Josh grimaces. One of the few things pilots fear are doctors. With the stroke of a pen, they can permanently ground them. He knows his GMO body can pass any test they can give him, but unlike most astronauts, he’s sporting three bullet wounds. He decides to wait until he survives the physical before giving Elizabeth the news.
He arrives at the clinic at 6:00 a.m. and is immediately escorted in to see a NASA doctor. Not just any doctor; the nameplate on the door identifies Dr. Fred Miller, NASA’s Chief Medical Officer. There will be no appeal.
After Miller shakes his hand, he becomes all business. Motioning toward his computer screen, he says, “The only medical records I have on you are from your surgery onboard the USS Reagan.” He frowns. “You’re lucky to be alive. I understand from Admiral Meadows you were instrumental in the comet deflection effort and your background is classified, but I have to tell you,” he takes his glasses off, “I can’t justify sending you into space with this type of past trauma. It’s for your own protection as well as protecting the mission.”
Josh nods slowly. “I can understand that.” Looking him in the eye, he says, “Please feel free to test me in any manner you wish. I think you’ll find I have a very strong constitution, have recovered completely and can pass any test you wish to administer.”
The doctor tilts his head and with a slight smile, says, “Fair enough.”
By the end of the day, Josh wishes he hadn’t challenged the doctor. They poked, injected, sampled, probed, X-rayed and MRI’d him. They even put him in a hyperbaric chamber and a centrifuge. After 12 hours of tests, he goes home feeling like a squashed pincushion with painful injection sites all over his body.
The next morning, he meets with the doctor again.
“Your test results were … surprising.” He flips through several screens. “All the metabolic tests came back excellent. Your vision isn’t 20/20; it’s 20/5.” He frowns. “Only a few Australian Aborigines have been documented with that level of visual acuity. You can hear frequencies only very young children can hear. You also maintained consciousness with less oxygen and under higher Gs than anyone ever tested.”
“I’ve been fortunate to have good genes.”
Miller removes his glasses and looks at Josh with a frown. “No, Commander, you don’t have good genes. You shouldn’t be possible.”
Josh shrugs with a smile. “Maybe, but I’m here and I believe I’ve recovered completely from the wounds.”
“Yes, the MRIs were clear and the physical therapist indicated full range of motion. Although, I’m certain there is still some pain involved?”
It did hurt but Josh just gave him a noncommittal shrug.
“I still recommended against sending you to the station without more extensive testing.”
A little irritated, Josh says, “You just told me my physical abilities meet or exceed that of any one else.”
Miller exhales slowly. “They do.” He sets his glasses on his desk. “Commander Fuze, I don’t like mysteries and you are unusual to say the least. However, the Admiral indicated your mission was time critical. Against my better judgement, I’m granting you a temporary waiver so you can start training, but it’s pending the results of additional tests.”
Josh frowns. “Additional tests?”
“Yes, it shouldn’t take longer than a week to get the results back.” Clearly dismissing him, he adds, “I’ll contact you as soon as they come in.”
Josh shakes his hand and leaves. The second he’s outside, he calls Jen.
She says, “I see you’re scheduled to go to the ISLO in a couple weeks.”
“And where did you see that?”
“Now that I’m helping with some of the nuclear reactor stuff, I see a lot of internal emails. You, Elizabeth, Greg and I will all be working on the same program again. That’s very cool.”
“Yes, it is. Hey Jen, can you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Just finished the astronaut physical. I know the servers that hold NASA’s medical records are protected, but I’d like to check on the results of—”
“Your tests?” she finishes.
“Yes.”
“No one can argue about the ethics of hacking your own medical records. Give me a second.” One second later, “Ok, I’ve got them.”
“Thanks Jen. Can you tell if there are any tests pending?”
“Yes, Dr. Miller ordered a full genetic scan. Does he know you’re genetically streamlined and missing half of your DNA?”
Josh blows out a lung full of air. “Not yet.” He pauses, “Jen, can you look up how long it takes to get the results back from that type of test?”
“About 10 days, but that’s if they use the local Houston lab. I’ve read that the genetics lab in Sydney Australia has better quality control, but it will take quite a bit longer to ship it there. Hope you don’t mind. I rerouted your tissue sample to Sydney.”
“Thanks, Jen. You’re awesome.”
She gave him a girl laugh. “Thanks, Josh. Love you.”
“Love you too, Jen.”
It might seem odd to most that they sign off with “love you,” but it feels completely normal to him. He really does love his Jen, and he will always think of her as a little girl even if she is composed of silicon chips and can think circles around him.
He calls the other woman in his life and gets Elizabeth’s voicemail. Not surprising this time of day but he doesn’t want to tell her in a voicemail or text, so he tries her office number.
The office manager says, “I’m sorry, Commander, Mrs. Fuze is in a meeting with Dr. Turan.”
“Would you like to leave a message?”
“No thanks. I’ll catch her later.”
He realizes Turan might have already told her. When he gets hold of her, he’ll start with an apology and then schedule a serious celebration.
10
ISLO
Josh goes to Meadows’ office and tells him he’s cleared to start training.
“Josh, we need a plausible reason to add you to the space station crew. It’s every engineer’s dream to work on this program, so we have thousands of applications for a handful of positions.”
Josh smiles. “No pressure.”
“You fit the profile but trying to slip you in as an engineer and troubleshooter will be tough without a reputation or credentials.”
Josh knows he has humanity’s best genes, but suspects Jesse got those genes from the type of brilliant men and women working on this project.
Meadows smiles. “We do have an ace in the hole. Remember Dr. Steve Katori?”
“Of course.”
“I offered to make him the chief engineer, but he said that’d be an administrative nightmare and no fun. He told me to make him the head of the laser development and construction. He’s up on the ISLO now.”
“Good move.”
Meadows picks up the phone. “Please ring up Steve Katori on the station.” A minute later, Meadows says, “Steve, guess who’s in my office right now?”
There’s a slight delay and then Meadows laughs. “No, I think Leonardo da Vinci’s still dead, but I do have Josh Fuze here. I’m putting you on speaker phone.”
Josh hears Katori say, “…awesome! Hey, Josh! Wasn’t far off with da Vinci. Thought you were dead too.”
“The rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated.”
Meadows inserts, “We’ll grab a beer together soon and he can explain how he pissed off the SEALS. In the meantime, what do you think about sending him up to the ISLO to look around? He has an uncanny ability to see weird solutions. Might be a fresh set of eyes, and I think it’s the least we can do after the way he was treated.”
Katori says, “Abso-effing-lutely!”
“Will throw him in an accelerated training syllabus. I’m sure there will be questions. If you wouldn’t mind, let some of your engineers know the role he played on the Blaster program, without mentioning cruise missiles.”
Katori says, “Will
do. By the way, there’s someone else up here Josh may remember.”
Meadows nods. “Oh yeah. Josh, do you remember Wendy Crow?”
He nods. “She was the Air Force Major with the MIT degree. She procured the helicopters we used in Antarctica and ran the base camp.”
“Yup. She was selected for the astronaut program and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. With her familiarity with the Blaster, we snapped her up for the ISLO. She’s on the station right now.”
Katori says, “Hey, Joe, gotta go. Starting another pod EVA in a few minutes. Josh, look forward to having you up here.”
“Thanks. See you in a couple weeks.”
Meadows hands Josh a thumb-drive. “Here’s some light reading. It contains all the technical information for the station.”
Josh heads over to the training facility. On the way there, he scans the material on the thumb-drive with his cyber glasses and gives a low whistle. If it were in print, it would create a stack of paper to the ceiling. Josh loves science and engineering but details aren’t his thing. He can’t imagine worse torture than reading tens-of-thousands of pages of technical manuals.
He tries to reach Elizabeth again but no luck. Then he tries her office even though it’s 8:00 p.m. in New York. The woman who answers, says, “Sir, she’s not in her office but I don’t think she’s left yet. I’m sorry; I’m a new intern. Let me see if I can locate her. Please hold.” She forgets to put him on hold. With his exceptional hearing, he overhears her asking someone. Another woman replies, “Oh, honey, she’s in one of those late night, private meetings. Just take a message.”
Josh politely declines and hangs up. It definitely takes some of the wind out of his sails. Elizabeth is very passionate about her work and puts in long hours. He also knows that despite their recent argument, she loves him. The “little devil” on his shoulder, however, points out that she should have seen his call, and if Turan told her he was going into space, why hasn’t she called him? Maybe Turan is going to let him deliver the news. He finally sends her a text, “Give me a call when you can? Have some good news.”
The next day, he still hasn’t heard anything from her. He tries her office again and is told she’s not available. His excitement about sharing the news is flagging. He finally texts, “Called your office a few times over the last two days. See you’re having late night meetings. You’ll be happy to hear I’m going to be doing a little work for some of our friends. Can’t cover it on the phone but will share it when I see you. May be tied up or out of touch for a bit, but don’t worry, I’m fine.”
He calls Jen. “Just scanned the technical manuals I need to be familiar with. This is one of those times when I really envy you. You could absorb them in a few seconds.”
“I already have.”
He laughs. “Maybe I can tap your knowledge when I’m up there.”
“I would love to help but your phone won’t work up there. I could access the communication links to the station.”
“Thanks, Jen, but we’re still trying to keep your profile low, and they’re pretty security focused on the station. Just arrived at the training facility, but after this, I’d like to talk to you about some of the technical challenges you’re working on. It’ll make me look smart with my fellow engineer astronauts. I promise I’ll make sure to mention I have a brilliant friend.”
She laughs.
During the orientation class, he learns the ISLO is a lot more massive than the International Space Station. The assembly is complete and they’re now testing it in low Earth orbit not far from the ISS. The plan is to start boosting it toward L2 in a month.
When operational, the station will require 40 engineers and scientists to maintain and operate, but during construction and testing, it has over 50. For the engineers building the station, there’s a compressed, eight-week astronaut-training course. It’s designed to get the construction engineers up to speed quickly and ensure they can operate and live aboard safely. What should take eight weeks, Meadows scheduled Josh to complete in two. Even with his minimal need for sleep and his body’s amazing ability to absorb information, he’d prefer more time. Unfortunately, he needs to launch before his genetic test results come back or he’ll probably never get to go.
When they discover his flight background, they throw him into the flight simulators too. His phenomenal reflexes and senses, combined with his test-pilot background, allow him to excel, and they add extravehicular training to his already insane schedule.
To speed construction, they developed a new maneuvering pod that can hold one person. It has sophisticated robotic arms and reaction jets allowing it to carry large objects anywhere outside the station without being tethered. With an official name of Advanced Extended Extravehicular Maneuvering Unit, they desperately needed a nickname. The classic movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” provided it — “pod.”
Josh is a natural pod pilot. After memorizing the manuals and a few practice sessions, he beats everyone’s task completion time.
With only three hours of sleep a night, he crams it all in and is actually having fun. Everything would be perfect except he can’t share it with Elizabeth. He’s frustrated with her disbelief, and it’s amplified by the text he finally gets. “Been crazy busy with some new projects with the boss. Let’s schedule a time to catch up.” He knows it’s illogical but feels he’s not only in competition with her job, but also Turan. He holds his irritation in check and texts back, “Sure. When?”
The last few days leading up to the launch pass and he never gets a response back from Elizabeth. Letting his frustration get the best of him, he refuses to try to contact her anymore until she calls or texts him. He knows it’s childish, but he’s angry and needs to compartmentalize. As he drives to Cape Canaveral, he checks in with Jen one more time before leaving his cell phone behind. “Jen, I’m headed up to the ISLO station today.”
There’s no response.
He tries again.
Still no response.
He looks at his phone to make sure it’s working. He calls Jessica Lee. “Hey, Jess, can’t get in touch with Jen. Have you talked to her recently?”
“Not since yesterday.”
Frowning, he says, “She always answers.”
“Maybe she’s just not available.”
“Come on, Jessica, people can be away from their phone or have it off. Jen is the phone.”
“Did you piss her off?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“Well, maybe she’s tied up working on one of the projects. Some of them require processing power that taxes even her network. She’s brilliant, but she doesn’t have infinite computational capacity or memory. She has to focus on things just like we do.”
Unconvinced, Josh says, “Maybe, but would you mind trying to reach her? I’m going to be out of touch for a bit.”
“I will but don’t be such a helicopter parent.” She pauses. “Where on Earth are you going that you won’t be able to talk to her?”
“I’m headed up to the ISLO.”
“You’re launching into fricking orbit?!”
“Uh, yeah.”
She laughs. “Why should that surprise me? Well, have a successful trip doing … whatever it is you’re doing up there. I promise I’ll get in touch with Jen.”
“Thanks.” After he hangs up, he decides to call Elizabeth one more time.
No answer.
II
SPACE
11
LAUNCH
Josh arrives at Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A at 4:00 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. launch. Although massively overhauled, it’s the same pad that launched Apollo rockets to the moon in the seventies. Kennedy is one of five major launch sites, along with the European Space Agency’s Kourou site in French Guiana, Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome and Jiuquan Center in China. Despite years of experience and frequent launches, blasting into space on a giant rocket is still dangerous, but all he feels is an overwhelming desire to do a football touchdown dance.
The final medical checkup goes quickly and with help, he slides into the pressure suit required for launch. Just as he’s about to put his phone away, he notices two missed calls and a text, all from Dr. Fred Miller. The text simply says, “Call me immediately.”
Seeing Josh’s face, his NASA technician says, “Commander, if you need to make a quick call, you have a few minutes before we head for the launch pad.”
“Nope, I’m good.” He quickly shuts the phone down and throws it in the locker.
Driving into work at 7:00 a.m., Meadows’ phone rings.
“This is Fred Miller. I’m revoking Commander Fuze’s medical waiver and letting you know I’m going to have to scrub him from today’s launch.”
“Is he sick or injured?”
“No, but I just got the results back from a medical test.”
“I don’t understand. I thought he passed the physical.”
“This was an additional test, a genetic test.”
“A what?!” Frowning, he says, “Fred, I’m driving in now. Meet me at my office. I’ll be there in about 20 minutes.”
Miller is standing at his office door when he arrives. As soon as they sit down, Meadows says, “Ok, what’s this all about?”
“Sir, Josh Fuze has almost no medical records and his tests results were unusual to say the least. Based on that, I gave him a temporary waiver and ordered a full genetic test. The results finally came in this morning.” He pauses. “Josh Fuze is missing half his DNA. We need to pull him from the launch immediately.”
Meadows glances at the clock behind Miller’s head — 7:30. “Ok, slow down. Half his DNA? How can that be?”
“It can’t be. It’s impossible.”
With the Dragon crew capsule on top, the Falcon 9 looks like a classic phallic, rocket. Although there are now larger heavy-boost rockets, the two-stage Falcon has become the minivan of the fleet. Simple, dependable and reusable, it helped bring the cost of space access down by a magnitude.
Impossible (Fuzed Trilogy Book 3) Page 6