by WADE, T I
“But we hit the drums. Beth showed us fair and square,” Maggie said.
“Of course,” replied Igor. “Your sights were locked on to the gas drums, which compensated for your movement, just like in a fast flying fighter jet.” Maggie nodded at this. “Also the spreads of hits from both Allen and Michael were only twice the spread of yours, Maggie, at 300,000 feet and over a thousand of miles further distant than you were. These Israeli cameras are going to have to be really good to beat ours.”
“The Chinook pilot said that three of the eighteen laser shots fired missed the drums but were within one feet of where the drums were standing,” added Ryan. “The tarmac is rather holey in that entire area; every shot must have bored through the drums, the bitumen and even the stones beneath.”
The pilots had learned that as soon as the entire craft was within the shield, flight was controllable up to 20,000 feet. Something happened differently when parts of the craft were sticking out, and above 20,000 feet any descent would be more difficult. Other than that, the flight had been completely stealthy, with fuel usage at about 25 percent of normal. The big question was; what happened if the shield was closed down while in flight? And Maggie didn’t really want to go there just yet.
SB-III was being refueled for its normal launch into space.
Early, exactly as the sky became light, Ryan headed out to see how Bob Mathews had done during the night. Lights had been placed for safety around the growing cavern that now looked like a small quarry. He watched as someone, either Bob or Joseph Jones, brought up a ton of sand. As the hole had deepened, so had the pile of sand fifty feet from the hole grown in size.
It seemed that the two men hadn’t stopped and had worked together in shifts throughout the night. A bleary-eyed Joseph Jones came up to Ryan, peering down the slope the two earthmovers used to get in and out.
“Three cave-ins last night,” Jonesy’s father said to Ryan. “It took us about an hour to clear each one, and they are getting bigger as we go deeper.”
“I assume it just opens the hole up wider,” Ryan replied.
“Yes, we have kept the road in as gentle a slope as possible, but as we go deeper, we have needed more room. The sand is now slightly wetter than at the surface. It must have rained in the last thousand years or so, because the damp sand is not draining, but is making the digging a little safer.”
As he said that, a fourth cave-in occurred, and about a dozen tons of sand slipped into the quarry, an avalanche down one side, the side opposite the road.
“We seem to have them under control. We dig out about 80 percent of the avalanche, dig down about another ten feet, and it happens all over again.”
“Flight to Ground Control: one minute to crossing through 300,000 feet, over.” Both men heard Allen Saunders through Ryan’s mobile in SB-II high above.
“Copy that, we have you on radar, flight perfect,” said Igor from Ground Control. Igor was back at what he really enjoyed: controlling all craft in and out of space.
“Where’s my son?” Joseph Jones asked Ryan. Ryan looked up and pointed. High above was a minuscule silver glint in the morning sun’s rays. The second Matt craft was still on radio silence and very high above them. “Can’t see nothing that far, young man,” added a tired Jones Senior.
“He’ll be landing in about seven minutes,” Ryan replied. “Go rest, Mr. Jones. You have done a fantastic job. You are far too good for this type of hard work.”
“Rubbish, Mr. Richmond, I haven’t felt so energized in years, especially looking forward to going up there. I can rest in weightlessness for the rest of my life. I thought to work my body hard enough to remember the pain for a long time.”
Ryan smiled as Beth ran up to Ryan. “You wanted to see me?’ she asked.
“Yes, there might be an attack on our airfield in the near future. There is a hydrogen Dewar inside one of the hangars aboard its transport trailer. Can you lift it with the Chinook?”
“I think so,” Beth replied.
“Good. I want you to uncouple the Dewar from the trailer and lift it to a halfway point between the airfield and the crater, fifteen miles out. Find a hole or crater or something. If the airfield or the crater is hit by non-nuclear missiles, at least we will have fuel for one more shuttle into orbit.”
To Jonesy and Max Burgos high above, they couldn’t believe how soft and calm the ride had been up to now. To Jonesy, who always felt like he was sitting inside a mini, the Matt craft seemed still on autopilot. He had positioned the craft to the exact coordinates Commander Joot had told him, and suddenly the craft did its own thing. Now Jonesy was as much a passenger as Max was sitting behind him.
Rather like a fighter jet, the astronauts in the Matt craft sat one behind the other. To Jonesy, the ship he was flying looked like the old British or French Concorde coming into land, but with wings a tenth of the size of the old Concorde’s wings. When Jonesy had first seen the alien craft, he had said that they looked like buzzards, or vultures with their head and neck low. Once past the narrow cockpit, the width of the craft extended out rapidly, making it look like a vulture coming in to land. Both pilots could move into the much larger cargo compartment; rails on each side allowed the flight chairs to be unlocked and slide backward into the rear of the spacecraft one after the other.
The Matt ship had no heat-protective tiles on the underside. The shield was fully extended on full power, and they had come through the hot zone, the area that all human craft had done since the 1950s, without any noticeable heat buildup, even on the area of the shield facing the blue planet. The shield had sliced through the atmosphere as if it wasn’t there.
He really wanted to test his beloved shuttle with a full shield reentry. Once he had done a test, only then would he know if he and his shuttle would survive, and there was only one thing that would help him in his endeavor: altitude.
Without touching the controls, he and Max watched as the ship descended. Like a passenger on an aircraft, he had all the time in the world to look out through the wraparound cockpit window around him, and for the first time in his life, watch as mother Earth came up to greet them.
“There goes the East Coast. Never seen it from this altitude,” Max said through their added suit’s internal radio system. Commander Joot didn’t have radios in his craft until Ryan had installed the portable ones in both craft. Before the radios, Commander Joot spoke telepathically to his copilot, and or to any other Matt listening in. Poor Jonesy and Max didn’t have these capabilities. They were both fully suited up in case they had to escape through the vacuum shield, for example if they impacted the ground incorrectly.
“Sort of in between LEO altitude and twice maximum Gulfstream altitude. Look! I can just see Manhattan. All lit up,” replied Jonesy.
“I’m looking toward Key West,” replied Max. “Can see bright Miami, but the islands below disappear in cloud and just out of sight.”
“Bermuda lights coming over the horizon on our port side, eleven o’clock,” continued Jonesy. “It all looks fake and so peaceful-like through the shield. It is weird that the shield seems to disappear at night. I reckon that this damn cockpit is smaller than an F-16. Maybe we should feed the Matts some good U.S. prime beef to make them grow bigger. Then their next damn cockpit could fit me and a fly instead of just me. It’s like looking out of a dryer’s window.”
“Jonesy, the poor guys are vegetarians, and maybe your parents shouldn’t have made you so tall. I’m fine back here,” Max Burgos replied, smiling and now looking out both sides into dark, black looking ocean ahead and below them.
That night, and with a party of music, beers and a BBQ for the Homo sapiens, the new crewmembers were introduced to Commander Joot and Elder Roo. Bob Mathews and his crew had been asked by Ryan to move a second Dewar to the halfway point, to keep them away from the introduction.
Commander Joot, his one arm around Saturn Jones, bowed in front of a very shocked Joseph Jones, tried out his humor, and told the man in perfect English tha
t he was 197 years old before he had gone to sleep, twice as old as the old man in front of him. He also told him how useless his son Jonesy really was.
Ryan smiled broadly when Jones Senior studied the little brown person for several seconds, then put his hands up to the sky, and smiling, shouted that somebody actually agreed with him about his son.
Jonesy, Maggie said to the others, would have smiled at his father’s and the commander’s antics. Jonesy had now perfected the Matt’s sense of humor. Even Elder Roo smiled at the joke, but still looking wearily in the direction of Maggie, realized that the family of the “Tallest Person” took the ribbing-in with good humor. Maggie, on her third beer, told the audience how her husband would naturally have several insults in return, and then jokingly told the crowd how different Jonesy thought the Matts actually were, all bad of course.
Even to Joanne Dithers, meeting aliens was a complete shock. The newcomers had all heard the old crew speaking in a foreign language, and now knew where it had come from. Dr. Walls was the most excited, and like Dr. Nancy who had prodded and pried VIN’s metal legs years earlier in the ISS, Dr. Walls couldn’t help but want to do the same to the short Matts.
It was the humor and camaraderie between the two races that allowed the newcomers to relax, and several beers of course, except for the Matts, who seemed to enjoy the sweet taste of Coca-Cola. It was the second-to-last night on Earth for many.
“Matt flight at 15,000 feet, resume manual control,” said Commander Joot into Igor’s microphone. The sun had just risen over the horizon to Jonesy and Max, but the sun’s rays hadn’t yet reached the crew inside the crater.
“Roger, I have manual control,” replied Jonesy.
“Think and move the stick to your right. You need to move about 100 feet to your right, ‘Tallest Person,’” Commander Joot added, winking at Igor. Jonesy was after all the tallest Tall Person.
“Right is to starboard, ‘Shortest Person,’” replied Jonesy sarcastically. “How many times must I drum that into your brain?”
The two totally different men had a really good friendship going. Jonesy had managed to bring out the commander’s humor over time, something the commander himself didn’t know he had, until Jonesy had honed it. They had spent hundreds of hours flying together and training each other. Commander Joot could fly a shuttle as well as he could fly his own craft, but Jonesy begged to differ on that statement when the commander made it. Jonesy reckoned that the Matt just didn’t have the sixth sense and feel to fly as he and the other Homo sapien astronauts had. The Matt ships flew ninety percent of the time on autopilot, and the shuttles only about sixty percent. That made a difference in Jonesy’s book.
“You are directly above your landing site. Park my second craft next to my first craft, forty feet from wingtip,” continued Commander Joot.
“As you wish, your most high ranking Commandership!” joked Jonesy and brought the craft in to land as Allen Saunders came over the radio taking over manual control in SB-II over the Cape Verde islands.
The Chinook again took off with Lieutenant Walls, Maggie, Ryan and two other armed men in case of any trouble, even though Captain Pete had said that there was no movement within their territory. The second Dewar and a third load of food, fuel and water had been successfully moved.
“Allen, get ready to extend the shield,” said Maggie over the Chinook’s radio in Matt, once SB-II was stationery on the runway and its chute had been ejected.
The crew aboard the helicopter watched as Bob Mathews and Ryan ran out, picked up the chute lying about 200 feet behind the shuttle, and threw the chute into the Chinook. Beth took off once they were in, as Ryan and Maggie wanted to watch the shield and SB-II fly with the shield extended.
“Thrusters up to 50 percent once the shield is on full power. I’m in the Chinook on your starboard aft if you haven’t seen us. Fly her like you would the Chinook; she will fly about the same. Watch your forward speed; it rises quickly once airborne. Fifty-five percent thrust will get you off the ground. Head up to 4,000 feet and forward speed 250 knots, no more. Fly like you are a toboggan sliding on ice. You need to come over the crater lip, then hover at 4,000 and park in formation with SB-III on your starboard side. There must be 100 feet between wingtips to keep the shields well separated, over.”
“Copy that, lifting off now,” replied Allen.
“Keep her facing the shuttle,” Maggie ordered Beth as she reached the cockpit.
“Aye aye, skipper,” the pilot replied.
The spacecraft suddenly rose quickly off the tarmac as if it was lighter than air. Allen pushed the nose down and exactly like a helicopter, as the thrusters pushed the shuttle upward and forward at the same time. Beth had to turn the helicopter quickly to keep the shuttle in the forward windshield, it moved so quickly and effortlessly past them about 200 feet away and gaining altitude rapidly. Within a minute the shuttle was out of sight.
The Chinook returned to the runway, landed, and the crew got out to inspect the mess of bitumen at the eastern end of the runway. It wasn’t a pretty site, and they took off and headed back to the crater.
Debriefing was interesting that afternoon. Jonesy and Commander Joot ribbed each other that a two-year-old could fly either aircraft, while a weary Mr. and Mrs. Saunders, a tired-looking VIN and Suzi Noble, a fresh-seeming Jonesy sitting next to and holding hands with his wife, Max Burgos, and a quiet Elder Roo were debriefed by Igor and Ryan. All of the old crew attended the meeting, even Kathy Richmond and their two daughters sat with Mars and Saturn. Now with two shuttles on the ground the crew, apart from the craft’s refuelers due to its design, were ready for an immediate evacuation if necessary.
“So Mrs. Jones, what do you believe will happen if the shield is fully retracted while in flight?” Ryan asked.
“I believe the shuttle will drop like a brick, more than the brick it usually is, and could go into an uncontrollable vertical spin,” Maggie replied simply.
“I haven’t been there yet, but very few spins are actually uncontrollable,” replied her husband.
“Agreed,” added Allen Saunders.
“There is just so much the pilot can do to gain nose up, or get wing up with these shuttles, even if in an identical spin to a F-16 horizontal spin,” continued Jonesy as chief astronaut. “I must admit that altitude and an ejector seat are the two most important factors in all spins, but look at what the shuttle has to compensate with; zero potential body or wing break-up due to its extremely strong design, air brakes, rear thrusters that can move your lunch anywhere in your body other than your stomach, undercarriage to help you pull out of a spin, hell, one could even use the rear chute, and or deploy the shield. One could even bounce the shuttle in its little blue ball across the desert like a ping pong ball.”
“I’m sure your shuttle was not meant to bounce on the ground, Mr. Jones,” Elder Roo added, straight-faced. Jonesy hadn’t found the humor bone in Roo yet.
For an hour they deliberated about whether to test the shuttle’s reactions to the shield’s retraction in midair, and they were about to agree to trying it on the next reentry from 75,000 feet when Captain Pete squawked over the radio.
“America One to Desert Control. You might have incoming. Six aircraft, turboprop bombers or transport aircraft, looking to cross the coast into Libya from the north, near Tobruk, in about 20 minutes. I believe them to be Russian. Distance 490 miles from your airfield. Incoming at 370 knots. You have a little more than an hour, over.”
“Roger, copy that,” Ryan replied in Matt. “Have you made radio contact, over?”
“Negative, but they are heading your way, over.” Ryan asked Captain Pete to keep them informed, and ended the briefing. Emergency evacuation went into effect and everyone went their separate ways.
It was growing dark as Captain Pete was heard fifty minutes later, over the radio, warning the aircraft in English that they were about to fly into a restricted area. There was no response.
“Have you their correct r
adio frequency?” Ryan asked, looking over at Igor who was already dialing in the usual radio frequencies the Russian Air Force used. He found one frequency with a pilot speaking a short sentence in Russian. The speaker was within 400 miles of the base, so it had to be the same aircraft.
“Say again, I didn’t copy,” said Igor in Russian over the channel, and the speaker said his initial sentence that his aircraft still had 1,990 kilometers of range, and that the destination was still dead ahead.
“What destination?” asked Ryan, once Igor had translated what had gone over the radio. The Russian shrugged his shoulders.
“Somewhere within 1,200 miles,” he responded.
“Six aircraft heading directly toward your airfield, 20 miles from entering your perimeter,” said Michael Pitt 20 minutes later in English over the same frequency the Russian aircraft were using. America One had already disappeared over the eastern horizon.
“Unidentified aircraft, you are about to enter a restricted area. We have lasers trained on all your aircraft and will fire if you do not respond,” said Igor in Russian. There was no response as the aircraft entered to within 150 miles of the airfield.
“Warn them one more time,” Ryan ordered Igor, and he did. This time he got a response.
“They do not know about this restricted zone. They are Antonov An-12’s, old transport aircraft like the U.S. C-130, and are heading to Kano, Nigeria,” Igor replied.
“Tell them they are in a restricted area, and to change their heading immediately to 270 degrees,” Ryan ordered. Again the answer was the same, and they knew nothing about the new restricted zone.
Ryan, Igor, and Captain Pete had made sure a dozen times that their new restricted area had gone out to all countries around them, and especially to the Americans, Russians and Chinese. Now they were running a bluff; it was dark out there in the desert. What should he do? They were now within 140 miles, and well within missile range.
Over the other radio, he heard The Dead Chicken taxiing for taking off as the Chinook with Bob Mathews and Commander Joot flying returned to the crater. His wife Kathy with Max Burgos and Ryan’s daughters aboard Jonesy’s Gulfstream had minutes earlier taken off for Tel Aviv in Israel. The Dead Chicken, with Beth and her copilot, was heading in that direction as well, and Martin Brusk in Ryan’s jet was already there.