wasn't perfect.”
“No woman is perfect.”
“See, this is what I was trying to avoid. Therapists, and believe me, I've had my fair share of them, they all love to tell you how to live your life. You should settle down Kingsley, you should pick one girl Kingsley. Look how well that worked out for Tiger Woods.”
“I'm not telling you that you have to settle down. But it's not fair to compare a single woman to the litany of women that throw themselves in front of you all the time.”
“Why not?” K asks.
“Kingsley.”
“I'm being serious. Why not? It's a real choice. I really can keep banging random women, I mean that's a viable option. So shouldn't she have to compete with that real option? And if she can't compete with that, if no woman can compete with that, then why commit to one?”
“Kingsley. . . Do you care about anybody's happiness but your own?”
“I want to save the planet,” Kingsley replies.
“That's not what I'm talking about. You can't grow as a person if you care only about yourself. It's through helping other people that we grow, that we find happiness. I mean, seriously, who's happier, Hugh Heffner, or some guy who loves his wife and is helping his kids through college?
“Hugh Heffner, by a mile. You ever met Hugh? He's the happiest guy I know.”
“Last sim before we head to the cape,” Travis Clayton says over the headsets as the crew of Griffin 7 prepare for their final test before heading to the Cape that night for a launch in seven days.
“Amen to that,” K says as the crew exchanges smiles. “In honor of that, I say we get some Space Champagne.” Kingsley opens the hatch and climbs down the ladder. “Stephanie go grab five flutes would you please?” Kingsley heads up to the control console, going to Travis. Kingsley pulls the plug from Travis's headset, making sure the rest of the crew won't hear this conversation. “I want a lightning strike at the instant of lift-off, killing both Tim's and my consoles. I'll play dumb about it, but let Tim and I try to tell the rest of the crew what to do. I want the outside link severed too, so no help. And I want you to throw some more glitches in, engine failures, really throw them for a loop.”
“Why?” Travis asks. “You trying to scare them?”
“I want them to feel like more than just passengers. Got it?”
“You're the boss,” Travis replies.
Stephanie returns as K climbs back aboard, strapping in. The Champagne flutes are passed around. They all clink their glasses together, except for Kingsley and Caroline. He leaves her hanging, waiting for a clink, an omission that goes unnoticed by no one. They start at T-minus 10 minutes, proceeding through the pre-launch checklists. Richard, Caroline, and Arnold have no idea what's coming, having been through weeks of training where Kingsley and Tim handle just about everything. A smooth ride and in twenty minutes they'll be done for the week. Or so they think.
At liftoff, an extremely bright flash comes in through the capsule windows, stunning the passengers. The intense flash is also accompanied by dozens of alarms going off in the cabin.
“Control,” Tim says, “I've lost all flight computers. K, what do you got!?”
“My screens are dead,” Kingsley replies.
“Control? Travis! We lost the radio,” Tim says, looking over to the passengers. “Are your computers down?”
Caroline, Richard, and Arnold are frozen, in shock.
“Hey! Does anyone have control?” Tim shouts.
“Somebody say something,” Kingsley says, looking to the three stunned passengers. Each seat in the Griffin is equipped with the joysticks, touchscreens, a full glass cockpit. Each seat can be set to a different job. For instance, if the pilot's controls are lost, any other seat can be switched to the active pilot, changing all the display and controls. However it requires that a person in the seat actually flip the switch and change their role. “Somebody switch to pilot!”
“I'll do it,” Richard Branson says, as he looks at the switch controlling his glass cockpit. “You want me to do it?” He asks, hesitating.
“Do it already! You're the backup!” Tim shouts. The rocket has passed through 1000 feet already, and as far as anyone knows, it is unpiloted, flying wildly off course. Branson finally gets up the nerve, switching to pilot, taking control of the joysticks as his screens are changed to ones showing the relevant flight data: heading, altitude, speed, throttle, etc.
“Are we on course? Is the computer still flying?” Tim asks.
“I don't know!” Branson says panicking.
“What's our heading?” Tim dema
nds.
“282 degrees,” Branson says.
“Shit we're heading toward land,” Tim says.
“You've gotta get us to 51 degrees,” Kingsley shouts. Richard Branson takes control, trying to steer the huge rocket as it veers off course. The simulator rolls quickly, angling sideways as Branson is losing control of the rocket, at an angle of attack of 58 degrees. Kingsley drinks his Champagne as the capsule spins wildly. Another set of alarms go off.
“Caroline, that's you!” Tim shouts.
“What's me?” Caroline is in shock.
“You're backup to the flight engineer, what's that alarm?” Tim asks, having no information in front of him on his blank screens. Caroline has to switch her console to flight engineer, and when she does she is greeted with many errors.
“Computer has commanded shut down of engines 1, 3, 7, and 9,” Caroline says.
“That's it, we have to abort, Richard, abort!”
“How do I do that!?” Richard shouts. The white LEDs flash repeatedly outside the windows and the capsule tumbles wildly. Two Champagne glasses fly away, crashing and shattering against the side of the capsule. Arnold vomits as they continue tumbling.
“What was that?” Tim demands. “Somebody talk to me!”
The cabin suddenly goes silent and the screens outside the windows go black. The capsule slowly rights itself to vertical. Travis comes on the headset, “you're all dead.”
“What the hell happened?” Tim asks.
“That was a lightning strike at liftoff,” Travis says coldly, “shutting down both pilot and flight engineer's flight computers. Auto-pilot was also knocked offline. The remaining crew were supposed to take over control but failed to act quickly. The rocket veered off course, back toward land. The uncontrolled spin caused a failure in all four outboard engines, and at that point abort conditions had been met, thus the Range Safety Officer commanded rocket self-destruct. If the RSO commands self-destruct it automatically triggers the Griffin to abort, which it did, however the autopilot was still offline and so the parachute needed to be triggered manually. After five seconds, Launch Control Computers sent the order to trigger the parachutes. The parachutes deployed, however the Griffin's control rockets were still being fired as the backup pilot attempted to re-establish control. These rockets burned the parachutes off and the capsule crashed on land at over 75 meters per second, resulting in death of all aboard.”