“Sounds awful ambitious, Paul,” said Shilling.
“Reach for the stars, my man. Reach for the stars.”
CHAPTER 23: COMING IN HOT
Office of the Chief Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
September 14, 2019
When Brock’s assistant, Mary Evans, knocked on the open door of her office, her eyes were moist with tears.
Brock leaned her hip against the desk to steady herself, anguish clawing at her insides. Oh, God, she thought. Please don’t say they’re dead.
Evans tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Tears leaked down her cheeks.
And then cheers erupted from down the hall.
Brock looked up and locked eyes with Evans. The assistant nodded and broke into a smile, tears still streaming down her face.
“They found them?” Brock asked.
Evans nodded.
“They’re alive?”
Evans crossed the office and took Brock by the hand. She managed two words. “Come see.”
Down the corridor they ran. As they drew near to Brock’s conference room, the celebration from inside reached ear-splitting levels. At the doorway, Evans stood aside and let go of Brock’s hand. Everyone was so wrapped up in the moment, no one noticed Brock enter.
The wall-mounted monitor, used for videoconferences with NASA’s other centers, was currently showing five split screens. Four of them showed similar scenes of celebration underway. The labels beneath them read A3I-Mayaguana, NASA-JPL, NASA-Goddard and NASA-Houston. On one, Amato was weeping and Dante was hugging members of Mission Control. Similar scenes graced the feeds from the NASA centers.
But Brock’s eyes were glued to the fifth screen, the still image in the center. There, with smiling faces and arms wrapped around each other, were the five crewmembers of the Rorschach Explorer, blue, bald and bedraggled. A caption at the bottom read: CDR-TRE to MAYA-FLIGHT: Need a very…repeat…very…discreet landing zone in eighteen hours, six minutes and twenty seconds. Please advise ASAP. Coming in hot. CDR-TRE out.
“My God,” Brock said. “How is that possible?”
Somehow Amato picked her out amid all the commotion. He looked into the camera on his end and wiped away tears. “I don’t know, Helen, but isn’t it wonderful?”
Late Island
Tonga Island Archipelago
Koro Sea
September 14-15, 2019
Sol Seaker pounded through South Pacific swales as it raced toward Late Island. At top speed, the watercraft could travel at seventy-four kilometers per hour. However, in the heavy seas, it managed only fifty. As a result, Anlon, Pebbles and Jennifer arrived at the remote, uninhabited island sixteen hours after Anlon received Amato’s call.
But they still made it there before the trail of light descended through the black of night and disappeared into the maw of Late’s namesake volcanic crater.
The three companions dove into the island’s offshore waters, waded onto its pristine beaches, and trudged up the volcano’s eighteen-hundred-foot walls aided by flashlights. At sunrise, Jennifer Stevens, the most athletic of the three, crested the volcano’s summit.
She wore her Rorschach Explorer wetsuit in honor of the occasion. The sight that met her was one she would never forget.
Climbing up the slope of the vegetation-covered caldera was the crew of the Rorschach Explorer.
Jennifer’s knees wobbled so much she had to sit. She screamed at the sky, “In your face, Jenna Toffy!”
Pebbles reached the summit just as Jennifer hoisted the last of the crew atop the crumbly caldera. She nearly fell over when saw the blue astronauts. Eyeing the lot of them suspiciously, she said, “See…this is what happens when you steal aliens’ everlasting gobstoppers!”
Anlon didn’t quite make it to the top. A hundred feet below the caldera summit, he lowered himself onto a rock and watched the celebration above with a huge smile on his face.
Amato’s private jet flew straight to Fiji, stopping to refuel only once. From there its passengers — Amato, Dante and Pritchard — switched over to a Fiji-based seaplane, arranged for by Mark Myers, which took them to Late Island. The plane touched down on the waters surrounding the island at noon, four hours after the Rorschach crew boarded Sol Seaker.
Anlon dispatched his yacht’s dinghy to retrieve the three men. As the dinghy pulled alongside the seaplane’s open door. Pebbles spied Amato and shouted, “Ahoy, matey!”
Amato recalled Pebbles’ greeting from their first meeting over a year ago. He cupped his hands and shouted back, “Permission to come aboard?”
“Permission granted,” Pebbles answered.
A short while later, the dinghy docked in its hold at Sol Seaker’s stern. As it was secured to its moorings, the crew of the Rorschach Explorer descended from mid-deck to meet the disembarking passengers. Anlon and Jennifer watched the reunion from the yacht’s upper deck.
Amato buried his head in Skywalker’s chest and wept. To the shock of the others, Dante embraced Kiera so passionately, they fell overboard into the water. Pritchard raced up the superyacht’s steps and tackled Carillo, Shilling and Ajay.
Morgan whispered into Amato’s ear. “Got a surprise for you.”
From the pocket of his flight suit, he pulled out a photograph and handed it to Amato. It showed the three Cetus Prime astronauts and their first-born children in the Tulan meadow.
Amato gaped at it, then looked up at Rorschach’s commander.
Morgan nodded and pointed at each of the children, naming them as he moved his finger. He then pulled out a second photo. “This is what John and Sarah look like all grown up. And this little scamp is Annie. She can really talk your ear off.”
Amato took the photo and lowered himself onto a step. “They’re alive? You’ve seen them?”
“These three, yes. They’ll be here soon. They have to go through the blue wash like us so they don’t get or give any ick.”
“What about Avery, Christine and Nick?”
“Nick didn’t make it, I’m sorry to say. It was a tough end for him, but he was damn heroic to the last. I’ll tell you all about it, but this isn’t the time.”
“Of course,” Amato said. “And Avery and Christine?”
“As far as I know, they’re still alive. A very, very long way from here.”
Tears in his eyes, Amato beamed at the photos as if the family was kin.
Owing to the sixteen-hour time difference between Fiji and America’s east coast, the first photograph of the reunion to hit the Internet was posted at 9:36 p.m. EDT the day before the Rorschach crew returned to Earth.
It showed the nineteen people aboard Sol Seaker, including the ship’s hands, huddled together at the stern, with the Koro Sea in the background.
Augustus Amato had ordered the addition of a caption at the bottom:
See what happens when we believe in one another.
Launch apron
A3rospace Industries Command and Control Center
September 20, 2019
Five days later, a Suhkai cruiser landed on the launch apron at A3I’s Mayaguana complex, and Augustus Amato invited the one hundred forty-six employees staffing the center to join him on the tarmac to marvel at it. Cell phone cameras snapped group photos and selfies. Others recorded videos or live-streamed the festivities. The media was on hand, too, but segregated behind a rope line in Hangar-1.
The ship, donated by the Suhkai to Amato to compensate for the damage inflicted on the Rorschach Explorer, would play a pivotal role in the months to come. It would shuttle representatives from Earth to Ethel to meet with the Suhkai and BLUMO queen and begin the hard work of selecting the first group of humans to join the Reed-Baker-Lockett colony on Tula. It would ferry the first astronauts from the world’s space agencies to begin rotations on the Suhkai base on Callisto. And it would lead a team of Earth’s foremost scientists to the Suhkai base on Dione to engage in studies of the unstable magnetar, with
the aim of preventing its eruption.
But today, the Suhkai vessel would perform the most important of its tasks.
A boarding ramp was wheeled into place at the ship’s airlock, and a red carpet was unrolled from the base of the ramp to a group of waiting guests. The airlock door opened, and a military honor guard began its silent march down the red carpet and into the alien ship. Moments later they reemerged carrying a cylindrical container draped with an American flag. Following behind them were four blue and bald people. First came Sarah Baker-Reed, then John Baker-Lockett, and finally Paul Morgan carrying Annie Reed.
The waiting guests — the extended families of the Cetus Prime astronauts — wept as the last remains of Captain Nick Reed were escorted down the carpet. Their tears reflected a mix of emotions. For while there was sadness at Nick’s loss, there was also joy in the greeting of the crew’s Tulan offspring, the relief that comes from closure, and prideful respect for the burdens and sacrifices borne by Nick, Avery and Christine.
Behind the astronauts’ families were the rest of the crew of the Rorschach Explorer and their families, as well as the surviving members of the Cetus Prime mission control team. The honor guard briefly halted in front of Nick Reed’s eighty-eight-year-old mother. Steadied by Nick’s brothers, Michelle Reed leaned over and kissed the flag-covered casket. She whispered words of love, telling her son she was proud of him and that now it was time for him to rest.
As the honor guard recommenced its march to a waiting hearse, the sea of family and friends parted to make way, each of them touching the casket as it passed by. The immediate family members broke away to embrace the Tulan children.
Paul Morgan stepped aside and went to join his crew.
Julia Carillo, standing with her husband and two children, saw him coming. “I hear from Ajay we have confirmation of your body art.”
Morgan laughed and clutched his chest. “How could you do me like that, Elroy? After all we’ve been through.”
Flanked by his parents, Ajay moved an imaginary zipper across his mouth. “I said nothing.”
“Uh-huh.”
Standing nearby, Kiera Walsh held hands with Dante Fulton, both of them talking with Robert Shilling. Shilling had his arm wrapped around his wife’s waist, and his two shy children hid behind his legs.
“So, what’s next for you?” Kiera asked.
Shilling squeezed his wife closer. “We’ve got some catching up to do. After that, it’s back to the NASA grind. Might even write a book about our trip.”
Kiera cringed. “Be kind to me in it, please.” She turned to Shilling’s wife. “I was kind of a B-I-T-you-know-what for most of it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shilling said.
Kiera smiled. “How many mai tais have you had this morning?”
Ajay interrupted to introduce his parents to Dr. Shilling. While his father quizzed the researcher about UMOs, Ajay motioned Kiera and Dante to join him a discreet distance away from the Shillings and Joshis.
“I thought of some new names last night,” he whispered. “How about Rory if it’s a boy? You know, for the Rorschach Explorer, or Cali — for Callisto — if it’s a girl?”
Kiera shook her head and patted her tummy. “You’re going to make the next nine months weird, aren’t you?”
“Roger dodger.” Ajay smiled. Turning serious, he cupped his hand around his mouth and softly said, “If you don’t like Rory, how about Tiberius?”
“What? I’m not naming our child Tiberius!”
“Hey, it’s my child too,” Ajay whispered.
Kiera leaned in and whispered back, “Look, when Dante and I get back from our vacation, you and I will talk names. Until then, zip it.”
Morgan overheard the exchange and chuckled.
He spotted Amato standing alone by the Suhkai cruiser, looking up at the spacecraft like a child on Christmas morning. Morgan walked over and joined him. “Pretty impressive, huh?”
Amato nodded. “Buck Rogers would be jealous.”
“I was talking with Haula yesterday. He said he’s certain they can modify their propulsion system for RE2. We’ll have to redesign the cargo bay to make room for the fuel cells, but Dante said he’s got some options already on the drawing board.”
“Wouldn’t that be something.” Amato waved his cane like a magic wand. “From here to Saturn in the time it takes me to drive from Orlando to West Palm.”
They walked back through the hangar, waving and smiling for the media as they passed, and upstairs to Amato’s office. When they were seated at Amato’s conference table, Morgan looked up at one of the Rorschach Explorer paintings. “It was a helluva ship, Augie. It endured a lot of abuse but never quit on us.”
“I’m thankful for that, but I’m also angry at myself for putting you and the crew through that abuse. I should never have pushed up the launch. I won’t make that mistake again. I promise you.”
Morgan shrugged. “I wouldn’t beat yourself up over it. If we’d launched on schedule, things would have turned out a whole lot worse. Nick would have already come and gone in Ethel. We would never have met the Suhkai. They would have scuttled their refineries on Callisto and Dione. Hell, we wouldn’t have known about the Dione facility at all. We would be clueless about the magnetar, about Tula, the children. We wouldn’t know what happened to Avery, Christine and Nick. And to top it off, I wouldn’t have gotten to know what I look like blue and bald. All in all, things worked out okay.”
Both men shared a good laugh.
Amato then said soberly, “Do you think it’s possible, Paul? Can we prevent it from happening?”
“I don’t know, but I know I’m going to give it my all. With help from the BLUMO Cytons and the Suhkai, we’ll have as good a chance as we possibly could…so long as we don’t dally and don’t let fear paralyze us.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it? Two years there, two years back…and who knows how long while you’re there. Under the best of circumstances, you’ll be seventy by the time you return.”
“Beats flipping burgers for tourists. Besides, Dennis has the tougher job ahead. He’s gonna have his hands full running the colonization selection committee.”
“He’ll do a splendid job,” Amato said. “He’s a master politician.”
“Yeah, well, he’s gonna need every last bit of his patience dealing with the Suhkai. They’re very opinionated.”
A knock sounded on the door, and Mark Myers poked his head in. “It’s time, Mr. Amato.”
“Very well, let’s get it over with.”
Myers walked in and placed a folded black-and-gold flight suit on the table in front of Amato.
“Excited?” Morgan said.
“Scared to death.”
“Ah, don’t worry, Augie. I asked them to take it easy on you during the ascent.”
“Will you come with me?” Amato asked. “I’d feel a lot less nervous with Skywalker by my side.”
“Thought you’d never ask.” Morgan smiled. “One round trip around Jupiter, coming up.”
EPILOGUE
Colonel Paul Morgan’s residence
Hanalei, Kauai, Hawaiian Islands
October 1, 2019
Paul Morgan stood over the hot grill and tended to the patties. A few yards away, a barefoot Annie burst through the lush foliage giggling and screaming as the two children of his next-door neighbor chased her. Her feet were caked with red clay.
Next to him sat Sarah on a chaise lounge, an infant in her arms, and Ajay was explaining the baby’s heritage to Morgan’s brother, Jason. “So you see, she’s the first Tulan to be born on Earth to a mother who was the first Tulan to be created by Earth parents.”
With everybody’s skin back to normal, and hair regrowing, the backyard barbecue had the feel of a family picnic.
Earlier, before firing up the grill, Morgan had gathered the Tulan children on the Kauai beach down the road from his home, and they’d filmed a video message to Avery and Christine. A
jay had sent it via his laptop to Mayaguana, where Norris Preston relayed it, by way of A3I’s satellite, to Ethel parked on Callisto, where the Suhkai, in turn, aimed the ship’s antenna toward Tula and broadcast the file. It would take eleven years to reach Avery and Christine. And a mere nine months after that, Ethel would arrive bearing their children, the children’s new guardian Ajay, and a village of human colonists.
It made Morgan sad to realize he’d never see their reply, or live long enough to know whether Ethel made it to Tula. But he would be at peace as he went on to do battle with a magnetar. He hadn’t brought his astronauts home as he’d hoped, but he felt comfort in knowing that the effort to find them had not come up empty.
Roger that.
Set of Jenna Toffy Live
World Network News Studios
New York, New York
March 11, 2020
Kiera sat on the sofa opposite Jenna Toffy and adjusted the bow on her maternity dress as the two chatted about the Rorschach Explorer’s harrowing adventures.
For many of the viewers tuning in to watch the interview, Kiera was a heroic figure. She had been painted as a lightweight prior to — and during — the mission, but the details that had emerged in the months after returning to Earth had made it clear that she was anything but. Jenna Toffy asked her if, in retrospect, she had anything to say to her critics.
“You were called a hothead, a thumb-sucker, a washout,” Toffy said.
“Don’t forget a misfit, beaks and talons, and I’m pretty sure at least one person called me a bitch,” Kiera said with a smile.
“Yes, I do believe there were some other unflattering names as well. So what would you like to say to those skeptics now?”
Magwave (The Rorschach Explorer Missions Book 2) Page 32