Chapter 1

Iraq

Victor Isaac Noble, or Lieutenant VIN as his men called him, was a million miles away from the U.S. space race when the Humvee he was hitching a ride in back to Baghdad exploded around him.

He was returning from a couple of months in the desert west-northwest of Baghdad, tracking known Iranian insurgents; their mission was to transport IED-making equipment for pro-Iranian explosive experts who would lay waste to U.S. military vehicles on the major highways around the capital city.

VIN, a lieutenant with the United States Marine Corps, Force Reconnaissance, or Force Recon for short, was in charge of a five-man team searching a large desolate area of desert around a small Iraqi town called Balad Ruz. The dusty desert town was northwest of Baghdad with direct road access to the Iranian border.

At twenty-six, he was a young man like all the team members around him, and stood exactly six feet tall. His parents—his father of English and his mother of Irish descent—hailed from New Jersey, over the river from Manhattan. VIN’s brown hair was from his father’s side of the family. His slightly darker skin tone and bright blue eyes came from his mother’s side, as did his Irish build: strong, broad and muscular, as she told him the Irish were.

He and his men were camouflaged by night atop a dark rocky ridge waiting for any movement from the direction of Iran. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but they could just hear the sound of truck engines echoing faintly down the valley in front of them. They knew that several high-ranking Iraqi officers, who might have ties to the Iranians over the border, were native to the surrounding area.

The year was 2010. U.S. forces were beginning to leave Iraq and several politicians in Iraq and the neighboring countries wanted to expedite the Americans’ departure.

During the several weeks Lieutenant Noble and his men had spent in the area, they had noticed tracks of American-made tires coming across the desolate hilly border westwards under the cover of darkness every eight days. They believed the trucks were loaded with explosives.

Several hundred feet below them on the narrow valley floor, two unmarked desert-camouflaged five-ton American M939 gun trucks slowly negotiated their way along the rough and dusty fifteen-mile stretch of dirt road from the border toward Balad Ruz. The trucks were preceding without lights, the drivers using night vision goggles, or NVGs.

“Should we take them out here?” whispered his second-in-command next to him.

“No, we need to keep them in sight and find out where they are going. If we are lucky we can take them out on the next trip, or on their way home,” Lieutenant Noble replied. “The UAV can do the work for us and track the trucks, but I think it’s possible to get more information from live prisoners at their destination before we take them out.”

Lieutenant Noble continued to watch the slow-moving vehicles through his NVGs while his second in command texted on his secure radio, sending the trucks’ coordinates to the ever-present UAV, an unmanned MQ-1 Predator drone several miles to their south and 20,000 feet above them.

For the next hour the drone, which had computed the information, had moved north to position the trucks on its night-vision video feed, and to monitor where the vehicles were heading.

An hour before dawn the slow moving trucks entered the small town of Balad Ruz and within minutes had disappeared into one of the larger buildings in the center of town. The UAV’s live feed was being seen by VIN, his men and his commander back at base, through their secure video displays. The building was marked and they headed back five miles toward town.

It was dawn by the time they reached the outskirts of the town. VIN and his desert team were already dressed in attire to make them look like local villagers, and it was easy to walk through the dirty streets of the town. If the townsfolk were up and about, very few would notice or talk to strangers.

When they had entered the area four weeks earlier, Force Recon had this team up with three camels to carry their long-range supplies, which they now led through the streets. Unbeknownst to the last camel, it carried enough explosives to blow the group to bits.

The town was quiet as the men walked through the slowly awakening streets. Like a cowboy movie, they were silhouetted by the sun rising over the horizon; they were looking for the building they had seen on their communicator’s live feed. The team had walked through the same town three times in the last couple of weeks and hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary.

Within minutes they found the building, a shabby car repair shop with a door big enough to allow the military trucks through. Lieutenant Noble noticed two men hanging around and talking outside the front of the building’s closed door, and they passed by, hardly looking in that direction.

Lieutenant Noble, with a small video cam hidden in his cloth headdress, sent more live feed to the drone as he walked the first camel past the two men. Sergeant Bradley, the team’s second in command, took waypoints for the location of the building on his communication device held underneath his robes as he led the second camel with his other hand.

They stopped for water at the well and an hour later left town at the western edge to go back into the hills. Hopefully the two men they passed had not noticed anything out of place.

“How do you want to take out the building?” texted VIN several hours later, once they had hidden themselves in a cave. It was time for their daily report.

“How far are the closest locals’ houses from the target?” texted back Colonel Mike Jackson from central headquarters in Baghdad. The colonel had seen everything through the “eyes” of the drone, but needed more information before making a decision.

“Just one street, twenty feet wide,” came the reply.

“Too close for comfort. I think it’s better if you guys go in and dismantle the factory after dark. I would prefer a captive from the transport vehicles, but I think that the men inside the building could know as much as the drivers. I suspect they and the drivers are from the other side of the border. You take care of the building tonight and the guy above you can take out the trucks. I will send a team chopper in once the vehicles are dealt with. Get some rest and plan to go in an hour after the trucks leave. The trucks certainly won’t leave before nightfall, and we can take them out at around the same time you go in. Get in close after dark and I’ll call you when they leave.”

“Roger that,” texted VIN, shutting his communicator’s protective lid and working his way back into the coolness of the cave to get some sleep.

By midnight the team of six had moved closer to the outskirts of the town; they were now dressed in their usual U.S. military desert camouflage with backpacks full of the explosives and ammo the camel had been happy to be relieved of a couple of hours earlier.

The night was dark, and a sliver of a crescent moon gave them just enough light on the rocks and sand to backtrack their way into town without night goggles. The goggles narrowed their surrounding vision too much. The buildings were dark, and there was only the noise of a couple of barking dogs in the distance as they neared. Then they waited for the confirmation that the trucks had left.

As they were several feet higher than the nearest buildings half a mile away, they could just hear the trucks grind gears as they slowly moved down the streets toward the east. The echoes of the moving vehicles could be faintly heard over the chorus of the dozen or more dogs which now heralded their departure. On time, the message arrived from the drone looking down at them.

With the dogs now alert and noisy, they quickly entered town as the trucks left, set up position behind the car repair shop, and crowded into a dark shadow behind a small outer building. The men realized by the smell that it was an outhouse and the area in front of the structure lit up as someone stepped outside from the car repair shop’s back door to use it.

With the door still slightly ajar, the last thing the user of the outhouse saw was a dark shape and the sput and flash of a suppressed weapon as it blew his head off. The remains of the dead man slumped over in an awkward and embarrassing position.

Lieutenant Noble waited behind the rear wall of the outhouse for a few minutes to allow the trucks to get away from the town and then over the first crest of the terrain a mile away. Even though it was not the most pleasant of places, the outhouse kept their human smells masked from any dogs around them. Gradually the noise of the animals decreased to just one or two barking in the distance.

After several minutes a second man exited, perhaps to use the outhouse or find out where his colleague was. This was the man VIN Noble hoped would be easy to take with them. As the man opened the door to the dark interior of the smelly wooden room, he felt a severe and sharp pain atop his head, and then nothing more.

“Joey, Pete, you guys get this guy back to the cave. The four of us will take care of the rest,” whispered the lieutenant to two of his men. “If we aren’t back by midday, call up transport and get back to base.”

The two men nodded, one lifting the unconscious man up over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and they silently padded out of town.

Ten minutes later, and with no more men coming out of the slightly ajar door, VIN went silently forward. He tried to peer through the small slit, and even opened it a few inches only to see that his view of the interior of the badly-lit building was interrupted by a solid four-foot wall of old boxes and pieces of wood haphazardly thrown near the rear door. The pile was about to fall over. What he managed to read on the pieces of wood and the odd carton interested him; it seemed to be written in Russian.

On the other side of the boxes he could hear several voices talking to each other, and he motioned for the men to ready their pistols with suppressors; three of them crept through the door while the fourth man was ordered to stay outside and cover their backs.

Slowly the lieutenant rose to a crouch but kept his upper body below the line of trash so that he wouldn’t be seen. There was laughter from the other side, and so far he had heard several different voices.

Inch by inch he rose until a slit between two wooden planks gave him a view. He could see more than half a dozen men working at tables with piles of what looked like white plastic explosives and detonators. All of the men wore local dress, but one sounded and looked different. He was in the middle, taller than the rest, and was showing one of the locals how to put together a suicide vest. The lieutenant couldn’t see more, but he already realized that with the most recent shipment, if the drone had taken out this building, there were enough explosives in it to blow up half the town.

He made the easy decision not to harm the surrounding civilians and knelt down to signal the two men on his left. With hand signals he motioned that when he rose to fire, the smallest man in the group, Sergeant Bradley, was to roll out from behind the wall into the open room and fire. Corporal Gibbs, his third in command, would stand up with VIN and shoot from the left side inward. He showed them with more signs that a tall man in the middle would be his target and that VIN wanted him alive. VIN would wound the man and then work from him across the right side of the group. They nodded and he counted down with three of his fingers.

VIN and Gibbs stood up, their six-foot-tall frames visible above the wall; Sergeant Bradley rolled out on the side.

The taller man in the middle of the group, noticing movement from the back door area, looked up as a bullet sliced through his right arm. For a split second Noble noticed the man’s piercing pale blue eyes as his own eyes moved along the line of men, his silenced handgun searching and hitting new targets next to the man with the blue eyes.

Suddenly there were loud screams as silenced bullets erupted from all three weapons. Bradley, who had rolled out, shouted a warning. “Three hostages sitting in front of you!” as he fired at anybody moving. One of his shots hit the tall man in the left arm as he was trying to grab a machine pistol lying on the table in front of him; his arm went limp.

Lieutenant Noble, suddenly hearing shouts from an office at the front, looked farther into the building and saw more bodies moving. He shot three of them, and his side was complete as he turned his gun turned toward the office window and fired. The last man in a line of three slumped to the floor as the glass exploded into thousands of pieces.

Within seconds it was all over, and the two tall Marines ran around the debris and into the large open room, about a thousand square feet.

“Men escaping out the front door! Gibbs, guard this room! Bradley, move toward the front! I want those men!”

VIN and Sergeant Bradley reached the office within seconds; the enemy had not fired a shot. The side door to the building was open as they entered the office. Bradley, a few feet in front of VIN, swiftly fired a round into the groaning man’s leg, and rolled out the outer door into the night. There was no retaliation, but he saw two dark shapes heading down the road toward the east.

“The drone should keep them in sight; they are out of range,” he explained to VIN as the lieutenant caught up with him a second later.

“Text the drone a message,” replied VIN. “We should get back inside. I don’t think we have awakened many people yet. Let’s take stock.” They reentered the building through the brightly lit door, pulling it closed behind them.

Within minutes of the initiation of the attack, the drone directed its thermal imaging camera onto the eastern edge of the town and found what it was looking for: two human shapes running quickly in the same direction the trucks had gone earlier, toward the border.

Inside was a mess. There was blood everywhere as both men reloaded with fresh magazines. Corporal Gibbs had already done so and was crouched in a corner, ready to shoot anybody that moved. He was told to cover the room while they frisked the injured man in the office. The man wore the robes of a local and had died by the time they finished checking him over. Both men then looked around the small office, saw nothing of interest, and moved back to the main room.

Bradley had aimed well; the three men to the left of the tall man had most of their skulls in pieces on the bloody floor. So did the three men the lieutenant had shot. There were another two bodies on the floor on the other side of the table, near the back door where Gibbs had rolled and shot them the same way. The tall man lay on the ground groaning, probably in shock and, apart from three bound and hooded people still fidgeting on chairs close to the pile of bodies, the room was still.

VIN took stock of the three hooded and tied individuals sitting in front of him. One was dressed in bloody U.S. camouflage and seemed female. The other two wore local dress and also looked like women. He walked over and undid the black cloth covering the camouflaged girl and saw what he expected when he removed the hood.

The poor girl’s face was badly beaten, and she was semiconscious. Her head drooped but she was alive.

“Victor November to base, we have an American captive injured here, request immediate medevac and backup. The cat is out of the bag and the factory is secure apart from two enemy males heading east. Town is quiet so far,” he texted into his comm. “Have three females and one prisoner, job is done. Request transportation from our base location for two men and one prisoner, and immediate transport here in town for eight.”

“Inbound to both locations in 60 seconds,” a reply appeared on his handheld, and he looked at the girl. Half of her uniform was missing, and the rest was darkened by dried blood. Sergeant Bradley knelt in front of her and gave her first aid.

Lieutenant Noble then removed the hoods from the other two girls and found two local teenagers, fully dressed, unmarked, alive, and very scared.

A few seconds later and three miles away, two trucks exploded and lit up the surrounding desert as missiles from the drone ended their useful lives. The two men running as fast as they could two miles behind the trucks had several seconds of life more, seeing the eastern horizon light up with pretty colors as a third missile turned them into nothing more than a hot drizzle in the desert breeze.

If the townsfolk heard any noises from the building or the explosions to the east of the city, nobody came out to see what was happening. The dogs suddenly went quiet, as if on orders, and everybody stayed where they were.

The Americans were in town.

As promised, thirty seconds later rotor blades could be heard approaching from the west, and three large twin-Rotor Sea Knights landed a few hundred yards away. Sergeant Gibbs let off a flare above the building to show where they were. It wasn’t necessary because the inbound chopper pilots already had plans of the town from the drone, with the actual building marked.

VIN continued to medicate and bandage his prisoner; the man was now unconscious and had lost a lot of blood. Within minutes a platoon of Marines met up with the fourth team member still outside the back door and entered, followed by medics and stretcher bearers.

“Wow!” said the Marine captain in charge of the incoming troops. “Lieutenant, you have enough stuff here to start a good Fourth of July fireworks show.”

“You are right there, sir,” replied Noble standing up. “Medics, the American girl and this tall prisoner here first! They need immediate treatment. Get them aboard ASAP. Captain, you are taking over, I hope?”

“Roger. You are all heading back to base, Lieutenant. Get your men onto the choppers. Well done.”

Three hours later, with a hot mug of strong coffee, VIN entered the debriefing room back at their forward desert base 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Major Roberts, his company commander, was in charge of the team’s debriefing, reporting directly to Colonel Jackson in Baghdad.

For an hour each man in the team gave a report on what happened, what they observed, and any possible collateral damage due to their actions. The reports were good; the lieutenant had done well. No losses, military or civilian were due to any of his actions and the summary was then augmented from other reports, for example from the three former hostages who were being debriefed.

The American girl, a sergeant from a U.S. military transport company, had disappeared from a convoy heading north on the main Basra-Baghdad highway several days earlier. She was in good shape, apart from her beatings. No bones were broken and she had already reported that the intentions of the bomb-makers were to strap a suicide device on her, under her combat fatigues, and then drop her close to the Green Zone in Baghdad. A timer on the explosive device would trigger it to explode after she was released. It looked like the bad guys were hoping she would be picked up and taken into the densely populated area where they would detonate her device.

The two girls had been kidnapped from the neighboring village and were to be dropped off in other parts of Baghdad with suicide bombs under their clothing; the plan was for all three bombs to cause problems for the exiting army. The bomb makers didn’t seem to care about the lives of the local girls, or whether they actually wanted to participate.

The report on the tall captive was that he was of Russian origin. He had several Russian prison tattoos on his body and his picture had already been wired to the CIA, Interpol and the FBI. It came back as a positive match to a Gregory Sanotovich, a master bomb maker who was on loan from a branch of the Russian military. He had been connected to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and one of the underground train bombings in London a couple of years earlier. He was a good catch and would be taken back to Baghdad and finally sent to the U.S.

Unfortunately, the man they caught in the outhouse was Iraqi, not Iranian, and the interrogators believed him to be a member of the new Iraqi Baghdad police force. He would also be escorted back to Baghdad. Papers found scattered around the two missile attack sites did produce badly burnt Iranian cigarettes packs, coins, and part of an Iranian military fuel ID card, but the names and any other important information were demolished in the blasts.

“Noble, your current tour is coming to an end. The Russian is flying back by chopper tonight, they want him back immediately. The second prisoner’s return trip can be put off for a day or two. If you want, you can escort the prisoner back to Baghdad and then head stateside. What do you think?”

“That sounds fine, sir,” VIN replied, and several hours later he was on his way back to HQ in a Humvee.

The explosion was hot and it hurt badly. Time dragged and any movement seemed to be happening in slow motion. He felt the seat beneath him lift him up and toss him around like a roller coaster.

The Humvee’s left front tire had detonated the IED, and Lieutenant Noble was lucky that he was sitting in the right rear seat; his upper body was protected by the prisoner who was between him and the explosion. He felt like the whole vehicle was airborne for a few seconds. His legs suddenly hurt like hell. Just before he felt and heard the vehicle crash down on its roof, he thought how ironic it was that he had helped disarm hundreds of these roadside bombs, and then one got him. Then, peace came, as his head hit the roof, knocking him out.

VIN was suddenly back in the car repair shop he had attacked with his men in the town. He watched in shock as the men he had killed suddenly came alive over and over again. They rose from the bloody floor, pointed their fingers and laughed at him. They laughed hard and loud, until his befuddled brain realized that their laughing sounded like a beep and not a human laugh. A beeping monitor, something he had heard before, sometime a long time ago, in an intensive care ward of a hospital.

The beeping sounds he heard, three different ones, slowly brought him back to consciousness. He tried to move but seemed pinned in the bed. The light on the other side of his closed eyelids was extremely bright; he tried to open one eye slightly and peek outside. Somebody must have noticed his eyelid twitch as he heard a female voice.

“Captain, I think he’s coming around.”

“Lieutenant Noble, can you hear me? Move a finger, or try to nod if you can hear me,” added a second female voice.

He tried to open an eye, but it was too heavy. So he tried to move an arm. That also felt too heavy, so he tried to move the smallest part of his body he could think of, a pinky finger, and that got a response.

“Well done,” he heard the second voice say. “Now move the little finger on your other hand for me.” He tried hard and he felt it move.

“Well done, Marine! I’m going to put you back to sleep. Just relax, you are off duty,” was all he heard until the building with the laughing dead men returned to taunt him.

Chapter 2

The Private Space Race

Ryan Richmond was a successful man in his early forties. At seventeen he started his first business, a mail-order company, with a $1,500 loan from his father after convincing him that his idea was a good one. He grew up in a strict family. His father was a sedate but successful car salesman, his mother a computer software designer, and the real brains of the marriage.

Both parents were quiet thinkers and Ryan grew up to be the same. He learned always to be extremely polite, say “yes sir,” “no ma’am,” and tell people only what was necessary. His father often said that the only way to sell a car was to say one word—yes—to everything the customer asked.

His parents, tall and slim and both over six feet, spent most weekends at home enjoying their free time reading books and weeklies. This gave Ryan the opportunity to read his space engineering and computer magazines.

One weekend he saw an advertisement for bright red women’s underwear in one of his computer magazines. It was actually the first time he had ever seen a scantily dressed pretty girl. The pictures depicted smiling half-naked women strutting around in their underwear. For the first time in his life his business mind began operating. What girls could refuse to look so nice underneath their dresses? His first business deal broke the surface of his non-stop mind.

It was quite a shock when Ryan asked his father for a loan for his first business venture, sexy ladies’ underwear of all things. But after seeing the interesting underwear in the magazine Ryan showed him, he smiled, wishing he had found the same opportunity when he was a kid.

Ryan sold the sexy lady’s underwear advertised by a British-based company through their own small catalog. Every piece of lingerie, small panties and bikini bottoms was in Ferrari red, as the company called it. After Ryan did the math and realized that bulk orders of fifty sets of the same item had a price reduction of seventy percent, he doubled the price and sold cheap. He also made a few cents on shipping and handling, setting up a UPS account.

The young man enjoyed his first business. Who wouldn’t? It wasn’t that he was a pervert but the business was colorful, exciting, and it seemed the ladies loved his wares. He wasn’t really a ladies’ man. He had very little interest in the opposite sex. Even at eighteen, he just considered them to be nice, pretty, interesting individuals to talk to, and he was sure one would just arrive out of the blue one day and want to be married to him. Ryan was uneducated in the opposite sex department.

After his third Valentine’s Day, having added a second line of edible chocolate underwear, he was doing tens of thousands of dollars of business each week, and was offered $200,000 for the business by his largest customer, the owner of a local hotel chain. By then he had graduated from high school and had started in his first year of an engineering degree at the university closest to his home, so that he could study and run his company. He sold out.

A slender young man with brown hair, brown eyes and fair skin, Ryan was tall, at two inches over six feet. Thick glasses always made him look studious. At nineteen, and having already repaid the initial loan to his father a couple of times over just to show his gratitude, he had $200,000 in the bank.

During his first year at the university he often sat in on lectures by visiting scientists from around the world. One of these scientists, a 29-year-old Russian man named Boris, was one of the young, fresh brains who had worked for the Russian Space Authority. Unfortunately he was now unemployed, as he had lost just his job a few months earlier. Ryan enjoyed talking to this man.

Boris had been brought over by the university to lecture on the Russian program and ideas for the future. He was extremely educated in the field of space travel, and after listening to his third lecture by this man, Ryan asked Boris if he could afford to employ him to discuss his own future designs.

Boris was desperate to live in the U.S., and readily agreed if Ryan could arrange a visa so he could stay. Boris also told Ryan of two other young men worth hiring, both single, who would do anything to get to the U.S. They would all work for peanuts.

Several weeks later, with legitimate three-year HB-1 work permits, the three Russian scientists flew into JFK airport.

Ryan formed Astermine, Inc. a space mining research company so that he could have a company to offer the work permits. Astermine, Inc. was based in an unused and empty corner shop a few blocks from the house where he still lived with his parents. There were a few rooms upstairs above the shop, and the happy three scientists moved in and spent a lot of time with Ryan brainstorming about future space travel.

As these men began research projects at Astermine, Inc., Ryan, still in his second year of university studies, started a computer software production company in the garage of his large newly purchased brownstone close to the university. Ryan’s clever mother was the initiator of this idea; she understood the direction the new computer industry was heading and what the new industry would need.

Three years later, once the Russians received their permanent resident green cards, Ryan moved Astermine, Inc. and its five employees to California. The team now included a fourth Russian computer genius and an American friend of Ryan’s from university.

Ryan received his own Ph.D. at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in Los Angeles, California two years later. By the time he received his doctorate, the company was moving into its own newly constructed building in Silicon Valley. The company had grown to 100 employees, and was projected by Forbes magazine to double its workforce every month for the foreseeable future. His four Russian scientists were still with him and he had purchased a large house close by for him and his team to enjoy life.

A year after he and his company developed into a profitable venture, they were beginning to control a large share of the personal computer market. His mother, who was a fifty-fifty partner in the business, offered him a substantial sum to take over his company. They were making a lot of money and his space hobby, as she called it, took him away from running the computer business. Ryan allowed her to take the reins—for a couple million dollars and a dinner to celebrate.

He then began to look at the new and emerging internet. All the while, Ryan Richmond spent his free time with the Russian team. Not only did they stay with him, they championed the passion he indulged in, drawing and designing craft to fly into space.

During that same year he and two university friends raised enough capital to set up an internet search company and went through millions of dollars of Ryan’s money before the new company made its first penny.

At the age of thirty-two, he again was bought out, this time by his two friends, and Ryan decided to explore new ideas. He still hadn’t found love, but had learned about the female species after his first Russian female scientist arrived from St. Petersburg, Russia to join the team. She was a very pretty Russian blonde who had the largest eyes he had ever seen on a girl. That was not the only part of her anatomy that was large, and Ryan learned the delights a girl could offer.

It lasted all of five years before she decided to return to Russia because her mother was sick and needed a caretaker.

A couple of years before she left, he had increased his team again by employing three of the best European aerospace designers and a couple of knowledgeable scientists in different fields of biology and physics.

After the sale of the internet search company he was able to employ several of the best brains at NASA to grow his team even more. They had been terminated suddenly and without warning for some political reason, and Ryan, now wealthy, scooped them up on a ten-year contract.

Now, he ran Astermine, Inc. from a single three-story building in Silicon Valley close to where he and his Russian friends lived. Often, on Saturdays, when other business was quiet, he held long meetings with his employees, going over new plans, drawings, ideas and costs for each kind of engine, fuel, part or panel needed for space flight.

A year later he had founded his fourth company: the first internet bartering company. This generated many more millions when he sold it within twenty-four months, and from this day on he only invested his money into emerging internet companies in early stages of growth.

For the next few years, he used his newly acquired wealth to get in early on new companies—Google, EBay and PayPal were three of them—and his investments soared.

Ryan had been avidly interested in space exploration ever since he could remember. Even as a small boy, he watched any television show focused on space travel and exploration by small silver rockets, and then large spacecraft which flew at warp speed all over the universe, “To boldly go where no man had gone before!”

As a student at USC he spent spare hours auditing lectures in the aerospace department, taking notes of the best achievers in the classes. It was not his forte, but it fueled his fantasy for space exploration. Ryan studied the new Space Shuttle program and attended the first launches in Florida. Very few people knew that his real dream was to one day go into space.

He did not have the physical characteristics of an astronaut. Naturally, he applied for the program, but his less than perfect eyesight automatically eliminated him as a candidate.

Ryan Richmond was a math savant though. He spent years calculating how much money he would need to design, build, and finally propel a rocket into space. He was the first to sign up with a new Russian company offering private trips into lower space orbit. His first chance was in 2009 aboard a Russian rocket taking men and supplies to the International Space Station, but a bad cold days before launch had given the opportunity to the next man on the list.

The same happened in 2010, when his second ride was scheduled; once again he had a slight health issue. For some reason he always had a medical situation when it was time to fulfill his dream. Slightly less than half of his payment was politely returned to him, and the company ended its flights into space due to internal financial reasons in Russia. All the while, however, he still had his team working on their own ideas, reading, analyzing and inspecting every piece of information they could get their hands on from other companies in the same field.

Money was no object to Ryan; he would have gladly funded the whole Russian company, but the fact that the company was in Russia was a problem. There were other factors behind the company’s immediate end, political issues that were nothing a wise man would get involved in.

Ryan Richmond received payment for the sale of most of his stock in the internet investments; it was a very large amount, over three billion dollars.

He sold the shares just as a new international private space race began. A rich and famous fellow in England had begun the race with a demonstration of a flight close to the boundaries of space; not atop a rocket, but lifted by a larger aircraft with a smaller airplane heading spaceward from 50,000 feet and nearing the 100,000 foot altitude mark before returning to land.

Ryan and his team knew as much about the Englishman’s space company as the Englishman. Ryan’s team, now composed of nearly three dozen experts, had thousands of drawings and plans, and were ready to build, faster and better than any other company, especially as the team was enhanced by the addition of two more of NASA’s best engineers who appeared at his design center very soon after the shuttle program ended.

Over the next few weeks he drove out to the Nevada desert in his Audi R8 and looked for a place to setup his next company.

Within weeks of the first private flight by the Englishman, Ryan had purchased 500 acres of desert around an old, unused military air base. The old base was nothing more than old rusty buildings next to a long and cracked 10,000 foot runway that needed resurfacing.

He already had complete design plans for a new home, and soon after he purchased the property, an army of builders and steel hangar companies drove out with hundreds of large trucks carrying parts of aircraft hangars. They began to build a dozen large buildings, of which several were to be double-walled, and have sealed spacecraft-production interiors. They would cost $25 million apiece.

First, a three-story, 90-room top-quality hotel for single people was built with 200 separate and private family bungalows on the grounds, with housing for a total of 600 people. He brought in acres of grass and trees, together with a water-from-air production plant the size of a small building which was pieced together after it was delivered. Kitchens, a restaurant and bar, a bowling alley, a 200-seat cinema for entertainment and a general store went up on one street, just to accommodate his employees.

Ryan also wanted complete privacy from the outside world and had a sewage plant and his own five-acre solar field installed to make the base totally sustainable, apart from food.

Within three months he had enticed several more experts from both the European Space Authority and NASA to join him. The European immigrants soon became U.S. citizens, just as his original team of Russians had done. Next he employed over two hundred young scientists he had known or met during his education.

Finally, he canvassed the country to find the best security guards he could to keep his new airfield private.

He applied for all the required legal permits from the federal government and state of Nevada to be a legitimate space exploration company. Local government officials arrived by the dozens and were impressed by what they saw. This kind of company was absolutely perfect for the state and it wasn’t long before he received permits to begin flight operations.

By the end of his fourth month he had spent a total of $500 million on the airfield alone. A lot of new machinery would go into the twelve hangars. Designed and manufactured during the last decade, it had already been ordered and would take a couple of weeks to be delivered from around the country.

Ryan was still unmarried, had no children and this part of life was not yet important to him. At 43, he calculated that he still had a decade or so before that area of his life would be as important to him as fulfilling his dreams.

Six months after he had purchased the land, it looked totally different from what he had originally surveyed.

Over the last three years Ryan had paid well over $190 million to one U.S. company alone to manufacture 40’x10’ special aluminum panels, over 180 of them. Most of his aircraft builders were already working ten-hour days, piecing together aluminum panels and sections of craft.

The last three important arrivals at the airfield were massive machines that shaped, heated, bonded, vacuum-sealed, and cooled many of these panels. The machines, each the size of a bungalow and each costing over five million dollars, were moved through the gaps left in the first two hangar walls. The walls were then sealed and teams of engineers and builders began to work on them.

Ryan and his team had studied all the possibilities of reaching space, and how other companies were attempting what he was about to do.

The British company did win the first leg of the race, and graciously accepted the $1 million first prize. But by this time, Astermine Co., Ryan’s newly reorganized space company, already had a partially developed launch vehicle and a completed second release spacecraft, both of which would go into upper space orbit, 600 km above Earth into the Exosphere. This was far higher than the lower space orbit area used by most craft like the International Space Station.

As with any flight project, all FAA rules and guidelines had to be strictly adhered to. Obtaining permits from one stage to the next occupied a great deal of time, and the production schedule was planned to coincide with pending FAA approvals.

Ryan’s design to use ion thruster space propulsion systems was created by Boris and the Russian scientists he had employed right at the beginning. Now older men in their fifties, these men had worked on this form of engine for use in Russian space projects in the 1980s, long before NASA decided to follow this route.

An ion—an atom or molecule with an unequal number of electrons and protons—gives off electrical charge. The Russian-designed ion thrusters used beams of electrically charged ions to create thrust in deep space instead of using the liquid and solid fuel rockets used for propulsion by NASA.

Ryan learned from this experienced team that the method of accelerating the ions often varied, but all designs took advantage of the charge, or mass ratio of the ions. This ratio meant that relatively small potential differences could create very high exhaust velocities. This reduced the amount of reaction mass, or fuel required, and they could easily compute how much xenon gas reserves were needed aboard for any flight distance.

What really excited Ryan was that the ion-thruster motor was electrically based and the power supply was pretty simple; it was derived from an array of solar panels if the spacecraft flew within sight of the sun, or from a small nuclear reactor which could be built aboard the craft, and would have no limit to giving out energy as long as there was enough xenon gas in the tanks. Xenon gas was one of the fuels Ryan’s teams would produce for actual space travel.

He also learned that the main drawback of the reduced ion thrust using solar panels was extremely low spacecraft acceleration, because the mass of current produced by electric power units was directly correlated to the amount of power given. This low thrust made ion thrusters, or drives as they were sometimes called, unsuited for launching spacecraft into orbit, but ideal for propulsion applications once in space.

Getting up there was entirely another matter, and this project was under development in Hangar Six. Ryan planned each initial launch design with two motors. First, a hybrid rocket motor using solid and liquid rocket propulsion would get the first craft above the Kármán Line (60 miles) carrying a second vehicle in its cargo bay, the main space vehicle. Then, hydrogen fuelled rockets would take over for the next stage, with hydrogen-powered side-thrusters combined with rear thrusters for sideways and forward movement.

Each piece of his launch design would be reusable and the launch craft could bring the space vehicles back to Earth if necessary. By using this system of three craft instead of the usual two, it saved him dozens of permits, especially on safety factors with no uncontrolled parts falling back to Earth during launch.

Seven months after he first purchased the property the last pieces of the production puzzle fell into place. The 300 scientists were now ready to go to work full time.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ryan said at the first active meeting of Astermine, “Our main goal with the three billion dollars I plan to spend on our first project is to return our first spacecraft to Earth with a load of asteroid-mined materials, which will pay for continuing the main project. If we don’t achieve this, the money will end, the project will end, and I will be ridiculed for the rest of my life for wasting a substantial fortune.” There was much laughter.

“The British company will spend less than one billion dollars and will make money from taking happy people into space for a ride. The second company, Martin Brusk’s Earth-Exit, will spend one and a half billion dollars and will make its money from supplying the International Space Station. Our company will make money bringing back valuable ores, minerals, and gas from space, a far more lucrative venture than the first two ideas.

“This is a secret project. You have all signed the company’s official confidentiality agreement in your employment contracts. If word gets out about our project, that person will be identified, and his life made miserable from then on. Please understand, we have a much shorter time span for production and implementation before other companies decide that our path is the more lucrative one, and they will quickly copy us. If we can avoid being copied or run out of business for twenty-four months, I will be happy knowing that at least we had a window for the whole company—you and me—to survive, to do a job we love, a job we are made for, and a job that will achieve what no one has done before. We are going to go where no one has dared to tread, to go where there is more riches in a cubic mile of asteroid than all the lost treasure lying on the seabed.” This speech was greeted with excited comments and applause.

“If one word of our project gets out to the media, the bonus of $50,000 each one of you will receive, once the first load of material arrives back on planet Earth, will be forgotten.” Immediately there was a stunned reaction from many. None of the team had heard of this bonus, and suddenly many looked at those seated next to them, sizing them up to see if one of them would be the person who would cause them to forfeit the bonus.

“My team of math experts and I have determined that if we can return with twenty tons of pure native platinum, we could gross $960 million at $1,500 an ounce. Yes, it will decrease the value of the commodity around the world by about six percent, but the world needs platinum desperately, and one load every twenty-four months will not affect the value much more than ten percent.

“Together with native platinum comes its elemental buddies: iridium, rhodium, and several others, which should be worth even more money per ounce; transporting these metals will also serve to diffuse the impact of just one precious metal on the markets.

“Sometime next year, I want our first cargo ready to be shipped back to Earth; that gives us sixteen months to get there. Much of what we need to accomplish during this mission has already been designed and manufactured over the last decade by over 500 companies, none of which knows what the whole picture looks like.” With murmuring and nods of heads, Ryan’s audience tried to absorb the abbreviated timeframe he outlined for the team to prepare for space travel.

“Ladies and gentlemen, project security. As you know, we have our own security team of 72 former Marines and Special Forces personnel under former Marine Lieutenant Joe Walls. This security team will guard the newly erected, eight-foot high heavy steel perimeter around our airfield 24/7. Nobody goes out, nobody comes in, and nobody communicates with anyone on the outside without my direct authority. Each of you has signed your life away for the next twenty-four months. One hundred and eighty of you have immediate families here on base. Please don’t forget, everything you need for a normal life—shops, entertainment, a small elementary school and a high school—are in the completion stages. Any young students ready to attend college or a university during the 24-month lockdown period will attend online campuses and study online. Any outside communications, apart from necessary education communication, is forbidden over the internet. All your cell phones have already been taken away.

“This means that apart from one channel for myself, there is no internet or cell phone communication inside our base. There will be no communications between you and your internal families, and anybody on the outside until we are in space. Even then, added security measures will be implemented as needed. Remember, your jobs are at stake. With NASA limping along doing nothing, and the Russian Space Authority in turmoil, there isn’t much work out there for you. Your future, your advancing studies here, and your job survival depends on keeping our mouths shut and our information highways secure.

“As you are aware, Security has a small containment building inside its headquarters. If anybody is caught giving out information, or breaking any important codes of conduct, they will be placed in this containment building with their families for as long as it is necessary. All of these measures are stipulated in your contracts which you have agreed to and signed, as have all management, administration and security personnel. Your commitment to secrecy will last twenty-four months. Please remember that.

“In addition, all emergency mail will be scrutinized, in and out. All deliveries will be deposited in the warehouse between the first and second gates and thoroughly checked before allowed into the airfield. Please team, you are not in prison. You chose to work here. We are going to work twelve-hour days, with two-team shifts, every twenty-four hours, five days a week for twenty-four months. You will receive a monthly living allocation for food and supplies; schooling and entertainment are free. At the end of 12 months, $300,000 plus any bonuses will be deposited into each listed bank account. Twelve months later the same amount including bonuses due to you will be paid again, which will make each of you a millionaire, before and after taxes. This is what you signed up for and what each of you accepted. Today, we are past the point of no return. Yesterday, we repeated the rules, only two people decided to leave, and that was before they knew anything important about the project.

“It is a hard world out there. Many of you are more fearful of losing your position here than thinking of breaking your signed commitment. We are going to work hard and play hard. Any new ideas to make this a happier place will be gratefully considered. My team of six mathematicians and economists has worked out the plan perfectly. There is more than enough cash in my accounts to get us through the first stage of twenty-four months, but there are boundaries I will not cross. I will invest ninety per cent of my total worth into this project, and no more. Once we hit that number, the base will be dismantled, the party is over, and we all go home. Does everyone understand?” Heads nodded in agreement.

After a few more minutes the meeting was over and the scientists went back to work. A second meeting of only the heads of departments was due to start as soon as coffee and snacks were served.

Only the core of Ryan’s selected scientists from over the years, thirty-six very clever men and women, attended the second meeting. Ryan Richmond outlined the first strategy compiled by the team over the last several weeks. He had spent hours with each man and woman discussing with them their part of the project, what they were expected to achieve, and whether it appropriate to fit into the master plan.

“First of all, you, the thirty-seven people in this room, including me, have all worked on this project for the last decade or more in different parts of the country, totally unknown to the other teams. We have the heads of my five most important sections here: Atmosphere and Space Propulsion, Alloy and Metal Management, Water and Electrical, Space Environmental Studies, and Space Biology.

“You are the only ones privy to the projected timeline and project description information. Our timelines are far shorter than I‘ve told the rest of the team, and that is to make sure that if word of what we are doing escapes, we are at least a month, hopefully half a year, ahead of the information released. Our plan is to have our first spacecraft on its way within thirteen months, not fifteen months as suggested in the last meeting. With our new gridded electrostatic ion thrusters, our first foray into asteroid mining will be on a little-known asteroid, one mile in diameter and three miles in length, which will pass within 600,000 miles of Earth during October of next year.

“This asteroid is called DX2014 and was found by the Hubble team six years ago. It is small, unimportant, and the only recordings of its flight path were done to determine any potential danger to Earth. The asteroid passes Earth every thirty years; this next is its closest to Earth for the last 200 years, and will not get any closer to Earth until three passes from now in 2099.

“Data received from an old university friend working at Hubble’s control center shows that it is possible that native platinum, mixed with a pure source of nickel or cobalt, may be found in small rubble piles on its surface. This means that either its tiny gravity, or its magnetism is holding those particles to its surface. Either or both of these factors will be of benefit to our mission as they will help our spaceship bond itself to the surface.

“My friend on the Hubble team spent several days over a period of months looking at this piece of rock. As I said, his official purpose was to determine any future danger of its hitting Earth, but he also secretly spent time on several different tests for me; it was he who contacted me a decade ago. He prompted this whole operation.

“DX2014 is travelling through space at a little more than 3,000 miles per hour faster Earth, and we plan to board the rock in May while it is still incoming, approximately 4.5 million miles from Earth. Our flight from takeoff to landing on the asteroid is expected to require approximately twelve days. The spacecraft will curve in toward the target to align itself with the speed and direction of the asteroid.” Ryan paused to look at his notes.

“Our mining scientists and designers have decided on a form of loose-rock collection which uses an electronic sweeper to gather up small stones and rocks rather than actually burrow under the surface. Our current plan on the drawing boards gives us a maximum of thirty days to collect small nuggets on the surface from the rubble piles I mentioned. We are going to have two astronauts – spacewalkers – sweep them up using specially designed sweepers to hopefully gather twenty tons of valuable material before their return trip home.

“We expect our astronauts to push these sweepers over the surface; its collector will gather any solid metal rocks, up to the size of a marble. Once the machine has collected a load of a few pounds, it will be maneuvered by the astronaut back to the ship for analysis. If the metal is found to be valuable, it will be stored. Any non-valuable metals will be deposited back on the surface of the asteroid in marked piles. I’m hoping native platinum, and then rhodium or iridium, will be combined in the particles of rock; both are more valuable than platinum and are supposed to be far more abundant out there than here on Earth.” Ryan took a sip of water.

“In the mining craft we will have a Magnetic Metal Analyzer or an MMA, to test the rocks we collect, and transmit and store the information in the spacecraft’s computers as well as its own memory. Two of our planned three space ships, Astermine One and Astermine Two, as I would like to call them, will have four separate compartments behind the flight control cockpit. In our latest drawings our ship looks like a fat oval Cuban cigar, but we will make sure it has a bright silver color in case anybody out there wants to light her up.” There was much sniggering.

“The pilot and crew supply compartment will be behind the flight deck and will slowly empty as supplies are used up to make more room for long-term travel. The rest of the cargo will be loaded into ten empty aluminum canisters loaded pyramid style in each of the last three compartments. The second chamber behind the cockpit will also be loaded with outbound xenon and liquid hydrogen cylinders. The rear three cargo compartments will have smaller side doors underneath the larger spacecraft’s two long roof doors. These smaller cargo hatches are for placing cargo into the holds. The fifth and slightly larger compartment will also store the mining machinery on the outbound flight, and the compartment will hold the MMA. It will be on a table that can be pulled out of the side door to be used outside the craft. It may be that all of the mining equipment and any spare gas, food, and water canisters could be left behind for a second visit, if our first visit proves productive.

“We can return to Earth’s orbit with approximately twenty tons divided among the three rear cargo bays. A mix of rock and powder will be our best load. My idea, and I’ve had agreement from several of you, is that the ship will not reenter Earth’s orbit, but dock with one of our shuttles which got it up there in the first place. If you guys have done your jobs, the shuttles will have taken up another dozen loads of spaceship-building materials, and our first permanent spaceship will be underway. Naturally the shuttles, which we haven’t named yet, will be full on their outward journeys and empty on return flights. Once we dock, figures show that we could transfer a maximum of four tons from the mining craft for each shuttle-return flight to Earth.

“So, for our first project I have managed to procure the loan of an old, mothballed U.S. Air Force experimental C-5 Galaxy, on orders from the President himself. All our shuttle and spacecraft dimensions have been subject to the dimensions of this particular aircraft which will arrive in a few days, now that the runway resurfacing project is complete. Hangar #3 was specifically constructed to house this C-5.

“This particular C-5 was fitted with an extra-large rear-loading ramp which opens up the whole cargo interior. The more modern C-17 Globemaster rear-loading ramp was designed from this aircraft’s rear-door experiments. Unfortunately, the C-5 door was redesigned too large and the cargo bay has always had problems pressurizing during flights above 25,000 feet. She has stood virtually unused at Dover Air Force Base for a couple of years, even after the Air Force spent a decade trying to get the larger door to seal against the outside pressures, without success.

“The second advantage for us is that during testing of the large door, more powerful engines were added to her to reach higher altitudes. These engines have less than a thousand hours of use on them, and can get her up to level flight of 47,000 feet on full power for a maximum of four minutes with a load of 250,000 kilos, or 250 tons; that’s long enough for us to jettison a load by rolling it out of the rear door in a climb.

“Our two teams of twenty aerospace engineers working around the clock will complete construction of the first shuttle and, once it is ready, place it in inside the C-5 for an aerial test launch. The rear cargo load ramp will be removed for all of our launch operations.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have the following exterior maximum dimensions for our second-stage shuttle: height of our shuttle, 12 feet; width, 16 feet; length, 138 feet; maximum craft weight empty, 40,000 pounds; solid and liquid fuel weight, 210,000 pounds; cargo weight—which will be either spacecraft weight or supplies—4.1 tons or 8,800 pounds. The dimensions inside the C-5 allow for front loading rails, which will keep the shuttle in place during takeoff and allow for a clean exit out of the rear door area. Our shuttle design shows a sleek oval tube with retractable wings and tail which will be fully deployed four seconds after exiting the rear of the C-5.

“A second, and possibly a third shuttle will be constructed as backups, or to keep the C-5 busy flying, as each shuttle-flight will need a ten-day turnaround time. I estimate that three flights a month per shuttle are possible within twelve months. The third stage, our four-ton spacecraft, will fit snugly into the shuttle’s cargo bay. We will have another meeting with you, and her production crew in a week. That is it for this meeting. Does anybody have any questions?” A few hands went up.

“Who is going to do the space work up there?” was the first question.

“I hope to be one of the two men, maybe on the second or third mission. However, depending on what supplies are needed to keep men in space for certain amounts of time, maybe we will only have one pilot and one mining specialist up there to begin with. Those personnel haven’t been identified yet. Next question?”

“Where will the spacecraft fit into the shuttle? And since the project will need large amounts of xenon gas for extended distances of space flight, where is the gas to be stored if you are intending to fill the ship with cargo?”

“Good questions. Has anybody seen those wooden, brightly painted Russian nesting dolls?” Most of the group nodded. “The spacecraft, shaped like a tube, will fit into the cargo bay of the shuttle, just like those dolls fit into each other; in space it will float out of the cargo bay through two long rectangular doors on the roof of the shuttle, much like the NASA shuttles of old. We have the new designers who joined from NASA last year to thank for that design. Second question: We will have used up a good proportion of fuel to get there. That amount of the fuel, xenon gas, will be stored in removable containers which can be left on the surface if necessary. For the return trip, the fuel will be stored in pressurized tanks in the hollow interior walls between compartments two and three inside the spacecraft. This wall will not have an entrance hatch leading into the rear of the craft, but the rear compartments will. Next?”

“How sure are you that any precious metals will be brought back to Earth?”

“My Hubble colleague spent many hours observing the rock through the most powerful telescope possible and also checked over dozens of theories. The small asteroid looked large and very visible through the lens the last time he showed me a couple of months ago. It was large enough to see shadows on its surface showing rocks in rubble piles. Also, the asteroid is shaped like a hot dog roll. It is more of a rectangular, oval shape than round, and slightly pointed on one of its two ends. These ends are much shinier than the center part, which shows dull debris around its middle area. The asteroid rotates slowly at twice an hour. It will be slightly difficult to get our ship down, but once that’s taken care of, we’d better start praying that there is something of value there.”

Chapter 3

Jonesy, Meet VIN.

Colonel John Albert Jones, usually called “Jonesy” by his old Air Force crew, was a natural pilot, but his straight talk, direct manners and often loud rebuffs of superior officers were among the many reasons he had been passed over for promotion to the ranks of generals.

He had often explained to superior officers, and even the President of the United States one day, exactly what he thought about what they were doing. Jonesy was not afraid of anybody, or any aircraft. He had flown hundreds in his lifetime and, although he had even crashed a couple, the Air Force courts never found fault with his flying. Long before any crashes, he often told the mechanics what he subconsciously felt about the aircraft he had just flown.

Jonesy had always wanted to fly. The earliest house he could remember his family living in was inside an Air Force base. His father was one of the most decorated pilots of the Korean War, and was more respectful to superiors than his wild son. In 1975, the family moved to Andrews Air Force base, just outside Washington DC and, when he was twelve, the boy did everything in his power to catch a ride on any aircraft leaving Andrews.

Jonesy was a tall kid for his age. He had tousled blond hair and freckles on his nose. If anybody noticed him, they would see a tall, blond-haired, skinny, freckly kid with startling blue eyes.

His father was often gone on trips overseas, flying and teaching Air Force pilots in Germany, Japan or Korea. When he was home he did his best to get his crazy son aboard any aircraft he could, but the Air Force had many rules and regulations about allowing family members aboard their expensive airplanes. Holding the rank of major, his father was not high enough up the chain of command to bend the rules.

His mother Meredith ran the base commissary and worked long hours. His only sister Beth, three years older than he, was at the stage of noticing teenaged boys and disliked her brother’s attitude enough not to worry if his usually dirty and freckled face didn’t appear in her vision for days on end.

The Joneses were was the usual military family, always busy, often separated, but really enjoying laughter, jokes, and life during their infrequent get-togethers.

So Jonesy went about getting into the air in other ways. Many aircraft took off daily from Andrews—fighters, bombers, cargo aircraft and fuel tankers. There wasn’t enough room for a boy his size to slip aboard a fighter, nor were the bombers much use. Who wanted to sit on top of tons of bombs for a free ride? Not many, but if that was the only choice available he sometimes considered it.

One of the earliest times he was caught Jonesy was thirteen; he was at Ramstein Air Base in Germany sneaking out of a just-landed transport and into a second one about to head back stateside to Dyess Air Force base in Texas. His father, based at the same airbase at the time, was phoned about his son appearing suddenly at Ramstein. Within thirty-six hours, Jonesy was back at home at Andrews, via Italy and Dyess, where strong discipline was administered courtesy of his father and his Air Force belt.

Another time, two months later, he was found scrounging for food outside the rear kitchen entrance to the Officers’ Mess at Misawa Air Base in Japan. His father, still at Dyess, pleaded with the Air Force military police to return his boy to Andrews. This time it took him two weeks to return, the happy boy flying in the cockpit of several aircraft from Misawa to Andrews, via Korea, Turkey, Germany and the Azores.

He was banned from approaching any aircraft, or even the runway areas, and because of him, several additional cameras were mounted around the sensitive areas of Andrews Air Force Base.

With the added surveillance on him, he was now grounded for a year before his father was relocated to Ramstein in Germany, and his family followed him there. By now, Jonesy was an expert in free military travel and within twenty-one days of moving into base accommodations, the recently erected security cameras at Andrews recorded him enjoying his newfound freedom. His father was again warned, but all he could say to an angry base commander was that his fourteen-year old son desperately wanted to fly. The commander refused Jones junior to get anywhere near any aircraft, and that messed up the opportunity for any cheap flying lessons.

Jonesy was caught three times in his fifteenth year, and six times in his sixteenth year. On his seventeenth birthday he was discovered again monitoring the controls of a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker over the Pacific. The flight was en route to Hawaii from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. He was dressed as the copilot of the long flight’s second flight crew. He even had even arranged to wear the sleeping pilot’s jacket.

The first flight-crew’s pilot-in-command was rather shocked upon returning for his second shift, and noticing this rather young looking captain monitoring the cockpit while the pilot-in-command was fast asleep and snoring loudly next to him. The copilot was also found fast asleep in the small quarters behind the flight deck; nobody had awakened him.

Jonesy had already forgotten how many times he had been caught actually flying aircraft. Again he was in real trouble, flying a USAF jet without authorization, and for the umpteenth time his father, now a newly-promoted colonel, was brought before a panel of senior officers.

For two days they grilled the poor man, who hadn’t actually done anything wrong, about controlling his son. After pleading with the panel, Jonesy was to be automatically accepted into the next year’s group of Air Force recruits, if he stayed away from all U.S. military aircraft.

Achieving what he had set out to do, Jonesy agreed, entered the Academy, and achieved active-pilot status once he was commissioned. His flying ability was naturally helped by the extra hours of actual flying he had achieved before his eighteenth birthday.

A decade later, he became one of the youngest Air Force test pilots and his father, now retired, was extremely proud of his son. He also became an official test pilot at the lowest rank a pilot had ever been promoted into the elite group.

Twice in his career, he verbally fought with superior officers and was grounded, with orders to think about showing respect to senior officers.

One talent the Air Force couldn’t overlook was his flying ability. He was not only a natural at flying any type of aircraft, he somehow bonded with the aircraft around him and when he flew, the plane and pilot became one, so much so that he often could foretell a problem to the mechanics and technicians before the actual problem reared its ugly head.

Jonesy lived in a different world when he flew, bonding with the aircraft and the flight crew, but on the ground, he rarely listened to orders, or often was still in flying mode when he walked past the odd general, often forgetting to salute.

In 2005, he reached the pinnacle of his flight career as he had managed to stay out of trouble for several years; he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of all Air Force test flights, often accepting only the most dangerous flight work.

Unfortunately in 2007, a new commander of his unit arrived, a man who had rarely flown any aircraft and who was promoted to the position through political maneuvering, and who did not like any insubordinate ass of a test pilot.

Fourteen months later, in 2009, Jonesy was released from confinement for attacking his commander, General Joseph Bishop, in his office for some argument about fuel discrepancies, was found guilty of assaulting a superior officer, demoted, spent a year in Leavenworth, demoted again to captain, and then dishonorably discharged.

***

At about the same time, Ryan Richmond received payment for the sale of most of his stock in his internet investments, and Victor Isaac Noble was in Baghdad.

VIN dreamed weird dreams that felt like they went on and on for a very long time. Again, and again his mind was brought back to reality by the continuous beeping of monitors. He was starting to get used to them, and his drugged brain realized that if he could hear these monitors that meant that he was still alive.

After one long dream of seeing men who no longer lived, the beeping returned. This time there was only one monitor beeping, not the usual three. The light outside his closed eyes did not seem so bright, and he carefully opened them. Everything looked blurry around him; colors moved here and there. One was a cream color and as his eyes became accustomed to the light and he was able to focus on the moving shape a nurse in a white uniform appeared, staring at him.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Lieutenant Noble,” the vision said to him as he watched her red lips move. “It has been a week now and the doctor said that it was time to let you come around. She will be in, in a minute to check up on you.”

“Just women around here?” he managed to move his dry mouth and mumble.

“It seems so,” she replied. “Far too many for my liking, Lieutenant.” A second white coat approached out of the corner of his eye and had a shiny silver thing around her neck.

“I see you are back with us, Lieutenant Noble. Welcome back,” said the second white coat and his eyes managed to focus on her face.

“I assume you are the doctor?” he asked weakly.

“Yes, and the bearer of good and bad news, Lieutenant. Which do you want first?”

“I’m sure there is more bad news than good news, so tell me the good news first.”

“Actually I believe it’s the other way around. Your spine was whipped around pretty badly, but luckily you didn’t suffer anything more than a few bruised vertebra. Your head was also pretty beaten up, with a few chips out of your skull, but again nothing I couldn’t fix. You will have the full use of both of your arms, though one was broken in two places. Colonel Guy, our senior surgeon, did a good job on plating your left humerus and left radius together; you should have the full use of your arm after a few months of therapy and the plates are removed in about six months’ time. I recommend you don’t go through too many metal detectors at the airports for a while, once you get back stateside.” She paused to think about the next item.

“I assume it’s bad news next, Captain?” he asked, his eyes now fully focused on the doctor’s rank on her epaulets.

“Unfortunately, yes, Lieutenant. The colonel couldn’t save your legs. He did his best and had you in surgery for over six hours. Your lower legs were very badly hit by the brunt of the explosion, and the shrapnel in the vehicle was your worst enemy. Lieutenant, both your legs have been amputated just above the knee. The steel seat you were sitting on, I believe, helped save your upper legs. The prisoner who was sitting between you and the blast was a total mess. His whole body looked like your lower legs, and his sitting in the right place saved your life. You were the only one to survive the blast. I’m sure the loss of your legs will be a mammoth shock, but that you are alive is a miracle in itself. Never forget that, Lieutenant Noble!”

She paused to allow what she had just told him to sink in. She had done this pretty often, and every man she had told reacted in a different way. The lieutenant’s reaction was the most common.

“Can I still have children, Captain?”

“Yes, and a healthy sex life, Lieutenant.” The doctor turned toward the reddening face of the younger, pretty nurse and smiled. Nothing missed the doctor’s scrutiny on her rounds!

“What about new legs?” the still-weak man in the bed replied.

“Once you get back stateside in a week or two, I’m sure they will fix you up with a modern pair of legs, Lieutenant. These days they can work wonders in the prosthesis department. I’m sure they will have you chasing nurses pretty soon. Nurse Seymour, the man needs to get a little more shuteye. Tomorrow we can start work to get him stateside.” And with that she smiled and left.

A week later, VIN Noble, now in a U.S. military hospital in North Carolina, was visited by the major in charge of the hospital’s prostheses department.

“The surgeon did a good job with your legs. I will be able to fit both your legs with off-the-shelf prosthetic limbs and we should have you up and walking in a month or two,” he explained. “I’ve been told that you will be discharged from the Marine Corps once you can walk again. You can return here for therapy as long as needed, and as soon as we can, we will transfer you to civilian therapy if that’s appropriate.” With that he was gone.

VIN was a pretty tough soldier, but he had actually never thought that he would end up limbless. A few bullet holes here and there, yes, but no legs! Once he realized that he had lost his legs, he automatically assumed that he would have an opportunity to at least get a desk job back at base. He had never thought about having to leave the Corps. He was too young!

With his new legs fitted onto his stumps, the therapy crew got him walking again, but it took a couple of months longer than expected.

Six months later VIN received his next two medals, one for the last attack in Balad Ruz, the final battle of his military career, his second Silver Star, and his third Purple Heart.

He also received his discharge papers and was informed of what was due to him for eleven years of service and his two lost legs. Not enough to live on for the rest of his life, not very much at all. He had done his best to stay, begging them to find a desk job for him, but with so many amputees already filling the jobs, there wasn’t one for him, and he suddenly found himself in a foreign world, the world of civilian life.

Victor Isaac Noble had no family. He was the only child of young parents who had been killed in a car crash when he was a senior in high school, just south of Fayetteville, North Carolina. He wasn’t a southerner either, but had grown up in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a kid. His father had been an insurance salesman, his mother a paralegal and the family had moved to just south of Fort Bragg as his father had been posted by his company to this growing piece of real estate. VIN’s father had worked well selling life and health insurance to former military personnel and their families, and Fort Bragg was selected to be one of the fastest growing bases in the next decade.

VIN Noble was returning home from school one day, a month before his last year at high school was to end, and a good-looking blonde woman, a police officer, waited at the bus stop for him to get off the yellow school bus.

She explained the horrific car crash on I-95 which involved seven cars and a tractor-trailer, and killed six people. His parents were returning from a business meeting on the South Carolina border. She broke the news to him the best way she could.

The officer allowed him to take in the news, sitting next to her in the patrol car, and waited for the usual reactions. This kid took it better than most, she thought to herself. “Are you eighteen, Victor?” she asked.

“Will be in five days,” he answered in a far-away voice.

“Then I think I can leave you at your house, but I’ll get someone to check up on you for a few days, until you are eighteen,” she replied. “At eighteen, you are not really of any concern to social services. Will you be OK? I can stay and make you a glass of iced tea, or a juice or something.”

“That will be nice,” he replied, the shock of his parents’ death not upon him yet.

She radioed in and got permission to stay with him for a couple of hours. It took him an hour before the sobs came out, and she let him be.

He remembered that time well. It was the last time he ever cried. He cried for an hour while the police officer made him a drink and sat with him keeping him company. He was a little embarrassed for crying as she was quite good looking, and not more than half a dozen years older than he was.

After a while his crying stopped and he sat there, not knowing what to do.

That feeling was the same he now felt leaving the Marine Corps. A feeling of “What the hell do I do now?”

“What the hell do I do now?” he asked her once he had composed himself a little.

“Well Victor, you will be eighteen in a few days. That means you are free to do what you want. You are nearly finished with high school. You should finish, get your high school diploma, and then get a job. I don’t know what will happen to this house. Is it rented?”

“No, my parents pay a mortgage on it,” he replied.

“Do they have a will that you know of?” was her next question.

“My dad was in insurance. I think he and my mom made one up. They often talked about things like that. I know they have a leather case where they kept important papers.”

“Good,” replied the officer. “My boyfriend is an attorney with the city. I’ll ask him to stop by tomorrow and get permission from you to go through them on your behalf. I’ll ask him to do it as a favor to me, and he won’t bill you anything. I’m sure within a few hours he can tell you what to do. Also I will also get someone to come around every day about five to check up on you, until you are eighteen. OK?” He nodded and she left, promising to visit him on his birthday.

VIN was used to being home alone. He spent an hour or so sitting on his parents’ neatly made bed. The room was quiet, still with the perfumed scent of his mother in the air. He realized that they would never use it again, left the room, and closed the door.

He didn’t attend school the next day, but sat in his mother’s favorite rocking chair on the front porch and waited for company. An older policeman arrived at five, parked on the curb outside the house, walked up and asked if he was OK. Upon asking if VIN had eaten anything that day, the policeman left and returned with a fresh pizza, telling VIN that he had better eat.

They sat on the steps of the porch and watched as a second car drove up the driveway this time. The officer knew the lone man who got out of the car. It was the first officer’s boyfriend, the attorney.

The officer left and the two men introduced themselves, and VIN searched for and found the leather case his father used for important papers.

“Not very good,” said the attorney, Joe, an hour later. “You say your father was an insurance salesman?” VIN nodded. “Well, he didn’t think much of what he sold. All I can find is a funeral policy for him, your mother and strangely enough, one for you. He has a ten year-old policy which looks like it could be worth several thousand dollars. I’m sure he didn’t have anything with the company he worked for; most insurance companies don’t employ fully contracted staff. Your mother has a policy she took out several years ago on herself with a payout amount of $15,000. Your parents owe a bundle on this house and there doesn’t seem to be much equity to collect from it.”

“Will somebody come and take the house, Joe?” VIN asked.

“Eventually, in a few months, after the mortgage isn’t paid,” Joe replied.

“What do you think I should do?” VIN asked.

“Join the military once school is finished,” was the short and honest reply. “It looks like you will have your parents cremated, it states that in their short will, and you get everything. ‘Everything’ looks like about $30,000 and possibly a little from the sale of the house. I think you could get something from the crash settlement. My girlfriend believes that your parents weren’t at fault, and whoever was, will have to pay out something. But, that could take time in court. Maybe a few months, maybe even a year or two, but I’m sure you will get something. Victor, you seem like a man who needs a home, and soon, and the military is a fantastic home. I know; I spent nine years at Fort Bragg and got a law degree out of it. I’m an orphan and understand your situation. But Victor, that is only my suggestion. You don’t have to do anything I say.”

“What about the Marines?” VIN asked.

“Just down the road at Camp Lejeune. I’ve always respected the Marine Corps and think it’s a great institution. I would have joined the Marines if I had thought it out long enough, but the Army was closest, and I did want to study law. Fort Bragg was ideal for me.”

With Joe promising to look after the paperwork, VIN went back to school and finished the last part of his senior year.

On his eighteenth birthday a couple of days later, Joe and his girlfriend returned with a small birthday cake for him.

Once he was eighteen, Joe got him to sign the papers to activate, and ten days after his birthday, two checks arrived, both in his name, from the life insurance companies. One was for $20,000 and the second for $7,480. He opened a bank account and deposited the funds. His next task was to sell the household furniture.

Joe found a realtor who managed to sell the house before it went into foreclosure and he received a third check for a measly $1,919.29, once the late mortgage fees, interest and realtor fees had been deducted.

VIN felt very depressed for his parents’ sake. They had worked hard since he could remember, and with the checks he received from the closing of both his parents’ bank accounts, and what the furniture was sold for, his parents had worked their butts off for less than $32,000; a lifetime’s work!

Victor Isaac Noble joined the Marines within three months of his eighteenth birthday and two weeks after he sold the family home. All he kept were a few valuables and his parents’ closest mementoes in a safe deposit box at the bank. He asked the bank to invest his money, warned them that Joe had power of attorney over his account, said that more checks could be arriving in his name, and didn’t visit the bank again until he left the military eleven years later.

Jonesy had been out of the Air Force for a year. He had managed to keep up his flying though. A small inheritance from an uncle who died while he was in military detention had paid a deposit for an old but airworthy cropduster, and he managed to eke out a living spraying farms along the border of the Carolinas.

He lived in Fayetteville, and on one Friday night decided to grab dinner at a local family restaurant before finding a bar for a few drinks.

He tiredly stood in line for the buffet, helping himself to the food after a long day in the cockpit. The food here was good and tasty, and was a favorite with many locals and military personnel alike. He had just paid when he heard his name shouted out from one of the tables. Not being a particularly well-liked person, Jonesy was quite surprised that anybody anywhere would actually call out his name. It was Joe, his attorney, who had left city employment and now had his own practice. He counted on Joe sorting out the odd legal issue here and there.

Joe was sitting with a young man whose close-cropped haircut looked very military. “Jonesy, meet VIN, short for Victor Isaac Noble.” Joe stood up and welcomed the older man to the table. “VIN here has just been discharged from the military this week. VIN, Jonesy here was discharged from the Air Force a year or so ago and is a mean SOB, but once you get to know him, you’ll find his bark is much worse than his bite.

The two men sized each other up, nodded, and Jonesy sat down. The table was quiet while the food was consumed.

“What’s happening to renewing my spray permits for next year?” Jonesy asked the attorney.

“Not good,” Joe replied. “The seed company that supplies the seed to the farms you spray wants the farmers to use the company’s new subsidiary of truck and aircraft crop sprayers and not you local guys. It seems that their monopolies are growing all over the country. They already put all the private crop spraying companies out of business in California over a year ago. With our North Carolina Department of Agriculture getting a lot of fees and revenue from this company, private permits are getting hard to obtain, and I expect a similar thing could happen before the end of the year. South Carolina might hold out a little longer, but the small farmers haven’t much choice anymore.”

“Crappy politicians as usual,” replied Jonesy.

“They can do that? Companies can force farmers to use their products?” asked VIN.

“Where have you been, kid? Out of the country?” replied Jonesy sarcastically.

“For nine and a half out of eleven years,” answered VIN.

“Where, Timbuktu?” asked Jonesy.

“No, Iraq,” replied VIN casually.

“Army?” asked Jonesy.

“No, Marines, Force Recon,” replied the younger man.

“Oh! The real fighters. Special operations, hey?” said Jonesy with a little more respect.

“Somebody has to do the dirty work, though without the Air Force backing us up 24/7, I wouldn’t be sitting here now,” VIN replied not wanting to start a fight. He didn’t know how well he would fare without good legs to support him.

“Jonesy, give the kid a break, he has five medals to prove his worth and no legs,” interrupted Joe.

“Sorry to hear that,” replied Jonesy, not sounding sorry.

“VIN here was also discharged without the opportunity to stay on. He’s up shit creek without a paddle too, trying to figure out what to do. Maybe you two should join up and start something,” Joe continued, trying to keep the peace.

“Got any money, kid?” Jonesy asked.

“He does, and I will be going over that with him tomorrow,” replied Joe.

VIN did in fact have some money. More than he had thought he might have when he needed it. The next day he sat down in Joe’s small untidy office, and he was told what he had.

“Your last letter to me was a month after you completed boot camp and accepted career enlistment in the Marine Corps. You remember that?” VIN nodded. “In the letter you told me to invest the money for you. At first I used the best company I knew, left a few dollars in your account and invested $29,900 into mostly conservative municipal bonds.”

“Whatever those are,” replied VIN.

“Long term bonds, a constant return from towns or municipalities with five-year or longer minimum payouts. One of your bigger investments of $15,000 was for ten years and paid out $27,700 last year after all federal and state income taxes were paid. Not a bad investment. The others were smaller and your grand total, not including the insurance payouts from the accident, is now $51,850.”

“You mean I have $50,000 in the bank, and my $1,432.00 a month army pension?” asked VIN.

“No, the truck driver’s company was charged with criminal negligence for the death of your parents. A year and one month after the accident, I received two checks from their insurance company, each for $100,000 for the death of your parents. I invested that money in a mix of medium risk shares and municipal bonds on your behalf. It was when I was going into private practice; I borrowed $25,000 of your money and paid your account back over five years at ten percent interest. I have all the documents here. I couldn’t get into contact with you, I needed the money to start, and I’ve paid you every penny I owed you, plus interest.”

“And I haven’t paid you a cent for investing the money for me?” VIN asked.

“No, that was the deal from the very beginning, made by my wife. Remember the good-looking police officer? She made sure I paid back every penny I owed you. I believe that you loaning me the money was sufficient payment. I tried to make your money work for you. Anyway, we are square, and the total money in your account is now $323,000.”

“How much?” asked VIN, not believing what he just heard.

“It could have been more, but the last couple of years with this recession which never seems to end, it became harder and harder to make decent returns after 2008. Most of that investment interest was made between 2006 and 2007. Last year it only grew by $7,000.”

“Well that’s more than I ever thought I’d have. I thought that fourteen hundred bucks a month, ten grand in my military savings account and the $30,000 was all I would have to start something new. I’m sure I need to pay you something for all your work, Joe.”

“Not really. It was a good education for an attorney, plus you helped me get started. Here is a new checkbook, a debit card and you can apply to the bank for a credit card.”

VIN took the checkbook, grabbed a pen and made his first check out to Joe for $13,000. “Joe, thank you. Take this and take that good-looking police officer out for an expensive dinner somewhere. You guys have really helped me from the get-go and I’m sure I owe you more than this. If you ever need a loan, let me know. But first I need some wheels. I want to buy a car, a nice car.”

“What sort of car?” Joe asked, still shocked at VIN’s generosity.

“Hell, I don’t know, all the nice cars I’ve seen have been in car magazines I read back at base. I suppose a Porsche or BMW or…I know, that young singer kid I read about in hospital, he has an Audi R8. Now, that Audi looks like a quality ride!”

“But that’s an expensive motor vehicle, VIN!” admonished Joe; his ride was a ten-year old Jeep Cherokee. “You need to keep a nest egg, something that can still make money for you. Fourteen hundred bucks a month won’t get you far when your lump sum is spent.”

“I agree, but a fancy Audi or Porsche is everything I have wanted up to now. I don’t need a house; I’m not into fishing, or like that older Air Force guy, flying. All I want is some wheels, some money in my pocket and to head out to find a life. How about I leave about $160,000, half of my total cash after your check, plus my military savings in my account? You invest it for me in those long-term bond things, or stocks, so I can’t get hold of the money for a while, say ten years, in case I run out. Whatever you make for me, you take ten percent to keep my accounts in order. I buy a car and find a life and go forward like that until something changes. What do you think Joe?”

Joe shrugged his shoulders; half was better than nothing for the young guy, and shopping for a fancy car would be fun.

It took a week searching for an Audi R8 VIN could afford. He didn’t want to spend more than half his balance on the car and all the nearly new vehicles were over $125,000. Several days later, an Audi appeared in the Raleigh newspaper. A rather desperate sounding seller had a three-year old model for sale for $99,000. The older R8 had higher mileage than all the others, nearly 30,000 miles, and was silver, exactly the color VIN wanted.

Representing his client, Joe called the man. The older man sounded desperate, saying that the value of the vehicle was a few grand more than he wanted for it, but he was looking for a quick sale.

Three hours later, in Joe’s old Jeep, they drove up the driveway of a comfortable house in North Raleigh. An older man came out to meet them.

“A bit of an upgrade for you, young man, from a Cherokee to an R8! I only want cash for the car,” the old man said.

Introductions were made and the owner, in his mid-sixties, quickly noticed that the younger man who was the interested buyer on leg prostheses. “I see you have the same legs I used to fit onto many of my patients, young man. I’m retired now and my eyesight is failing. I want to sell out, buy a boat to live on and head down to Florida in the winters and Cape Cod, where my wife is from, during the summers. She has given me three months to sell everything. The house is sold, but I just can’t find anybody who can afford my baby. Victor, you say your name is?” VIN nodded. “Well, Victor, if you can afford her, we can do a deal. My R8 has been looked after better than I look after myself. I purchased her new; she is the eight-cylinder model, not the ten, and I’ve been told the eight-cylinder, 4.2 liter engine, is far sweeter than the larger one. Still want to see her?”

He was a good salesman. VIN’s first look at his new car, lying under a cloth in the retired man’s garage, was breathtaking. He just stood there and looked while the owner and Joe carefully unwrapped the yellow cotton cover.

“I know you will look after her, and once she is sold, we can move. If you have the ability to write me a check I can cash, young man, make it out for $95,000 and she is yours.”

Without a word VIN wrote out the check and gave it to the man. The bank was the same one the retired doctor used and he asked for a few minutes while he went in and checked with his branch. Joe was already on the phone to a car insurance friend of his, gave him VIN’s information, and twenty minutes later the happy old man returned stating that the car was now his, gave him the keys, and Joe’s phone rang saying that VIN was covered.

After an hour of the man showing VIN how to drive the car properly, and several goodbyes, the two men left. VIN drove carefully; he now knew what a wild horse would feel like. His car just wanted to take him and wrap him around the nearest telephone pole. Driving behind the Jeep, he carefully used the manual gearbox and kept the wild horse under control.

An hour later they arrived back to see Jonesy sitting on the outside steps of Joe’s closed office.

“Oh crap!” said Joe as a smiling VIN pulled in next to him. “I’m sorry, Jonesy; I’m thirty minutes late for our appointment. Please forgive me. I had to help get Victor some wheels.”

“I see that his new wheels aren’t the reason you are late, Mr. Attorney. He could have been here an hour ago,” replied the former Air Force pilot not getting up. “But since his new car looks as sweet as a fighter jet, I’ll forgive you this time. Nice ride, kid.”

The meeting was to be short and VIN sat outside looking over his new car while the two men did their business. They exited the office together. “Want to join us for a beer, kid?” Jonesy asked.

“Sure, something to celebrate my new ride, Mr. Air Force Pilot. I’ll join you for a drink; I have nothing at the hotel to go back to.”

“You staying in a hotel?” asked Jonesy.

“A Holiday Inn, ever since I left base two weeks ago. It’s a bit expensive, but I plan to move on in a few days; maybe check out Texas, or the mountains, or California.”

Jonesy found the car interesting. He had never seen one before and told Joe to lead while he went with VIN. On the short stretch to the bar and grill, Joe’s regular drinking hole, Jonesy seemed impressed with the silver bullet, especially with the price of the three-year-old car. Behind the Jeep VIN couldn’t do much, but to Jonesy, the interior was as close to a fighter jet as he had been in for a long time, and the car sounded healthy.

An hour later they were sipping on brown bottles on the porch of the tavern, each ordering a large steak to go with their liquid; VIN was buying.

“Joe just told me that he thinks my spray plane and job could be in jeopardy next year,” said the pilot starting his second beer. “I think it’s time to sell the plane. I have a buyer who has wanted her for a couple of years. VIN, maybe you have the right idea, head out and find a new life. Hell, I don’t have much, but with no strings attached, maybe it is time to hit the road. Joe, what am I worth if I sell the sprayer?”

“You know that I can’t divulge client information in front of others,” replied the attorney.

“Oh bull crap, I’m sure this young Marine doesn’t care what I’ve got. I give you permission, to tell him. I certainly ain’t interested in what he’s got, I’m sure not much after purchasing that car out there,” he said nodding in the direction of the parking lot, where a group of youngsters with pretty girls were already eyeing the silver bullet.

“OK,” replied the lawyer. “You said that that farmer offered you $140,000 for the aircraft as is. You still owe a hundred grand, so that gives you forty thou. Your stocks, if I cash them all in, are worth about ten grand more. The bonds are set for another couple of years and are paying you out about $3,000 a year. That’s it in available cash.”

“VIN, can you put together fifty grand?” VIN nodded. “OK, we each put fifty grand into a new bank account and head out to see life, and we go Dutch, or 50-50. At least we don’t have to sponge off each other, and since one car and a backpack for me is enough, we can use your new car. What do you think?”

Victor Isaac Noble thought about it for a few seconds and without a word nodded his approval.

Chapter 4

The start of an adventure.

It took a few days to sort everything out before the silver Audi left Fayetteville, North Carolina, never to return.

To Joe, it seemed that the two men, one fifty-eight and the other just thirty, argued with each other as much as a father and son. Poor VIN, the far more powerfully built person with far more strength in his upper body than the older man, was nagged at by the older more experienced man who seemed to want control over the kid. Joe liked both men, and he suspected that their friendship would grow into something worth revisiting as time went by. He was sure that they would be back within the year.

He was wrong.

Without an itinerary, they first headed east. Jonesy wanted to get some fishing in, and they spent a week in the small town of Hatteras, befriending a man with a boat, and got a week’s fishing for a good price. This was the first time VIN had ever seen the rich blue waters of the Gulf Stream twenty-five miles offshore from the town. They caught well, drank lots of beer, and ate much of what they caught: Wahoo and dolphin fish.

The Audi had only enough room in the small frontal compartment and rear area for their clothing, and they left much of their catch for a pretty restaurant owner Jonesy had tried to befriend in the neighboring town of Buxton. She owned the restaurant and was happy to cook their fish for them. She let them sleep in the restaurant as they were not in any condition to drive home. It was fall, out of season, and the town was empty of tourists. The bar was locked up after the two men purchased a case of cold beers, sat at a table in the darkened restaurant, and told each other their stories.

VIN had had a girlfriend once, he told Jonesy while both men were quite drunk. She was a young corporal back in Baghdad, a pretty girl from New York who seemed to like him. It was against policy to hook up in a war zone, but it was done often enough. They had a few weeks together while VIN was healing from a bullet wound in his leg.

When she received orders to be posted to another unit south of Baghdad in Basra, they had their last night together. Once she was gone, he did his best to get back into action. That was three years ago.

For his part, Jonesy had never been married, except to his aircraft. Sure, he had had lots of short relationships, but for some reason, explicitly noted by VIN, the girls always seemed to disappear.

He nearly got married once, when he was a captain at Hill Air Force Base near Salt Lake City. Jonesy explained that he was stationed there for a couple of years testing newly modernized F-16 fighter aircraft with upgraded engines when one of the female mechanics befriended him. It was touch and go for most of the relationship, but when the girl wanted to introduce him to her parents and explained that he might have to realign his religious beliefs, the chances of marriage faded.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he slurred opening two fresh beers. “I love beautiful women as much as I love beautiful aircraft, but age seems to get in the way and all the pretty girls tend to go for kids like you these days.”

“Well, of course they do,” VIN drunkenly replied accepting the umpteenth beer. “With my looks, brains, six pack abs, and plastic legs,” he slurred emotionally, “of course they want me instead of you. But I must admit I think the plastic legs are not very helpful in that department. Maybe I have to find a girl with plastic legs like me, or exchange mine for Iron Man’s legs or something?”

“And a plastic head!” added Jonesy, always his straightforward and polite self.

“The Audi sure makes these local girls buzz around us like bees after a pretty flower, but as soon as they see an old man and a guy with plastic legs get out, they seem to run as fast as somebody shouting ‘incoming’ back at base.”

“Who are you calling an old man?” quizzed the drunken older man.

“You, unless you want to be the guy with plastic legs,” slurred VIN.

Jonesy’s first interest before heading west was to pay homage to the Wright brothers, and after eating an afternoon meal of burgers from a takeout, and a beer or two at the famous site the next day, they both began to feel better and think more about their trip.

A couple of beers led to wanting more and they found an open seafood buffet restaurant in Kitty Hawk, Johnny’s, where they ate their fair share of King crab and all types of seafood VIN didn’t even know existed.

The next morning, after finding a secure motel with a decent place to overnight the Audi, they headed north up to Richmond, bypassed Washington, and then headed west on I-70.

Unfortunately, the Audi certainly held the same type of attraction to Highway Patrol vehicles as it did to young girls. VIN tried his best to keep the silver bullet to within ten miles of the highway speed limits, but couldn’t resist the urge to let her go on any long and desolate stretches of road. He was lucky for the first couple of times, until when entering Ohio, the lights of a patrol car stayed in his rear view mirror for quite a while before VIN slowed to allow the speeding car to catch up.

“Nice car, kid,” the officer said stepping up to the passenger side of the Audi. “Taking your dad for a death ride I see. Sick of him being around and trying to give him a heart attack? Or is a nice kid like you in the ‘vehicle-removal-from-its-owner’ business, and thinking you can drive at 119 miles an hour without being noticed? I need proof of ownership, insurance and a driver’s license.”

Without a word VIN produced what the man wanted out of the car’s glove box.

“Give the kid a break, officer,” said Jonesy as the man was handed the paperwork. “The poor kid has just come back from Iraq, has two new prosthetic legs from above the knee, and just got the car. It’s his first piece of freedom for a decade.”

“This kid is driving like Daytona, and he has no legs?” replied the officer looking at the kid.

“I didn’t say he didn’t have any legs, I said he has plastic legs,” replied Jonesy minding his attitude as best he could.

“What service were you in son?” asked the officer.

“Marines, Force Recon, sir,” replied VIN.

The officer looked over the paperwork for a few moments, made sure they were current, and handed them back to VIN. “I was in Force Recon for a couple of years, and my son has just gone into Afghanistan with them. Kid, stay at or around the speed limit. Ohio is full of Highway Patrol. And drive carefully. Now, get out of here!”

The second forced stop was just before St. Louis, Missouri. This time the officer was not former Force Recon, but Air Force, and again they were lucky. The police officer told the man in the passenger seat of the fancy sports car that he had always wanted to be an Air Force test pilot, but had flown C-130s for a decade before losing his perfect eyesight, and didn’t want to fly a desk for the rest of his life.

After three tanks of gas, and the Audi happy to be driven harder than ever before, they decided to stop in “Beer City,” St. Louis for a while.

They visited the stadium and drank a couple of days of beer before Jonesy decided that he’d rather be a Packers fan, and they headed north into Green Bay to check out that area.

After a week of sightseeing, this time eating cheese with their beer, they decided that it looked too cold for a future place to live and continued westwards.

They cut across country, aiming to get back to the I-80 interstate and find beautiful lonely, long stretches of road the Highway Patrol didn’t seem to know about. After nearly hitting a group of cows on a lonely single lane highway at over 145 miles an hour, VIN decided to cool it and found the interstate around Iowa City.

At a major truck stop, Jonesy purchased the most expensive radar detection system that existed. With it, VIN thought the Audi undetectable, and drove like a complete madman, so a couple of hundred miles later Jonesy threw it out of the speeding car’s window.

Two days later they had an altercation with a few men in a bar in the middle of Nebraskan nowhere; they did win the fight, but spent a night in the local jail sobering up. The next morning they paid the judge $500 each for the fine and left town. They entered Colorado and headed southwest for Denver, and the mountains.

Jonesy grew quiet as they neared Denver and VIN found out from the older man that his parents lived just west of Denver in a little village called Idaho Springs.

“When was the last time you saw your folks?” asked VIN, driving within the speed limit after passing three patrol cars going the other way within the last hour.

“About ten years ago. My dad never forgave me for being thrown out of the only institution he called heaven. He told me to never come back, but they are still alive and maybe he has softened a bit, like me.”

“I doubt that very much,” added VIN smiling.

A few miles out of Idaho Springs the Audi had to negotiate a dirt road for the first time in its life. The driveway up to the log home where Jonesy’s parents lived ever since his father had retired decades earlier was quite long; VIN drove carefully and stopped in front of a small, cozy looking house. A very old man sat on a rocker on the porch, and an old woman opened an outer door to peer at unexpected visitors coming up their driveway.

She saw the lanky blond person climb out of the fancy car’s passenger door and shouted with excitement, slowly hobbling down the porch stairs to greet her son. The old man stayed where he was.

It took a few minutes of quiet hugging and tears before the lady let go of her son. VIN, with nothing better to do, walked up to the old man and introduced himself.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Jones, my name is Victor Isaac Noble. Most people in the Marine Corps called me VIN for short,” he said from below the stairs.

“You walk funny, son. You got a leg problem?”

“Yes, sir, an IED blew my legs off just outside Baghdad a few months ago.”

“Sorry to hear that, son. So your new job is chauffeur of a silver airplane without wings, driving my useless excuse for a son around?”

“I think you are correct on one part of what you said.”

“What was that, boy?” the old man asked.

“Your ‘useless excuse for a son’ is pretty correct, sir. I haven’t found anything he is good at since I met him,” VIN replied, straight faced.

“At least somebody agrees with me around here,” declared the old man, not moving. “Come sit down. Take the other rocker, and tell me how you lost your legs. It will help me ignore that son of mine for a little while longer.”

While the two men talked on the porch, Jonesy was herded by his mother into the house.

An hour later she came out with two cold beers and two plates of food.

“So, you say you think those guys building the IEDs were Iranians?” the old man asked, accepting his plate and a bottle of beer. He nodded his thanks to his wife, and VIN thanked her. VIN had already noted that both males in the family were so much alike that his travelling companion was nothing more than a wilder chip off the old block, just a quarter of a century younger.

VIN got to the end of his story and began to eat. It wasn’t long before a new question was asked of him.

“So why the hell did you pick my son as a travelling partner? I certainly wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t pick him, sir, he picked me. And, so far, in between hangovers—and I have never drunk so much in my life—we seem to get along.”

“I’m sure, like a snake and a mongoose. I’ve just got to figure out which is the snake and which is the mongoose.”

After a few minutes they were joined by the other two. VIN gave up his chair to the old woman, and both travelers sat on the top step of the nearly dark porch. The light was switched on as Jonesy’s mother got up to see to her food; silence reigned for most of the meal.

“So, son, have you been thrown out of any more institutions lately?” asked his father simply. “I see you haven’t been put into one that you couldn’t get out of. You must be behaving yourself.”

“Joseph, leave your son alone. He is old enough to look after himself,” admonished the mother.

“Oh, really!” was the answer she received. There were a few minutes of silence.

“Done any flying lately then, Mr. John Jones?” the old man asked.

“Just sold a crop duster, Dad. I spent the last year in honest employment killing the crap in other people’s fields. Pretty enjoyable flying, I must say.”

“Well at least you still know how to fly. I suppose you already knew how to fly before you were sixteen, the amount of crap you gave your mother and me on every base we ever lived in.”

“You could say that, Dad. I didn’t tell you the time the pilot of a small Cessna had a heart attack while he was flying me back into Dyess, did I?”

“Was that the time they found you in Italy and brought you back via the base in Louisiana? The pilot was found dead at the controls. You were fourteen I think, and, I was still at Dyess in Texas?”

“That’s right Dad. We had just taken off from a base—I can’t remember its name—in this old Cessna 210 spotter aircraft. It was just him and me, and he just got her up to flight altitude and on autopilot when he keeled over the controls; I checked for a pulse. We were full of parcels and sacks of letters. I was sitting in the right rear seat and couldn’t see much inside the aircraft because it was full to the roof. Not heavy stuff, just a load of mail.”

“He was already dead?” his father asked.

“Felt like it to me. I couldn’t find a pulse, so since the aircraft was heading toward Dyess, I left it alone. The flight was about three hours, I guess, and I moved the parcels into the front right seat to monitor the controls and do the radio work. Nobody seemed to think anything was out of the ordinary when I got into the pattern at Dyess after going back to manual flight. I simply completed the pattern while the runway lights came on, turned on the inner light, read the instructional booklet on landing instructions that was taped on the roof above my head. I got the engine sounding right, richened up the fuel flow, got the undercarriage down, landed, and taxied to where they told me. It was all quite simple, except that I think I got the propeller pitch out a little as she struggled to taxi. I placed the pilot into a straight up sitting position, put his stiff hands back on the controls, put the parcels back and climbed into the rear seat.”

“Really,” replied the old man. “Good thinking. The medical captain told me that he couldn’t understand how the pilot had landed the aircraft, since his body was already cold. And you telling them that it was very cold up there…bull crap. How many hours did it take me to convince the base commander that you didn’t murder the poor pilot! That incident cost me at least another year before the commander left, and I was finally promoted to major.”

“Why would I want to murder the man flying me? Didn’t these officers have any brains?” asked Jonesy.

“After a while I thought the same. Some of these men were purely there to get through their time and then retire. But that was just one out of dozens of problems you caused me. At least you are still alive, and it seems not an embarrassment to your family. I’m off to bed.” And he got up and left the porch.

His mother took the plates and returned a few minutes later with a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels and three glasses. “At times like this I often sit out here and have a drink or two. Want one?” Both men nodded, and she poured three Texas-size amounts into each glass and handed them out.

Jonesy relaxed once his father had gone to bed. It was chilly outside but the liquid kept them warm.

“He always followed your Air Force career,” his mother began. “He has a whole scrapbook of all the write-ups in any civilian newspapers or Air Force publications. His best cutting was when you brought that C-17 in with no engines on a dirt airfield in California. Just outside Edwards, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, that one. That was San Luis Obispo airport, not a dirt field,” Jonesy replied as if it was a drive to the supermarket. “I was catching a lift from Hawaii back to Edwards and was a couple of hours out when I heard a change in rhythm in left-wing jet engine number one. I was sleeping on a row of seats that was pretty close to the engine. It sounded like a sort of fuel starvation, so I headed up to the cockpit to tell the pilot. He was a youngster, not much younger than the kid here, about twenty-five. He was the copilot in the right seat. The left seat was full with a snoring flight commander, and the kid told me to mind my own business. Suddenly the engines went dead. The autopilot or the kid flying did something weird and the snoring pilot and I both hit the instrument panel hard. I heard the whack of his head and then blood ran down my face and onto the floor I was kneeling on. Suddenly this stupid kid of a pilot starts screaming at the top of his lungs and wakes up the hundred-odd troops in the cargo hold. A couple of them arrived and I ordered them to get the stupid kid and the unconscious captain out of the cockpit. One of the guys knew me and got the bodies out of my way. I jumped into the left seat and took over the controls. We were losing altitude and going into a dive. I pulled her up and figured out that, for some reason, one engine was still operating but the other three were dead. The aircraft was pretty heavy with a company of men and equipment. There seemed to be a fuel problem to the three dead engines, and I tried everything to get them fired up again, to no avail. The fourth engine was getting hot, so I calmed her down. One engine couldn’t keep the heavy aircraft airborne so I reduced power enough to keep the engine at normal to high operating temperatures, and this reduced our descent down to a glide rate of about 150 feet a minute.”

“Could you make Edwards with one engine?” asked his mother.

“No way! If I increased power she could fly straight and level, but the one engine would overheat pretty quickly at maximum thrust. I had the C-17 descending through 11,000 feet and everything still worked. The engine was also powering the electronics and, I hoped, the undercarriage when I needed it. I turned off everything unnecessary and asked if anybody was a pilot. Apart from the kid, who seemed out of it and had to be tied to a seat by some of the guys, I was the only one. I got the guy who knew me in the right seat to check maps for a possible landing site. We were still over 195 miles from the coast and descending. Our airspeed was about 200 knots and I needed every foot of altitude to get her over an airport somewhere. The closest airport to our route, as I said, was San Luis Obispo. We were north of the usual route due to passing around a thunderstorm an hour or so earlier. The civilian runway was long enough to get the C-17 down as long as the undercarriage and brakes worked. I did my numbers and figured that the aircraft would have 900 feet of altitude once we went in, so I called up Edwards, who called up the civilian airport, and we headed there. They had plenty of warning, cleared the airspace for me. I would only have one chance, and if the undercarriage collapsed I would put her down on the asphalt. If it didn’t, I would use the grass on the side of the runway. I waited until we were at 1,200 feet and half a mile out when I tried the wheels. I pushed full thrust on the engine, which I hoped fed maximum hydraulic power into the undercarriage system. It went down. I trimmed her out for landing, told everybody to buckle up, and went in for a perfect landing with the one engine on full thrust. One part I had not thought of was that I only had reverse thrust to help brake on one engine. It wasn’t much, and I stood on the brakes the last half of the runway and left beautiful black tire marks for a couple hundred yards. Only three tires gave out and the aircraft stopped with a foot or two of asphalt to spare. It wasn’t a very long runway, and I’m sure I touched her wheels down within inches of the end of the blacktop. Nothing really much to brag about, mother. I was just doing my job.”

“And those soldiers’ lives you saved?” she retorted.

“Yeah. A couple of the guys came and said thanks before they disembarked. Nobody at Edwards thought I had done anything fancy, and I never heard anything more. That was a long time ago.”

“What was the problem with the engines?” VIN asked.

“The Air Force never gives out that information, but I think it was fuel starvation. I don’t know why only three of the engines and not four, but I would bet something clogged up three of the four fuel lines.”

It came time for bed, so they all said good night and went to sleep. After breakfast, the reappearance of the old man returning from a long early walk, they readied to leave.

“If you are passing through Idaho Springs, son, I think it’s decent of you to visit your mother. I’ll do my best to put up with your stay. Kid, try and keep my boy out of trouble. That gene went missing when the guy was born!” shouted the old man over the din of the exhausts as VIN was warming up the engine and about to say their goodbyes.

Jonesy had certainly made his mother happy, and his father seemed to have warmed to his son, to at least one percent of a perfect hundred.

All the way through the remainder of Colorado neither man spoke a word. The Audi’s Bang & Olufsen speakers blared out 80s music from the satellite radio system, while Jonesy sat deep in thought. VIN realized that his partner had never once asked to drive his car. He could put a damaged C-17 down on a short runway, but had no interest in driving a car very few had ever had the chance to drive.

He slowly forgot about the rest of the world as the road began to snake through tight mountain passes, and he enjoyed putting the tires through their paces.

A week after leaving the East Coast they reached the end of I-70, in the middle of nowhere, many miles south of Salt Lake City. The car was stopped, the engine was turned off and both men just sat there in silence.

After about five minutes, VIN realized that it had been four hours since breakfast at Idaho Springs, and his stomach needed some sustenance. He had heard the weird names the Westerners called food in this area.

“North or south?” VIN asked. “North is Salt Lake City, south is Las Vegas.”

“Too many ex-girlfriends in Salt Lake; I reckon Las Vegas could be a place to stay for a while. I spent less time at Nellis than I did at Hill Air Force Base, and I know of a great Italian restaurant in Vegas where the Rat Pack used to hang out.”

“Who?” asked VIN.

“A bit before your time kid. Heard of Bogart, Sinatra, Dean Martin?”

“Sounds like a little before your time, too,” VIN replied.

“Yeah! I loved old Sinatra. When I used to catch rides on long trips, I could hear the music playing from where I was hiding. The pilots used to tune in to a radio channel playing the old stuff. I was only fourteen or fifteen, but the pilots were from the Rat Pack era. Over many hours, I got to enjoy the music and they played it loud over the intercoms and aircraft speakers. I’ll find us a channel like they used to search for… and head south, kid.”

It didn’t take long for him to find the right music on satellite radio, and with the loud crooning of Frank Sinatra, VIN headed south on the straight dual-lane highway which never seemed to end.

By nightfall, with a burger, and a new tank of gas in St. George, Utah, they left the state and entered Nevada. It was the first day of October.

Chapter 5

Do I See a C-5 Galaxy Over There?

Ryan Richmond stayed busy. He worked fourteen-to eighteen-hour days, going from one department to the other to assess progress and spent half of every day in one meeting after another.

He also spent hours in a golf cart driving from hangar to hangar. With twelve hangars situated around the main asphalt apron, the distance was a couple of miles if he visited all of them, which he often did several times a day.

Ryan lived in one of the separate bungalows, a little larger than the others. Why he had the crazy notion to build it with a large office, he never knew; he only slept and showered on the premises. His main office was in Hangar One, where the Ground Control was to be stationed, and where the ion thrusters were being built. He wanted to be near the power units, of which four were in production for the first trials into space in seven months’ time.

The new addition to his plan, the experimental C-5 Galaxy, had arrived on the last day of August, two weeks earlier, and with it an experienced pilot and copilot on loan from the Air Force until he would return the aircraft. He was reimbursing the service for them as well.

The chief pilot, a full colonel who had 2,000 flying hours under his belt, could certainly tell everybody how well he could fly, but when Ryan and several others took off on the company’s maiden flight, it seemed the copilot knew how to handle the aircraft far better than his superior.

It took time, but finally the Air Force brought Ryan up to date. The chief pilot hadn’t flown anything more than a desk for a decade, and the copilot, a twenty-five year-old captain, had spent his entire young career flying C-17s and similar transport aircraft.

Ryan had far more important issues than this one aircraft and pilots to take up his time, such as getting federal permits to obtain plutonium-238 for a car-sized power reactor that a company in the U.S. had built for him.

He had ordered it three years earlier, and now the reactor was ready to be shipped, but he needed federal authority to load fuel into the reactor—whatever type of fuel the federal government would permit him to use.

Unfortunately, if it was a box of Cheerios or a C-5 Galaxy, discussion was easy, but as soon as members of Congress heard about non-weapons grade and recycled plutonium-238 getting into the hands of a private company, even companies in the British-American space race, they acted like donkeys and wouldn’t budge on the permits.

Perhaps the reason was more about finances than safety.

Plutonium-238 was what NASA had used for its energy source in space for long-term missions. Even the car-sized robot running around on Mars had eight pounds of this exact grade of plutonium fuel that even a year or two earlier was said to be in short supply. NASA had relied on plutonium-238 to power robotic missions for five decades, but with supplies running low, scientists who wanted the government to make more found out that it was easier to chart a course across the solar system than to navigate the budget process inside Washington, D.C.

Ryan was an expert on space by now and knew that plutonium-238 gave off heat, which could be converted to electricity in the cold, dark depths of space. It was not the same grade used for bombs, but during the Cold War, the United States did produce this highly toxic stuff in facilities that supported nuclear weapons program; those facilities stopped making it in the late 1980s, decades earlier. With three loans from Congress, production of the fuel started up again, but the production cycle was five years, and the country wouldn’t have new supplies for another two.

Ryan had argued in Congress that without a space program—NASA only had plans to send out one or two exploration vehicles in the near future—whatever supplies the country still had would not be needed for several years. He told them that if they wanted the U.S. to win the private space race and to be able to supply the space station, they needed to help him. However, his argument fell on deaf ears; their vision was that the race was to a lower space orbit where solar energy was enough to win. Why was he even thinking about plutonium-238?

When the British got ahead of the Americans, Congress suddenly wanted reports from him, and the other company participating in the race, “Earth-Exit Inc.” Why were the American companies being shown up by a rich Brit with an airline that was flying out of California, their very own country?

Ryan pleaded his case and went to the President himself, who signed off on just two pounds of 238 instead of the twelve pounds he wanted. He was told by the President, who was by now a good and trustworthy friend of his and a fan of the space race that reports from the Department of Energy indicated they didn’t have what Ryan had initially asked for.

Congress finally agreed with the President: scientists from NASA said that the amount was enough to power one nuclear space battery for space travel, and he would have to return it once he had completed his program.

“After all, plutonium-238 does have an 87.78-year half-life,” they reported, and would outlive the company owner, and the current space race.

For Ryan this was not enough to build a deep space unit. Naturally, this nuclear battery would have enough power for daily use, but not for his ultimate project and the longer term his future spaceship would stay in space, far longer than he had disclosed to anybody apart from his inner team of thirty-six scientists.

Ryan looked unhappy leaving Capitol Hill, but inside he was satisfied with two years of bartering. He knew how much the government knew about his project, plus he could tell the reactor company in a year that he did have something to fuel the machine.

That wait was now over and he ordered the company to ship the one-ton reactor. He had his government-approved supply in two shielded chambers, each built with graphite and an inch of lead, each of which stored one pound of plutonium-238, and which Congress agreed to hand over with a permit and an additional fee of $10 million. He would still have to return the material after twenty-four months.

He was happy to get beaten up by Congress. The fuel deal was really just cover for his real purposes.

Five years earlier, when he had negotiated contracts with the second group of Russian nuclear scientists he had employed, all three were happy to tell him that they knew of a person on the Russian black market who could sell him five kilos of pure unused plutonium-238 for $25 million. He didn’t blink and flew to Murmansk in a hired private jet to complete the deal.

$25 million U.S. dollars would fill twelve large suitcases. Instead, he picked up nine cases of British pounds sterling from his bank in Switzerland, so as not to break so many U.S. laws. He safely collected his purchase in a large lead-lined four-ton holding-unit a Russian company had built for him for another million dollars. This was loaded onto a Russian truck and, with all the necessary exit papers, he had it delivered to a safe warehouse he had purchased in Turkey. There he had it well guarded.

He was very close to the time when his project would need the secretly purchased fuel. As soon as he could get his hands on the six-foot-square reactor and move it to its new home, the fuel would be launched into space, and away from the ever-watchful eyes of the U.S. Government.

The rest of the massive project progressed on time. He and many of his initial team had already worked for just over a decade on drawing up the plans. Sure, they scrapped ideas continuously, but out of the ideas came Ryan’s dream of going to space. Only few knew what he really wanted, and that was another two years away.

***

The silver bullet was parked in the underground parking lot of the Mandalay Bay casino hotel, sixty-plus miles east of Ryan’s airfield. It had been there for forty-eight hours, silently waiting.

VIN and Jonesy were twenty stories above. It was daylight, an hour before midday, and both men, in separate bedrooms of a mid-sized suite, were trying to get the blurry vision of their latest hangover out of their eyes so they could focus on the breakfast. Jonesy, more used to this type of living than the younger man, managed to get there first and help himself to eggs, bacon, hash browns and coffee. “Get out here, kid, I’m hungry enough to eat all this myself. Two eggs each? What is wrong with you? Two eggs are for wimps. Real men eat three or more.”

“Sorry,” replied a rough-looking former Marine, a towel around his neck and his face still wet from getting his legs attached. Jonesy always forgot that it took VIN longer to get ready.

“Did you win last night?” VIN asked, helping himself.

“Nope. Was up a grand on roulette by midnight, but lost five on the blackjack table. I’m down four since yesterday.”

“That adds to the grand you lost on day one, or now ten percent of your part of the stash,” replied VIN.

“And you, Mr. Gambler?” asked the older man.

“I got back the 500 dollars I lost yesterday and now I’m up 500 bucks on my side. That pays for this room and breakfast for our second day. Today you had better win, or we are out of here before we get evicted. Stick to roulette; you suck at blackjack!”

“Kid, I think that you might be right for once in your life. If I’m up by dark, I’ll hand the winnings to you and maybe we get the largest steaks and margaritas this side of Texas for dinner.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen as planned. They got the steaks and Margaritas all right, but Jonesy was down another thousand dollars. VIN was up a thousand dollars and suggested that he might have to separate his side of the combined bank account. Jonesy stopped gambling after that and went after female companionship for the next couple of days instead.

VIN enjoyed the gambling. Although he had never played the tables in his life, he learned and now understood craps. His first day’s winnings of 500 dollars gave him pleasure and he was up $7,000 over the next three days while Jonesy pursued other interests. He brought various women back to the suite, not always beautiful and young. One he met and bedded on the fifth day was striking, until in the morning she asked for her nightly rate of $250.

At least Jonesy is losing less money on women than on gambling! VIN thought to himself over breakfast as Jonesy complained to the pretty girl that he wouldn’t have spoken to her if he knew that he had to pay. He gave her two hundreds and gruffly told her to get out.

It finally happened; on the seventh day VIN’s total stash of winnings was reduced to a measly hundred bucks by Jonesy’s spending. He had paid for the room daily from his winnings, and had replaced Jonesy’s losses in the bank account. After a week of gambling and drinking, Vegas was getting old and it was time to move on.

Jonesy was still enjoying himself and didn’t want to leave. Nor did the blonde he had brought home earlier that morning, just when VIN had decided that enough was enough.

“If you want to stay, that’s fine with me,” said VIN over breakfast at the usual time. “You get all your gear out of the car. You can have the room and keep Blondie here, and I’ll head out and pick you up in a year or two. I reckon you won’t last two weeks.”

“I’m staying,” said Jonesy. The small pasty blonde woman, several years older than VIN, clapped her approval, hoping to get some of the breakfast. She wasn’t getting VIN’s half.

“We have to be out of here by midday, if we are leaving!” added VIN.

“You go, I’m staying. What else is there to see out there? Another few hundred miles and then we hit the end of the road west!” replied Jonesy keeping his share of breakfast away from the hungry-looking girl. This made VIN think a little harder. It was fine to leave Jonesy here, but the overgrown pilot wouldn’t last long. He might be a good pilot, but he sure couldn’t fly a casino.

“I’m heading over to Base 51, or whatever they call that secret military base around here. I’ve always wanted to see where it is,” VIN responded after a few moments of thinking what would tempt his partner.

“Area 51? Now that sounds a little better!” replied Jonesy, excited for the first time since they had arrived in Las Vegas. “It’s north…or northwest of here. I know we’ll get told to buzz off from the front gate security, but I‘ve heard that there are people out there all the time, civilians monitoring what is going on inside from the nearby hills.” He turned to the girl. “You, whatever your name is, get dressed. Here’s a hundred bucks; go and find your own breakfast. You took a cotton to me, not the other way around, and I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

VIN smiled as the offended woman took the money offered, found the rest of her clothing, told Jonesy what she thought of dogs like him, and quickly headed out of the door when he raised his breakfast knife to throw at her.

They left at midday, the Audi rested and ready to go anywhere, even on dirt roads.

Jonesy seemed back into the adventure, especially after asking his first question as VIN headed out of Las Vegas on I-95 toward Tonopah, Nevada. “So, kid, how much did we lose in Vegas last week?”

“Nothing,” VIN replied. “You lost or spent seven grand, I won ten grand, the room and board cost us three grand and we are leaving up seventy-three dollars, and that will go into the tank at the next gas station.”

Jonesy smiled. “You’re all right, kid!”

After stopping for gas, coffee, sandwiches, a couple of large bottles of water for the desert, and a case of beer just in case, they headed northwest along the Veterans Memorial Highway toward the turnoff which would take them up toward Groom Lake, where the secret base was situated.

It wasn’t long before they left 95 and headed due north into the old Nevada Test Range, where over 900 atomic bombs had been detonated during the last century. Jonesy had never flown into Area 51. Only certain pilots on special missions did, but he had flown into Indian Springs, now Creech Air Force Base, just north of Las Vegas many times.

They passed the growing air base and headed on. VIN found the turnoff he was looking for and turned right onto Mercury Highway. It seemed that the road names described the area.

For twenty miles there wasn’t much to see. The desert temperature was rising and even in fall, it felt like it was in the nineties. Finally they spotted Groom Lake Road and a few miles farther, the expected security gate appeared over the crest of a hill.

Neither had said a word since they turned off 95; they cautiously approached the armed detail at the gate.

“You can take this bullet and turn it around, guys. This is forbidden territory for you,” ordered the well-armed sergeant peering in through the passenger window.

“Colonel John Jones, United States Air Force, retired, and Lieutenant VIN Noble, Marine Force Recon, retired. Are you sure we can’t creep in and have a quick look around, Sarge?”

He looked at the dog tags being shown to him and smiled. “Shit, guys, you know full well I can’t do that; otherwise I would be quickly fired or retired just like you. But I’ll tell you something I’m not supposed to. There is a new civilian air base northwest of us. It’s been there almost a year now, just south of Tonopah. The flyboys say that it has grown non-stop since it was started. Some civilian rich guy owns it. Head back down to 95, turn right and go toward Lida Air Strip, the only marker I know of, about 100 miles from the start of Mercury Highway. I went past the turnoff driving up to Reno last year, about 20 miles south of Tonopah. When you see a dirt airstrip on the left hand side of the road, take the road to the left. Stay on it, and the new base is about five miles down that way. Honestly, guys, you have more chance of mooching around there than here. If you don’t turn around, one of us will have to shoot up this fancy car of yours, unless you are James Bond, though if you are, the kid doesn’t look like Moneypenny or Felix Leiter.”

“What’s happening there?” Jonesy asked.

“All I heard was that this rich guy had purchased an old World War Two runway and is trying to go to space. The guy has big bucks. His trucks have caused havoc with traffic along both directions of the Veterans Highway for nine whole months, carting stuff into there. You will still see trucks on the highway. Just follow one and it will take you there. Now, buzz off, gents, before us active military guys get mad,” he ended smiling, thumping the car door and returning to the gate.

Without much more to say, VIN turned the dusty car around and headed back. The sergeant had been correct: as soon as they got back on the highway they ended up behind a truck going up a long incline with thick double yellow lines.

The same happened an hour later as they began searching for the airstrip. VIN had to quickly slow from 100 miles an hour to just 45. The truck in front of them was heavy and lumbered up another incline. They managed to overtake it and saw the dusty small airstrip ahead. VIN used a lot of brakes to slow down and then turned the car left. He watched in his rear view mirror as the truck also turned left, now a mile behind them.

Much like Area 51, they reached a high wired gate on which hung large signs that told visitors that the whole fence was electrified and deadly.

“Felix Leiter to see James Bond,” said Jonesy to the khaki-clad guard as he approached, automatic weapon in hand.

The man almost looked like he was ready to open the gate, but he changed his mind. “Sorry, sir, I thought you were the boss, with that car. Have you any reason to be here?”

“Now, why would you think that we could be your boss? And yes, we could have a reason to be here,” replied Jonesy with his usual attitude.

“The boss drives a car like this, an Audi. Is this a new car for him?” the guard replied.

“Why don’t you call up the boss and say that his replacement silver bullet is here, and we are thirsty,” Jonesy replied. The guard returned to the well-equipped guardhouse and got on a phone while the truck they had passed drove up behind them.

Nothing happened for nearly thirty minutes; the guard didn’t return, and the truck behind them, its engine running, just waited.

“I see the road is paved on the other side of the gate with fresh asphalt,” said VIN, as he thought he saw a mirage. Coming down a rise in the road toward the gate on the nice road surface was and identical car.

“Gee, kid,” laughed Jonesy. “It looks like the rich dude is just like you. He has the exact same car.”

They both watched as the R8 approached the inside of the gate, stopped and a tall, thin man wearing khaki pants, a white shirt and dark glasses got out and went into the guard house to talk to the guards. After a minute the man was escorted out of the gate by two security guards.

“Nice car, boys. What do you want?”

For once Jonesy couldn’t figure out what to say.

“Newer model than mine?” asked VIN looking across Jonesy at the man peering in.

“Last year’s model. Yours is three, maybe four years old. At least you got the eight-cylinder and not the ten. I didn’t like the ten much and downgraded back to the eight. Now, can I help you? I’m a busy man, and the truck driver behind you is about to turn your car into scrap metal.”

“Colonel John Jones, United States Air Force, retired, and Lieutenant VIN Noble, Marine Force Recon unit, retired. Interested in what you have here, Mr…?” Jonesy finally found his mouth as the truck driver hooted his loud horn behind them.

“Richmond is the name. Guard!” he shouted to the men at the gate. “Let these guys in so that the truck can pass. Make sure they don’t go any farther.” The gate opened, VIN started the engine, and they drove in and were directed behind the guardhouse and next to the other Audi.

“Now, just because you have a fancy car, why come and harass me and my airfield?” the tall man said as he walked up. They got out, and the truck drove in, passed them and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

“Hell, I don’t know!” VIN responded and was interrupted by his partner.

“This is a graded hill so nobody can see inside from the gate.” Jonesy added.

“Correct, Mr. Jones. This 50-foot berm surrounds my entire airfield inside the electrified fence I erected. Any more questions?”

“OK, we were just inquisitive. Let us see what is over the hill, and we will leave you in peace. Is that a deal?”

“That is a deal, Mr. Jones. There is a second brow and just after that, a second gate, so you won’t see much. I needed a walk so I will join you.” The three men began walking up the steep rise. VIN was slow and the other two had to wait halfway up for him.

“Unfit, Mr. Noble, I believe your name was?” asked Mr. Richmond.

“No, a tough Marine, Mr. Richmond; just slow due to crappy off-the-shelf military leg prosthetics,” replied Jonesy protecting his friend.

“Lose them in Afghanistan?” asked Richmond.

“No, in Iraq during the pullout,” replied VIN catching up to them.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you, young man,” replied the owner and carried on to the top of the incline. They reached the top and saw the second gate, a second incline, several large one-story warehouses where the truck was unloading and, over the top of the incline, they could just see a few hangar roofs and the tall vertical tail of a military aircraft.

“Do I see a C-5 Galaxy over there?” asked Jonesy, his face showing interest.

“I believe you do,” was the reply. “You can only see the top half of the tail, and you know it’s a C-5? Pretty observant, but then you said you were Air Force?”

“Yes, I was a test pilot and flew those birds for hundreds of hours,” Jonesy replied standing on tip-toe trying to see more.

“Ever fly one with an enlarged rear door?” Ryan Richmond asked out of the blue. He didn’t know why he had asked that question, but it just slipped out.

“The ‘Dead Chicken,’ sure. We had a C-5 with a large door. I tested her for two years when they put in that door and tried to pressurize it, and even when they added her new engine upgrades. Don’t tell the Air Force, but I got her up to 52,000 feet one time with her new engines, empty though, and their flight plan and instruction only cleared me to 47,000 feet.”

“Why the ‘Dead Chicken’?” asked Ryan, smiling.

“Well, the guys who flew her reckoned that if ever a chicken used a butt that size to lay an egg, she would certainly be dead!” Jonesy replied smiling.

“Mr. Jones, do you have any plans for the next couple of years?”

“Nope, nothing a bit of flying and a $100 grand a year wouldn’t beat.”

“Mr. Noble, what about you? You aren’t a pilot, I believe, but I would assume you two are together?”

“I could be the side-gunner. Nothing a bit of side-gunning and a $100 grand a year wouldn’t beat!”

Ryan smiled. “OK, follow me and I’ll get you to the second gate. There is a lot of paperwork to get through, a two-year contract to sign stating you will not leave this base without authorization, and then I can show you your Dead Chicken, Mr. Jones.”

“Is that really the Dead Chicken? Crap! I should have asked for $200 grand!” he replied loudly.

Chapter 6

Do We Have a Job?

Both men were quite surprised at the amount of paperwork they had to complete. Jonesy said several times that it was easier giving his life away to the U.S. military than getting employed with this company, Astermine Co. What did Astermine mean anyway?

After hours of detailing their full life histories nearly down to the baby food brand their parents had used, they were left alone in an office while Ryan Richmond went through the paperwork in the office next door and made several phone calls.

Then, a man dressed in a white coat arrived and gave them the same physicals any pilot would have received. A second man, also in a white coat, arrived and looked carefully at VIN’s limbs and prosthetic legs. He took measurements of the leg connections and then the rest of VIN’s body.

“Measuring me up for a suit, or a coffin?” VIN asked.

“Neither,” said the bespectacled man in a foreign accent and left.

Slowly the day wore on and an hour before nightfall, both men, now extremely bored, watched as the owner, two men in suits, and a pretty, young, blonde girl in a wheelchair met in the glassed office next door. It appeared they were trying not to look at the two men next door, and discussed them for a full twenty minutes.

“I think we have entered the lair of the unknown,” suggested Jonesy, watching the proceedings.

“You got me into this,” replied VIN studying the girl in the wheelchair. “At least I’m not the only cripple in this institution. It seems they take cripples and half-humans, as well as totally mad ex-Air Force pilots. Hopefully not for experiments. Jonesy, know how to lip read? I can’t.”

“No. Maybe they will take us up in the Galaxy, throw us all out and see who hits the ground first,” added Jonesy as the meeting broke up. “I’m starting to think maybe it’s time to leave Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Ms. Wheelchair. I’m sure that guy checking you out for a suit of armor was Russian.”

Ryan entered the room as the rest left the office. “Well done, gentlemen. Your attorney friend Joe back in Fayetteville filled me in on your history. Mr. Noble, it all fits and you passed muster. As for you Mr. Jones, your former base commander at Hill Air Force Base, after speaking to the Pentagon to allow him to answer my questions, gave you the worst report I have ever heard for a former Air Force pilot. He certainly doesn’t like you and for your information, I spoke to him as a civilian. He retired five years ago. Your Air Force Academy glider instructor from the 1970s, who is still alive, sends his regards and his report, and while also damning in the discipline department, said that you would have been one of the best pilots the United States Air Force ever trained. ”

“Do we have a job?” VIN asked.

“Read and sign this last contract, gentlemen, and yes, you both have jobs.” They read the contracts.

“It states here $200,000 per year for two years. Is that right?” asked Jonesy first.

“That’s what you loudly suggested and, after my research into your background, I agree that it is a reasonable amount for what I’m getting; the best pilot the Air Force ever had.”

“Mine only says a hundred grand?” said VIN.

“You aren’t the best pilot in the country, and you’re also a decade or so younger, Mr. Noble. I think my offer is more than the United States Marine Corps ever paid you, plus I’m only getting half a body!”

Hearing it put that way, VIN nodded. Without further questions, both men signed.

“Welcome, men. Now we can get you to work to earn your pay,” Ryan Richmond said collecting the contracts. “From now you call me Ryan.” Both men nodded. “We have a little daylight left, so let’s check out your Dead Chicken, Mr. Jones, and then I’ll give you a full tour of the airfield. You guys haven’t eaten for a while, so I’ve had the kitchen brown-bag us some sandwiches so that we can eat while we tour the aircraft. Mr. Noble, I will have a second carport built next to mine, and you can keep your R8 out of the sun. Give me a day and it will be done… and don’t try to take mine by mistake!” VIN and Ryan each gave their car keys to security.

The entered the inner gates for the first time and, in a golf cart, were driven over the berm where both men looked down at the massive hangar system and complete airfield below them; they could not have realized how big this setup in the middle of nowhere was.

“That’s the Dead Chicken, all right,” said Jonesy. “I can see her large, ugly, rear loading ramp from here.”

“How many hours do you have in the C-5?” Ryan asked.

“About 300 hours over a decade,” replied the pilot. “What are you planning as the rest of the crew? The Air Force always uses a crew of seven to fly her; two pilots, two flight engineers, and three loadmasters.”

“Can you deal with only one flight engineer?” Ryan asked.

“Sure, with one flight engineer, a copilot who knows what he’s doing, and me, you can get away with a crew of three. What about the loadmasters?” Jonesy asked.

“We are only taking up a second stage shuttle, and inside the shuttle a spacecraft, as high as the aircraft can fly. On these flights the rear doors will be removed and in a climbing attitude the shuttle and spacecraft, released internally, will roll out of her rear, like the egg you described, drop away, ignite and climb past her into space. She then returns to base, simple and easy.”

“I understand,” replied Jonesy. The Air Force perfected this type of ejection with pallets out of the back ends of C-17s. The C-5 was designed before this new idea took form, and not many of the earlier ones were refitted for this role. C-5s take off fully loaded, fly across the world and land fully loaded at their destination. The Dead Chicken was the result of the first tests to get the larger C-5 to achieve low-level pallet delivery by parachute from less than 100 feet. Something just didn’t work right. I reported the problem several times; lousy air turbulence behind the aircraft at low speeds, and the C-17 design got rid of the problem altogether.”

“That’s why I managed to get her on loan,” replied Ryan walking toward the door of the largest aircraft VIN had ever been close to. “The ejection of a large, solid aerodynamic aircraft out of the rear area is the least disruptive for any air turbulence at a climbing speed above 400 knots,” he lectured. “The ejection of the load, hopefully above 50,000 feet, should allow the shuttle to roll out, fall away, ignite and get out of her way before her nose needs to be lowered to reduce any possibilities of stall. Can you do that, or at least teach your copilot to do that, Mr. Jones?”

“Sure!” he replied. “Why 50,000 feet? I reckon I could do that at 52,500 feet or higher. Also why is the copilot going to be flying the C-5?”

“To answer your first question, every 1,000 feet of altitude saves half a percent of the fuel needed to get the second stage into space. At nearly twenty million dollars to fill up the tanks of the second stage with a hybrid-type rocket fuel, every 1,000 feet will save me big bucks. Twenty grand bonus if you can help us get her to your higher altitude. Secondly, Mr. Jones, you will be flying the second stage.”

“A little too high to be the side-gunner on that one?” suggested VIN, seeing that his partner was suddenly very excited for the first time since he had ever met him.

“I have other plans for you, Mr. Noble. You will be a test for new products we have been designing for a couple of years now and already under manufacture,” replied Ryan simply, and VIN gulped. “Your tests will be done in Hangar Five, but let’s first have Mr. Jones give us a tour of the Chicken.”

The three men entered the mammoth aircraft and were introduced to the pilots going over flight checks in the cockpit. Ryan wanted to see if his current team knew Mr. Jones. The older one, the chief pilot, did.

“Oh! I remember you, Jones,” said the senior pilot as they entered the large flight cockpit area made for four working crew. He was going over numbers with a much younger copilot, about fuel usage on a long flight. “Were you a major, a captain or nothing when I last saw your sorry ass, when you were thrown out of the Air Force?”

“Actually all three, Colonel, and if I remember, you were flying a desk when you signed my discharge papers. Is this young kid trying to teach you how to fly airplanes again?” replied Jonesy in his usual polite manner.

“Ryan, I’m not working with this deadbeat of a pilot. He’s dangerous, a loose cannon. If he’s going to be part of my flight crew, I‘m not flying!”

“Sounds like you are right on the money, Colonel,” replied Ryan smiling. “Please head over to Gate One; Corporal Smith is already outside waiting for you by my golf cart. Captain Pitt, please escort the colonel out of the aircraft immediately, and once he drives off with the corporal please return to the cockpit.” Without another word, the angry Air Force pilot left the cockpit and headed to the aft of the aircraft.

“How come you got that ass of a pilot to fly your plane?” Jonesy asked.

“He came with the loan and so did the captain; I’m sure the Air Force will send somebody else to replace him,” Ryan replied.

“The Air Force certainly doesn’t like you very much, sending you that quality of pilot!” exclaimed Jonesy.

“Yes, I couldn’t figure out their motive, except maybe to have somebody to keep an eye on my progress here and send back reports.”

“That sounds more logical. What about the captain?” Jonesy asked.

“He’s good. I assume their logic was to send me one “mole” one guy who could actually fly this thing.” The captain returned, as Jonesy slipped into the left seat, a seat he had spent 300 hours in, and scanned the hundreds of dials and instruments with his eyes.

“What about him telling the Air Force stuff you don’t want them to know?” VIN asked, surprised at how simple the dials on his R8 instrument panel looked compared to this monster. Now he knew why Jonesy hadn’t asked to drive.

“You mean ninety-nine percent of what we are doing here? No problem. He and the captain and the mechanics and a few others don’t enter the hangars, other than Hangar Three where this aircraft is kept. They know absolutely nothing about the rest of the project. Your colonel friend has been apprehended twice by security for, as he said, taking walks where he shouldn’t have been. That’s why he knows he’s out of here. I asked Dover Air Force Base for a real pilot as a replacement over a week ago.”

“I’m happy to fly for you, Mr. Richmond, now that you got rid of the colonel,” interjected Captain Pitt.

“I was hoping you would say that, Captain,” replied Ryan. “You can leave now; your day is done and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“So we arrived at the right time?” VIN added as the captain left.

“Precisely,” replied Ryan. “I will have to take a replacement pilot from the Air Force, but I’m glad to have somebody in my own employ who will be more trustworthy than the chief pilot they give me. Plus, I think the younger captain has his heart in what he has seen here. I will offer him a bonus if he keeps any information he learns here secret. As the saying goes, ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,’ and hopefully he will pass the Air Force only the information I want him to. The same is going to happen with the guy I just kicked out of here. He has been primed to tell them what we chose to allow him to know, and I’m sure he will proudly relay the false information. All I want is for the Pentagon to take little notice of my operation. I’m sure they look down at us from above, from space, but my control tower can tell if there is an aircraft or an unmanned drone within fifty miles of our tower. As yet they haven’t sent anything, except a small civilian Cessna a week ago, which came low overhead, and we gave the aircraft a small shock.”

“A small shock?” asked Jonesy.

Yes, in the tower I have a modern Russian-made system, a “Choking Device” they call it if you translate into direct English. Much like a small intermittent mini-EMP burst, a pulse goes out every three seconds and causes havoc with any aircraft’s electronic instruments, which interrupts the smooth flow of all electrics aboard any aircraft within a five-mile radius of the airfield. Much like an engine coughing, all electrically controlled engines, dials, radar systems, radios, everything a pilot needs to fly the aircraft sort of goes on and off every few seconds. Very scary for anybody up there taking a peek at us when all their controls start acting up. That guy in the Cessna was out of here and aiming for Lida airstrip within seconds.”

For the next hour, as the night closed in and the airport’s lights came on, Jonesy started the four massive engines of the aircraft so he could listen to them. He brought them up to power and taxied the aircraft slowly to the end of the runway. He used the C-5’s specially designed system to turn the massive beast 180 degrees around on the wide, freshly-surfaced 10,000-foot runway and returned the aircraft to its hangar position.

“I bet you don’t know that these four engines have the same thrust as the current Air Force One.” Ryan indicated that he didn’t know. “Yep! Fifty-six thousand pounds of thrust each instead of the usual 46,000 pounds most of the more modern C-5Ms have, and they sound as sweet as they ever did.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” replied Ryan to Jonesy.

“That’s why she’ll climb over the 50,000 foot altitude barrier. From 1986 to 89, they were designing the VC-25 model engines for the new VC-25 model Air Force One at Boeing, the two current Air Force model 747s. General Electric designed sixteen of these VC-25 engines for testing, and it was the final engine accepted for the new Presidential aircraft. Actually they made twenty, just in case; the Air Force heard about the extra set of four, and got them placed here on the Dead Chicken. She can’t out-fly Air Force One, but she can climb like her. One of the major characteristics of the engines to was rate of climb and altitude flight. The faster the engines could climb the President out of trouble, for example taking off from Kabul or Baghdad, the more chance the manufacturer had to clinch the deal.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jones; you have just earned your first flight pay. How many Air Force people know this?” Ryan asked.

“I think me and a couple of other test pilots, her current, and a long list of mechanics, the guys who designed her upgrades, and a few at General Electric; I reckon eighty percent of all of them, including me, are now retired. Not many.”

For the rest of the early hours of Monday night, Ryan and Jonesy discussed the Dead Chicken. Captain Pitt returned to the aircraft, the aircraft’s outside security guard bringing him back. Pitt was asked to sign a new nondisclosure agreement, which he did, and was also sworn to secrecy by Jonesy, who offered to teach him to fly as well as he could. Thus, the second member of the flight crew became part of the inner circle; he and VIN sat around in the flight engineer chairs and listened to the conversation from the pilot’s seats.

During this time the aircraft was turned around by the tractor, pushed into the hangar, the doors closed, and they were left alone in the cockpit still discussing flying.

The rest of the tour was put off until the next morning. The men hadn’t even been told where they were sleeping, but they would get used to Ryan Richmond. He worked like this every day.

Chapter 7

Training and Deployment

At 6:15 a.m. Tuesday, the next morning, the two men were awakened in their new rooms in the three-story hotel by a buzzer sounding through the whole building. They had been shown to their rooms by security just after midnight, when they had ended the aircraft cockpit meeting.

Ryan had not discussed any more of the mission apart from the atmospheric flight procedures. Most of the time Ryan and Jonesy talked while VIN and Michael Pitt, the copilot, listened. Dinner and soft drinks were brought into the aircraft at about nine and the hungry group devoured the burgers and fries and drank the several cans of juice.

Their single apartments were much like long-term hotel rooms, each with a bedroom with a double bed, a bathroom and a small open-plan lounge and kitchen. The refrigerator was stocked with everything but alcohol. Their bags and clothes from the car had been neatly placed on the beds, but the bottles of beer had disappeared. Something VIN thought would not go down well with his older partner.

He still didn’t know what he had been employed for, but he was sure that it had to do with the extremely pretty blonde he had noticed in the wheelchair. He bet himself that he would know her name by the end of the day. VIN was excited to be in such a puzzling but important project.

To VIN, Ryan seemed far ahead of anyone else in his attempt to be the first private company into orbital space, after what he had seen and read in the newspapers about the race. Few papers had mentioned this newest company’s entrance.

On the way to their rooms, they found out breakfast was a buffet system downstairs; dinner was in their refrigerators, but breakfast and lunch would be in the foyer, just like a hotel.

VIN was shocked to see that dozens of mothers and children were also eating breakfast, and the kids even had backpacks, and looked like they were really going to school.

“I wonder if there is a yellow school bus outside,” VIN asked, getting no response from Jonesy.

They ate quickly and heard their names called out by a security person as they drank coffee, mistakenly thinking that they could sit there and relax for a while.

They were escorted to just inside the small side entrance of the first hangar and were told to remain there. They stood around and examined the space. Jonesy pointed out to VIN that this hangar was doubled-sided, much like a hangar within a hangar. Having noticed weird-looking engines or electronic motors being put together in the hangar, he understood the construction was to prevent spying by any external means.

“Good morning, Mr. Jones, Mr. Noble. Let’s continue our tour,” a smiling Ryan greeted them, looking fresh and wide awake as he walked up and shook their hands. “Slept well, I hope, and ready to fill your brains with matter? These are ion thrusters, a form of space propulsion, Mr. Jones. You, Mr. Noble, and the rest of our pilot crew will learn how to operate all our new craft in the flight simulators being erected and completed over there,” he said pointing to half a dozen military-type flight simulators along the side wall.

For an hour Ryan explained the workings of the new engines neither man had ever seen before. They were like small replicas of a jet engine on the C-5, the same but different. There were men and women in white coats working on each of the engines. Some were working on computer terminals and others were connecting parts by hand in sealed-off dust-free sections.

Then they were guided over to a larger Hangar Two, also a double-walled hangar, Jonesy noticed. Inside, large plastic-sheeted inner work areas gave the workers clean work conditions. They were working on long flat body panels which to VIN looked as shiny as the bodywork of the Audis. Some of the panels lay separately on long tables inside the plastic compartments; the panels appeared to be about ten feet wide and forty feet long.

“We can’t enter the dust-free environment,” Ryan explained. “These panels have been specially built by the best aluminum company in the country for this project. The process starts with a reinforced outer panel that comes to us out of a plant in Silicon Valley, lying face down. The shiny aluminum is half an inch thick, and composed of a lightweight aluminum-lithium alloy, with added elements of small amounts of cobalt, vanadium, silicon, tungsten, boron and lastly, titanium, for strength. This alloy is similar to the outer skin used in NASA’s most recent, and now retired, space shuttle. If this were a steel panel, it would weigh many tons. Our configuration weighs only a quarter of a ton. The panel is ten feet wide and forty feet long, and will fit exactly into the cargo holds of all our spacecraft. Mr. Noble, you look a little lost? This alloy panel with all of its added elements is the outer skin of a spacecraft. Every spacecraft we manufacture here will be made out of these panels.”

“Sure must cost a lot,” suggested VIN.

“Correct, Mr. Noble, and that’s why I’m paying you so little. Each completed outer panel will cost just over one million dollars, or about eleven Audi R8s.”

VIN whistled. “But you must have over 100 panels here,” he calculated in shock.

“Correct, and we have ten more panels arriving every fourteen days.”

“And this panel keeps out the cosmic radiation?” asked Jonesy.

“No, this panel is just the first barrier against EMP, the powerful electromagnetic pulses produced by solar flares in deep space, Mr. Jones.” They then followed the quick walking Ryan.

“Over here,” Ryan added heading over to the next section, where a second group of white-coated scientists added a second skin to one of the panels. “We are adding a one-tenth-inch layer of pure carbon graphite to the panel’s inside wall. This layer is placed on the inside of the panel and then heated in our massive vacuum-oven over there to bond the two materials together. Once that is done, we add a one-inch, honeycombed carbon nanotube structure, intertwined with a carbon composite layer, much stronger than the Kevlar fabric used in body armor. This honeycombed structure, Mr. Jones, is to protect us from cosmic radiation. Then, a second layer of the same carbon graphite is grafted on to the inside of a honeycombed structure to seal it. Once the panel is ready, liquid hydrogen will be poured into the honeycombed structure under pressure and then sealed. Pure liquid hydrogen is the best protection against cosmic rays that we know of as scientists.

“Our second backup protection from cosmic radiation will be large 200-pound electromagnets made mostly of a powerful rare-earth magnetic material called neodymium. The magnets will be placed throughout any spacecraft we build. This powerful force will give the craft a small magnetic field to help repel cosmic rays, and a small pseudo-gravity field that is about fifteen to twenty percent of what we are used to on Earth, for metal things only. This field will help crops grow in space, give us the ability walk around with metal shoes, and eat dinner on metal plates with metal knives and forks. Get the picture?” Both men nodded.

They moved onto the second half of the massive hangar. “In this section we are now adding the semi-final layer to the inside of the panels. This layer will keep any internal heat from dissipating into space. For this, we add a second honeycombed carbon nanotube structure intertwined with the same carbon composite layer. Instead of liquid hydrogen, we add liquid argon which, if kept in a cold state, is too dense to accept any heat. This means that any heat will be repelled by cold liquid argon, once in space, when it attempts to warm the liquid. Our tests show that it will be cold enough stay liquid from a combination of the cold liquid hydrogen, which in turn is kept in a cold liquid state by the coldness of space, plus a little help from a nuclear reactor.

“The scientists who designed these outer walls state that this protective barrier will keep space travelers protected and warm for upward of a century, provided we are not too close to radiation coming directly from the sun. The cold liquid gases will be added, then the entire panel is sealed in a special chamber over there,” he said, pointing to the large window of a separate room with what looked like it had a cattle dip in the floor.

“And all this is just to win this little space race into orbit?” asked Jonesy in awe.

“And a bit more space travel, but I will explain a little more when we get to Hangar Four,” smiled Ryan. “The last covering, like the soft inside wall of a commercial airliner, will be sealed onto the inner wall of each panel. It is a material made out of three inches of soft carbon nanofoam, which can be painted for habitation, or can act as a giant vegetable garden allowing plant growth on it. In space we will be able to grow vegetables on all six walls of a cubed greenhouse.”

“A wall to grow plants on?” VIN asked. “Are you going to fund the project by growing marijuana up in space?”

“A good idea I never thought of!” replied Ryan chuckling at the comment. “At the end of the production line over here,” he continued, arriving at the end of the hangar, “we have a one-foot-thick finished panel with its inner wall intact. Eight complete panels are programmed to line up into orbit on one shuttle launch, and then the panels will be bonded together by robotic spiders. As you can see there are no windows, but there are eight-foot square sliding doors on a few, and open round holes which will have Russian docking ports added to the panel in space: one in every couple of dozen panels. Lastly, each outer panel wall will receive a covering of a photovoltaic nanofilm paint an inch thick for solar-energy absorption. The electricity generated will be transmitted across each panel to an internal storage unit somewhere inside each craft.” Ryan, paused, noticing the two men’s eyes were beginning to glaze over. He could see that he was now going over the heads of the two men’s scientific expertise. “Some of these panels will be shaped, bent, formed, and cut to create the outer and inner shuttle walls, and the walls of the spacecraft you will be flying, Mr. Jones. Let’s go to Hangar Three.”

“What are those oval aluminum cylinders for over there?” Jonesy asked.

“Corridors, sleep centers, compartments, and storage units, that’s all,” replied Ryan curtly.

“Looks like we heading to Mars, kid,” added Jonesy, following the boss back across the hangar to exit the way they had come in. VIN was getting apprehensive, knowing that they were getting closer to his department in Hangar Five, whatever that was.

For another hour in Hangar Three they went over atmospheric flight possibilities with the massive C-5 staring down at them. Ryan questioned Jonesy to make sure that his own launch ideas agreed with somebody who understood flight. Then it was time for Hangar Four.

For the first time Jonesy and VIN realized why there was so much equipment. As they entered the different world of Hangar Four, he could see the same type of vehicles he had seen on Mars, on television. There were several machines cutting and drilling into rocks or, much like vacuum cleaners, sweeping up rocks. Both men suddenly realized that the desert surrounding the airfield looked just like those Curiosity pictures from Mars.

“You are going to Mars to mine for gold or platinum?” Jonesy asked. “Not grass, like the kid said earlier.”

“Pretty close, Mr. Jones. Valuable precious metals which will pay for the project when my three billion runs out.”

“Three billion dollars!” whistled VIN. “Now that’s a lot of cash. I bet you haven’t figured out how many R8s that is, Mr. Richmond.” Within a second Ryan had an answer.

“Not yet, but it would purchase over 25,000 units of my model, with extras, and far higher a number than Audi might ever build, Mr. Noble. And what could a man do with more than one Audi? Think about it, young man. You have a car ninety-nine percent of the world only dreams about.”

Until lunchtime they viewed the scientists working with the several different models. Some were not so exciting. VIN noticed that the least interesting one looked like a mobile floor sweeper on a dog leash. It buzzed around, its electronic engine following a blinking light emitting a red laser. The light bounced around on several different small pebbles, decided on the right size rocks, and then swept them up with brushes and spat them out of a tube connected to the upper body. It took a stone several seconds to be swept in and spat out.

“That is not a vacuum cleaner, Mr. Noble,” explained Ryan. “It works with a conveyer belt, sweeping the small rocks up into a small holding bucket, and then out of the higher exit tube into a collector. It’s much like a river dredger with a continuous bucket conveyor belt.”

VIN watched as it found a bigger rock, this time the size of a marble. It effortlessly swept it in and it dumped it with a loud noise into the container.

Then a buzzer sounded; VIN had to wait through lunch before getting to Hangar Five, where he would find out his real function.

They returned to the hotel for lunch on the ground floor. This time all the kids must have been in school as they saw mostly people in white coats, security uniforms, and a few others in normal dress. About 100 people in all partook of a buffet lunch. The food was much like that at base camp on deployment. One or two meats, potatoes or rice, two vegetables, gravy, a couple of dessert puddings, a fruit bowl, a sponge cake, and tea and juice.

VIN realized that these workers must represent fewer than half the people on base, and many must be having lunch in their sterile areas. Also half of the base was asleep, the night shift. Ryan was not among the diners.

Lunch was peaceful. Jonesy said nothing, and very few people spoke; all seemed deep in thought, or working over ideas in their minds. Only the white coats and normally dressed women, or the odd man here and there talked to each other, in many languages.

Finally the buzzer sounded, and as one the room emptied, the two men returning to the golf cart where Ryan had left it. They waited several minutes before he arrived, followed by a couple of the white coats.

“Mr. Noble, time to introduce you to your new world,” he smiled at them. They got in and drove the few hundred yards to another of the hangars on the eastern side of the large apron.

This time there was no guard outside the small side door; Ryan punched in a code on a panel, and they entered a world VIN remembered from the hospital, a world full of prosthetic limbs, but this time made of metal and not plastic.

“Ask for platinum ones,” said Jonesy as they walked up to an area that looked like a stage, where the pretty blonde girl who VIN had seen in the wheelchair was being helped to dress in what looked like an exoskeleton suit of lower body parts.

She smiled, as the three tall men arrived and stopped. “How are the new fittings, Suzi?” Ryan asked still sitting in the cart.

“Wunderbar, Ryan,” she replied in a German accent. “I think that they might stay on this time when I jump high.”

VIN watched in shock. Jonesy had to close the poor kid’s mouth, afraid a fly might go in.

“Ja, Herr Noble, one second a lonely paraplegic in a wheelchair, next second, Überfrau!” she shouted seeing VIN’s face, and she began laughing, her pretty blonde hair and blue-eyed face lighting up, and stealing VIN’s heart in less than a second. “Come join me?”

He nodded silently, his mouth still open as she stood up out of the chair she was sitting in, and easily walked across the stage holding out her hand to him.

“Kid, remember to invite me to the wedding,” said Jonesy standing next to him. “She’s a great looking chick, and silver seems to suit her. Maybe she’ll turn into one of your silver Audis at the touch of a button! You know, like the Transformers.”

“Oh, shut up for once, Jonesy!” VIN replied, as he took Suzi’s hand and climbed up onto the stage to follow her. She led him to the chair as a second metal body skeleton walked by itself out of an area hidden behind curtains. This time a white coat held a control device like for a radio-controlled airplane, and he moved the metal frame next to the chair.

VIN first sheepishly removed his jeans, and then put on a pair of shorts handed to him to hide his embarrassment. He sat down and was helped off with his plastic limbs.

First the metal upper legs were fitted to his stumps and snugly connected; they felt tighter, and more secure than the military legs. The metal was cold and he felt the chill of naked metal against his skin. Suzi pulled him into a standing position. The midsection of the body suit was wrapped around his waist with soft cloth belts and straps, tightening the whole device. He even had straps around his shoulders, like seat belts. It took a long thirty minutes, but eventually he was ready. The three men dressing him stepped back and one picked up what looked like an open-faced motorbike helmet and strapped it on VIN’s head.

“Don’t worry, VIN,” Suzi said. “This is your new lower-body control system; it works from nerve impulses your brain sends to your legs to make the muscles work. My impulse control system is already matched to my thought patterns. The controller is the size of a fingernail and already been implanted in my lower neck. VIN, you must think you have legs again. You must send the same orders through your body to your feet, telling them to walk like you did all your life. If the helmet matches your brain impulses correctly, your new metal feet, knees and hydraulics should make the exact same movements. A man will stand on each side of you, and you try to walk, like this.” And she easily walked around the stage as if she had her real legs back.

She walked as perfectly as she must have done at one time; swinging her legs forward, and not like he had seen most of the modern robots on television, with ungainly clomping. Suzi then climbed into a baggy pair of trousers and pulled them over her exoskeleton to hide it. Then she showed her maneuverability as she moved around the stage. It looked like her real legs were doing the walking. What surprised VIN was that there was very little noise from the metal at all. No sucking of hydraulics, no motors driving something, almost no sound apart from faint metallic clicks.

He watched and waited for her to finish as two men gently took his elbows in their palms and got him ready to move. He thought about moving his right foot with all the strength he could muster and suddenly his right foot shot out at a rapid speed and he would have done the splits if he wasn’t being held up.

“No, no, VIN, just walk gently and lightly,” said Suzi laughing. “Watch this!” and she knelt and then jumped, going at least eight feet high into the air, completing a back somersault, landing back hard on her metal feet, and her knees bending to take up the jolt from hitting the floor. She landed like a gymnast, her arms outstretched in front of her. She expertly completed the move, and the power of her hitting the wooden stage they were standing on made his teeth jolt.

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Jonesy, now his mouth hanging open and not believing his eyes, at the height the girl had nimbly reached. VIN just watched, his heart racing. This was exciting!

Slowly he got the hang of it, and after several minutes the two men left him alone. He began to walk around the stage.

First he walked slowly, and then faster and faster, his brain telling his new limbs what to do. Finally, after repetitive laps walking fast around the stage, he ended up next to Suzi, who was patiently waiting for him.

“So, what do you think?” she asked.

“Fantastic. These legs feel so strong. How did you do that back flip thing?”

“Easy, I thought about what I wanted to do, and jumped.” She bent her legs, shot up, completed the full somersault and landed hard, the exact same way she had done the first time. “You try it, VIN.”

He closed his eyes, and thought about the move she had made. He pictured it in his mind, bent his legs, opened his eyes, and jumped. VIN’s legs felt like rockets propelling him up. He arched his back, dropped his head and let his legs follow his body over the top of the somersault. His eyes played tricks on him; he looked so high as his body slowly rotated, and quickly dropped. The front of his feet hit the ground first. He couldn’t keep his balance and was about to fall forward. He froze for a split-second, before his brain naturally corrected his landing, bent his right leg and placed it forward, under his about-to-topple-forward body. He froze waiting for something to break, or snap, and let him fall, but he didn’t. He stood up and looked at Suzi, then over to Jonesy, who was looking at him in shock.

“Kid! You must have gone up ten, twelve feet. You nearly doubled the height of the girl!” he exclaimed, not believing what he had just witnessed, from a kid with no legs. “That’s impossible!”

“I used to agree,” added Ryan. “These metal limbs and exoskeletons have been designed to help my spacewalkers and miners work in the vacuum conditions of space. It’s coffee time; let’s go to the canteen, grab a cup, and I’m sure Suzi has some of her German triple-chocolate cake somewhere. She makes one every other day for me.”

VIN felt a little apprehensive suddenly seeing the three stairs he had to get down. Suzi grabbed his hand, looked at him and smiled as she led him to the stairs. She stepped lightly down, showing him how to think about it, and he followed suit. Descending the stairs was like going to heaven, just in the wrong direction. He had this beautiful blonde angel watching over him, and keeping his confidence up. Still holding hands they followed the others into the canteen.

Just like in a European café, the two semi-metal characters sat at one high round table, and they chatted on bar stools, while the others looked on.

“Don’t worry about them watching you,” suggested Suzi as two cups of coffee and two large slices of cake were brought to their bar-height table. They perched on the two barstools, but VIN kept one foot on the ground for support. “They are analyzing every move you make, to see if they can add something here and there to make it easier for you. My full body spacesuit is nearly ready and yours will be ready a couple of weeks after mine. They will cover the exoskeleton with a special fabric from NASA to allow you to be protected from radiation in space. These suits, VIN, will be the suits that you and I will wear to go out of the spacecraft and do spacewalks.”

VIN sized up the weight of the lower-body equipment on him. It wasn’t that heavy, but this piece of cake made it feel like it had added a hundred pounds or more to his body weight. Suddenly what she had just said struck home. “You and I are going to spacewalk?” he asked her.

“If your old pilot friend can fly us up there,” laughed Suzi.

“Watch who you call old, Überfrau,” responded Jonesy, still quiet and now pondering what they had got themselves into.

“I just can’t believe it,” said VIN.

“Believe what?” asked Ryan enjoying his cake.

“One day, I’m beating up Nebraskan rednecks in a bar, then I have to pull my partner out of losing all his money in Las Vegas, and then I’m suddenly Rocket Man about to head off into space. I just can’t believe all this stuff.”

“That’s fine,” laughed Ryan. “Rocket Man you are not, and heading off into space is still several months away, but you will have lots of time to practice. Now let’s get you out of this suit; the guys will perfect things they have noticed, like putting softer pads under your feet, and we can head over to Hangar Six.”

Chapter 8

Maggie Sinclair

Colonel Maggie Sinclair was just leaving the hot C-5 Galaxy on the simmering asphalt apron of Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas, Nevada when she received a call from her supervisor, the colonel in charge of the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center. He said the base commander wanted to see her.

Maggie’s parents never wanted her to fly airplanes. Her first memories were of a nice comfortable house in a happy, pretty suburban area of San Francisco. She had been born in the early 70s, missing the flower-power era of the 60s, but was still a 70s and 80s music junkie at heart. Her parents—her mother a computer analyst and her father a software engineer—worked at one of the new and fast-growing companies in the area. They had initially met at university studying the same new computer subjects that had just been accepted into the university’s curriculum. They fell in love and were married soon. Both received advanced degrees: her father a Ph.D. and her mother a Masters.

Their only child was born a few years later and she grew up in a world of computers, geeks, and DOS terminology.

Her initial years of school were in San Francisco before her father received a promotion and they moved out of suburbia and closer to Silicon Valley. The Sinclair family found a nice small house in the country with an acre of garden. Life was quiet, serene and for a young girl, totally boring. The only interest she had, apart from helping her parents tend the garden on weekends, was the small aircraft that flew overhead from a local airfield.

Often she watched as these little noisy wonders of flight came and disappeared over the hedge around the house. In the canvas swing chair, she watched while her father barbequed or mowed the lush lawn, and her mother tended the full rose garden or large vegetable garden, her only passions.

As Maggie grew into a teenager, she realized how geeky her parents really were. She began to learn about the “birds and the bees” from other knowledgeable girls at school and, as every child thought, found it impossible to think that her parents could ever do such a thing. So much so that she began to worry she might be an orphan they had adopted. Never once did she see them kiss or even touch each other, unless it happened by accident.

They were both good-looking people to Maggie, but to each other, the only time they ever showed affection was when they talked Gibbery Geek as Maggie called it.

Always bored, she watched the aircraft fly over every weekend. Often the same aircraft came over several times and one day she asked her father why some airplanes came over more than others. He replied that some might be training pilots to fly while others had places to go.

At sixteen, Maggie finally had enough of the endless mowing, weeding, and pruning and asked her father to take her to the airfield. Reluctantly, he sighed and told her to get their sweaters, and he would get the family car out. This breaking with their weekend routine was a new development for him.

He drove her down to the airfield three miles away, where for two hours he sat there going over notes from work while she stood on the porch of the flying school and watched aircraft. Some, as her father said, took off and disappeared. Some came in to land and were put away in hangars, and two of them just went around and around for long periods, often with different people flying them.

On her third visit a few months later she met one of the instructors. Her father, now prepared for a possible airfield visit, brought work home and sat in the car jotting notes on paper.

“How do they stay up?” asked Maggie, and the young man, maybe ten years older than she, sat down and gave her a ten-minute lesson on flight.

She was rather interested that nothing but a sort of wind-vacuum, as she understood it, invisibly kept the aircraft from crashing to the ground.

Two weeks later the same instructor noticed her sitting on the porch again and went over to talk to the teenager. She was quite pretty, but seemed very conservative, protected, and introverted. She had straight, long brown hair around a pretty round face. The girl’s eyes were a hazel green, bright green in direct sunlight, and when she looked at him, he felt as if those eyes were lasers going straight through him.

When he extended his hand to introduce himself, Maggie stood up, and he was surprised by how tall she was. He was five foot nine and she about the same height, her graceful body dressed in a simple black on white polka-dot dress and an open cardigan. She was tall and very lean.

They discussed flying for a while, and she asked him what it would cost to go up in an airplane to see what it was like.

He replied that a 15-minute test flight would cost $20, an hour of instruction, $75. That sounded like a lot of money to Maggie, so she shyly said that she would think about it, and would ask her father.

A few days later she brought the subject up over dinner. Her mother was quite shocked that her daughter wanted to do such a thing, her father asked what it would cost.

“Well, I suppose your mother and I have never given you any pocket money, plus you haven’t asked for anything before. We should think about giving you something of your own, and as long as it has to do with engineering, or computers, I would allow you to go on a test flight.”

He went with her onto the porch the next weekend, met the young instructor, signed a few papers, handed over twenty dollars and went back to the car to work, happy once the instructor had explained to him that aerospace engineering was one of the fastest growing courses at university these days, and one day fancy new computers might control, and maybe even fly aircraft.

The instructor placed her in the right front seat of the Cessna 172, and got in the left door. He showed her how to put on a set of headphones so that she could hear his conversations with other aircraft while he began to complete preflight checks.

To Maggie, the dials all looked interesting. She jumped when somebody spoke over the radio, and watched as the instructor started up the aircraft. The propeller disappeared in front of the windshield, the revs increased, and suddenly they were trundling over the neatly cut grass toward the nearest asphalt strip.

Slowly the excitement rose in her as they neared the end of the runway, and again she jumped as the pilot spoke to the other aircraft in the area. It seemed to her that he was speaking to a very select group of people that the rest of the world, including her father sitting in his car, wasn’t part of. The instructor turned the aircraft onto the runway, gunned the engine, and they began to surge forward.

Suddenly the nose picked up, and the ground disappeared from below the aircraft. As the aircraft rose, she watched the runway disappear. The pilot handled the craft while speaking on the radio at the same time. He said something about leaving the pattern and heading over to the coast. She saw her house and swing chair before it disappeared behind them.

“Maggie, we can just get to the coast and back in the time allocated. Would you like to go?” She nodded, the airplane rose into the blue sky, and the rocky coastline came up to meet them.

“Would you like to try to fly her?” She nodded and after telling her how to press the rudder pedals to bank left or right, and keep the aircraft straight and level with the joystick, he let go of the controls and told her she was flying. The aircraft stayed straight and level; he showed her how to turn left, then how to turn right. He was impressed how calmly she operated the small plane.

It all ended far too quickly, and for the first time in her life, Maggie Sinclair knew what it felt like to be in control of something. She thanked the instructor, said that she would work on her father, and hopefully she would be back.

Her father hadn’t seen her take off or land the aircraft. As she returned to the car, his complete lack of interest made her that much more adamant to come back and learn how to fly.

“I want to learn to fly an aircraft,” said Maggie over dinner that Sunday evening.

“Why is that, dear? That is a job for men, not young girls,” retorted her mother as she served the meal.

“It is so exciting, Mother,” Maggie returned.

“Oh, I don’t think so!” replied her mother handing Maggie a plate of steaming food, mostly grown in their garden. “How could flying be exciting? I dislike flying. I had to go up to Seattle for that conference last year and hated the idea of sitting in a small place without fresh air.”

“Flying is for our feathered friends,” added her equally exciting father. “It would cost a lot of money, money we haven’t got. I think you should get this silly idea out of your head, young lady, and think about your courses coming up. You are a rising senior with one more year before you go to college. You are already a year ahead. How that mix-up of putting you a year ahead ever happened in your elementary school, I just don’t know, but you must ready yourself for your higher education.”

“Yes, in aerospace engineering, father. That is what I want to do, and I’m sure a pilot’s license will help me when I need to apply to engineering universities. The instructor told me that a pilot’s license might even help me with an additional scholarship into certain universities.”

“What’s wrong with what your mother and I learned, Maggie?” asked her father. “Computers are a vast industry and ever-growing. Look at the new Apple company, and Microsoft with that Gates fellow, both situated pretty close to us.”

“I have no interest in that, father,” she replied bluntly.

“Oh dear!” said her mother. “We have saved up since you were born to put you through college, Maggie. I certainly don’t want to see that money go to waste.”

“Did the instructor say how much it would cost?” asked her father.

“I need a total of forty flying hours of which thirty hours will cost about $75 per hour with an instructor; then I need ten hours at $50 per hour flying solo, plus some test and license costs. About thirty-six hundred dollars, Father,” Maggie replied.

“Well, dear,” he said to his wife “that’s about ten percent of what we have put away for her college. I’m sure that if it would help her get a scholarship, it might all come out in the wash.”

Her mother wasn’t happy, but her parents relented to save unnecessary family arguments, and the next month she began her lessons.

The instructor was surprised how well she flew. It seemed that she didn’t have an interest in the science of flying, but flew the aircraft exactly as he showed her how to. The first twenty hours passed in six months as she rose to become his best pupil to date.

She was very pretty with her long brown hair and striking green eyes, but to the instructor, her total lack of character and excitement kept him from learning more about her. He had met her extremely boring excuse for a father, saw her father’s way of life reflected in her, so just did his job and taught her to fly.

A year after she started flying, which was a couple of months before school ended, and on her eighteenth birthday, she soloed for the first time. Maggie suddenly realized that she was all alone up there in the world, and something changed in her forever. She screamed as loud as she could, a scream of pure relief. She was free! She had just found a new exciting world of freedom.

The instructor noticed her emerge from her first solo hour with the first smile he had ever seen on her face, and realized that she had found something new inside herself; from then on Maggie Sinclair flew like a woman desperate to learn.

A few weeks after leaving school, and on the same day she received her final school grades, she passed her flight test with a perfect flight under the examination of a very senior instructor. Maggie received the official paperwork for her private pilot’s license in a small ceremony with the flight school’s personnel and several other students in attendance; her parents did not show up. After the ceremony, she accepted a celebratory dinner with her instructor and a few other pilots.

“So what are you going to do now, Maggie?” her instructor asked.

“Apply to the United States Air Force Academy,” she replied simply. “Will you please write a letter of recommendation? I have just received the necessary letter from my Congressman.”

“Really!” he replied. Quite shocked. “Of course I will.”

“I used up some of my college funds to learn to fly, and I haven’t had much interest from any universities yet. My parents want me to study computer science, and now argue that there isn’t enough money for my education, so I’m going to go where it is paid for, to see what I can learn in the Air Force.” It seemed like her mind was made up.

“A good idea,” he responded deciding to help her. He had seen a couple of his former students do the same thing, and assured her that he would get any pertinent information from them, write a letter, and see what he else he could do to help. His father had been a member of the U.S. Senate for three terms before his recent retirement a year earlier.

Chapter 9

Richmond Field, Nevada.

For Jonesy, Hangar Six was what he was really waiting for. As they walked in their eyes grew accustomed to interior lighting for the sixth time, and the first of two shapes glinted back at them. The halogen roof lighting made the silver craft in front of them flash colors. Both semi-complete craft were cordoned off behind plastic sheeting and looked relatively small compared to the C-5 in Hangar 3.

“These are our workhorses, our Earth-to-orbit space shuttles, two of them,” began Ryan. “The shuttles are identical, eighteen feet wide, twelve feet high and 140 feet long. If you remember the interior of the C-5, the space looks more like an oval than a circular cargo bay, so we have designed these oval cigars to fit perfectly into the Galaxy. Due to our fuel needs, Mr. Jones, we need to trash the rear C-5 cargo doors permanently. The whole cargo hold is filled by the aircraft, making the three large rocket motor exhausts sit outside the rear of the loading bay and directly beneath the high tail. This idea gave us our minimum first-stage fuel needs. Funny enough, this C-5 interior shape gave us easier design planning than we ever expected. Let me explain this shuttle’s systems. We have an hour before I need to get into a meeting with the hydrogen thruster department so I must be brief.

“Mr. Jones, you will begin work in this hangar, as well as begin training in the flight simulators in Hangar One. Mr. Noble, starting tomorrow your two hangars will be Hangars Five and Four, exoskeleton and spacesuit design, and the mining department.

“OK! This shuttle has been designed to get a 4.1 ton cargo into any altitude orbit above Earth.

“It first uses two hybrid rockets with a mixture of solid and liquid fuels. You will learn about this before you fly her, Mr. Jones, so don’t worry about her technology just yet. Much like the British space program, she is ejected out of the C-5 at 50,000 feet or higher at a speed of 400 miles an hour or more. Her two hybrid first stage rockets ignite and within seconds propel her through the sound barrier at an ever-increasing speed that reaches 12,000 knots as she approaches 240,000 feet. Her second stage fuel, liquid hydrogen in a single large rocket motor, will take her the rest of the way up, to 380,000 feet at just under 17,000 knots. At this height, she will have enough liquid hydrogen to maneuver in space with her rear hydrogen rocket, added hydrogen side-thrusters, and two small ion drives for long distance travel in her tail. Her rear hydrogen fuel rocket will be used as she returns to the atmosphere, and once below 200,000 feet, she will glide in for landing here at the airfield.”

“But how can she glide without wings?” asked Jonesy puzzled.

“She does have wings, Mr. Jones,” replied Ryan. “Come closer and look at her outline,” and they walked over to stand directly in front of the craft. To Jonesy she looked sharp, but very fat and very overweight compared to an F-16, more like a very pregnant fighter jet.

Ryan asked the white coat who had joined them to prepare for wing deployment. A buzzer sounded and everybody cleared the first shuttle. Ryan directed both men to look at a slight indentation line two thirds above the two oval side-shapes of the craft. “See, there is a slight variation in the curvature of the side panels.” Both men nodded. “Now come to the rear and I’ll show you how she glides, Mr. Jones.”

They went to the rear of the aircraft, their eyes following the narrow line along the side of the aircraft. Here at the rear the same slight curve change was slightly more prominent. Below the narrow line on both sides of the lower two thirds of the aircraft were the two massive first-stage rocket exhausts, each about six feet across. Central and above the two lower engines on each side in a triangular design, as Ryan had explained, was the third massive bell of the second-stage hydrogen-fuelled rocket exhaust. On each side of the higher, third motor they saw a much smaller and different rocket exhaust, one-tenth the size of the big three. These, Ryan explained, were the ion drives or thrusters.

“The two big motors below the wings get her most of the way. The single upper liquid hydrogen rocket motor takes her up to a maximum of 400,000 feet, and the throttle can be manually controlled; this is not true of the first-stage hybrid rocket system. Gentlemen, this system is much the same as what is used by the latest space rockets. The most recent NASA shuttles, although twice the size of ours, worked with the first and second stages only. Our major difference to the NASA shuttles is our ion thruster drives. As I said, the power going through the hydrogen second stage is controlled by the pilot. The first stage is full power, nothing more. Beneath the shuttle’s outer skin, and operated after opening the slots once the craft is in space, are smaller hydrogen thrusters on either side of the shuttle. Much like a bow thruster in a ship, these are to direct the shuttle in sideward and slowing movements. If rapid decreases in forward speed are needed, the side thruster can turn the ship around, which allows the pilot to use the upper, large rear hydrogen thruster as a braking system. Each shuttle can be stopped if necessary, and then reversed to a reentry speed, using the large hydrogen motor. The smaller ion drive motors use the same fuel our spacecraft will use for their long distant flights: xenon gas.”

Ryan nodded and suddenly a set of wings began to emerge from the thin line they had been shown, and also a small tail grew from the upper fuselage. It rose three feet high.

“The wings are shaped like a triangle. At the front, they extend out by six inches from just behind the cockpit. Here, at the rear, they extend out to a maximum of four feet, controllable in one foot intervals, just enough to allow a glide pattern down to ground.”

“That is not very much,” said Jonesy.

“Not very much for F-16 pilots, Mr. Jones, but enough for twenty percent glide slopes between Mach 3, and all the way down to 400 knots. She can fly on this downslope with a four-ton returning cargo, if necessary. Of course, this is all on computer printouts, and you will make sure we are correct. After all, Mr. Jones, you are the best test pilot in the world, are you not?”

Jonesy nodded.

“At around 400 knots she will level out for landing. Both shuttles have small air brakes on top of each wing if needed, and her small undercarriage is extracted at 300 knots, 1,000 feet above ground,” continued Ryan.

“Okay, I get it,” interrupted the pilot. “She dives in and her wings expand like one of the old X-51s. As her speed slows, more wing can be used until they are fully extended at four feet for landing. But, won’t she be empty at landing, fuel and cargo?”

“Fuel yes, cargo no!” replied Ryan. “She has been designed to come in with a four-ton cargo load.”

“Four tons of cargo will drop her like a brick at speeds under 500 knots,” suggested Jonesy.

“As with the old NASA shuttles twice her size, she will have a steep glide slope; yes, a fast landing speed of around 280 knots, 300 miles per hour with a set of three parachutes automatically ejecting to slow her down along our 10,000 feet of runway. You have succinctly stated why I employed you, Mr. Jones: to get her up and down again safely.”

“How are the wings used for departure from Earth?” Jonesy asked.

“Once she ejects out of the C-5 at 400 knots or faster, her wings and tail extend out to maximum within four seconds. Her first-stage rocket engines ignite a second later, while her forward speed is estimated to drop to 350 knots and then rise rapidly at 50 knots per second. This allows her pilot six seconds to direct her to her correct climb attitude and angle of atmospheric exit. Then she is purely a rocket with limited control during her first stage, but once the second stage motor ignites at 240,000 feet, you will have far more control of her. For atmospheric flight she has small variable control surfaces on her wings and tail.

“Now I must get over to Hangar One. You guys are done for today; I’ll give you a ride, and we will start training tomorrow. The rest of the hangars are off limits for another few weeks.”

Chapter 10

Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas

Unbeknownst to her flying instructor, Maggie Sinclair had fantastic high school grades. Thanks to her parents, she had inherited three characteristics that would help her into the Air Force: brains, height, and eyesight.

Her instructor had been surprised at how sharp her eyesight was. She could see minute objects quickly on the ground when he pointed them out to her below them.

Unbeknownst to her parents, a few days after her wonderful day of first time solo screaming, she found the Air Force Academy’s address and information, recently obtainable if one searched carefully on the new expanding Internet, and sent for an application.

Once the papers arrived, she completed the application and returned them to the Academy. The last items needed were her high school transcript, letters of recommendation from her teachers, and a letter from her congressman.

“Father, mother, I have been accepted into the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado,” she said out of the blue one night over dinner.

Both parents put down their knives and forks and looked at her in shock.

“You have done what?” demanded her father. “What about UCLA or somewhere around us? There are dozens of universities, which have computer science programs, and that is what your mother and I want you to study. I will not sign those documents for you to waste your life, and our savings, and go and fly a stupid airplane!”

“I agree with your father, darling,” added her mother. “You are trying to enter a man’s world, and computer studies are much more a lady’s occupation! I couldn’t even imagine you doing that aerospace engineering stuff. Women will never fit, or even be accepted into that field.”

“Will you two please hear me out?” Maggie asked. They silently looked at her with worry. She had not been the same since she started that darn flying course. “I will be studying two fields at the Air Force Academy if they will allow me to. I wrote down the subjects I wanted to study, and they replied that it was possible. The subjects I have applied for are Computing and Computer Science, and Aerospace Engineering.”

This seemed to appease her parents somewhat. “And how much is this all going to cost us?” asked her mother regaining her composure. “You have already spent ten percent of our education savings.”

“Another ten percent for travel costs to Colorado, a car to get there—about another ten percent, and let’s say ten percent for books and school materials. $10,000 mother and I won’t need the rest,” Maggie replied, now knowing how to deal with her parents.

“Is that all for a Bachelor’s degree, Maggie? Don, is she correct?” she asked her husband.

“If Maggie is correct dear, there could be enough left over for a Masters. Maggie, who is paying the rest?

“Our government,” she replied simply.

“A government funded education, hey? Now where was that when my parents had to put me through college?” he asked. Maggie wanted to reply sarcastically, but decided that silence was the best option.

They suddenly seemed pleased that she was pursuing a positive education, happily signed the papers, handed her the money a few days later, and helped her purchase her very own ride to Colorado.

They waved her off with as much enthusiasm as she had ever seen them exhibit.

That was over twenty years ago, before receiving the call that the base commander of Nellis wanted to see her.

She walked across the apron, leaving the C-5 crew with which she had just completed a round-trip supply run to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. She was wondering what the good-looking, but married, General Saunders had in store for her this time. He was several years older than she, had left the Academy in Colorado before she got there, and she knew that good-looking generals like him were never single. Her days of finding a good general or above to have a family with were long gone. Maggie, now a full colonel and still flying, couldn’t really marry too far below her rank. Most male Captains and above were already married and she never really met any civilians.

As she walked across the large cement apron, she remembered the Academy and thought back to her early days there.

Maggie fondly remembered driving all alone from California to Colorado to be put through her rookie months of dirt, mud, crap, shouting and the general unpleasantness she, as a protected child, never knew existed. It was horrible at the time. She couldn’t believe that people treated others that way. No respect, no softness, and no peace and quiet to think.

But, as quickly as it began, boot camp ended. A couple of the people she had started with were not there anymore. Her mother had been right; this was certainly a man’s world. Fewer than one percent of the 1,000 recruits on the parade square that day, her last day in boot camp, were female.

In the late 80s, she had been lucky to be an Academy rookie at all; many of the squad sergeants took pleasure in screaming that at her during the first six weeks. It was thanks to the second letter from her flying instructor’s father, the senator, that she was actually accepted.

After the shock of this horrible new world, Maggie became tough and independent. Her female peers shared a dorm that was so squeaky clean that even her mother would have been impressed. She had learned to clean and scrub, and clean and scrub until her fingers hurt. She found the shouting and bad language of peculiar interest, often looking up the new words she had been called by the drill sergeant. It surprised her to find new names for parts of her body she never knew had names. Scientific words she knew, but a few of those often-used four-letter words were totally new to her vocabulary.

Thanks to her parents, it didn’t take her long to allow the words to shoot over her head, and she learned that smiling back at a screaming drill sergeant sometimes worked, but never in formation. Her use of the English language certainly was revised, mostly with short, sharp words during her first weeks.

Maggie’s first chance to return home arrived, and she happily phoned home. A newly installed answering machine told her nobody was home. A rather silly message from her mother on the answering machine politely explained to the caller that the dwellers were out of town on a cruise, and then the machine said that that the message section was full. So she stayed in camp for the whole of the first year.

Finally, civilization seemed to resume and she was allowed to attend the classes she had applied for. Unfortunately, computer science did not fit her schedule and without telling her parents, she quickly dropped it for other courses, like gliding and computerized aviation flight—smaller and far more exciting mini-courses—while she worked hard on the aerospace engineering she refused to forego.

She excelled at what she did and now only had two interests: flying and engineering, which she managed to get her degree in.

During her second year she went home twice before she began to make excuses for why she couldn’t visit as often. Maggie had changed, but her parents certainly had not.

The base commander, General Saunders, returned her salute, and she was offered a seat and a cup of coffee. His phone rang and he answered it. The ringing reminded her of her last year at the Academy.

It was the end of her time in Colorado, and she was about to be transferred to Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.

As a new second lieutenant, she had been one of the top students during her time there, and was offered the choice of transport aircraft she wanted to learn to fly. Female pilots weren’t allowed to fly fighters, or bombers in the Air Force. The country was between wars—Vietnam and the first Gulf war—and her choices were transport or refueling.

Lieutenant Sinclair decided on transport and was to be based at Andrews, but would learn her transport aircraft flying over several bases.

For the next several years, she learned on many types of aircraft, first learning to fly an old C-47. After propeller aircraft, she learned to fly jets and, ten years after her release from the Academy, newly promoted Captain Sinclair had her first training flight in a C-5 Galaxy.

She enjoyed flying many of the aircraft, but she learned that the bigger the aircraft, the more stable it flew. The C-5 was so big and so powerful that in her first few years flying it as a copilot, she often headed into the cargo section to make her mind believe that she, little Maggie Sinclair, was hauling 250 tons of cargo around the world in an aircraft as easy to fly as her first few days with her instructor in the Cessna.

Her degree in aerospace engineering was helpful in her promotions, and when she not flying, Maggie headed the aircraft maintenance “think tank” group on flight failures at her current base, Travis Air Force base in Fairfield, California.

In the mid-90s, Major Maggie Sinclair was ordered to help out on a C-5 experimental aircraft, where a large loading ramp had replaced the two clam-like opening doors the C-5s usually had for rear loading and unloading.

In the late-1980s, NASA had two C-5A Galaxies modified to accommodate satellite and space station components. In each aircraft, the troop compartment, located in the aft upper deck, had been removed and the aft cargo-door complex modified to increase the dimensions of the cargo compartment’s aft loading area. During 1990, a third C-5 was redesigned with larger rear doors to accommodate even bigger space station components, but the designs were flawed and this poor aircraft was now called “The Dead Chicken.” This C-5 was the ugliest chicken she had ever seen. Its back end was walled with an oversized cargo ramp-door, much like a draw bridge on an English castle, and for some reason it wouldn’t seal and pressurize the cargo compartment during flight above certain altitudes.

For weeks she pondered the problem. Every time the aircraft flew up to higher altitudes, the pressurized cargo compartment depressurized and this meant that on normal transport operations, troops could not be carried, only vehicles and supplies which could stand low-pressure conditions.

Her team tried everything: padding the doors, working out a system of bolt-tightening the doors, much like in a naval vessel, and even adding more powerful engines. One day she had to be copilot with a test pilot who she didn’t like. He was an ass of a man, but a pilot she respected for his abilities who explained to her that the initial design of the body of the aircraft caused considerable wing disturbance at the rear, enough to suck air out. He understood that with the current sized door, nothing would enable them to fix the problem, and the aircraft couldn’t be returned to its original condition without replacing the whole rear half of the aircraft.

Over the years, Maggie forgot the Dead Chicken, and life went on as normal. Even the detestable test pilot was forgotten, and soon after her last flight in the ungainly aircraft, she moved on to Edwards Air Force Base.

Maggie heard the general put the receiver down and brought herself back to the present.

“Colonel Sinclair, we have a situation north of us. Ever hear of the Dead Chicken, a test aircraft that started at Travis, and I think ended up as scrap at Dover Air Force Base?”

“Funny, sir, I was just thinking about her. I flew over a hundred hours in her, and we never could get that aircraft right.”

“Well, she has been loaned to a small, private space company just north of Creech Air Force Base owned by a civilian named Ryan Richmond. I’ve heard him lecture a few times. He is in this private space race, and not doing very well, I was told by the last guy we sent up there to fly the C-5 for him. I must admit I was surprised that they sent this desk guy, until I was told by Dover’s base commander that he was entrusted to report on their advancements. I found that remark rather unfair. Well, they sent him back, and we have to supply a new pilot. They seem to be happy with the copilot, a captain the Air Force who was sent there at the same time, but we want you to take the place of the man they sent back, and to keep the Dover base commander informed of their progress.”

“Is their progress of so much interest to the Air Force?” asked the colonel.

“Not really, except that the President himself signed off on an amount of plutonium for their energy uses in space, and Congress and the Pentagon want weekly updates on the safety of this non-weapons grade material.”

“Is that all, sir?”

“I think so, plus the Air Force can’t understand why he has such a big program. We have seen hundreds of tractor-trailers enter his private airfield on satellite, far more equipment than he should actually have need for. NASA and our own space projects have been subject to budget cuts by Washington again, and I am secretly hoping that this Richmond guy and the billions he is investing into his project can give us and a couple of old friends of mine at NASA a new program for space travel we can get involved in. His idea is to eject a space shuttle from the rear cargo doors of this failed C-5 frame and send it into space. One of the other teams, the British team, is also working on this type of launch vehicle, and with what the returned pilot reported, this Richmond fella is nothing but hot air.”

“Sounds like fun. When do I leave?” Maggie asked.

“Tomorrow, I’ve got a temporary replacement to take over from you; Colonel Jeff Smith should be waiting outside. This afternoon fill him in on your workload for the next couple of months. By the way, they don’t allow us to fly in, even though they have a wide 10,000 foot newly resurfaced runway, so, get yourself to Creech, just south of them, and you will be picked up by somebody. I have other ideas about Ryan Richmond compared to others in the Air Force. I actually met the man several years ago. He is extremely smart; I think he’s one of the best minds in this country right now. Why the government and even members of the Air Force are so interested in his project I don’t know, but report only to me, and I’ll send whatever I think is necessary over to Dover.”

Maggie nodded, left the office, and headed out to transfer her workload.

Chapter 11

A Complete Flight Crew.

It was Tuesday evening, their second night on base and with a couple of hours of free time. As both men had not had a drink for over twenty-four hours, Jonesy suggested to VIN that they try the bar on the main street next to the cinema. It was totally empty and a bartender was cleaning glasses as they sat down at the bar.

“Two cold beers,” asked Jonesy and the man looked at him as if he was crazy.

“It’s Tuesday,” he replied drying a glass with a cloth.

“So? I don’t care what day it is, two cold beers. I can see them in there, in that coke refrigerator behind you. The same type of beers you guys cleaned out of our car a couple of days ago,” Jonesy added.

“Oh! You must be the two new guys everybody is talking about, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The gossip seems pretty accurate. I’ll let you on little secret, guys. Alcohol is only permitted on Saturday afternoons and evenings from 4:00 pm to midnight. Most guys who come in and drink at exactly four Saturday afternoon have been waiting outside for an hour, and are totally drunk by six. If you arrive a little later, most of the drunks, especially the Russians and Germans, have already been carted home by their wives, husbands, or the security guards if they are single. I assume drinking once a week weakens these foreigners’ alcohol intake. They sure can’t handle it.”

“You mean we can’t get a drink?” VIN asked as Jonesy seemed to be wrestling with the information mentally.

“Which language do you want me to explain it in? Russian, German, Chinese or Southern? No alcoholic drinks at the bar! Only milkshakes or sodas, boys, and the boss has given me authority to shoot anybody who tries to break the law. Is that clear enough English for you?”

“And they employ you just to tell us that we can’t purchase alcohol? Damn, I want your job!” replied Jonesy.

“Actually, between my work here at the bar, Mr. Butch Cassidy, I’m an organic food and space biologist; everything served in this bar—beer, wine and potato vodka for the Ruskies—is made here in Hangar Nine, the hangar I am second in command of. Apart from these bottles of beer, you see behind me, which happen to be your beers, and reserved for you for this coming Saturday night, everything else is in kegs or barrels. Now, can I offer you gentlemen a soda or maybe a chocolate milkshake? Everything is free.”

Jonesy wasn’t happy and stormed out, not waiting for VIN, who ordered a favorite of his, a chocolate milkshake.

“Mr. Cassidy not happy with the arrangements?” asked the bartender with a smile a minute later as he handed over a large milkshake glass to VIN.

“I’m sure any naturally-born, self-indulgent, and proud alcoholic wouldn’t be very happy with the arrangements. His name is Jonesy, and you can call me VIN, short for Victor Isaac Noble.”

They chatted for a while and the bartender was happy with normal conversation, but as usual quickly clamed up when VIN asked him about Hangar Nine.

The next morning they were aroused by an interesting wakeup call. At four-thirty the buzzer sounded, and a voice said that everybody get into their jogging clothes as it was time for the Wednesday physical training.

VIN met Jonesy outside his door in a tee-shirt, shorts, and track shoes, and VIN was dressed the same.

“Feels like the same damn Air Force fitness schedule we used,” Jonesy remarked. “Can you run with your legs, kid?”

“Nope, but I’m sure they will allow me to walk, and I’m sure I can walk faster than some of those old alcoholic scientists we’ve see around here.”

It seemed that the wives and school children didn’t have to join the employees who were gathering on the apron in front of Hangar Three. Everybody was dressed much the same, and now looked slimmer and fitter than they did wearing their white coats.

VIN was surprised to see Suzi ready to go, wheelchair and all, and as soon as she saw him, waved him over; he left Jonesy in the middle of the pack. Orders were shouted and the whole group got into a loose formation anybody in the military would remember. VIN stood with Suzi and followed the exercises, Suzi doing the best she could being helped by her crew out of her wheelchair.

First they did twenty deep knee bends, then twenty knee squats and twenty push-ups. Then they were ordered to do the same again, and again.

For Jonesy, it was tough; the recent period of heavy drinking was taking its toll. He had been fit for most of his life and even though he sweated more than anybody else, he was actually enjoying it.

Then the order was given to run east along the left edge of the runway, around the outer tarmac, return along the right side, and back to the apron. The run would cover about 10,000 feet, about two miles, since the apron was in the middle of the length of the long runway. A whistle was blown and the 300 or more people jogged out.

VIN noticed tall Ryan in the front, leading the way at a good pace. Jonesy on the other hand took a while to pass him.

Even Suzi was far in front of him, her wheelchair moving much faster than he could walk. He had often tried running, but the doctors had told him that these legs weren’t made for anything but walking, which he managed pretty fast. Jonesy finally passed him in last position at the first end of the runway.

“How far is this run?” Jonesy asked, the sweat pouring off him.

“Suzi said two miles, but the one on Friday is the whole of the runway which is about three and a half,” replied VIN as his partner trundled past, looking very unfit for a pilot.

VIN was last when he entered the apron about a hundred yards behind a very tired looking Mr. Jones. Ryan, in the lead, had headed back on the other side long before either of them had reached halfway to the first end. Suzi was only a couple of hundred yards behind Ryan and trying desperately to catch up, her arms spinning the chair’s wheels as hard as she could.

It was the first time VIN felt really useless, not having real legs. In his Force Recon days he would have been a lap ahead of everybody, but he kept to his own pace, entered last, and was a better man for it. Also, he now realized why the bar was only open one night a week. He would hate to be flown into space by somebody as unfit as his partner.

Suzi came up to him, one of the few who knew, or had noticed, he didn’t have legs, and shook his hand in the German manner of women. “You are not as fast as the Überfrau in a wheelchair, but with new legs, you might keep up to me, no?”

“With those metal legs, I could probably do the run in one leap, but I enjoyed the exercises,” he replied.

“Wunderbar, Herr Noble! We do the shorter run on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the whole runway on Fridays. It plays hell with the drinking in the bar on Saturday evenings. You will buy me a beer this Saturday, Mr. Noble?”

He nodded that he would as Ryan walked up to him, a towel round his neck and wiping off the sweat.

“Mr. Noble, can I trust you to leave our airfield and not tell anybody about what you have seen here?”

“Of course, Ryan,” he replied.

“Or I will never speak to him again, and he will never see his new legs, ever!” added Suzi.

“I have your trust, Mr. Noble?” Ryan asked.

“You have my word as a Marine, Ryan,” VIN replied.

“Good. I need you to take your Audi, not mine, and head south to Creech Air Force Base. You drove right past it on the way here.” VIN nodded. He remembered the base north of Las Vegas. “There is a Colonel Sinclair who you are to pick up. I know nothing more, but he is the replacement pilot for the one we drove down there yesterday. It seems the Air Force doesn’t want to miss out on our action and has given me a replacement within twelve hours of getting the last one back. You will leave after lunch, as I want you to spend a few hours with Suzi after breakfast going over what you can expect from us in the prosthetics department. Mr. Noble, Suzi does not work in the prosthetics department; she is like you, a guinea pig for our spacewalking program, and I’m sure glad to have both of you to work with. Suzi, for your information only, is Head of Hangar Nine, our biology department.”

“OK!” replied VIN. “I got a chocolate milkshake last night from the bar.”

“I see,” replied Ryan. “So you and Mr. Jones have already tried to purchase your beers back, and met Mr. Rose, Suzi’s number two,” Ryan replied smiling. “Check with the security guards at the first gate after lunch, they have your car keys, and get the gate commander to call me when you have returned to the outer gate with this Colonel Sinclair. I’m off to shower and breakfast.”

VIN looked around; the sun was just about to climb over the low horizon. It wasn’t even daybreak yet!

It felt to VIN as he sat in his car for the first time in forty-eight hours that a whole month had passed since he had last sat there. His body was stiff from the beating his lower limbs had taken during the walk and the custom seat felt like heaven. He started the car, reversed it out of its newly built carport, and the gates opened for him to pass.

The gritty road was soon swallowed up and he turned south on the highway and gunned the car to see if he could blow the dust off the silver paint job.

Most of it was gone by the time he hit the top of the first rise at ninety. There were a couple of miles of open desolate straight road in front of him, and all he could see was a lonely truck coming toward him three to four miles away. He floored the accelerator and hit 175 miles an hour before the truck, one of the ones he had seen driving to Ryan’s base, approached rapidly, flashing its lights, which made him reduce his speed to close to the speed limit as he passed it by.

He waved at the driver, eased off the throttle and a mile later passed a police cruiser speed trap waiting for him to come over a crest in the road. He was only a few miles an hour over the speed limit and the policeman left him alone.

He reached Creech Air Force Base an hour later and turned left onto the base.

“I’m here to pick up a Colonel Sinclair,” said VIN at the gate.

“You’re expected. Why don’t you civilians just fly in, instead of driving your fancy cars? We do have a runway just like you guys,” said the gate sergeant.

“It’s a little cheaper on fuel than bringing the C-5 down to pick up one colonel, Sarge,” VIN replied smiling. “And faster!”

“Are you military?” the sergeant asked.

“Former Lieutenant VIN Noble, Marines, why?”

“I think I’ve met you before. Weren’t you that Force Recon guy in that Humvee explosion a year or so ago?”

“Could be,” VIN replied.

“I flew out with you on the C-17 back to the States.”

“That’s right! I met you at the coffee machine,” replied VIN. “I knocked your coffee over, trying to walk on these new legs at about 35,000 feet.”

“That’s right, sir. All of us guys wanted to help you walk, but you were doing all right yourself. It seems you have a better pair of silver legs now. Pull in past the guard house, and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” VIN did.

The sergeant came over with a steaming cup of coffee. “The colonel will be about twenty minutes,” the guard said, handing him a cup of coffee.

“Do you think my dog tags will get me into the Class VI? I want to buy a couple of beers for a friend of mine.”

“No problem, sir. I’m on break right now. Give me some cash and I’ll get a six-pack for you.”

VIN unlocked the car’s glove compartment and found a roll of bills he had put there for gas. He peeled off two twenties and gave it to the sergeant. “Get me a case of whatever you can, and a small bottle of Jack,” he asked. “The change is yours.”

Fifteen minutes later the sergeant returned with the goods and VIN placed them in the small golf-bag-sized compartment behind the seats. He covered them up with the soft carpet in the bottom of the compartment, and thanked the sergeant.

“You guys dry up there?” the sergeant asked showing VIN the change, over ten bucks, and pocketing it nodding his thanks.

“Yep!” he replied. “As dry as any forward base in Iraq.”

“Look after yourself, Sir. Thanks for the cash. I have to get back to the gate,” and the happy sergeant returned to his post.

A few minutes later a tall female officer with a pack slung over her shoulder and carrying a garment bag came toward the gate; she wore an Air Force uniform showing the rank of full colonel on her tunic. She approached the gate, whistled at the car, and walked over to VIN.

She was older than he, VIN noticed, about ten years older, but she was tall, as tall as he was; her striking eyes instantly captivated him as she looked directly at him in his fancy car.

VIN instinctively leapt out of the car and saluted, forgetting that he was now a civilian and didn’t need to. “Waiting for Colonel Sinclair, Colonel,” he said looking back straight into those big green eyes.

“Well you just found her, soldier…civilian, whichever,” she replied. “And I’m supposed to get into this mafia-looking car with a complete stranger?”

“Lieutenant Victor Noble, Colonel. United States Marine Corps,” he said still standing at attention.

“Not bad, Lieutenant,” she replied smiling. “Can you show me where I can load my stuff into this thing?” VIN took the garment bag holding her uniforms and placed in the front compartment. The pack was the same size as a set of golf clubs and he placed that on the carpet to hide his purchases. He held the passenger door for her and she nimbly slid in.

He waved at the guard as they exited the gate, turned right onto the dual lane highway, and headed north. VIN hadn’t expected a female pilot, and remembering what Ryan had said earlier, nor did he.

“Do we have far to go, Lieutenant?” she asked.

“About an hour’s drive, ma’am,” VIN replied driving at the speed limit.

“Cops on the road?” Maggie asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“You have a car that looks like an F-16, and you are driving it at the speed limit. That’s why I asked.”

“I saw one an hour earlier about forty miles ahead,” VIN replied.

“Well, that means we have thirty miles of open road, Lieutenant. Show me what this thing can do.”

VIN smiled, knowing the road pretty well by now and floored the accelerator. He felt her stiffen as they were pushed back in their seats and the speedometer quickly hit 150 and kept climbing. There wasn’t another vehicle in front of them for the next couple miles; the dual highway extended in front of them, and for the first time, he let her go all the way.

The speedometer slowly climbed over 180 before he felt a light hand on his arm and he eased off. The end of the dual highway was rushing up a mile or so in front, and another truck was about to get in their way. Also there was the “black and white” in the middle where the two lanes joined, and as he approached, now adding braking to slow the car, he was relieved to see it was still facing the other way.

“Not bad for a jet without wings, Lieutenant. You may now drive at the speed limit,” the colonel said to him as the cop watched them pass. It was the same cop he had seen on the way south.

For the next hour they talked about what they did. The colonel, as VIN knew, was a C-5 pilot and he found out that she had flown since she was a teenager. He told her about Iraq and how he had been discharged early because he had been wounded. She asked about his unit and was impressed with the medals he had been awarded.

“Most of us don’t get a chance to meet a three-time holder of the Purple Heart, Lieutenant. I’m sorry to hear about your legs.”

They reached the turnoff, and he explained the drill she was to expect at the gate.

The car, now known to the guards, was allowed in through the outer gate. VIN was asked to leave the colonel at the inner gate after he reminded the guardhouse to phone Ryan. Without anybody looking inside the vehicle, he took the colonel’s gear out and handed it to a guard and was allowed to drive back to the carport. The guard had ordered him to return the keys to the inner gate, so he “forgot” to lock the vehicle, returned the keys, and went back to hand them in.

An hour later, looking very innocent, VIN walked toward Hangar Five where he was hoping that he would find Suzi. He saw that the C-5 had been pulled out of Hangar Three and continued on past it, walking across the apron underneath one wing. It was a darn big aircraft.

Suzi was not there, but he was welcomed by a few white coats that seemed to be expecting him. One introduced himself as Professor Muller from Hamburg, Germany and then introduced his female assistant, Professor-Doctor Ivanova who, with a broad Russian accent, asked him to call her Tatyana. She was about the same age as VIN, maybe a year or two older, had long blonde hair and light blue eyes. What’s with all these pretty girls and their eyes? he thought to himself.

Professor Muller, about seventy or so, was curt, direct and told him that Tatyana would be VIN’s prosthesis doctor, she was good at what she did, and then he walked off.

VIN spent the afternoon with his new doctor. She was fun, nearly as much fun as Suzi, especially when she ordered him to take his clothes off to be measured standing at attention in just his underwear.

As life always does, Suzi wheeled herself into the room just as the sexy Russian was taking measurements of his upper leg muscles, still stiff from the earlier walk. VIN blushed and closed his eyes, expecting trouble.

There wasn’t any. All he heard was Suzi laugh and wolf whistle at him. “Pretty sexy guy! What do you think, Tat?” Suzi called to the doctor. VIN again blushed a rosy red color.

“Da!” the Russian replied smiling. “Pity we aren’t allowed to take measurements of all of his body, Überfrau.”

The two ladies smiled at him, and Suzi watched from her wheelchair as Tatyana continued, like a tailor measuring him for a suit.

Once he was allowed to dress, though without the two ladies leaving the room, his composure came back.

For the next couple of hours both Suzi and VIN had their lower suits refitted and this time another couple of white coats entered to measure his lower body, again around the mechanical legs. Suzi explained that this fitting was for his external space suit, which would fit over the exoskeleton.

Both then practiced walking, kneeling, jumping, and even tried dancing together. The mechanical legs worked well and VIN wasn’t happy when he was ordered by Doctor Da, as he now called her, to sit down and revert to his old legs. Doctor Da gave him some good news.

“I think that in a week or so, VIN, we throw out those plastic legs. Ryan asked us to do for you what we are doing for Suzi. He wants us to reduce the unnecessary systems around your legs for strength, and see if we can blend the mechanics of the legs to the shape of these plastic ones. In other words, you will have mechanical legs for everyday use, and a second exoskeleton set can be added to your body for space training. If you wear normal trousers over your new legs, nobody will even know that you have metal legs.”

“Just don’t go through any airport metal detectors!” Suzi laughed. “Ryan has also got a few others working on a skin polymer, which might encase your new legs and make them look like normal human skin; then you could even wear shorts. But even with shorts, Tat and I will know what you have underneath.” It took VIN a few seconds to understand what Suzi meant, and once it hit him, their giggling made him turn red again.

“Want a beer?” VIN asked Jonesy when the two returned their rooms after work. Jonesy looked at VIN carefully, put two and two together and smiled.

“I bet you hit the BX at Creech, kid,” said Jonesy laughing. “Sure I’ll take one!”

VIN had just opened the two now-cold bottles and taken a long swig when there was a knock on his door. He handed his bottle to his partner who was sitting at the table and went over to open the door. It was his worst nightmare; Ryan was standing there, alone. “May I come in?” he asked. VIN had nothing else he could do, and let his boss in. “Pity you have only beer,” said Ryan when he saw the bottles in Jonesy’s hands. “I’m a whiskey drinker myself.” The two men just stood there shocked and stared at the man who always seemed to surprise them.

“I purchased a small bottle of Jack Daniels at the base. I could put some of that in a glass with some ice,” he offered, still not knowing what to do.

“That sounds perfect. Mr. Noble. There is an ice machine at the end of the hall. Would you be so kind?” and the younger man happily headed out with the room’s ice bucket. On his return, VIN had regained his composure, enough to get two fresh beers out of his refrigerator and search for the bottle opener under one of the pillows on the couch.

“I don’t mind a few drinks now and again,” said Ryan as he watched VIN pour a decent amount into a glass. “It’s just that the foreign scientists were drunk every night for the first two weeks while we waited for our equipment to arrive. I realized that this could put our whole project in jeopardy and limited them to Saturday nights. I follow the same rules I give out, but sometimes I need a drink as much as the next guy. Just keep your stash secret and enjoy it; when it’s gone, you will be back to Saturday nights only.”

The three men stood and toasted the project and space travel.

“Mr. Noble, Mr. Jones, it’s a pleasure to have a drink with you. First, VIN, what did you make of Colonel Sinclair?”

“She seems like a nice person…”

“She! The pilot’s a she?” Jonesy asked.

“Correct, partner; and with her asking me to hit over 180 miles an hour out of Creech, I reckon she’s a good pilot,” responded VIN. “I’m a pretty good judge of people.”

“Good,” added Ryan. “I’ve spent a couple of hours with her. Mr. Jones, she has also flown the C-5 outside for over a hundred hours like you, and I’m thinking of bringing her into our inner circle, like we did with Captain Pitt. We need good flyers and the pilot flying with you sitting in the shuttle needs to be as good as you are. Don’t you agree?”

“Like that dirtbag you sent back? I think I would have met her if she’s flown the Dead Chicken,” Jonesy replied.

“Good, you gentlemen check her out and let me know. If she can be persuaded to join our team, then we just have a couple more pilots to work on. Mr. Jones, if we can trust her, maybe she knows of an engineer or another pilot we can swop out the current engineer and that gives Mr. Noble a reason to hit the base store again,” he said, smiling, putting the empty glass on the table. He thanked the men for the drink, told him that they had twenty-four hours to work on the colonel, and left the room.

“Oh, God!” sighed Colonel Sinclair when VIN introduced her to his partner after breakfast the next morning. The C-5 was already out on the apron as they walked up, entered and went up to the flight deck. “The test pilot who thinks he’s God’s personal pilot.”

“The tall, devil-eyed captain, I think you were, when I last flew with you,” returned Jonesy in his usual friendly manner. “Now a full colonel, I see. I’d better watch my Ps and Qs, Colonel, what was your name… Superair?”

“Sinclair, Colonel Sinclair, Major…?”

“Jones is the name, flying is my game!”

“That’s right,” she replied. “Gee, I hated that phrase. You said it every damn time I ever flew with you. The other pilots hated it as well, and hated you as much as I did. Hopefully you have grown up a little since they let you out of the Air Force.”

“And why didn’t you say that to me back then?”

“Because you were a rank higher than I was, and I was only the copilot,” she retorted sarcastically.

“Glad you guys are happy to see each other again,” interjected VIN, enjoying the friendly reunion. “Jonesy is there anybody on this Earth you haven’t pissed off?”

“Only the maker of Budweiser,” he replied. “Colonel Sinclair, has your flying improved any since I last flew with you?”

“About 5,000 hours better, and what do I call you? Colonel, Major or Captain? Wasn’t captain the lowly rank attached to you once they threw your butt out of the Air Force for beating up that piece of crap you had as a commander?”

“Here we go again,” interjected VIN, hearing all this rank stuff for the second time.

“At least you said something right,” replied Jonesy to the colonel.

“I know. I had him as a supply-desk superior at Travis for a couple of months, until he was sent over to you. He was a lousy piece of work!” she added.

VIN looked at both pilots. They were both tall, Jonesy only taller by a couple of inches. She certainly wasn’t going to take any crap from this test pilot, and for once, maybe Jonesy’s mouth had met its match. Poor Captain Pitt was white-faced watching these two senior pilots have a go at each other, and the bickering didn’t stop until the flight engineer entered the flight deck.

From then on they got down to the business of flying the C-5. Jonesy knew that the new colonel and the flight engineer hadn’t been cleared by the boss yet, and didn’t go further on their actual flight projections, other than to discuss the actual flying of the aircraft.

“Kid,” Jonesy looked over in VIN’s direction. “You and the colonel here seem to speak the same language. Why don’t you invite her over for a milkshake with that useless barman, Mr. Rose, and talk about something other than flying while I talk to the flight engineer and Captain Pitt here.” VIN and Jonesy had planned what to do to approach the colonel about joining the team, and he got up with Maggie to go to the bar.

He didn’t even know if it was open, but the door swung open when he tried it. VIN was quite surprised to see Suzi in there, working on a low table in her wheelchair with a few very large glass bottles about five gallons each, which held a bubbling brown liquid.

“Herr Noble, the bar is closed. This beer is not yet ready and we are busy!”

“Colonel Sinclair and I will sit out of your way, Mr. Rose. Two chocolate milkshakes, please, and we will leave you to your privacy.” Suzi looked at VIN, he winked at her, and she seemed to understand that VIN being here might be important.

“All right. Mr. Rose, two of your best milkshakes please, and two slices of the fresh chocolate cake for me and you while you are at it.”

“Thank you, Suzi. I would like you to come over in a few minutes and join us,” VIN added.

For ten minutes VIN questioned Maggie, asking how important her job in the Air Force was to her. It seemed that she was a lifer, a person who would stay until they forced her to retire.

“I think that I could get as far as general in a few years and maybe command a base somewhere,” she told him as the milkshakes came.

“I suppose the money, your income, doesn’t really mean anything to you?” VIN asked.

“Not really,” she replied. “I do miss having a family though, and think myself young enough to still have children. Unfortunately, I had better hurry up.”

“May I be honest with you?” VIN asked.

She nodded.

“This is a big project, far bigger than you understand right now, and will ever understand if you don’t belong here. You have less than a week before you go back to whatever base you came from.” She looked at him, puzzled. “The flight engineer will leave tomorrow, or the next day. Captain Pitt will stay. The captain, like Jonesy and I, are part of the project. You, I would assume, are a spy for the Air Force. Am I correct, that they asked you to report what is happening here at this base? Just nod your head if I’m right or wrong.”

She nodded that he was correct.

“The boss thought so and that was why the last guy was sent home. We are in a space race. The race is top secret. Jonesy is going to fly a space shuttle into space; he will teach Captain Pitt to be the C-5 pilot, dropping him out of the Dead Chicken’s butt. Jonesy is going to buzz around space, and then reenter the shuttle into the atmosphere and return to land at this airfield. Do you have any interest in joining him to fly the shuttle, or shall I say the spacecraft of a lifetime? Before you answer that, Colonel Sinclair, this is your one and only chance to join our team, and maybe add ‘astronaut’ to your flying career, or, you can go back to the Air Force and fly milk runs with the Air Force for the rest of your life.”

“Do I have time to think it over, and what do I need to do to accept the offer?” Maggie asked.

“As far as I have seen, the best aerospace brains from around the world are here, Russian, German and American. Now we just need the best pilots to get us up there one day. All I was asked was to keep what is seen here top secret. The Air Force will be told what Ryan will tell you to tell them. This isn’t a bunch of bad guys wanting to take over Earth; this is a group of scientists who are trying to push the envelope of space travel. This is the new NASA, thanks to budget cuts. Many of the people I have been introduced to either worked at NASA, the European Space Agency, or the Russian Space Agency. If anybody is going to space, we are, and we need to keep it a secret before the government or the Air Force decide to get involved, or try to commandeer it for their own purposes. You need to sign an agreement that what you see here will never be turned over to the Air Force. Captain Pitt signed that one extra piece of paper, and he was in. That’s all, except that if you do sign, we will need a trustworthy and exceptional replacement for the flight engineer. It seems even another pilot will fit the bill, somebody you think would be the final member to put together a full C-5 team of the top talent.”

“And what happens when this is all over?” asked Maggie, totally shocked, but excited at the same time.

“The term is twenty-four months. After that I suppose we will all be rich and good friends. The boss has impressive contacts, extending to the President himself, and can keep you here.”

“Is the President in on this?” Maggie asked. “The elections are pretty soon.”

“No, the current President is his friend who needs to get a space program running and the boss believes that other powerful people want it, might want to take it over, and then maybe call it their pet secret project or something and get all the credit. Hell, I don’t know, but as a former spec ops guy, we always acted on our hunches, our gut feel, you might call it, and this feels right to me. Suzi and I are going to get a beautiful set of legs out of this; Jonesy gets to fly again, and maybe we all go to space. I don’t know, but what do I have to lose?”

“I believe you, VIN; tell whomever that I am in. It sounds like fun, and I want ‘astronaut’ on my resume. I was very sad when Neil Armstrong died. He was one of the people I wanted to be when, as a kid, I sat at home in California on summer nights looking at the stars. And tell your boss that I do have a replacement, my last flight engineer and copilot at Nellis. She’s a young captain. Like Captain Pitt, she’s a darn good flight pilot, also has a degree in engineering, in aerospace engineering, like me, from the Academy.”

Suzi wheeled her chair over, and VIN stood and introduced her to Maggie.

“How was your milkshake?” Suzi asked.

“Good enough to want a slice of your chocolate cake, Suzi. That is something the Air Force doesn’t do well,” Maggie replied.

The women chatted getting to know each other.

“Maggie has a degree in aerospace engineering,” VIN said to Suzi.

“Wunderbar,” replied Suzi. “That was my first choice, too, and did it for my first year at the University of Munich. Then I fell in love with microbiology, and then organic biology, and then space biology, and then I put them altogether and dropped the engineering. I have three degrees in three branches of biology, and want to do my Ph.D. in all of them one day; but then I was employed here and it will have to wait a few years. This is more fun anyway, all practical with very little theory. Much more exciting!” She smiled, her pretty eyes lighting up and Maggie was hooked.

“I’ve always wanted to continue my aerospace studies, but flying always got in the way,” Maggie replied.

“Well, you are at the right place. I’m sure that if you sign Herr Ryan’s top secret forms, he could put you to work somewhere in the engineering hangar when flying is not needed. And we could all have a beer in space one day!” she laughed, and left as Mr. Rose brought two more slices of cake.

As they enjoyed the triple chocolate cake, VIN watched Maggie think. Even though she was much older than he, she was extremely attractive, like an untouched doll.

After a few minutes she spoke. “You are right, VIN; my gut feel says that this is right. That Suzi must be a whiz kid, and Jonesy, as you call him, was the best pilot I ever flew with. If anybody can teach me anything new about flying, he can. VIN, you have a deal, but I ask one thing of you.”

He nodded.

“Will you be my big, younger brother and keep a look out for me? I’m good at what I do, flying, but not much good at other things. Flying and study have been my only life up to now, and I think I may be getting in over my head.”

“I’ll treat you like my big sister, since you are older than me, and I’ll watch your back. I have Jonesy and Suzi watching mine.”

Maggie smiled.

It wasn’t two days, but only thirty-six hours later when VIN drove the unhappy flight engineer back to Creech, saw the same guard on duty as before, got two cases and a large bottle of Jack Daniels this time, and picked up a pretty Air Force captain, this time younger than he.

Captain Sullivan was extremely excited about the car. She told him that a punk singer kid had one of these, and she enjoyed the ride north. VIN saw the same cop waiting for them at the end of the dual road; this time VIN waved at him, and the cop just stared back.

Maggie had called General Saunders at Nellis the day after VIN spoke to her and told him that another pilot/flight engineer was needed, one she could trust. She asked for Captain Penny Sullivan, and the base commander said that she would be at Creech in twenty-four hours.

Ryan was happy. He said that he would wait for the new pilot to arrive, and if everything worked out, the first flight crew would be complete.

Chapter 12

DX2014

The first meeting of the new crew took place in the belly of the C-5 the morning after Captain Sullivan arrived; it was Monday and just after the early morning physical training and breakfast.

VIN had been left farther and farther behind by Jonesy as the older man began to get fit again. The two new Air Force women were much fitter and enjoyed the run, chatting and jogging next to Suzi in her speeding wheelchair. As usual, Ryan led and wondered who would be the first person to overtake him. However, he did have a suspicion of who it might be.

“Mr. Jones, Ms. Sinclair, Mr. Pitt, Ms. Sullivan, if you want to fly this aircraft, you have two weeks to get fit enough so that I am not the best and fastest runner on the airfield. Mr. Jones, if you want to lead this group of pilots, I expect you to be the first person to finish next Friday’s race. Between you and Ms. Sinclair, the winner will be pilot-in-command of our flight personnel.”

This surprised VIN, as he figured Jonesy assumed that it would be his position. He glanced at his partner, who now looked better than he had ever seen him. Jonesy took the news in stride, his face showing no emotion.

“Just to put a little interest into the competition, our colleagues Suzi and Mr. Noble will be fitted out with the final adjustments to their lower suits, and you will need to beat them too. I know Suzi would not want to come in second, and I hope Mr. Noble will also be passing you, Mr. Jones. Believe me, he might be able to. We don’t know the limits of these suits, but I think that with better coordination, both will have an edge, running faster than any of us.”

VIN smiled at Jonesy, who ignored him and faced forward. VIN was excited.

“We are about to go into winter, and here in the desert, it is going to get cold. Before the soil has a chance to freeze I need to get large fuel tanks into the ground. Work starts tomorrow on three 100,000 gallon aboveground JP-8 fuel tanks, and three below-ground liquid nitrogen, hydrogen and helium tanks, or Dewars, as they are usually called after the name of the manufacturer. This Dewars large liquid gas storage will be kept at correct temperatures by electricity. As you have noticed, new cross-country electric cables reached the airfield last week. My electric bill should rise in the coming months to somewhere between one and two million dollars a month. The liquid gases will be cryogenically transferred from these tanks into fuel line systems in new hangars Six and Seven to fuel the shuttle and spacecraft for spaceflight just before takeoff. Our system has been designed by our Russian scientists, who have worked with this same system for over twenty-five years, and have perfected the fueling system to shorter time frames.

“Once fueled, the four-ton spacecraft will be lifted into the shuttle; the C-5 will be positioned directly outside Hangar Six facing the hangar doors, the pilot will open its nose and the shuttle will be moved into the front of the aircraft by our transfer trailer back end first. This entire operation must be completed within fifteen minutes. The C-5 will then be towed away from the hangar so its engines can be fired up. Fifteen minutes later she should be leaving the ground, and thirty minutes later she will have reached a higher altitude where the colder air will help keep the gases in a liquid state. So, time from the beginning of second-stage hydrogen gas refueling to blast off is three hours.

“As a refresher, let me give you a quick 101 course on using the hybrid rocket system. Just remember, we have scientists here who designed hybrid rockets decades ago. A hybrid rocket is a motor that uses propellants in two different states of matter, one solid and the other fluid, which may be either gas or liquid. In its simplest form a hybrid rocket consists of a pressure vessel tank containing the fluid propellant, the combustion chamber containing the solid propellant, and a valve which isolates the two. When we desire thrust, Mr. Jones, a suitable ignition source is introduced in the combustion chamber and the valve is opened by the astronaut-in-command. The fluid propellant flows into the combustion chamber where it is vaporized and then reacts with the solid propellant. Combustion occurs in a boundary layer diffusion flame adjacent to the surface of the solid propellant.”

“What are the risks attached to this form of thrust?” asked Maggie.

“I was wondering who would ask that question,” replied Ryan. “Ms. Sinclair, our space shuttle is a single fixed unit, which stays together throughout the flight. We don’t have fuel rockets falling away once their job is complete. The fuel is expended and at the correct altitude the hybrid engines run out of fuel. The more adjustable and powerful fuel for space travel, pure liquid hydrogen, takes over and powers the craft to any desired altitude we want. The shuttle roof doors, the cargo inside the shuttle—which could be the standard panels, food and water supplies, soil and plant supplies, passengers, or even one of the new spacecraft in Hangar Seven—is released into space, and the shuttle then descends back to Earth. If she is not holding a spacecraft, but space panels, building equipment, stores, or supplies, for example, the two small ion thrusters working in unison with the hydrogen side thrusters take over and maneuver the shuttle to wherever we want her to go. One important thing: our space shuttles are built more like the older NASA Apollo craft, which went to the moon and back. In other words, the shuttles can actually go into outer space as easily as the smaller spacecraft can.

“Now, to answer your question, Ms. Sinclair. Hybrid rocket motors exhibit some obvious, as well as some subtle, advantages over solid rockets. The advantages are:

“They are mechanically simpler, requiring only a single liquid propellant; this means less plumbing, fewer valves, and simpler operations.

“Next, they use denser fuels; fuels in the solid phase generally have higher density than those in the fluid phase, reducing overall system volume; it is important for us to get enough fuel into our shuttles to reach space, and fit into the C-5 Galaxy.

“Third, metal additives. Reactive metals such as aluminum, magnesium, lithium or beryllium can be easily included in the fuel grain, increasing thrust. Maybe this technology is new to you, but it is far more modern and safer than what has previously been used in any national space programs.

“One of the most important advantages is the lower risk of explosion. Propellant grain is more tolerant of processing errors such as ‘cracks’ which, for you pilots, makes them easier to start, stop, restart, and throttle; are all achievable with appropriate oxidizer control, which you will learn in the next few months.

“Lastly, safe and non-toxic oxidizers such as nitrous oxide can be used, which means the fuels can be transferred to the fuel tanks in a benign form and remotely loaded with oxidizer immediately before launch, improving safety.

“To sum up what I have just explained to those who didn’t understand, you pilot-astronauts will become masters of this new way of flying with fuels you have not previously used. Our program is far more modern than anything else out there. While it is far more simple, our systems are as powerful as any rocket motor ever built, and we are rapidly catching up to the other private companies in the space race; we have 360 of the best scientific minds in every department, from thrust, dependency, survival on board, even to what is eaten and pooped out in space!”

The meeting ended with Ryan explaining the possibilities of the upcoming Presidential elections, and the pilots realized that there wasn’t any fuel at the airfield to refuel the Air Force C-5, and wouldn’t be for a couple of weeks.

Two days later, after the next run, a larger meeting was held in the new Ground Control center of Hangar One. This time VIN noted that department heads from many of the hangars were included. Hangar Three was represented by the new pilot crew.

During the run, VIN had seen a new Jonesy. He had refused any secret beers over the last couple of days, and VIN hardly saw the guy. When he did, Jonesy was sweaty and in workout gear. On the runs VIN was at the back as usual, and noticed his partner just behind the three girls, only a hundred yards behind Ryan. It was certainly an improvement and he wished his new legs were ready so that he could join them. He practiced walking daily with Suzi and both of them could even dance a clumsy waltz, Suzi’s Teutonic way of dancing. He joked with her that he was being paid to learn to dance.

Ryan began the meeting. “Today, we are expecting over a hundred trucks bringing in parts for the fuel tanks. Yesterday the heavy earth-moving machines arrived and I’m sorry for the loud noise out there. This place is going to be hell for two weeks with over 1,500 workers being trucked in and out daily. A camp of tents and kitchens has been set up for them at the intersection on the small civilian airfield, and nobody is to communicate or leave their hangars during daylight hours. Work will commence on our fuel tanks and on new lines to the outer fuel transfer connection units on the outer walls of the hangars. Our morning runs will continue as usual. Just keep your personnel away from the tank installations.

“Now, to asteroid DX2014. A couple of our new personnel in this room, and many not in this meeting, haven’t been told about our next year’s space mission. You have all signed your contracts on secrecy, and hopefully you have enough interest in our project to keep it secret. Unbeknownst to you newbies, and I would like to apologize in advance for what I’m going to tell you, everything you arrived with has been searched daily, very carefully, by our team of security personnel.”

There was a gasp by Maggie Sinclair and Penny Sullivan.

“Sorry ladies, but our three female security guards have searched every inch of your rooms, beds, clothing, sprays, makeup, purses, documents, and military bags for any transmitters, communication devices, anything that might have been hidden by you or the Air Force without your knowledge. So far, three GPS transmitting devices have been found. One, strangely enough, was under Mr. Noble’s motor vehicle; I’m sure it was planted there when he picked up one of you two ladies. The second one was found in the stitching of Ms. Sinclair’s military pack and the third one in the face cream in Ms. Sullivan’s make-up bag.”

Again the two girls gasped, and their faces went white.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t put it there!” Maggie stammered.

“Me too!” added Penny.

“I believe you ladies, and I find it stupid that the government or the Air Force would do such a thing. They can follow you pilots on radar and satellite anytime you are flying. It shows how interested they are in this project. I believe that having so many of the world’s best scientists under one roof is giving somebody out there a nervous breakdown, and I don’t know who it is.

“Now that every piece of clothing, even the apparel you are wearing today, and even this large hangar is devoid of any CIA, Air Force, FBI, Russian, German, and any other organizational listening devices, we can get started. DX2014 is an asteroid we are going to mine.”

Again there were gasps from the new recruits.

“DX2014 will bypass Earth’s moon, about 600,000 miles from Earth thirteen months from now. By that time, I hope we will already be back on Earth with enough precious metals to help pay for all this. Everything we do here, from Mr. Noble’s new legs, to helping Mr. Jones reduce his alcohol consumption, is for this first mission.

“I am not interested in the current race to space. If somebody else wins, that’s fine with me as long as the race distracts outside interest from our project. Yes, we are going to space. It is just that we won’t come back when expected, and when we do, we will have a cargo the world will pay top dollar for: platinum, radium and iridium will be among the precious cargos we bring back, not once, but hopefully three times before DX2014 flies out of range. All our secrecy is to give us the most lead time as possible against our competition, which will begin to crawl out of the woodwork once they know what we are doing. Astermine, the parent company, is my company, and I am the 100% shareholder. Astermine is not working any other type of program, other than long-term space survival and space mining. Astermine has no hidden or secret agenda. Please understand that. We are not anti-government or anti-military. We are a private company permitted by the state and the federal government to do business. We are not breaking any laws. We are not against anybody, nor should anybody be against us. These are the rules of a free country, our free country. However, certain government agencies are extremely curious about our project and are attempting to discover exactly what we are doing and how we are doing it, with or without our knowledge. If they find out what we are doing, it is likely they will want to intervene and assume some governmental control for political or financial reasons.

“If—and when—we succeed, we will have achieved something no one else has even thought of. If we fail, and never get to space, we will be nothing more than a joke. So all of you now know our first mission. Other personnel know only smaller parts of the plan than you do; please remember you still only know only a small part of the whole plan yourselves. Once we return from DX2014, I promise you, everybody in this meeting will know of the whole plan. That is all for this meeting.”

Chapter 13

A Lot of Water Goes Under the Bridge

“Do you think the government is really so interested in this company?” asked Maggie as she left the hangar with VIN and Penny.

“I think that Ryan is putting something together here that he understands will naturally get more and more scrutiny from the U.S. government,” replied VIN.

“Are you sure that he is not one of these mad scientists portrayed in Hollywood?” asked Penny.

“I wish sometimes it was that easy, Ms. Sullivan,” replied Ryan himself catching up to them.

“I’m sorry for saying that, but this is all so new to me and I think, like the colonel here, that we are trying to swim in uncharted waters!” replied Penny, apologizing, and immediately embarrassed.

“And I’m sorry I heard your conversation. This is still a free country, and you have those freedoms inside my boundaries on this airfield, Ms. Sullivan. Give yourself a few weeks, and you will be as happy to be part of this project, as are the others here, and some of whom I might add, have been working on this for decades, since I was nineteen. Ms. Sinclair, I came over to ask you if you would like to spend time in the flight engineering department. Ms. Sullivan may join you if she is interested as we will begin flight training the C-5 in about ten days.”

Maggie immediately agreed; the two women headed off with Ryan in the direction of Hangar Six. VIN decided to go and see how his legs were coming along in Hangar Five.

When he entered, he was happy to see Suzi already suited up, and this time she didn’t look like Suzi. Her whole body was covered in silver and gold metal, and she was working on walking with the added weight.

“Come on, VIN!” she shouted. “Your suit is ready too. This is so much fun!”

His excitement grew as first his new legs, then his lower suit was fitted to him, and then the new upper portion with the addition of a backpack, a breast plate, and finally a new helmet that resembled those worn by commercial divers and that had to be screwed onto the neck of his suit by technicians. He looked into Suzi’s shiny faceplate and, yes! Now he was beginning to look a little like Iron Man, but right now more like an astronaut, a diver or even a knight, and he felt like asking for his horse.

Standing there waiting for the dozen technicians around him to complete fitting him up, he felt happy. That morning during the run, and for the first time since he had been at the airfield, he felt so useless without his legs. Even seventy-year old women were beating him on the run. He was a damn Marine! A Force Recon officer! One of the toughest and best there ever was in any department of the military. Now he was being passed in a two-mile race by half a mile, by the slowest old people on the base! One even limped when she walked around, for heaven’s sake!

“Suzi, on Friday we are running with our new legs. I’m sick of being the last over the line!”

“I agree,” she replied through their intercom, and behind her new entanglement of metal and other products hiding her beautiful face. “We will be doing that, and without our new upper bodies. Just the lower set we have waltzed with.”

For the next two days they worked together, working every part of their new upper suits, getting them to work together with the lower parts they had nearly perfected.

The suits were hot and cold at the same time. The metal was cold, but the skin’s ability to cool a hard working body was being hampered by the suits’ inefficient cooling systems, and the temperature in the hangar was reduced by ten degrees, to the 60s, to accommodate them. Suzi and VIN walked together, shook hands and punched each other, clanking metal on metal, and were even asked to head butt each other to see what would happen to the electronics after a hard hit.

Sometimes they sat together, cooling down and talking while their upper suits were removed to modify a part. They even held real hands to feel what it was like after holding metal hands, and often both of their heads were wet with sweat after hard workouts.

Late at night on their second full day they sat and waited for a modification. Both had now been in their bottom suits for twenty-six of the last thirty-six hours; they were sweaty and had just completed a series of push-ups and jumping jacks on the stage.

They weren’t normal push-ups; when VIN pushed his new arms to straighten them, his upper body had pushed itself a foot or two off the ground. On one jumping jack, he just about hit a metal beam across the hangar ceiling twenty feet above his head, and nearly went through the wooden stage when he landed.

Equipment and people had toppled over and Suzi just sat there laughing, the force of VIN hitting the ground even propelling her off the ground. The scientists decided to decrease the power output of VIN’s hydraulics that did the work around his major muscles.

Sitting there, VIN decided to ask a question.

“Suzi are we supposed to wear these suits all the time while we are in space?”

“No,” she replied, “only when we spacewalk. We will have the oxygen packs fitted to our backs, and I believe we will be allowed outside for only three hours a day. It will take our partners an hour to help us on and off with our suits. Why?”

“Well, I was thinking. If we are to wear these suits, or even other types of suits in space all the time, and we remain out there… how will we… I mean humans ever be able to have kids in space… you know what I mean?” he said shyly.

“Herr VIN,” said Suzi sharply and trying to look stern, putting her hands on her hips and staring at him directly in his eyes. “If I want to have children with you, I will rip off my suit, and then I will rip off your suit, and then you and I will have children, understand?”

Totally shocked, he couldn’t come up with a reply to this comment, and he just nodded. “You Americans,” she said looking up at the hangar roof and rolling her eyes. “You Americans are so weird when it comes to sex,” she laughed as she suited up again.

Five hours later, after a couple hours of sleep, VIN was again suited up for the next morning’s run. He wore his lower section only, tightly bound around his waist for support. Both he and Suzi wore double T-shirts, one underneath the binding supports and one over to hide the straps and mid-body mechanisms from the tank-building workers in the specially fenced off area where they would be starting work. Under the T-shirts, oversized jogging trousers were worn to hide the leg metal, and then VIN placed new track shoes over his new metal feet. His feet were still a couple of sizes larger than his old feet, and he looked a little out of proportion–a six-foot tall person with size fourteen track shoes instead of his usual ten and a half.

He was excited having his first opportunity to walk around outside with the new track shoes, waiting for the start of the exercises. Even though it was still dark, the workmen could be heard a quarter of a mile away behind Hangar Four, tools clanking, and machines already moving dirt.

Jonesy was still only half awake and didn’t notice any changes to VIN, apart from the motorbike helmet. The two new Air Force girls arrived and also looked half awake. Even the technicians who had just put him together arrived in their exercise clothes and joined the group waiting for the exercises to begin.

As usual, a voice shouted out orders, first for them to form up in loose formation and then shouted for the organized squads to warm up. VIN looked for Suzi and saw her, hidden underneath a tracksuit with a hood. She looked a little bigger, and slightly overweight compared to the others around her; the scientists looking in her direction were trying to see who this unfamiliar person was.

Ryan arrived, headed over to his usual spot in front and did not seem to notice Suzi or VIN.

They began the exercises and VIN tried his best to look normal. He just felt so much more powerful, and his push-ups were fast and rhythmic. His jumping-jacks were harder to control and even with an extra fifty pounds of added weight around him, he felt strong and struggled to jump less than a foot or so high.

“Something eating your butt?” asked Jonesy during the third round of push-ups. “You look like a fat, friggin’ horse dancing around in a jumping ring. Why are you wearing that helmet? You haven’t guzzled all our beers have you? You are putting on weight, kid!”

“Well, you look like you have lost weight, Mr. Jones,” VIN joked, speaking like Ryan did to Jonesy. “Your stomach looks flatter, you look fitter, and you seem to be able to jog for a change.”

“I’ve spent the last four days on a constant damn workout routine. I’m not giving up my senior pilot position away to that tall colonel she-pilot. I reckon I can outrun anybody here today.”

“Bet you can’t,” replied VIN.

“How much you want to bet?” Jonesy panted, sounding serious as they began the last set of jumping jacks.

“How much you got, Mr. Superman?” replied VIN. “I think you will lose to Überfrau, Ryan, and the two Air Force chicks. They are all fit and fast. Hell, maybe I might even try running for once and whip your butt, Mr. Fancy Pilot!”

Jonesy chuckled and said nothing. He knew that only four days wasn’t enough to get super fit.

The whistle blew and the group all began heading in the usual direction across the apron and running toward the runway.

VIN took it easy and slowly let his machinery get used to the tarmac surface beneath his feet. He had been warned to stay on the asphalt, not close to the edge, and even with new non-slip track shoes, he had to get used to bringing his feet down and connecting with the dark, hard surface below him.

It took time and Suzi slowed to allow him to run with her. “Look up VIN, don’t look down. Let your brain make the calculations it has done all your life. Look, look at your friend Jonesy! He is chasing Ryan and the two girls like a dog after rabbits. We can see them now!”

VIN’s head came up and as he watched, his friend headed out in front of them. Jonesy was the last in a forward silhouetted group of a dozen; as the light grew brighter over the horizon VIN could see farther than just the area around him.

He was getting a rhythm. It was almost like his real legs were back, but with little to no feeling. He tried to imagine that his real legs were there, looked at Suzi, smiled, saw the old woman who usually limped in front of him and forced his body to go faster.

“Not too fast, Herr Olympic runner,” laughed Suzi as she did the same to keep up with him. They swept past the first runner and began overtaking groups of people.

“Not too fast, VIN,” said one of his technicians as he passed another group. “Remember, stopping is half the work.”

Suzi caught up to him and laughed. “Your running form looks good. Your butt looks very, very good. How is my form?” she asked and suddenly she sped ahead, nearly running down a few scientists in front of her.

VIN studied her running technique. She looked a little overweight in the lower body area, like a winter runner heavily clothed. What was important was that Suzi looked like an everyday girl in Central Park jogging in winter. What really surprised him was the speed she actually put on to get in front of him. It didn’t look real. It looked like she just shot forward, her stride doubling in length. He concentrated on taking the curve carefully, and then headed along the runway end. He looked for the leaders; they were already a hundred yards or so past the second turn and there were four of them, Ryan still in the lead.

It was time to increase speed, and his mind wanted more power and got it. He caught up to Suzi and overtook her before they reached the corner to turn right and head back the way they had come. She matched his move and stayed abreast of him. Now they were passing people quickly.

“Suzi, make your legs pump faster. Your strides are far too long and don’t look right.” Suzi did as he suggested and her speed increased as she pumped her legs up and down faster and harder. Now they were catching the forward runners and passing them quickly.

Then VIN saw the two pilot girls fifty yards ahead and Jonesy a few yards behind them putting pressure on them. The “she-pilots,” as his partner called them, looked back at Jonesy every few seconds, playing with the older man. Then the girls noticed VIN just behind his partner, and Suzi without her wheelchair, and their eyes enlarged. Not believing what they saw, both looked forward to put on speed to catch Ryan only a hundred feet or so ahead of them.

VIN surged forward, catching his partner in seconds. He hoped nobody had seen his spurt; it was probably a little faster than that 100 meter champion guy in the recent Olympics, and he came up on Jonesy’s shoulder breathing hard. Jonesy, not looking around, added more speed, not to be overtaken by this runner, whoever it was. He couldn’t believe it when he realized that it was the “kid” and the wheelchair girl. He looked at them with a weird and unbelieving expression, and then returned to concentrate on the women in front of him, pushing his legs to go even faster.

VIN spurted forward and caught up to the two women in a few seconds. He knew Jonesy did not believe his eyes, but he didn’t care. He smiled at the women, who slowed, not believing that this Marine with no real legs could outrun them, and their disbelief allowed Jonesy to quickly catch them.

Then it was the big prize: Ryan. “Let me go first,” asked Suzi and spurted ahead of VIN. He followed her watching her stride. It was so weird, this girl, who certainly wasn’t a professional runner, getting so much speed out of her legs, and hardly breathing with the effort.

Ryan was now fifty yards ahead and had only a few hundred to go before the apron. Suzi looked over to make sure that they were now out of sight of the workers, and suddenly VIN’s jaw dropped as he watched her catch up to Ryan in less than a dozen strides and then slow. She leaned over slightly to breathe down his neck. Her acceleration was so fast that he wanted to try it and his brain gave the orders; suddenly he felt himself spring forward and catch up to both of them so fast that he had to slow down before cannoning into them.

Ryan turned around and smiled at them. “Enjoying yourselves?” he asked. “I was hoping to keep it a little secret around here, but I suppose a Suzi-without-wheelchair beating me says it all!”

After the run, many came up to congratulate them, especially the scientists from Hangar Five. Others stayed away, not believing that a human, a human who looked overweight, could run so fast.

Jonesy, who had just barely outrun Maggie and Penny, stayed away from VIN, not knowing how to handle this new man…or robot?

Over breakfast VIN was approached by a scientist. “Ryan wants you at 8:00 sharp for a meeting in Hangar Seven.” VIN nodded, thanking the man, and looked forward to seeing what was going on in a new hangar for a change.

At 8:00 sharp, he showed his badge to the sentry guarding the side door to Hangar Seven and went in.

Much like Hangar Six, there were silver craft on short legs in the middle of the hangar, three craft this time instead of two, and in separate sterile rooms. As in Hangar Six, the craft had several white coats working outside and inside each one. These craft were smaller and slightly shorter than the shuttles in Hangar Six.

These must the actual spacecraft we are to go mining in, VIN thought to himself.

Ryan entered with Jonesy and Colonel Sinclair. Ryan walked up to where VIN was standing, and the pilots followed him. They were facing the front of the low spacecraft, its three legs only about a foot long. They could see into the three forward and side windows, and into the cockpit on each craft. The flight cockpits were smaller than in the shuttles, having only two seats with just enough room for the pilots to lie down flat between the instruments and the rear docking hatch sticking out of the cockpit’s rear wall.

One scientist in a full suit was working on the windows of the first one, making a six-foot-tall, three-foot wide space-type docking hatch rise and fall using hydraulics from inside the craft by opening and closing a switch on the control dash.

“Welcome to Astermine 1, Astermine 2, and Asterspace 3,” Ryan said pointing to the three craft in order. “We do everything in twos or threes. We always have a backup in case something happens to delay the movement or schedule in space.”

“Why the names Astermine and Asterspace?” asked VIN.

“The first two craft are being built to mine the asteroids in space, VIN. The third is a cargo transfer craft with an open plan cargo area,” Ryan replied.

“It doesn’t look like these guys are meant for reentry,” added Jonesy.

“Correct, Mr. Jones. These three craft, each under four tons in weight, are flown up in the belly of the shuttles and have been designed to remain in deep space to work. You remember the panels in Hangar One?” Ryan asked. All three nodded. “The plan is to get a space platform or mother ship built from those panels into space as soon as possible. The orbit of this space platform will be geosynchronous, a geostationary orbit, far higher than the U.S. military GPS satellites and higher than all of the geostationary media or cable satellites. Our geostationary orbit will be 22,497 miles above Earth, far higher than the GPS system at about 12,000 miles, and a dozen or so miles higher than the highest communications and media satellite Earth currently has. We will have the highest geostationary satellite ever put into orbit.

“That is where these three craft will dock, be refueled and resupplied. They will never need to return. The two shuttles in Hangar Six will transfer supplies to our space platform or mother ship to complete it. Once it is habitable, it will also be used to supply these Astermine spacecraft so they can go into outer space on different missions.

“This altitude will hide our new supply station from any ever-searching telescopes and cameras. As the military-built GPS system looks down at Earth and not into space, I believe we will be hidden from all but ground telescopes and any other instruments looking upward. Space is very large up there at 22,500 miles distance. Even for powerful telescopes on Earth, looking for our mother ship will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. I’m planning to locate our space platform directly behind the oldest and largest communication satellite up there, and hope it will be in its shadow from much of Earth. I pray nobody finds us while we are building it.”

“Can they do anything to the platform you build that far up?” VIN asked.

“No, but they can cut us off from here, hence so much security,” replied Ryan.

“Won’t they figure something out when we send up flight after flight of equipment to build this platform of yours?” asked Jonesy.

“Yes, but we will tell them first about dozens of necessary practice flights, and alternately outfox them with exits and reentries from the shuttles to make them think that we flew up one shuttle and hours later the same shuttle reenters. Hopefully, they won’t realize that it is not the same shuttle reentering. We start this charade with the first flight into space. The shuttle will be rigged to eject a load of explosives; when the explosion occurs, we say it was our first attempt, and we tell them our first mission was a failure. I expect that this ‘failure’ will enable us to launch twenty to thirty practice or training flights before they start getting edgy and want to come and see what is going on.”

“A couple of dozen flights could be a lot of equipment shuttled up there,” suggested Maggie.

“Well said, Ms. Sinclair! If I can get thirty or more flights up there before trouble begins to boil, we have a slight chance of success. In addition, our success depends heavily on the upcoming Presidential election. I have a good friend in the current President, but the opposing candidate doesn’t like me very much. I also have some aces up my sleeve which will buy us time: three to be precise. If a new President is elected at the end of this year and we are forced to tell the government about our mining operation, it could mean the end of my control of the company. I have a plan to use our mining treasure as a financial bartering tool, and hopefully divert their interest from a couple more ‘practice’ flights, to allow us to finish our project before private parties inside the U.S. government and military intervene. Once we start flights into space, we must move as fast as possible. And by the way, Ms. Sinclair, Mr. Jones, we are going to need at least one, maybe two more teams of flight personnel within the next few weeks. This time I want former military pilots like you, Mr. Jones, or at worst, ask the Air Force for one backup crew by telling them that you guys are heading off into space. We actually need four full space crews, and a crew for the C-5. The C-5 crew doesn’t need to know our space plans. Suzi and I are spending time in the simulators and can always be used as backups to the backups, if you know what I mean, but I don’t think Suzi or I will ever be as good as you two, Mr. Jones, Ms. Sinclair.”

“I‘m still in contact with two guys who flew with me in the Air Force test-pilot program, and have since retired,” said Jonesy.

“I know of one woman,” added Maggie. “She was a major then, and the best pilot I ever flew with, apart from Ms. Sullivan and Mr. Jones here. My friend got pregnant, was discharged, and then lost her baby. She was treated very unfairly, since the colonel who got her pregnant was the same colonel who terminated her contract with the Air Force. Several of us made a statement and were told to keep our mouths shut. That was about five years ago at McGuire Air Force Base.”

“I would like to meet everybody who you two would like to fly with, ASAP!” replied Ryan. “Let me know and I can send you off to find them.

“Now let’s get back to our mission. These three space vehicles will be taken up and will remain in space in the first dozen flights, or when needed. The shuttle’s first flight will be to fly up to another space station already in space, a dormant Russian satellite in a much lower orbit. That old girl is a Russian 1980s space station consisting of four modules. Two are sleep units, then a command module, and the forth a larger communal relaxation and work module which can separated if necessary. This satellite is about the size of a C-130 transport aircraft and will be pulled back to Earth by gravity in about seventeen months. She has two large solar dragonfly panels atop her, large ones which automatically supply her basic power needs.

“This reentry is already causing a lot of worry because of its size. It was one of the first space stations programs; the space station is large, and on reentry, it could cause much damage. At one time the satellite was 50,000 feet higher than the current space station, but now it is almost 100,000 feet lower and losing 10,000 feet of altitude a month. After two years of work on it up there in the 1980s, the Russians ended their test programs for space’s long-term effect on humans. In addition, the International Space Station came into being in the early 90s, and they joined this program. This is where we come in. We are going to be the first to get up there, and we will propel it farther into space. This mission will relieve a lot of people down here, and be a compelling argument as to why we need to practice sending up so many shuttles.”

“Did the Russians live up there to build it?” asked Maggie.

“Sort of; they sent up several rockets with supplies and crews, spent the two years working on it with ‘space spiders’ as they called them, to weld and complete it, and then the last team returned. Their seventh flight to the station exploded on liftoff, which put their program on hold, where it still is. The same Russian technicians who built her are working with us here, in Hangar Four, experimenting with far more modern space spiders. These new spiders magnetically bind themselves to any outer and inner walls and will slowly weld the remaining of our space panels together from the outside and then inside into sealed cubes.

“The first three Russian scientists, my oldest employees, designed and built everything for this Russian satellite up there, and they assure me that it was completed. They did live without suits in the completed satellite for a couple of weeks before heading back to Earth with the last crew. Unfortunately, the rocket that exploded was actually carrying a new crew and supplies for a longer stay.”

“So what does this old Russian ‘beer can’ of a space station have to do with our mission?” asked Jonesy.

“Simple. First, we take up some supplies and connect our shuttle with its extending docking port to one of the space station’s docking ports. Then, with the shuttle’s hydrogen thruster, we increase her orbit until both are higher and far away from the ISS; then we move the whole space station to where are going to build our new platform. In other words, we are going to salvage the station, using it as crew quarters to build our new station. It has three separate docking bays on three separate sides where our craft can dock. The Russian satellite is currently in dormant mode, but can be made fully functional as a living environment. It just needs fresh oxygen, a nuclear battery to increase the low power output of her old antiquated solar panels, and then our first team of scientists, builders and pilots can actually base themselves there. There are sleeping units for six. Nobody else apart from the team heads, and now you, know of this part of the plan. And, as Mr. Jones said, this ‘beer can’ will become our first base of operations. Most importantly, we must get her far away from the International Space Station and from any other prying eyes in the sky.”

“OK! I get it now,” interrupted Jonesy. “The C-5 flies shuttles up. The first shuttles fly supplies and one or two of these small spacecraft in their holds; one is for me and the kid. We head off to bring back riches from some rock flying past while the shuttles then go up and down and use this Russian space station as crew quarters so we can build our own station, correct?”

“In a nutshell, Mr. Jones,” replied Ryan smiling. “Please remember, pilots, all our Silver Bullet shuttles and our Astermine spacecraft have been designed the same way. All five or maybe six of our spacecraft have been built for permanent survival in outer space, have the exact same docking station behind the cockpit, can dock with each other, or with the Russian space station, and our own once complete. Naturally our own station, our mother ship, will have far more docking stations, a dozen, and the Russian station will be connected to her permanently once the necessary port is ready. Also remember that Astermine Two is an exact replica of Astermine One. Asterspace Three is a single-cargo bay transporter, meaning that she could head out with either or both mining craft and be loaded up. The two crewmembers will live aboard in her cockpit and her second supply compartment. The second compartment will be made usable as a second area for humans for long-term flight. On shorter trips it will be a supply hold.”

The four pilots had to first shower, then put on sterile suits and, once checked out, were allowed to enter the enclosed areas where the silver spacecraft were.

VIN was surprised at how compact the spacecraft really was inside. Each craft would fit perfectly into the shuttle’s cargo bay, like those Russian dolls Ryan had talked about a week earlier.

“The external craft measurements are 10 feet high, 15 feet wide and 42 feet long. Interior measurements are 8 feet, by 13 feet, by 41 feet,” said Ryan through his intercom system to all the sterile suits. “There are five compartments in the two mining craft. The front compartment is flight deck, or cockpit, and the general living compartment. The second compartment is for crew supplies—canisters of food, water and other items, and cylinders of pure oxygen for up to 60 days in space. The third compartment has a large opening roof door above it, and each of the three rear compartments will hold ten of our sealable multi-use aluminum canisters, plus mining gear and the metal analyzer. On the outward trip, cylinders of hydrogen and xenon gas can be stored in Hold Three to be used for the mining expedition, supplies and extra fuel cylinders. The third, fourth and fifth compartments are the same size and have the same roof doors. The fourth will hold mining gear and equipment, and the fifth compartment will house the Magnetic Metal Analyzer, or MMA that can be operated from outside on the extending table to analyze which rocks to bring back.

“Fuel for the return flight is in permanent tanks in the compartment dividing walls.”

“How many crew per craft?” Jonesy asked.

“Just two: a pilot and a miner,” replied Ryan.

VIN suddenly realized that it would be just him and Jonesy out there, and he knew that Jonesy would be a good guy in case of an emergency.

There wasn’t much else to see. The exterior walls of the spacecraft were up, but lines of cables and electrical lines were being fed into dials, controls, and hydraulics already in place in the cockpit areas by the scientists. The entire hangar looked like a car plant putting together big silver Audi R8s.

A week later Jonesy and Maggie began spaceflight lessons in the first shuttle simulator in Hangar One.

VIN’s week was mostly devoted to exercise and learning his new outer-body suit, which seemed to become more and more complicated by the day. Slowly the lower part grew an inner skin, and then one day part of his suit had an outer skin. Every time he looked in the mirror he seemed different. Each new part or skin addition had to be tested. Slowly, his body was becoming enveloped in a space suit.

He finally got the same implant Suzi had under the skin of his neck to control his legs, and now, like Suzi, he could control each leg separately, or his legs and parts of the outer suit, without the motorbike helmet. That was because a new helmet was given to him, the one that looked like a deep-sea diver’s helmet.

Development of his suit reached a stage where he wasn’t needed for a while, and he was instructed to work the night shift and to sleep by day. He learned that his night shift was in the same flight simulator Jonesy and Maggie were using by day, and Penny Sullivan and he would be using at night.

VIN had never flown a thing in his life and, much like a computer game, the shuttle flight simulator taught him basic flight; it taught Penny more advanced spaceflight procedures while he studied outside.

They chatted often, and a few days later Suzi arrived with her new legs, though not as advanced as VIN’s, and joined the two of them in learning spaceflight.

VIN never asked Suzi how she lost her legs, but one night she told him.

Just like her new friend Maggie, she had flown hundreds of hours in private aircraft. Ironically, she lost her legs not flying, but on the autobahn, where she had crashed into a pileup in thick fog in Bavaria. She became a paraplegic, but her legs were not amputated.

Ryan spent a lot of hours watching his new pilots and, one night told VIN that he and Jonesy would be on the first mining mission and, Maggie and Penny would be chief pilots of the space shuttles taking up equipment to the Russian “beer can,” as Jonesy had nicknamed her. He needed to think up a name for his new station. He didn’t think the name “beer can” would work.

VIN also learned that Ryan had already done hundreds of hours of simulator atmosphere as well as shuttle space hours.

Maggie had contacted her Major pilot friend, and one other former Air Force pilot for the C-5, also a woman, both of whom were arriving in a day or so; Jonesy also had one of his two guys on the way. The other, unfortunately, had died in a car crash a few years earlier.

Captain Pitt was already learning the shuttle flight procedures, but would stay in command of the C-5 while the more experienced pilots would be in space. The three new pilots could fill the necessary gaps for a full C-5 flight team.

A few more days passed before the hundreds of workers building the tanks outside began dispersing and finally, the first dozen tanker-truckloads of JP-8 jet fuel arrived in U.S. Air Force tankers.

Ryan’s deal with the Air Force was that they would supply him with ten full C-5 tanks of fuel, or 510,000 gallons. From then on, he would have to pay commercial prices: over $300,000 to fill up the C-5.

The day after the tanks were filled, Ryan called a space pilot meeting, which included Suzi and VIN.

“Good morning, space pilots. First of all, let me congratulate you on your simulator training. Mr. Jones, well done on your increased fitness performance; now I have to run harder to keep up with you guys! Flying will get underway starting tomorrow. I know that the C-5 fuel tanks are still half full, and we could have completed several hours of training in the air, but I didn’t want to call attention to our program from the outside just yet. The more they forget about us the better. Tomorrow, Mr. Jones, I want to see what you and Ms. Sinclair can do with an empty C-5 with 50 percent fuel loads. On most of our planned flights the aircraft will take off with just enough fuel to get up to maximum altitude, and then get back here with thirty minutes of fuel reserves. Our average shuttle load will be twenty-five tons, 99% of a C-5’s cargo load with less than 15 percent of fuel in the aircraft’s tanks. A total of 135 minutes of flying time will be required per C-5 flight for a launch.”

“The shuttles will weigh twenty-one tons fully fueled, but empty of cargo. Our Astermine space vehicles weigh exactly 3.95 tons empty, plus 450 pounds of liquid fuel aboard, and 550 pounds of cargo. The spacecraft will have two crew members aboard to make up a complete load of 4.1 tons for the space transfer by the shuttle into orbit, or to the Russian space station. A complete shuttle load can be 4.1 tons in the hold, and up to four humans in the cockpit, five at a squeeze with less cargo in the hold. There will be four seats placed into each of the shuttle’s cockpits.”

“Our flight program will start with getting our first shuttle into space; I won’t say when, but it’s sooner than I have told you. The first flight will have a 300-pound nuclear battery, 400 pounds of C-4 explosive on board, as well as human supplies, water, food packs and other items for the space station. We are still working on cargo lists, but each twenty-million-dollar flight will be fully loaded with exactly 4.1 tons of merchandise. On the first trip, when you are in a low space orbit, the shuttle’s 42-foot long roof doors will be opened, the explosive device will be ejected, and it will float away from the craft. When the explosives are detonated, the blast will be picked up by all parties that monitor anything occurring in space, in particular the military and cable news channels. We will state that our first attempt at space failed. A short time after the explosion, the shuttle will be securely connected to the Russian satellite.”

“Between Missions One and Two a C-5 flight will be scheduled to fly to Europe to pick up something we must get into space to ultimately succeed. I will be aboard this C-5 flight. I have to give the Air Force a reason why this flight is necessary, and why I want to not only fly halfway across the planet in their aircraft, but use their refueling aircraft on the way home. As soon as I return on this flight, Mission Two’s countdown will begin. We will have to transfer our cargo into space as soon as possible. Once this cargo from the C-5 flight is up there, our overall mission can begin.

“Shuttle One will reenter after meeting up with Shuttle Two during orbit, and then we can call Mission Two a success. Mission Three is to take up Astermine One for our first mining expedition, the first of the more important missions. Suzi and Mr. Rose also will be passengers on the Mission Three shuttle; they will begin biological experiments in space.”

“Two weeks later the next launch will begin Mission Four, the supplies for the mining expedition. The shuttle already up there will reenter at the same time. Mission Four will head up with a cargo of 4.1 tons, one ton of needed supplies for the crew already in the Russian space station, and three tons of necessary supplies and machinery for the trip to DX2014. One note; there is no possible way we can design a door from the spacecraft to the shuttle, so the spacecraft crew are total prisoners until they are released through the shuttle’s roof doors. Both of the shuttle’s cargo bays can be adapted for a twenty-passenger seating arrangement which can be bolted into place or taken out, and can accommodate both passengers and cargo for trips into space and back. The internal door from the flight cockpit to the cargo hold will be used to transfer passengers, one at a time, in and out of the sealed unit, to the flight deck, and then through the extended docking port to the station.

“Mission Five will be either Astermine Two, or Asterspace Three. These little spacecraft will never see Earth again. After Mission Five we get up to full speed. Once we are at maximum, we will achieve one mission every ten days, the quickest we expect to turn around a shuttle flight. These flights will begin by carrying the first 90 of our 10-by-40-foot flat panels for transfer to our outer platform, plus the equipment needed to fit them together. Each flight can take eight panels, each weighing exactly half a ton, plus added equipment; twelve flights over four months. ”

“I thought we were making one cube for our space platform?” asked VIN.

“Incorrect, Mr. Nobel. It will take thirty of these panels, joined together by our pre-programmed space spiders, to make our first 40-foot cubed spaceport plus our first docking port. Once completed, it will be sealed and made usable with air pressure-pumped inside and temperatures brought up to 65 degrees minimum. Five panels on five sides will be needed to complete the next aluminum cube. On the middle cubes, we only need five walls; the sixth is already in place from the last cube. We need seven cubes up there to make our space station self-sufficient. Let me explain. Each cube, apart from the first cube, which will be the ship’s agricultural command station, will be for some sort of plant growth to grow food and to return oxygen to the air. It will be a sort of organic, self-sustaining space station, compared to the useless structure the International Space Station is to the world; an expensive, non-productive toy.”

“That comes to 180 panels,” said VIN doing the numbers.

“Correct: twenty-three flights into outer space, eight panels at a time,” replied Ryan. “Then we will complete three flights with the 40-foot oval cylinders you saw, then three flights of liquid gas supplies and liquid-gas production equipment from Hangars Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. Next, three flights will carry loads with 4.1 tons of distilled water. The next four flights after the water will transport 16.4 tons of soil, seeds, and animal stocks; everything needed to sustain life up there. The large aluminum corridor and accommodation cylinders will again be carried up for over twenty flights after that. Then we will carry up as many supplies as we can, with one of the final flights being a passenger flight with the remaining scientists and their families. These flights can change schedules as we need to, so each flight’s cargo can be brought forward at any time. You pilots will know each cargo list before you fly.

“To produce gravity similar to Earth’s, we have to build corridors stretching out 400 feet from these cubes on three of the four sides. Imagine our first phase to be the square hub of a wheel. We need to build three straight 400-foot corridors on each of the three sides away from the cubes, each with ten 40-foot round cylinder panels standing out from the hub. Then we rotate the station at twice per minute, which will produce a gravitational pull much like we have here on Earth.”

“Those cylinders we saw in Hangar One or Two?” asked Maggie.

“Correct. The oval corridor cylinders are in six different sizes. All six cylinders fit into a nested set, a single cargo load, exactly as our spacecraft fit into each other. All six cylinders are tall enough to be used as sleeping units and or corridors, or useful for other needs like storage. The inner soft walls of the cylinders, identical to the cubes, will be packed into the inner open area of the smallest cylinder for transport up there, where they will be bonded to the inner cylinder walls. Once an area is totally sealed, air and air pressure will be pumped in for human habitation. The total weight of each cylinder load without added cargo is 3.8 tons. Please understand that this whole space project took a decade of design by my design team of scientists.

“By this time, with two shuttles working non-stop, we will attempt six flights per month, each shuttle taking up six cylinders with inner walls and other cargo. The largest two outer cylinders, 12 feet high and 15 and 14 feet wide will become our crew quarters. Their inner dividing walls, walkways, furniture, and items needed to kit out these units will be the added cargo inside the cylinders. This section of our mission will need a total of 33 flights, or five and a half months.

“At any stage of this part of the mission the government might become very curious. This is where we need to do everything in our power to continue. The last flights are as important as the first flight to sustain life up there on the border of outer space. No questions please. I have already told you as much as I would like to at this time.”

Chapter 14

Final Testing

At dawn the next morning the C-5 was towed out of Hangar Three for the first time in weeks.

Aboard were all the pilots, Captain Pitt the flight engineer, and Ryan, Suzi, Penny and VIN. The cockpit of the C-5 was tight with bodies.

With Jonesy at the controls and Maggie as copilot, the massive jet was warmed up and engines screamed as her pilot trundled one of the biggest aircraft in the world down the long runway to the eastern end, the end VIN had now run around a couple of dozen times.

Ryan looked outside the left side cockpit windows at the remaining men of the workforce, now down from 1,500 to less than 50 laying pipes. They would have the entire system working in two more weeks, and their exit would signal the start of a lot more flying.

It was a cold morning in November, the desert at a chilly 36 degrees; the workers were all wearing warm clothing and white clouds of vapor appeared as they exhaled. The underground tanks and Dewars were in, as were the aboveground tanks. All that remained were the underground piping connections to the various hangars. The underground pipes had been installed before the large apron had been cemented, so it was now up to the workers to lay the last several hundred feet of pipes to the apron connections, test that everything was sealed, fill in the holes and leave.

When the giant aircraft reached the end of the runway, Jonesy expertly turned her around, dialed in load weight, outside temperature and other needed information for the onboard computers to set up takeoff, and then sat there for a few minutes until everything was rechecked. Slowly, he pushed the four throttles situated between the pilots forward, and everyone held on for takeoff.

A couple of thousand feet short of the runway’s end, the aircraft rose into the air and the ground disappeared below them.

The flight schedule would be the same for every liftoff for the next year or more; it gave the C-5 a private and restricted perimeter around the airport to gain altitude in wide circles. For her first flight, Jonesy cleared their altitude climb with the local air traffic controllers at several airports within 300 miles of them. In accordance with FAA regulations, the first test flight plan had been phoned in a day earlier, which prompted the civilian air traffic control system to declare Ryan’s new airfield “Restricted Territory” for all civilian flights twenty miles from the center of the airfield. Ryan now had his own private airspace all to himself.

The C-5 climbed in spirals, gaining altitude while her two pilots monitored every necessary detail. At 25,000 feet, Ryan and Captain Pitt pulled on masks with portable oxygen tanks, and went back into the large, empty cargo hold. The lighting in there was eerie; the temperature, as expected, was nearly as cold as outside, minus 12 degrees, and an oxygen monitor showed little within. The air in the hold was leaking, something twenty million taxpayer dollars hadn’t fixed.

Jonesy let the aircraft climb slowly. There was no rush and it took an hour to reach 43,000 feet. He increased engine power, as the air was thin and the four powerful engines had to work harder. At 49,000 feet he had the engines close to maximum power to hold the aircraft in level flight at this height. He then asked everybody to strap in and flew the aircraft to the southern edge of their private air space.

After warning the others, he took over manual control from the autopilot and pushed her into a steep dive with the engines on a reduced power setting.

The aircraft’s forward speed increased; VIN watched until the speed reached a red line on one of the readouts; it started blinking at 504 knots as the aircraft dropped through 39,000 feet. Jonesy slowly pulled back on the controls, shouted to Maggie to give him full thrust and, with three or four Gs on their bodies, they leveled out at 510 knots and began a second, steeper climb.

VIN realized what Jonesy was doing. He was going to climb up as far as he could get the aircraft to go, under full throttles. VIN hoped that the builders, whoever they were, hadn’t forgotten any nuts or bolts in her manufacture, as Jonesy was making sure she needed every one.

With VIN’s body feeling three or four times heavier than normal, the nose of the aircraft rose into a steep angled climb and her engines could be heard behind, screaming out all they could into the atmosphere around them.

VIN watched the dials and then Maggie’s face, looking for a clue as to what was going through her mind. He watched as her face tried to flatten itself below her mouth, then went white looking at the forward speed and, he saw her left hand tighten into pure white on the four throttles she had at full power.

“Ryan, we are now at the 75 degree climb angle as you asked for,” said Jonesy calmly into his mouthpiece.

Jonesy must sure be putting this poor bird through its paces! he thought as his eyes watched the altimeter readout climb through 44,000 feet…45…46…47…48……49.……50…………51, and ever so slowly 52,000 feet. As the aircraft climbed, the speed dropped off significantly, and was already down to 430 knots.

“Release shuttle now!” shouted Jonesy at 52,500 feet and with the jets still screaming, he continued shouting out the reduction in forward speed as it reduced even farther. “Down to 420 knots………… 410……… 400……… 395……390……385……380. Banking aircraft to the right. She’s going over now, sliding out of the way of the shuttle. We are out of the shuttle’s launch path. Five seconds, shuttle should be igniting! Three hundred seventy knots, shuttle passing mother unit! Pilot pulling nose up. Copilot, throttle back to 80 percent now. Turning aircraft into straight and level flight.”

Jonesy continued to verbalize his timing if they were doing a real shuttle ejection; he even pushed the controls in the newly installed system in the cargo area to facilitate release at the right time. “Nose level, speed now 490 knots! Going into a sharp climb………speed 360 knots, pushing nose down to go for weightlessness,” Jonesy continued.

For the first time in his life, VIN felt weightlessness. VIN’s body wanted to leave his seat and float in the air. It lasted a whole ten seconds before suddenly the aircraft wanted to head down and leave his body floating in space. His straps pulled on his shoulders while the aircraft went down like a roller coaster.

“Speed 490 knots; slowly pulling her out of the dive…speed 440 knots, she is flying herself out of the dive… 465 knots, aircraft is straight and level at 37,000 feet,” continued Jonesy, as calm as if he was a passenger in VIN’s car.

There was silence as the passengers just sat there and contemplated what had just happened. Jonesy, flying the biggest aircraft in the world, had taken it out of its maximum flying envelope; Ryan was sure that the altimeter had been stuck on 52,100 feet while his body had wanted to float off into space.

“Want to try it again?”

Everybody looked at Jonesy as if he was their father offering another ride on the roller coaster. They unanimously agreed, and repeated the flight scenario twice more, reaching the exact altitude every time. Jonesy was certainly good at his trade.

An hour later the C-5 came into land with Captain Pitt now flying it under instruction from Jonesy in the right seat. The aircraft was taxied to its stationary point facing Hangar Three and, as the engine turbines slowed, everybody aboard just sat there in shock. Ryan was the first to speak after he removed his headgear.

“Mr. Jones, a great flight! What altitude and speed changes might occur on that climb if there is a 250 ton payload in the cargo hold?”

Jonesy looked at Maggie, thought about the changes for a few seconds and replied, “I think the change from the dive to the 75-degree climb will need to be more gentle and slower. There will be a lot more strain on the upper wing structure, but what we lose in speed in the curve, should equal out with the 250-ton load pushing us back uphill. Think of it like a car towing a heavy boat. The weight of the boat pushes the car down a hill, and then the boat’s forward energy pushes the car up part of the next hill, until it loses its forward momentum, and then becomes a negative force on the car pulling it uphill.

“I will assume Colonel Sinclair will be doing the flying with either Captain Sullivan or Captain Pitt, or the new incoming team. If memory serves, I believe that the aircraft can reach 53,000 feet and hang up there a second or two longer as the weight stops pushing her uphill, the shuttle rolls out the back, the C-5 is rolled over to the right, the shuttle’s rockets ignite, and it speeds past the C-5; and then the C-5’s nose is brought back before, or after, any possible stall. We had at least three to four seconds before the aircraft’s right wing would have taken us into a semi-uncontrollable spin, and then another three seconds before we would have gone into an uncontrollable spin, which few pilots could bring her out of. So the pilot team has about six seconds from the large aircraft’s rollover to build up speed, straighten up and level out. What I need to do with all the pilots right now is to check every single rivet on the skin of this aircraft to see how many are missing. That will tell us how much more room we have to maneuver.”

Over dinner that night, Jonesy happily told VIN that every single one of the hundreds of thousands of rivets were still in place, which meant that they hadn’t over-flown the aircraft yet.

A month later the first of the two space shuttles, now aptly named Silver Bullet One, SB-I for short, or Sierra Bravo I as a radio call sign, was taken out of her plastic sterile area, and the four shuttle pilots, with Suzi and Ryan in attendance, gathered around to view her.

Three new pilots—two former Air Force female pilots, and Jonesy’s former test pilot friend, a man in his early sixties, and who hadn’t flown for several years—finally arrived.

Once their paperwork was completed, Jonesy took up the new pilots and spent hours teaching the new crew how to use his slingshot method to release the shuttle into space.

His old buddy Bob Mathews, a retired Air Force general, and his crew of female pilots had it down pat within hours; they hit 53,000 feet and brought her out of the anticipated stall beautifully. Maggie, Penny and Michael Pitt went along for the rides. They had been promoted to shuttle pilots and needed to commit to memory what the new team would be doing while they were in the shuttles, blasting off.

By now Jonesy and Maggie had both completed 140 hours each in the shuttle simulator. Penny Sullivan, at 100 hours, looked to be a far better shuttle than C-5 pilot and, Michael Pitt at 95 hours was confident he could fly a shuttle into space. All four of them spent dozens of hours in the shuttle simulator training on liftoff and reentry procedures.

Emergency reentry programs had been developed for rapid reentry and lower-orbit slow reentry configurations, and the pilots had to practice each one often. The reentry heat would be solved with the underside of each shuttle sealed with heat-resistant tiles, just like the old NASA space shuttles twice her size. The most modern heat resistant tiles were only half the thickness and weight of the older ones used in the shuttle program, and each tile was inspected by the pilots.

Still, to Jonesy, the smaller shuttle, with her small flaps, would be like flying a brick with wings, just like her larger NASA predecessors, and now they were going to test his flying-brick theory.

“We have three days of systems testing, and then we will load Silver Bullet I into the C-5 for her first test flight from 50,000 feet. Her radio call sign will be Sierra Bravo I. Mr. Jones will be the chief shuttle pilot, and Ms. Sinclair his copilot for the first test. Mr. Mathews and his new team will fly the C-5.”

“Our first flight into lower orbit will be soon after our first flight test. Mr. Jones and Mr. Noble, you will be the pilot and crew for Mission One. This is the time we will explode the device and “destroy” our first attempt. Mr. Jones, you and Mr. Noble will connect to the Russian Space Station in its low orbit and stay hidden for thirty days.”

“By that time our second shuttle, Silver Bullet II, will be ready and tested by the ladies, and our flight to Europe will have been completed. Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Sullivan will pilot Mission Two to the Russian Satellite with the special cargo, plus supplies to be stored in the satellite. Mr. Noble, you will unpack the cargo, connect the special cargo outside, spacewalk the supplies into the space station. All four of you will return in the first shuttle. Suzi will now be going up with Mr. Rose in Mission Two, with food, water, xenon and hydrogen gas supplies, plus dozens of biological tests they want to start up there. They will begin their work, and will return with Mission Three.

“Life up there will be boring, but for several days up there Mr. Noble will help you acclimate to space living in preparation for your first mining mission. The good news is that our Russian scientists did say that there is one exercise bike, a few ancient Russian movies, and maybe a bottle or two of now vintage vodka up there. Thanks to our modern electronics department, you will be each issued with a laptop computer, a new tablet to read books, view dozens of our latest movies, listen to music, and play computer games. Many who helped build the “beer can” are here, working for me, and they will go over the necessary satellite start-up procedures with you.

“In your first cargo you will be taking up a small two-foot by three-foot nuclear battery with one pound of Plutonium-238, generously loaned to us by the U.S. Government. This nuclear battery has enough power to light, heat and control the Russian station, even if you are up there for its entire half-life of 87.7 years. So both of you will be long dead, but warm, and with the lights on, if all else fails down here, and we don’t get back up there.

“My first plan to buy us time will be to use the shuttle’s engines like tug boats and guide the old station into a higher orbit, a 22,500 mile altitude geostationary orbit where we want to build our new platform. Both NASA and the Russian government will be relieved if we succeed in this mission. We can use the Russian station to live in and at the same time preclude possible reentry damage. This plan should make them sigh with relief, and give us some latitude.” Ryan smiled at his team.

For the next couple of hours the two most senior pilots sat in the shuttle’s flight seats and went over flight drills.

VIN could see that Ryan was getting excited. It was getting close to the time they would go to space, and he was just as excited as everyone else.

A whole month in space; VIN wondered what that would be like? For poor Jonesy’s sake he hoped there was a slug or two of vodka for them up there.

November brought the unwelcome news to Ryan that a new President would be running the country the next year; this meant that the project had lost its best, perhaps its only friend in government. From now on, Ryan told the team, life would only get harder for his mission.

Several days later, the C-5 was loaded. Its rear doors had been fully removed, and for the first time, the shuttle motors and exhausts protruded underneath the tail of the massive C-5 Galaxy aircraft.

An hour or two before dawn, with temperatures hovering at a degree or two above freezing, Bob Mathews fired up the engines of the C-5. He and his two now-experienced female crew had Ryan, Captain Pitt and Captain Sullivan along for the ride.

Jonesy and Maggie were strapped in the shuttle; Ryan wanted to go along inside the shuttle, but Jonesy suggested that for its inaugural flight only two should be aboard. The shuttle’s owner slowly relented after Jonesy pointed out that there would be no one to run the operation if he was killed on the maiden flight.

With the added weight of the shuttle, but with empty fuel tanks, the C-5 climbed into the air as the rest of the scientists and staff headed out for the regular morning exercises.

Jonesy and Maggie had a wireless camera in the shuttle, which could show them the ongoing activities inside the C-5’s cockpit. There wasn’t much to do, as the outer skin of the shuttle kept out the cold temperatures inside the open and noisy cargo hold, and a small set of hydrogen batteries kept the power on in the shuttle. It was dimly lit, quiet and warm.

This maiden flight was to practice a release at 45,000 feet with the C-5 climbing up and out of the way of the shuttle. Without the ability to ignite engines, Jonesy would have to point the shuttle’s nose down fast and glide in to the airfield with no thrust to aid him. A second flight later that day would be exactly the same, but a one-ton load would be tied down into the shuttle’s mid-cargo area. The next day two more flights were planned; first with a two-ton cargo, and then the fourth test from 50,000 feet with a four-ton load. After Jonesy, Maggie was to complete the same four flights with Jonesy in the copilot’s seat.

Jonesy relaxed, closed his eyes and mentally went through the flight procedures all the way down to 10,000 feet, where he had to be exactly three miles from the eastern edge of the runway at 350 knots. There was expected to be a three-to-five-knot wind coming in from the west.

“Ten minutes to release altitude,” said Bob Mathews over the intercom fifty minutes later.

Ryan was excited. This was an important day, the culmination of nearly three decades of work by him and his team, who had first put pen to paper to begin designing the space shuttle. He was also exceptionally happy to have such an experienced group of pilots, far better than he had ever imagined.

“Thirty seconds to release. Going into angled climb, altitude 41,000 feet,” said the C-5 pilot calmly. “Twenty seconds, 75 degree climb, speed 495 knots, altitude 43,000 feet. “Ten seconds to release, speed 460 knots, 45,000 feet, setting release system to live; 5…4…3…2…1… Release activated.”

Jonesy felt the shuttle begin to glide backwards on the rails inside the aircraft. He could also see the forward wall of the cargo bay begin to move away from him, and suddenly they were in sunlight, the mammoth rear end of the Dead Chicken beginning to climb away from him.

“Wings activated; test engine activation. Wings deployed; controls beginning to feel flight,” Jonesy said so that all in the C-5 could hear as he watched the C-5 climbing up and away, now about 400 yards in front of him. “Main aircraft slipstream causing bad shudders with flight controls. Heading out of slipstream. OK…we have dials registering speed only, at the moment.” Jonesy was verbally telling Ryan and several others on the ground what was happening, second by second.

“Speed 410 knots and still climbing, altitude 46,450 feet, ailerons becoming operational and I can feel movement from the stick and pedals. Nose going down, shuttle beginning to descend rapidly, descent at 5,000 feet per minute… 8,000 feet per minute, speed 550 knots and I’m leveling her out slightly to test her glide slope.”

There was nobody else on the intercom. Jonesy had all the flight time and Maggie watched his concentration and flight movements. Below in Hangar One, at the new Ground Control Command Center, readouts from a dozen instruments aboard Silver Bullet I were telling the ground team everything they needed to know. On top of that, Jonesy was telling them how the shuttle was flying. Ryan was listening hard to what Jonesy was saying.

“We have a reasonable glide slope at a slower 495 knots. Descent is currently 6,500 feet per minute. Better than I expected, but the added loads will steepen the slope down to terra firma. Dropping through 24,000 feet, and turning base to final, six miles from target,” Jonesy continued. “Pulling air brakes now… hell, she’s dropping like a stone… altitude 16,000, speed 470 knots, air brakes away. I think there could be a 50 percent brake notch added to the system; I suggest a half notch on such a small wing. Three miles to target! Target in sight… 10,800 feet… air brakes out for 1…2…3 seconds… air brakes away! Two miles from target, altitude 7,800 feet, speed 390 knots……altitude 4,700 feet, speed 300 knots. Wheels going down now. Altitude 3,500 feet, speed 270 knots. Altitude 1,950 feet, speed 225 knots… beginning to flare the nose, nose coming up… 500 feet…….100 feet to runway… we are down. Houston we are on terra firma, parachute deployed. Front wheel now on ground, speed slowing. Wow! A great ride on a little roller coaster! A great little bird so far, Ryan!”

There was applause on the ground as well as in the air; the C-5 spiraling down was still at 37,000 feet and too far above the runway to be able to see Jonesy land. To her pilot, Bob Mathews, the little aircraft must have gone down like a bullet. Jonesy’s whole ride had taken less four minutes.

The Silver Bullet used about two thirds of the long runway and within minutes the tractor arrived, the chute was disconnected, and Jonesy and Maggie were being pulled back to the cheering crowd around the apron.

“What do you think?” Jonesy asked Maggie.

“It looked like there was considerable nose drop when you deployed the air brakes,” she replied. “I would think that with cargo, an extra ten knots per ton on descent could be what she needs, and only use the air brakes to take off unwanted altitude during the last mile; retract them, then hit the undercarriage button, and I think we could get it right every time. There is certainly no room for error without a couple of jets pushing us along, and I think thrust might be more comfortable with a big load, Mr. Jones,” she added. She knew what she was talking about and he nodded his approval of what she had just said.

Two hours later the flight debriefing was done as Silver Bullet I was being prepared to be loaded for the second run. The ground readouts confirmed to Jonesy what he needed to know about his flying, and how to help solve the bad turbulence from the Dead Chicken as the C-5 climbed away from the shuttle.

By midafternoon, this time with one ton of cargo evenly distributed along the bottom of the shuttle’s load bay, Bob Mathews took her up again. Jonesy had suggested that he try to release the shuttle at 50,000 feet to see if altitude made any difference to the turbulence.

It did. At 49,800 feet Jonesy and Maggie hit sunlight as the shuttle easily slid out of the egg compartment of the Dead Chicken. This time there was less turbulence around the craft as he dipped the nose, pushed the shuttle down, and pointed toward Earth. There was very little change to the glide slope. As Maggie had suggested, he kept the forward speed up by ten to fifteen knots—hard to fly exact speeds without jets to help him—and landed as they had done the first time. The one-ton load did not really make a difference, except the landing speed was slightly higher, and they used up a little more tarmac to come to a halt.

The next morning the third flight went off well, the two-ton load not causing any problems, but a ten-knot crosswind blowing dust onto the runway did need Jonesy’s undivided attention.

During the debriefing the possible crosswind problem was brought up. Every aircraft had crosswind tables to help the pilot understand at what speed the crosswinds were safe for an aircraft, and its maximum crosswind thresholds. The shuttle had none of these and due to its smooth shape and high landing speeds. Jonesy suggested that a 30-knot wind might be the beginning of any problems for the pilot.

That afternoon, with a 15-knot crosswind on takeoff, and a four-ton load in the shuttle’s belly, the team flew again. The C-5 hardly felt the weight difference, but this time Jonesy certainly did as he left the Dead Chicken’s stern at 49,000 feet.

He had to drop the nose sharply, and the shuttle wanted to immediately go into a spin as the wings deployed. By the time he had waited the long five seconds for wing deployment, and even though his nose was still facing up the glide slope, the altimeter was beginning to spin as altitude was quickly lost. He let her go down looking for the radio beacons he had used to set the shuttle up for final approach.

“Descending through 28,000 feet at 600 knots, and pulling up for best glide angle,” he said doing dozens of mathematical sums in his head, distance, altitude, decent rate, and he expertly brought her in faster than before. “She’s flying smooth at 500 knots and descending at 7,500 feet per minute. I’m shortening the final approach by several hundred yards by turning in now. Air brakes deployed…one second…two seconds… air brakes in. She is coming in fast and I’m going to flare out 500 feet higher than before. Altitude 4,900 feet, speed 260 knots and she’s gliding well, one mile from target.

“Cross wind 21 knots and beginning to gust to 23,” said a controller on the ground.

“Roger that,” replied Jonesy. “This brick doesn’t notice it. Going in straight… descending through 3,000 feet, 800 yards to go, speed 245 knots, wheels going down, no need for air brakes. OK, flaring out… 200 hundred feet…100 feet… we’re down, chute deployed… front wheel on the ground. We are using a lot more runway. Coming to a halt, we have about 1,000 feet of runway to spare, and I did feel the crosswinds on the chute. Out.”

That night there was a beer party in Hangar Three. The four flights had been a success and they had forty-eight hours to make adjustments to the shuttle, and add a half-notch control on the air brakes before Maggie would fly her.

Her first three flights went off as Jonesy’s had, the new air brake notch worked well; she came in a little faster, but without a heavy cargo, and there was a lot of runway to spare.

The fourth test flight was different. Bob was confident he could beat the record, releasing Silver Bullet I at 53,500 feet, instead of the record to date of 52,000 he and Jonesy had practiced. The turbulence was far better at the higher altitude, but the craft dropped like a stone and Maggie brought her in so fast that Jonesy didn’t think that 10,000 feet of runway would be enough.

They had a hundred feet to spare including a three-knot headwind on landing and, at the debriefing, Jonesy suggested that with full loads, a slightly larger chute was needed.

After eight test flights, both pilots had the final four minutes of flight, as well as the landing of the shuttles, figured out. Unfortunately, that was only the last one percent of a complete flight.

Penny Sullivan was selected to be the third shuttle pilot, but needed more hours in the simulator.

Two weeks later she passed her four practice flights with flying colors, and it was Michael Pitt’s turn next. He showed what a fantastic pilot he was and, with Maggie as copilot, he flew the shuttle like a master. Ryan had four pilots for his two shuttles with three possible copilots, himself, Suzi, and VIN, as an outsider.

It was a week before Christmas, and after a final 50,000-foot check flight in the shuttle, one flight piloted by Jonesy and the second one piloted by Maggie, first with Penny and then Michael in the copilot’s seat.

Once these tests went off without a hitch the first mission to their supposed “near space orbit” was discussed in Hangar Three. The pilots readied for the first powered flight in a week’s time. Jonesy was to fly with Maggie with the two rear seats, also taken. One would seat Ryan and the other Penny.

“Mr. Jones and Ms. Sinclair, Ms. Sullivan and I will join you on this flight. Also, we will have a four-ton cargo, representing the exact weight of a spacecraft in the cargo bay. Our first near-orbit flight will reach an altitude of 300,000 feet at 14,900 knots or Mach 19.55. We must fly level with the Earth; the five computers aboard will do this for us. The first-stage solid fuel rockets will get us up to 240,000 feet, and the second-stage liquid hydrogen, the rest of the way.We will decrease power over the eastern U.S. coastline and remain in level flight. Mr. Jones, we need to maintain a Mach 19.55 forward speed in level flight for twenty-seven minutes before throttling back and beginning our descent over the Chinese east coast. Between China and Hawaii our descent and speed must decrease to 9,000 knots at 210,000 feet directly over the islands. Pilots, the ultimate approach speed, as you have practiced in simulation, needs to decrease to 5,000 knots before we descend through 120,000 feet over the California coast. If we can cross the Nevada line at 70,000 feet at 900 knots or more we are home and dry.” Jonesy nodded. He had gone over this hundreds of times in the simulator. It would have been easier to head into a higher real space orbit over the Kármán Line, but Ryan, knowing the rest of the world would be watching his every move, wanted the flight to come in below expectations.”

“Total flight time: two hours, four minutes from takeoff,” added Jonesy. “Sounds like a fun ride. I’ve been straight up to 78,900 feet in an F-16, and look forward to beating that record. Ms. Sinclair, I think you have beaten me, correct?”

“Yes, Mr. Jones; 80,120 feet in an F-15 above California, and I was lucky to get it back to Earth. I never really liked fighters after that and posted back to transport aircraft.”

Every day during the next week the pilots trained for every eventuality for their first sub-space flight. It would be the only one. In Hangar Six, Silver Bullet I was prepared for her next test. This one would actually be the most hazardous, with more reentry stresses on her than a usual, faster reentry. Every heat-resistant tile under her wings and fuselage was checked, and her fuel loads calculated time and time again. With her extended flight in the upper atmosphere, her burn rate with liquid hydrogen would be far higher and more constant, and the fuel load would need to last down to 100,000 feet before Jonesy could glide her in.

Launch from the C-5 was planned for ten minutes after dawn; fewer people watching a white streak head off into the upper atmosphere, the better. The two first-stage rockets were the most powerful non-releasing systems to date, and would spew white clouds into the atmosphere, which could be seen on Earth for many miles.

The shuttle wouldn’t hamper other civilian aircraft, as 50,000 feet was far higher than any flew. In addition, by the time the shuttle exited the restricted flight zone around the airfield, she would be passing through 100,000 feet at well over 3,000 miles an hour.

Again, on approach, the shuttle returned to 50,000 feet inside the airfield’s 20-mile border, not causing any danger to high-flying civilian aircraft.

Nobody slept well that night except Jonesy, and at 3:00 a.m., with the last of the liquid hydrogen pumped into the shuttle’s tanks from the storage Dewars outside, everybody readied for takeoff. The first-stage solid and liquid fuels had gone in earlier, and once the full-weight shuttle was placed into the C-5, with the front loading nose door closed and sealed, Bob Mathews started the first engine and minutes later taxied to the eastern end of the runway as he had done over a dozen times before. This time he programmed the cargo weight information into the aircraft’s computer, eighteen percent fuel load and then the outside temperature. The computers would do the rest for takeoff.

Inside the shuttle it was quiet and warm, the four occupants silent and ready. Bob turned the aircraft around, checked all gauges, completed his final procedures, and they were off. Jonesy as usual closed his eyes, sat back in the pilot seat and listened to the four engines screaming outside. The noise was mostly muffled inside the shuttle as the nose went up and the aircraft around them headed skywards. The engines sounded sweet, and Bob and the computers were right on the button. The aircraft’s thrust was perfect and, as he felt the slight vibration of the undercarriage come up, Jonesy knew that the next time he would stand on terra firma, he would be closer to being called an astronaut.

The Astermine Co. team had watched all the video feed from the other two companies’ private flight missions completed over the last twenty-four months; both had achieved space flight. They weren’t going to win first into space; the British company had reached 350,000 feet for a few seconds, and the other had actually resupplied the space station once, but with unmanned supply craft. The face of the pilot with the British company had been all smiles upon reaching Earth again, and Jonesy hoped that he would feel the same four hours from now, having one orbit of Earth under his belt.

All four were fully suited up in their new suits, and they breathed from air tanks next to them. Although they could communicate with each other, nobody spoke. They were all in their own worlds of life and death or flight preparation.

“Heading through 28,000 feet,” said Bob Mathews over the intercom a little later. “She is noticing the added load, but the near empty tanks are compensating, adding to her rapid accent rate. I’d hate to try this with full tanks on the shuttle and the Galaxy.”

“Don’t blow her rivets apart, Bob,” responded Jonesy. “We have already lost a couple. Bob, remind me to get them repaired by the shuttle team when we get back later today. Remember the soft climb approach. This is at a close to maximum load of shuttle with full fuel aboard the shuttle, but minus the four-ton cargo. I’m sure we can bleed off another few percent of fuel to equal out the cargo weight when that’s included, so monitor your fuel usage and see if we can get down to 15 percent fuel in the tanks.”

“Roger that,” replied the C-5 pilot. “Climbing through flight level 29.”

It took longer than before with the 100 tons of fuel aboard the shuttle. Jonesy knew that the most difficult part of the flight would be the five seconds before the first stage rockets would ignite. The shuttle would fall fast, and all he had to do was to keep her nose up at 75 degrees until the rockets ignited behind him. He was really looking forward to feeling their force. He knew that an F-16 afterburner would feel like child’s play to these beauties.

“Leveling out for our descent, forty seconds to release,” said Bob as the passengers felt a little weightlessness take hold of their bodies. “Going down, she’s heavy…46,000 feet… 44…41…39, pulling out, engines to full thrust. Here we go guys, good luck…43…45…49……51!”

At 51,000 feet Jonesy activated the rocket igniters. They would need ten seconds before Maggie, the copilot, could push the actual igniters, which would cause an instantaneous explosion out of the rear of the shuttle.

“53,000 feet, 390 knots, release activated,” said Bob calmly five seconds later.

“Roger, release activation,” said Jonesy as he watched the front of the cargo hold quickly retreat and sunlight filled the cockpit.

“53,250, 380 knots, good luck Jonesy, you are on your own, turning aircraft to port…now.”

Jonesy was busy trying to keep the shuttle on its upward glide slope as the wings deployed. It felt like an eternity as he waited. He glanced up to see the C-5 was gone from directly above them and the altimeter was starting to show descent.

“Ignition,” ordered the pilot and Maggie did as commanded. “Wings extended, falling through 52,000. Rockets activated…………oh shit! That’s hard on the back!” was all Jonesy said as he looked forward as the craft began to accelerate. He noticed the C-5 off to his right about 300 yards away as they rocketed past it.

“Ascending through 58,000 feet, turning her over on her back. 580 knots…620 knots… 700 knots…we are through the sound barrier at flight level 67 and climbing.”

As the speed increased, the controls became rock hard in Jonesy’s hands. There wasn’t much he could do now until the first stage expended itself. Like the NASA shuttle always flew, he had rolled the shuttle onto its back, the glide slope was a degree out, their direction two degrees out, and he managed to get her on course as the flight proceeded into new territory and the flight controls were taken away from him.

His back hurt, his face wanted to enter his brain and his breakfast wanted to park itself in his upper legs somewhere.

“You are good to go from here,” said the voice of Ground Control. “Your corrections were spot on, your trajectory is perfect and we show you at 97,000 feet and 2,400 knots.”

“100,000 feet,” said Jonesy a second later, “…flight level 112 at 3,800 knots. I hope these motors are never turbocharged. They already hurt like hell! Passing through 150,000 at 4,500 knots. Computer is now showing two speeds, knots and Mach speed as programmed… 187,000 feet at Mach 9 or 7,000 knots.”

“Still perfect exit,” said ground. “Weather clear and we still have cameras on you, and you look beautiful, as good as anything NASA ever produced. Your exhaust trails should be now out of sight of the naked eye.”

“Roger that. It’s getting dark up here; the sun looks beautiful, changing color, approaching second-stage activation. Flight level 230 at Mach 15.”

“Second-stage igniter ready,” said Maggie.

Suddenly, at 243,000 feet above Earth, the first stage lost power.

“Ignite,” ordered Jonesy and there was a second kick in the back, half as hard as the first, and the craft continued farther into the upper atmosphere. The force in Jonesy’s back had now gone and he checked his information readouts; they were still climbing, going through 270,000 at Mach 16 under full power. “Two hundred ninety thousand feet…I’m pulling back on the hydrogen throttles, power to three-quarters… 300,000 feet…and I’m getting control back. Computer is activating side thruster doors, using thrusters to bring us straight and level. I’ve turned flight controls over to autopilot, computer reducing power to one half, speed Mach 19, using thrusters to turn us upright. Speed Mach 19.5, altitude 300,000 feet, computer says we are flying straight and level.”

“Change heading 3.35 degrees to port; you are off course,” said ground control and Maggie dialed in the change to the computer. “Overreaction, you are now heading one degree to starboard.” Maggie again dialed in the information and the thrusters did their job, and slowly aligned the aircraft. “From here, it looks like your speed needs to increase,” suggested ground control. “In three seconds we will lose direct communications and go to satellite feed. You are now over the Atlantic.”

“Roger that,” replied Jonesy. “Increasing power by three percent… computer shows Mach 19.6… decreasing power by 1 percent.”

“Sixteen minutes to reentry,” said ground control. “You are over the Azores and half a second in front of your estimated time. I believe we have a three percent window in which to operate and you are still in the one percent bracket.”

“It is so beautiful up here,” said Jonesy over the intercom, and for the first time Maggie looked out of the craft’s windshield down toward Earth.

“The coast of France and Portugal,” observed Maggie. “The Alps already have snow; see the line?”

“I see,” replied the others.

“Sierra Bravo I, deviation; two degrees off course,” reported ground control.

“Roger that, ground control,” replied Maggie, giving the computer the information.

“Sierra Bravo I, speed increasing, activate forward thruster for three seconds. Over.”

“Roger,” replied Jonesy. “Speed decreasing back to Mach 19.6. I see the Middle East coming up, and I’m sure we saw the silver glinting space station head over us from left to right.”

“Affirmative, that was the International Space Station,” replied ground control. “Your systems are completely tested, working perfectly. Sierra Bravo I, your computers are in complete control of your flight. Over.”

“Roger that,” replied Jonesy now confident his readouts were accurate. “Ten minutes to activate reentry procedures.”

For the first time, he and Maggie had a break and with the shuttle flying perfectly, they could now look down as Asia began to cover the globe below them.

“Sierra Bravo I to ground control,” said Jonesy several minutes later as the Pacific could just be seen as the Earth rotated. “One minute to reentry decent. We will be without communications for eleven minutes, beginning in four minutes from now.”

Ground acknowledged and the thrusters were activated on time to push the shuttle’s nose down for reentry. Jonesy had to power up the rear liquid nitrogen thruster to actually increase his speed to descend, and once the correct speed was reached, he flared the nose up, and the team prepared for a hot reentry. They were at a lower speed than if they were reentering from actual space, and they had to compensate.

“Speed at Mach 22.3 or 17,000 knots, nose coming up, descending through 290,000 feet, we are over the Chinese coast, thruster doors are closed. Hear from you guys in eleven min… ” and Jonesy’s voice disappeared from the airwaves in Ground Control in Nevada.

First, it was totally silent in the shuttle’s cockpit; then a sound and a buzzing noise could be heard through the floor of the craft. It got louder and louder and an orange glow began to be seen through the side portals. Maggie closed the outside doors and from then on, for 150 seconds, all Jonesy could do was monitor the computerized flight on instruments. Both pilots monitored the computers, which were keeping the angle of the aircraft perfectly aligned for its flaming return to Earth. There was no way he could manually fly the shuttle.

Their readouts slowed and came to a complete stop. The LED lights just froze and one by one went off. To the crew it seemed like an eternity and pictures of the NASA shuttle disintegrating more than a decade earlier went through Jonesy’s mind.

For ten long minutes nothing happened, except the noise got louder and louder. Nobody spoke. Then Jonesy’s ear detected a lesser roar from below his feet. His feet felt warm, warmer than usual, and slowly the roar dissipated.

Suddenly the altitude LED screen blinked on a few times and then showed 197,000 feet. Then the forward speed numbers lit up; 8,300 knots showed on the dial.

“Activate window doors,” Jonesy ordered Maggie, and daylight entered the craft again. “Computers show us 300 miles past Hawaii, and I believe within our three percent window.”

“Sierra Bravo I to ground, do you copy? Over.” said Maggie on the radio. There was silence, but several seconds later they were answered on her third try.

“Ground to Sierra Bravo I, we have you safe and sound. Computer readouts coming through; you are low by 10,000 feet, change heading four degrees to starboard. Your speed is within the three percent safety barrier. Over.”

“I will see if the computer can change her glide angle,” replied Jonesy. At this speed, the minutest mistake could end the flight then and there. “Increasing glide slope one percent,” said the pilot making the smallest changes possible. “Speed decreasing through 8,000 knots. It seems to be working as altitude decrease has dropped from 4,000 feet per minute to 3,200 feet per minute.”

“Roger that,” replied ground. “Keep her there for three minutes, which should have you on the correct glide slope.”

Slowly the forward speed decreased as the small wings began to grab minute amounts of atmosphere, and the thrust from the liquid hydrogen motors used up the last liquid fuel in the tanks. Once the fuel was gone, the angle would increase rapidly.

“I see the U.S. coastline coming up,” said Jonesy as Maggie closed the rear motor down, its job done. The aircraft, still flown by computer, became more maneuverable at 5,000 knots and at a little over 100,000 feet.

As the craft entered real atmospheric conditions the speed began to decrease rapidly and the altitude seemed to slip away.

“I have manual flight,” said Jonesy two minutes later as Maggie switched over the computerized autopilot system to manual control. “Speed 2,900 knots at 85,000 feet.

“Your speed is too high,” said ground control. You have 3,000 feet more altitude than you need; bleed off speed. Over.”

“Roger,” replied Jonesy and pulled the nose up slightly.

“More!” said ground control. He did so and for once the shuttle wasn’t losing height and her forward momentum kept her straight and level. Jonesy flew straight and level for thirty seconds before the speed bleed-off forced her down rapidly toward Earth again.

“Sierra Bravo, you are crossing into Nevada at 72,000 feet; your speed is far too fast at 1,140 knots. You still have 2,000 extra feet altitude,” said ground a couple of minutes later.

Jonesy acknowledged and did what all pilots wanted to do to lose altitude and speed rapidly. He started flying her in “S” turns and brought her nose up a degree or two. He could only use his air brakes on a half notch setting below 680 knots, below the speed of sound.

“You are at minimum altitude, forty miles and your speed is still too high,” said ground control.

“No problem, I can compensate. Let me fly her in. Out.” Jonesy did not need the team on the ground anymore and concentrated on what Maggie would tell him.

“Thirty miles to target, speed 840 knots, height 60,000 feet,” she told him while he concentrated on the flying. They were nearing the last 50,000 feet, where they had done the many practice flights.

Jonesy brought up the nose even more and quickly the excess speed bled off.

“Twenty miles to target 55,000 feet, speed 720 knots.”

He concentrated on his flying, and decided to leave the nose up for another couple of seconds.

“Fifteen miles to target 48,000 feet, 690 knots. Air brakes available.” Maggie suddenly realized that he was working his butt off trying not to use them. She smiled; he wanted a perfect landing. “Ten miles to target, 34,000 feet, 580 knots,” she read out and Jonesy smiled slightly. “Five miles to target, 21,000 feet, 499 knots. Three miles to target, target in sight, 16,500 feet, 440 knots. One mile to target, 9,000 feet, 370 knots, you need air brakes.”

“Crap!” said Jonesy. He was too high and too fast, his perfect approach out by so little from 180,000 feet, and he had to use the air brakes. He let the air brakes out at half notch for two seconds and retracted them.

“Perfect slope 300 yards out, 1,500 feet, 300 knots, flaring out…… wheels down,” said Jonesy.

Jonesy and Maggie brought down Ryan’s first foray into near space to a perfect conclusion, except that the larger chutes had not yet arrived and they ended in the flat and dusty dirt a dozen yards past the end of the runway.

Chapter 15

The Second to Last Christmas for Many

Boy, did the first beer taste good to Jonesy. It was getting dark outside; the day had been a long one with his first flight to the outer atmosphere and the long debriefing afterwards. He felt very good about his flying, as he was back on top of his ability and knew it. He went over the day’s proceedings in his mind.

After the flight, the shuttle was wheeled into Hangar Six for inspection. The pilots and passengers, who had been aboard, as well as Suzi and VIN, were asked to take part in the debriefing in Hangar One’s Ground Control; everyone met over a well-deserved lunch; then, for five hours, they went over every second of the flight.

“So, Herr Smidt, Mr. Nikolaevich, Ms. Grigorevna, do you think the computers can be accurately recalibrated with all the collected flight data?”

“Ja, to a point,” replied Herr Smidt, an older German scientist in charge of computing the shuttle systems. “We can reprogram up to the maximum altitude the shuttle achieved, no more. Then we can match the next reentry of either shuttle with the exact altitude, position above Earth, and reentry speed. This new information will give the computers a more exact reentry map and slope through the atmosphere. Of course we have to wait to compute data from higher altitudes, but as your flights get farther from the atmosphere, we can reprogram the computers in all the spacecraft. Once we have data from your first flight to the 22,500 mile altitude, the new information will aid us in recalibrating all future flights to that altitude.”

“Is there any reason why we cannot slow the craft down with one extra Earth rotation and then have a lower altitude, speed, and glide slope? This would give us eleven minutes in the hot reentry zone instead of the full eighteen minutes from a normal altitude high-speed reentry. What is stopping us from doing that?” Ryan asked his team.

“Just speed,” Ms. Grigorevna replied; she also looked to be in her seventies. “Due to the small size of the shuttles, a single forward thruster would need to slow her from 25,000 knots to 14,500. This will take two hours, or two Earth rotations, and use up all remaining hydrogen fuel for reentry.”

“A solution?” asked Ryan.

“We could add a larger thruster,” the scientist responded.

“Do we have room?” Ryan asked.

“We would need to redesign and build the nose cone of both shuttles, but I believe there is room,” Mr. Nikolaevich added.

“The reason is that with the low reentry point this morning, seven complete minutes of heat on the heat-resistant tiles was reduced by lower speed and altitude; this decreases the chances of something going wrong by nearly forty percent while the craft is totally helpless in space. I would like to see the report on blast damage from the tiles first, but I think that the useful life of the tiles themselves could be extended by the same amount. Remember, we only need approximately ninety flights into space, forty-five from each craft. If one fails, our whole space project will be extended ad infinitum and we will never achieve our goals. How much more liquid hydrogen will be needed for a second thruster?”

“Well,” answered Herr Muller. “If we changed the forward thruster to one of the larger units we are currently building for the Astermine spacecraft, we could add an extra tank along the floor of the cargo bay. A three-inch-high tank wouldn’t be in the way of the cargo,” he suggested.

“Approximately 80 pounds of added liquid hydrogen and the extra weight of 20 pounds for the larger motor will displace the same amount of cargo on each flight,” added Ms. Grigorevna.

“Fewer passengers in the cockpit could solve the weight adjustment; that means that we will be short of the new motors. It takes two months to build these motors, so I suggest we start building four more of this more powerful version immediately, and equip the shuttles with the added fuel tank. We will have to leave Astermine One with her original motors until the new ones are ready. We don’t have time to change her motors, but we do have enough time to adapt the more powerful thrusters to Astermine Two. Our first mining expedition must begin on schedule,” continued Ryan. All three scientists nodded that they would get started.

“Pilots, if our team here can tighten up your computer reentry programs to eliminate seven minutes of heat with no communications, how would that sound?” asked Ryan.

“Well, my feet were getting pretty hot,” responded Jonesy. “We have now achieved one reentry from 300,000 feet. I think that Ms. Sinclair, Ms. Sullivan, and I could do it blindfolded, if we knew the computers would spit us out of the fireball in the right place at the right speed with decent altitude.”

Both Maggie and Penny nodded their agreement.

For four more hours the debriefing and brainstorming continued. Fatigue began to show on the face of everyone who had had the ride of their life hours earlier. Ryan skillfully changed direction.

“Herr Smidt, I believe we have some of Mr. Rose’s home brew here for special occasions? I think that right now is a special occasion, so please administer some pain relief to all in attendance. It is time to celebrate. We are halfway there.”

Christmas was quick in coming. With hundreds of hours of computer flight saved on the computers aboard the shuttle in Hangar Six, work came to an end for the pilots for the last week of the year.

The political front was also quiet. The country now knew who would lead the nation for the next four years, and Ryan spent time on many phone calls to friends trying to figure out what this change in leadership meant for his program. He had a bad feeling that he was going to run out of time very soon.

There was no interest in returning home for Christmas, even by Maggie and Penny, who had parents or friends they could go back to.

Jonesy didn’t care to leave the base, and VIN had nowhere to go. Most of the scientists with children already had their families there; the rest, older scientists, had grown children or grandchildren to visit, most of who were on the other side of the world, and a long round-trip flight was not attractive either.

All of the other staff had signed twenty-four month agreements that did not allow them to leave base for another fifteen months.

So everybody stayed, and the airfield, with the bar open over Christmas Eve, received a gift from Santa—a couple of inches of snow, which made the Nevada desert seem like a real Christmas for many.

All shifts came to a halt, and Ryan ordered a fantastic Christmas dinner prepared. The two eating establishments needed two seatings to accommodate everybody, and a two-foot-long red stocking filled with delights from around the world was handed out to each person on site before the meal.

A few days before Christmas a couple of trucks had arrived carrying imported national treats for the Germans and Russians. The Americans got supplies of chocolates and liquors, all the kids received an electronic toy, and the husbands or wives of the workers, a nice thank-you gift.

There was alcohol aplenty; Mr. Rose and Suzi had outdone themselves on a German wheat beer and an American lager. They had even produced schnapps and vodka from potatoes for the international contingency, and VIN’s stock of a couple of stashed bottles of Jack Daniels was also swiftly polished off by Ryan, the pilots, and a few others.

By Christmas night, the snow returned and dumped another few inches on the ground; the party was in its final phase with only the diehards remaining.

VIN and Suzi found a quiet area to sit together and finish their umpteenth beers. Penny Sullivan, Ryan, Bob Mathews, Michael Pitt, and the other two female pilots were using both pool tables, and Jonesy and Maggie were already asleep—in bed together in Maggie’s room—with the door locked.

Chapter 16

Nearly the Whole Plan

During January and February the cold Nevada winter reduced flying to a minimum. Actual flying wasn’t necessary as there were the simulators to use and spaceflight procedures to be worked on. Atmosphere flying had become old news to many. Bob Mathews liked his Dead Chicken though. He had gone over every inch of the skin of the aircraft in the warm hangar and had the maintenance team repair minute cracks and missing rivets.

VIN had a completed space suit, and often had to go outside with Suzi and sit in the cold to stay cool. Over time his mind and body had adjusted to the hundreds of modifications done to the suit, and often he and Suzi ran around outside testing the equipment when there was no ice on the ground. They were even timed running with a jeep on the runway. They both completed the full 10,000 feet at a fast thirty-five miles an hour, running faster than any unenhanced person on Earth. They could both jump twenty-two feet into the air, and VIN beat Suzi by completing two somersaults to her one during a jump.

VIN now spent time in Hangar Four, wearing his suit and learning how to use the rock sweeper machines. He would take one of them to DX2014, with a second one as backup.

The Astermine spacecraft were coming along. All three had dozens of computer programmers working 24/7 to download programs specially made for their longer flights into space.

At the beginning of March, Ryan called his space-pilot team and VIN for a meeting in Hangar Seven, the home of the three spacecraft. They entered as a group, sat down, and enjoyed coffee and freshly made pastries.

“We are now thirty-three days from our next flight, our problem ‘decoy’ flight into space. Flight training continues tomorrow, but today you will tour the rest of the facility and see the excellent progress completed by the large group of specialists, whose work you don’t know about yet. Today is the day there is no turning back. Mr. Mathews isn’t with us today, nor are his crew, who will not be flying higher than with the C-5. The main reason is that Mr. Mathews is happy where he is, and somebody has to return the C-5 to the United States Air Force.”

“What you see and hear today is top secret, and only the inner core of scientists sitting with you in this meeting know of our extended plan. Many others know bits of information I have shared with you. Over one hundred projects are being worked on here on the airfield. If you do not want to go further, please stand up and leave this hangar. I will understand if you are not comfortable with what has happened up to now, but the new life I am offering you will be as different from your current life as you are to each other. If you have any doubts about what is going on here, please stand up and leave the hangar.”

There was silence in the room. The pilots looked silently at each other and waited.

For a whole minute Ryan waited, permitting the listeners time to digest what he had said. Jonesy looked down at his coffee, and then chose a second pastry.

VIN looked at the others, and then examined his own life. With no legs, no family, and no real connections outside this compound, he didn’t have much, so he copied his partner and also decided on another fresh pastry.

Maggie had expected something like this. Penny Sullivan had talked to her privately a couple of times. Being new, she needed to come up to speed on what was happening around her.

Penny had enjoyed her time in the Air Force. She joined up at eighteen, as young as she could, to get away from a father who drank a lot and, on occasion took out his life’s frustrations on his wife and only daughter. Her brother, four years older, had committed suicide when she was sixteen, and she believed that her father was responsible. Her mother had taken the brunt of his alcoholic anger, but often it boiled over to her or the dog.

Getting away to the Air Force Academy was the best thing her mother had helped her do, and she paid the ultimate price. A year after Penny left their small rented New York State home for Colorado, her mother was found dead in the kitchen one morning, and her father nowhere to be found.

The police caught up to him a week or so later in Virginia, and there had been a standoff on I-95, with the police shooting her father dead when he fired on them with a shotgun. Penny Sullivan was single, had no boyfriend, no dependents, and nothing much else going for her except the Air Force career she had worked so hard for, and even that was getting old compared to this new program.

After listening to Penny’s story, Maggie had contemplated this new “One Man’s Dream,” as she called it, long and hard, and she also questioned her direction in life. What did she have? Was the Air Force the only life? What was in her future?

Her parents had gone through their own turmoil in the twenty years since she left home. Her mother had been diagnosed with cancer a couple of years after Maggie left; she had survived a few years, getting weaker and weaker, until she passed away. She had visited as often as she could during her mother’s illness, but realized that she was a lone ship upon the waters of life. She had very little in common with her parents, and had developed closer friends and relationships in the Air Force than she had with her family.

Her mother’s death had certainly left its mark on her father. They were very much a lonely pair of individuals, always working, or when at home, having their work on their minds. They had few friends and never had really looked for friendship outside of their marriage.

Now he was alone and all he really had was his work, which he threw himself into body and soul, becoming very successful in the computer field. Maggie often saw her father, who she now hardly recognized, being interviewed on television; but correspondence and telephone conversations after her mother’s death took place only once every other year or so, and then stopped altogether. Maggie Sinclair had nothing to lose.

Michael Pitt enjoyed a slightly better upbringing than Penny Sullivan, but had led a young life of very little security in Georgia. His father, an African-American, had married a pretty blonde girl while studying at the University of Georgia. His father completed his Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences and learned the hard way that he didn’t really like the type of jobs his degree now forced him into. His mother, a married student, had to leave her studies and start work to support the family as his father passed from job to job.

Michael grew up in this challenging environment. A tall, well-built kid with light mocha skin and dark brown hair and eyes, he was considered neither white nor black, which kept him apart from both groups. He tended to befriend the few others like him, but never had enough confidence to try to fit in with the majority of kids in his class.

His parents’ job changes went on for several years, his father ending up as an apartment building janitor and his mother a worker in a laundry. Debt collectors often came calling, and Michael was told what to say to them, while his parents hid and left him to answer the door.

After countless moves to new apartments or motels in different towns and cities, Michael Pitt decided that the military had to be a better life than what he had and began trying to enlist from his first year of high school. During this year, the family had moved into a motel that was close to the major airport hub in Atlanta—so close that nobody could speak when the jets came in to land or took off, a hundred times a day.

Instead of finding this a burden, on hot summer nights he would cover himself with insect repellent and go up to a small flat part of the roof, lie on a cot borrowed from a school friend, and watch the screaming aircraft fly several hundred feet overhead. He often felt lightheaded while up there. His school friend suggested that he was inhaling too much jet exhaust, and that it would eat his brain away.

For his first two years of high school, even though he couldn’t get a good night’s sleep he was still a B student. When they moved away to a quieter apartment, out of sight of the airport and its busy schedule, many of his grades turned to A’s.

Michael Pitt never forgot his love of the smell of jet fuel and joined the Air Force within hours of graduating high school. His parents were happy to see him go. One less mouth to feed.

“Some of you have questioned why our project is so big, just to win this space race,” began Ryan, bringing all of them back from their thoughts. “To end all discussions about the private space race, this year both the other teams will beat us.”

There were a couple of murmurs from the pilots.

“It is part of my plan to take as much interest away from our project as possible, because we have another agenda. America doesn’t like to lose, and certainly doesn’t like losers. This country has been led to believe, correctly or incorrectly, that first place is the only place, and any American or American team taking second place or lower has not met expectations. Ladies and gentlemen, when the other companies complete their missions within the next ninety days, we will become the big loser in the view of many in government and the outside community.” Ryan paused.

“My plan is make them think we are the leading contender in the space race, until next month when our spacecraft explodes. The world then will believe we are not a force to be reckoned with. I hope that they will think the race over and forget about us for a time. We could win the race, but to what end? To spin around our globe a couple of hundred miles from ground, deliver supplies to an unproductive space station, and then pat ourselves on the back for a job well done? To my way of thinking, that is only the beginning of a longer race. On today’s tour you will understand a little more about my dream to go to space. My dream is to live in space, not just spin around the globe. We don’t need some sort of umbilical cord to forever connect us with Houston. My dream is to cut that cord and enable humans the freedom to explore space for ourselves; to live, breed and survive in space without needing to return to mother Earth for supplies.” Again he paused, allowing his words to sink in.

“This is my dream, and the dream of many who work with me. You are the scientists who make this all possible. You are the pilots who will fly us into space. You will all keep us out of harm’s way, but we first need to build our new home, a home that will sustain us through our journey while providing a few of the earthly pleasures we are accustomed to. First, we need the three most important requisites for all life: clean warm air, clean water, and healthy food to sustain ourselves. Once we have those three, we can survive elsewhere. So let us head into Hangars Eight to Twelve, and you will begin to understand how we will meet those needs in space. This has been my dream since my earliest childhood–my only dream.”

VIN was pretty shocked at what Ryan had just told them. They were going to live in space. All of them! It didn’t seem possible.

“At least I can’t ever be fired again, if we aren’t coming back,” joked Jonesy, as he and VIN left. They entered Hangar Eight where Suzi and Mr. Rose were waiting for them. Suzi was in her wheelchair, just as VIN had his old Air Force legs on. The final changes were being made so soon they both could wear them permanently.

“Hangars Eight and Nine are Suzi’s headquarters,” began Ryan as they stopped and looked around. “Mr. Rose did a paper on ‘Eating meat in space’ for his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University in 1975. He has studied this topic since then and is recognized as the most knowledgeable person in the world on this subject. Mr. Rose was employed by NASA for twelve years to study and prepare food for astronauts in space. Suzi has studied plant life and, to date, has completed three dozen experiments in space, thanks to Mr. Rose’s contacts in NASA. Mr. Rose saw Suzi’s potential at the University of Munich in Germany when was in the Visiting Professor program there in 2003. Her work, although not at Ph.D. level, was comprehensive and he asked her to work with him on a research project, studying the food needs of live animals in space.”

VIN looked around. As with the other hangars, there were areas sectioned off where people worked in sterile environments. Here, instead of flying craft, were hundreds of what looked like rabbits in the first separated section and chickens in the second and third sections.

“To live in space, we need to eat, and a successful diet must include a wide variety. Mr. Rose if you please,” added Ryan.

“Thank you Mr. Richmond. As you all know, vegetarians, and especially vegans, can suffer from a lack of protein in their diets. Humans are omnivores. We eat all types of food, and we need a variety of sustenance, due to our survival patterns over the last million years here on Earth. Only recently have people turned to vegetarian and vegan diets. I agree that these diets are sometimes a healthier form of eating, especially with the drugs and other chemicals added to meat these days. Unfortunately, it took humans thousands of years to form our current eating habits, and we just can’t change them in a decade or so. Also, if a few of us are heading off on what may be a lifetime journey, we had better take everything needed to sustain life and optimum health. In Hangars Eight and Nine we have been breeding rabbits and chicken to give us a proper protein/fat balance in space. First, rabbits are fairly easy to raise. The doe takes care of the young herself, so no hand-raising or special equipment, such as incubators or brooders, are needed; there is rarely a need for intensive care, as long as there are no diseases present. The 100 rabbits here are a breed called New Zealand Whites. They produce the best ratio of meat to feed and are the best meat rabbits. Also rabbits do not thrive in hot weather. Therefore, they are much better suited for temperate or cooler climates, such as our new space climate. Unfortunately, rabbit meat is so lean that if a person ate it exclusively they could develop something called ‘fat-hunger,’ also known as ‘rabbit starvation.’ Rabbit meat is extremely low in cholesterol and has an exceptionally high percentage of digestible protein. It is lower in fat than any other meat typically found in the grocery store, such as chicken, turkey, beef, or pork, and its mild flavor can be enhanced to suit almost any palate.” Mr. Rose paused for a few seconds.

“Due to the necessity of including fat in our diets, we need to take a second meat with us: chicken. Chicken has the fat rabbit meat doesn’t; they are fed much the same types of feed Suzi has produced for both animals in Hangar Nine, and we also get eggs from chickens, something I like very much. I have even designed a chicken bacon. I love bacon, and I’m disappointed about substituting another meat for pork, but I believe this is a decent substitute. Much like Mr. Jones and his beer, my guilty pleasure is bacon and eggs. We have to take our passions with us, don‘t we Mr. Jones?” There was much laughter and Jonesy nodded his head, smiling.

“Will we have beer in space?” Jonesy asked.

“It is funny that we all knew what you were about to say,” laughed Suzi. “Of course, Herr Jones! Do you think a Bavarian will leave the simple art of beer production behind? Beer in Bavaria is one of the best foods consumable for humans, and you have been drinking our space brew since you have lived here, apart from the substandard brands you and Mr. Noble smuggled in.”

“Suzi is correct,” added Mr. Rose. “We humans need a synergistic combination of protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals; everything our current diets have. The most important factor is the intrinsic quality of the actual food itself. There is no extra sustenance in organic food, except that it contains few unnatural products, such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. And, for example, we have found that there are certain types of carrots that have more beta carotene than others. But to put my work in a nutshell, Hangar Eight will produce the nutrition needed for a long space voyage. I think this is a good place to conclude this portion of the tour. Please look through the sterilization walls and, keep in mind that if one day we find a permanent place to live, we will need good growing soil and animal excrement, used as fertilizer, has many of the necessary building blocks to turn dormant soil into productive soil.”

The group walked around the outside of the sterile compartments viewing the three sections. VIN counted well over a hundred rabbits. A label reading “New Zealand White-Pure” was glued on the rabbit wall. There were also 100 healthy-looking chickens with a label that read “French Heritage-Meat Bird” on the see-through wall and “Best Productive Egg Layers” on the third wall. In separate cordoned off areas were several single rabbits, big bucks by the look of them, and in another, several roosters. All the feed was in sealed plastic containers and was of dozens of various types. The whole hangar had large, powerful bright lights everywhere. To the visitors, the illumination around them made it feel like there was no roof on the hangar, as if the outside sunlight was shining in.

After thanking Mr. Rose, they exited Hangar Eight for Hangar Nine nearby. Suzi wheeled herself next to VIN and they entered a totally different world.

“I have to go to space and listen to bloody roosters crowing. That’s all I need!” grumbled Jonesy.

If Hangar Eight was the meat department, Hangar Nine was the produce department. This hangar was far larger, one of the three largest hangars situated around the apron. Inside were the usual closed sterile rooms, this time five of them. Inside, the rooms in the middle of the hangar looked like the garden section of a Home Depot; trees, shrubs and vines grew everywhere in unsealed units, lighted by growing lamps. There were also plastic shelves full of equipment, like watering systems, hoses, and anything that could be found in the gardening section.

“Welcome to my research hangar,” started Suzi speaking from her wheelchair. “My system is far more complex than the meat hangar. Here, not only do we have to produce food for human consumption, but also for animal consumption, reseeding and, most important, to produce oxygen from stale air full of carbon dioxide. My section is the ‘Eden’ that supplies two of the three basic needs for life: air and food. If we ate only meat, humans would not last long in space. Humans need a balanced diet that includes greens and vegetables, and fruit, as well. We will walk into the closed rooms and my team will show you the plants we will ship into space. Remember those silver space panels?”

Everybody nodded.

“My section will have all seven cubes Ryan has designed to be our new home. Before we enter the sterile rooms you will each need to shower using a special soap, and wear a suit to make sure nothing gets inside the rooms; but first let us all have a cup of coffee and a snack. This will take time and today you will miss lunch.”

After coffee and snacks, they all showered in the scientists’ large area of locker rooms and each was given white clothing to put on. VIN’s legs would not be allowed, so he was given one of Suzi’s sterile wheelchairs.

“So now, handsome, we are at the same height,” said Suzi bending across and kissing him as he wheeled himself out of the men’s area through a special door. Outside, before entering each special room, they were sprayed down and asked to sit while they were decontaminated. They chatted and read magazines for thirty minutes under ultraviolet lights.

In each room there was very little area that did not support plant life; just one narrow path led across each forty-foot cubical room to a closed door leading to the next spray section.

“Here you will see that every inch of floor, walls and ceiling is filled with several different types of plants,” Suzi explained to the long line of people on the narrow path. “On the floor we have a small area of wheat, sorghum, pepper plants with several varieties of peppers, and an area of asparagus. The walls are covered with lattice, which hold up tomato plants, beans, and melons on the lower regions. Remember, here we have full Earth’s gravity. The path in space will go straight through the center of the cube. In a rotating spacecraft, with only fifteen percent gravity, the weight of the crops on the six walls will be greatly reduced; essentially all six walls will be floors.

“The ‘gravity’ will be produced by a magnetic field of rare-earth metals passing through the middle of the room up there.” She pointed upward to an aluminum non-slip, square path about two feet wide, similar to the path they were on. “We will not have the path we are standing on in space; the path up there will be the walkway and we will stand on it with magnetic boots. The minor magnetic field will keep covered soil containers in position and also means we can grow every inch around the six walls without the heavy weight plants gain growing on Earth.”

“How will the plants look with so little gravity?” asked Maggie.

“They will all point toward the center path, where the sides and underneath areas of the square path will have extremely bright lights with all the light spectrums that allow plants to grow. Light, heat, water and nutrition are the necessary attributes for sustained plant growth.”

They moved to the next room. It looked exactly the same as the one before, but in this room, Jonesy was singled out by Suzi.

“Mr. Jones, when you are not flying something in space or shooting down space invaders like in Hollywood, you can help work in this section. VIN, you too!” smiled Suzi. “Here we have certain types of wheat and barley. The plants you see covering the walls and roof are three different types of hops. Not only is this the beer section, this is backup for our daily bread. The yeast is produced in that small enclosed lab in the corner over there, can renew itself forever, and will be kept cold or frozen until used,” Suzi pointed at a small six-by-six-foot lab in one corner. “We will be able to produce the same two types of beer we have drunk here in Nevada for the last couple of months, a Bavarian weizen, or wheat beer, and a top-fermenting lager beer, and we expect to brew forty to fifty gallons per month in ten-gallon kegs.”

“How can you make beer without gravity?” asked Jonesy.

“Screw the beer, how are the poor animals to survive without normal gravity?” asked Penny, looking sternly at Jonesy.

“This middle section of our new home is for our gardens and storage. The outer corridors revolving around these center squares, like the wagon wheel Ryan explained, will have 85 to 95 percent gravity, and this is where we humans and the animals will live, and where our animal production will take place,” replied Suzi. “Every detail of our spaceship has been designed over the last ten years. Even some of these plants have been in sterile space environments lighted by simulated sunlight for a couple of years; they will be taken up in loads as they are, and replanted in our new home in space. Many of my tests aboard the International Space Station over the last several years have focused on what happens when plants are grown in a limited gravity environment. All plant growth needs only minimum gravity and doesn’t lose nearly as much nutrition or strength in lower gravity situations, as does animal life.”

“This third room is once again for grain crops, for our daily bread, and backup for beer and animal feed. Bread will be a luxury,” continued Suzi in the next room an hour later. “Instead of hops, we have red and white grape vines, good for fruit and the sugars needed to make bread. Grapes provide necessary nutrition for human survival, and for you ladies who don’t like beer, the odd glass of wine will be available.”

Room four had more soil and root vegetables, VIN noticed. They were told that here potato, onions, garlic and several other important vegetables, as well as a couple of grain crops for animal feed and a small herb garden, could be grown on all the six walls. Each cube would have 9,500 square feet of wall space, plus another 2,500 feet of hanging area for crops.

The last room had a dozen fruit trees, already bearing; oranges, lemons, apples, a peach tree and an avocado tree were in sealed plastic containers ready for shipment. There was also a patch of strawberries, kiwis, and other fruits.

“Here is our main fruit area, with one wall which will be grain crops, one wall of six different nuts, and a wall divided between three coffee trees and nine tea plants. Yes, we will have a coffee roaster on board. In this room we also have our bee hives, which will be placed in the different rooms now and again for what bees do best: pollinate plants and produce honey for our bread. Remember, we will not have butter or cheese. What you haven’t seen is that we have over 300 types of vegetables, herbs, other plants and fruit in seed form or dormant, in storage units; we will rotate crops, replacing wheat with a crop of green beans, which adds nitrogen to the soils, or hydroponic growing chambers or bags. Just like any farmer, we will need to rotate and plant different crops to duplicate the life-supporting elements in our greenhouses with normal farming practices. Also we will be using every type of growing system humans have developed over the last thousand years. Salt will be taken up in bulk. We cannot produce salt, but we can reuse it once it is in the system in space, and we can mine it somewhere if we run out.

“Now we should join Ryan who will be waiting for us outside in about thirty minutes. It is going to take you this time to change, shower, and make sure you don’t take anything out of here with you.”

They emerged hungry and found a cold lunch buffet waiting for them. The food looked normal to VIN, like anything found in any supermarket lunch section. Everybody helped themselves and sat around a large table saying very little.

“What are the slices of the darker meat?” Maggie asked Suzi.

“Cold rabbit, roasted and deboned,” Suzi said simply.

“Mr. Rose and Suzi have grown everything on this table in their two hangars, from the lima beans to the tomatoes and from the meat to the dessert fruits. The only thing I’m personally going to miss is cheese. There is no way we can produce butter, cheese and milk in space yet,” explained Ryan. “I was thinking of a couple of cows, but that is not going to happen, I was told by Mr. Rose. We can limit our food growth to rabbits and chickens, but not a grazing animal like a cow. Also we will be taking added items like salt up with us until we find an asteroid or planet that has sodium chloride on it. We will make margarine from vegetable oil, but it won’t be as creamy as cow butter.

“Our bodies will need certain additional foods, minerals and vitamins. Several of the smallest 40-foot cylinders will be storage facilities for over 5,000 needed items, like salt, 1,000 pounds of freeze-dried cheddar cheese, 40 or so tons of frozen beef and again pork which I plan to take up if we have time, vitamins in liquid form, medical equipment and supplies, seeds, dormant plants, etc., while one is planned to have 30,000 gallons of water. Every gallon will be pure, clean, distilled water, and several gallons flown up on every flight. A couple of the cylinders will have backup liquid oxygen, and even a twelve-ton backup soil supply, for when we reach somewhere we can grow crops. A surgeon, a medical specialist and a registered nurse will be on board, and two of the 40-foot round cylinders are an operating theater/ICU unit and a hospital ward/elementary school.

“Several dozen extra sun lamps will be in storage with three one-ton rock mining machines from Hangar Four. I believe that we may have to go underground on either Mars or an asteroid to establish a new, permanent home. There will be the latest model tablets all over the ship with every bit of practical knowledge about agricultural, humans, and animals ever known. They will also be loaded with star charts, planetary systems and every asteroid and planet’s history and whereabouts within our solar system. I don’t believe we will leave our own system on our first journey, but there is a lot of real estate out there, and we should be able to find a place to live. The most ideal place could be on an asteroid, or even better inside it, or underground on another planet.”

“Do you plan to return to Earth?” VIN asked.

“Yes, I have thought about it. I will tell you my intimate thoughts on returning once we get closer to leaving. Unfortunately, with a changing situation in our country and the rest of the world, the political climate has become very cutthroat. The new President is already acting like he has absolute control of everything in this country, but in reality there are dozens of projects and scenarios playing out he is unaware of, many of which are within Washington and the Pentagon, where men are striving for more power than their ranks of office. The last President is still a friend of mine, and believes this space race is a great competition. It is and will continue to be until someone in power wants to co-opt it, maybe somebody in the Air Force, or the CIA or FBI, or another organization I have never heard of. Every new project today has a chance of being squashed, commandeered, or simply made to disappear because it interferes with somebody else’s grab for more power.

“I believe that there are at least a dozen people out there, mostly in Washington or the Pentagon, and some in other countries, who will invade our private airfield as soon as they begin to suspect what we are doing. And my friend the former President won’t even know about it, nor will the good citizens of this country. Greed is a powerful motivator, and so is the power, the absolute power, of having a secret nobody else knows about. Having a weapon, or even exceptional private knowledge, conveys power in this new political and robotic military era. The opportunists who want to capitalize on those things which could bring great advances to humanity are not burdened by conscience; they do not care about the welfare of the country, its citizens, or who gets killed in their quest for power.

“That is why the secrecy is so tight here. Right now, we have time on our side, and decades of knowledge from the best scientists in the world; don’t think for one second that others outside our airfield, are not wondering what is going on here. I believe that these people will begin coming out of the woodwork when we achieve something of note. I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole airfield is made to disappear and every person attached to it kidnapped or terminated if it means riches and power beyond people’s dreams. That is why you will see our top-secret armament section with liquid xenon and liquid nitrogen gas manufacturing facilities in Hangar Ten.”

VIN did not understand much of what Ryan had just said, and now wondered if this guy was a conspiracy nut.

As the group rose to leave to tour the next hangar, they thanked everyone for a great lunch. Suzi again kissed VIN on the cheek as they left. She had helped him put on his old plastic legs again.

Hangar Ten was totally different. It was one of the smaller hangars and was divided by two brick walls, turning the interior into three sections.

“The first two sections,” Ryan told them “is for the production of xenon gas, the propulsion fuel for deep space flight. Xenon is obtained commercially as a by-product of the liquid oxygen produced will contain small quantities of krypton and xenon. Both pure oxygen and pure nitrogen are needed for our mission. The pure nitrogen gas is pumped to Hangar Eleven where it is made into liquid form and then sent outside to one of our underground Dewars for storage.

“Liquid oxygen and nitrogen are obtained from the air by air separation plant. In other words, we get three products for storage when we separate the air in this hangar: liquid oxygen for our air breathing backup, liquid nitrogen which has a thousand uses in space, and xenon gas, a fuel for space. It is a very simple but very expensive operation. In our third section is our laser department,” Ryan added as they went through. “We need lasers for three different reasons in space. A laser is great to break up a meteor or a rock that could cause damage to our base. Second, it is a great tool for cutting through objects, like hard solid rock, and third, it can be used as a weapon for defense. We have all three.” There was silence and Ryan continued.

“The word laser started as an acronym for ‘light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation,’ LASER. In scientific usage, ‘light’ broadly denotes electromagnetic radiation of any frequency. The U.S. Air Force has successfully tested an electrically powered solid state laser capable of producing a 100-kilowatt beam, powerful enough to destroy an airplane. This is an electrically powered laser, and was assumed capable of mounting in an aircraft, ship, or other vehicle because it required additional space for its supporting equipment. They didn’t state how this new weapon was fueled, but unknown to many at Northrop Grumman, this same idea had been researched by several German and Russian scientists as early as 1965. We, on the other hand, have a laser that will be powered by a nuclear reactor, if and when its use is necessary.”

Everybody looked at each other.

“I understand you are thinking of a nuclear reactor that powers an aircraft carrier, or even a submarine, Ours is half the size of a nuclear submarine reactor, uses plutonium-238, a non-weapons grade material, but it is powerful enough to emit a beam that can break up solid rock, melt steel, or any other heavy manmade metal in seconds from a distance of a thousand miles. I believe the U.S. military is not far behind us, but they would not like to be told that we have a better weapon than they have. Their most modern tests show their laser weaponry one hundred times weaker than ours. They will never know about it once it is in space, if we are never attacked.”

Everybody nodded, shocked at what they were learning. “The machinery for the laser will be taken up in parts; each part weighs less than 100 pounds.”

The last hangars were Hangars Eleven and Twelve. Their tour through these was quick. They contained liquid gas production plants. Ryan told them that six gases would be needed in space in liquid form for concentrated storage: liquid oxygen for air, liquid argon for heat storage, liquid nitrogen, liquid hydrogen and xenon for fuel, and helium for production and manufacture.

“Helium will be important in the cooling of our arc welding by our robotic spiders in space and for some of our mining tools. Our panels will be welded together in space by a range of these gases, but mostly helium. All these gases can be found in space, as can water. This gas production equipment, though in smaller forms will be with us, ready to go into production sometime in the future.”

That was it for the day; the pilots now knew nearly everything there was to know about this project. They knew that Ryan Richmond had a dream, a dream of being the first human to live in space, and somehow they had all been roped into this plan, no matter how mad it was. It was also too late to withdraw.

Chapter 17

The Final Frontier

Next was to be a practice flight to 50,000 feet to test the maximum altitude Bob Mathews could fly the C-5 with a shuttle and a spacecraft in its belly.

As usual, it went off without a hitch and Maggie brought the Silver Bullet back down to the runway in pristine condition. This time Michael Pitt was copilot, and Bob had released the shuttle at 54,000 feet, a record for the whole team. Jonesy had copiloted the C-5 with Bob, and they had worked together to reach the highest altitude on record.

Jonesy, Maggie, Penny, Michael, Suzi, Ryan and VIN constantly worked in the flight simulators for the last two months, and Michael Pitt showed that he had the ability to be the fourth space pilot-in-command of a shuttle. Suzi, Ryan and VIN would be adequate copilots.

The other two female pilots were happy to be in Bob’s flight team, and were not interested in a permanent job. Team C-5, as the crew were now called, were kept apart from all the other flights by working only in Hangar Three.

The C-5 team didn’t seem to have any interest in the other goings-on and were happy to get flight pay and do no more. Bob was getting on in years, this could be the last flying he might ever do on such a sophisticated aircraft, and he wanted to enjoy every moment. The two female pilots had lives and families to go back to, would enjoy the balance of the lump sum payment given to them after their contract expired, and looked forward to getting back to their normal lives.

It was now time for the first foray into space, “The Final Frontier” as Jonesy called it, and he and VIN had fourteen days to prepare mentally for their first long stay in space.

The C-5 was checked and checked again. Silver Bullet I, which would be their transportation, was checked over by dozens of technicians. Astermine One was ready. Ryan had decided to get his mining ship into space on the first flight, a risk, but time was of the essence. Even if they couldn’t get the old satellite fired up, Jonesy and VIN could live and survive in the cramped cockpit of Silver Bullet I for the thirty days. The 400-pound explosive charge and 150 pounds of supplies were finally loaded into Astermine One’s cargo hold, and the first phase began to come together. The cargo was 300 pounds overweight, but the shuttle had flown with this amount before. There would only be two pilots in the cockpit this time, equalizing the weight.

“Good morning everyone,” said Ryan during the spaceflight briefing; it was the second briefing of the day, being held immediately after the atmospheric flight briefing. “Two things. First: Mr. Jones, you and Ms. Sinclair will be instructed on a new device added to your shuttle instrument panels only yesterday. Our Russian team has a new ‘Cloaking Device’ for you that they have been working on for a couple of years. It has been ready for a while, and they finally got it installed and working in both shuttles yesterday. Its total weight is twenty-three pounds.

“The system is pretty simple. Any spacecraft in lower space orbit can be tracked by dozens of satellites and ground bases around the world. To make sure that you disappear with the explosion, this Cloaking Device will make it harder for these tracking systems to see you up there. Much like stealth technology, all of our shuttles and spacecraft have been designed for minimum radar-tracking ability. All that happens is that a small electrical field begins pulsating and affects an area of about 100 yards around the craft. Much like a black hole, the radar can’t electronically see what is inside the field, or decipher anything to report, so it ignores that minute area of space. The Cloaking System can be operated permanently, without harmful effects to humans. You will have twelve hours to get yourselves to the Russian satellite, place Astermine One onto one of the docking ports, dock the shuttle onto the second docking port, and nobody should see you there once you turn the system off. On your return trip, the same will happen. As Silver Bullet II turns her device on, Silver Bullet I’s device is turned off. So all the detection systems will lose one spacecraft and suddenly locate what it thinks is the same craft in the same location. This operation must be done within twenty miles of each other and at the same speed and altitude. Understand?”

The pilots nodded.

“Second: Mr. Mathews, Ms. Sinclair, Ms. Sullivan, and Mr. Pitt, acting as flight engineer, will be undertaking a practice flight to Europe and back forty-eight hours before the ladies are due to lift off to join Mr. Jones and Mr. Noble up in space. Ms. Sinclair, you will be returning with your cargo, the first extremely important cargo needed in space. Weather for tomorrow’s tomorrow looks perfect, which is why I picked Nevada,” continued Ryan. “I don’t think there is really any more to say, except that tomorrow we start our real work. We have all trained for this, more intensively, I believe, than the Air Force ever trained you. We have the world’s best team of technicians any pilot could ask for as backup and you men are now as fit as any astronaut that has ever gone up in space. Tomorrow, I begin to fulfill my dream that started when I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, actually eight years after he did so. I was born on the exact day he walked on the moon, two hours after he first stepped on the lunar surface.”

There was silence in the room.

The rest of the day was taken up by check after check. VIN’s and Jonesy’s new spacewalking suits were ready, and they were to wear them into orbit, keeping the lower half on for most of the next thirty days. VIN’s suit was snug and the permanent connections to his legs were comfortable, far better than his old plastic legs. The upper part would be too hot to wear day in and day out, and he could remove it in the shuttle in orbit, or once they had their new home powered up.

He had worn the lower portion of the suit now for days and was used to the weight of the heavier mechanics, even learning to sleep with them on. He had been told a week earlier that the prosthetics team was beginning on a new set of legs, this time with smaller parts. Once finished it wouldn’t be any bigger than what his normal legs were. This new spacesuit was totally separated from his leg mechanics, which meant that he could wear his new legs permanently. VIN was getting excited.

Early the next morning, the shuttle with the first spaceship inside it was placed into the Galaxy’s hold through its nose, and the cargo locked into place. On this flight, Ryan would be in the cockpit of the C-5 watching his shuttle head into deeper space than ever before.

With Jonesy and VIN already in the shuttle, Bob Mathews began the engine start sequence, while a sad-looking Suzi, Maggie, Penny and Michael Pitt waved from the open door of Hangar Three. Jonesy, with VIN sitting in the copilot seat, could see them through the feed coming from a camera in the C-5, although the group on the ground couldn’t see them. There was radio contact, but little was said as the engines screamed and the C-5 Galaxy taxied off the apron and onto the runway for its usual east to west takeoff.

Having the absolute minimums of fuel on board the mother plane, Bob was hoping to reach as close to the height he and Jonesy had managed to get out of her on the last practice run.

Inside the shuttle both men were quiet and subdued as they felt the soft motions of the tires trundling along the smooth runway.

Bob turned the aircraft around, completed his final checks, and as he had done a couple of dozen times, controlled the massive beast as she gained speed down the long stretch of well-lit asphalt in front of them. This time the cargo was at its maximum weight; still the C-5 did her job and headed into the still dark sky, the sun forty-five minutes from rising over a cloudless horizon.

“Passing through 25,000 feet,” said Bob over the intercom thirty minutes later as the sun hit them, earlier than it would the ground below them.

VIN was quiet. He had completed over a hundred hours in the shuttle simulator, three flights in the shuttle, and was still in awe of how sophisticated this craft was. The way this shuttle flew, and how delicately Jonesy, and he as backup, had to fly her, had totally ruined his enjoyment of his Audi, which was parked and hadn’t been moved for over three months. Pictures of flat tires and an inch of dust on his beloved car went through his head as Bob’s voice over the intercom said that they had just passed through 30,000 feet.

He had little to do as copilot except monitor gauges and remind the pilot of checks every few seconds once they got into space. Until then he was as good as the car passenger Jonesy was when he drove them across the country.

“Thirty-nine thousand feet. Ten minutes to final checks,” said Bob. VIN checked each procedure as Jonesy called it out and said “Checked” as each procedure was complete.

“Don’t forget, VIN, you only speak to me through our internal shuttle radio, not the external radio until we are in orbit,” Jonesy reminded VIN through the internal communications system only they could hear.

“Roger, that,” replied VIN. The reason was that Ryan didn’t want the outside world to know who the pilot was.

“Forty-seven thousand feet, turning toward the sun,” Bob said fifteen minutes later. Final checks were complete, Jonesy had the instruments live, the rocket igniters were ready for VIN, and turning into the morning sun gave Jonesy an added mark to set up the craft’s climb into space. On his first flight, turned onto their backs, he had realized that he only needed to make small adjustments at the beginning of the launch and keep the sun at his back, to hold the craft aimed in the right direction. At the end of the atmospheric climb, the nose of the shuttle would be pointing just above the sun’s position, and once they were in space, minor adjustments were needed instead of large ones to begin the craft’s first rotation.

They needed a full rotation, climbing all the time to reach the 360,000 foot mark, 40,000 feet above the Kármán line, the official entry into space, where they would hopefully disappear after the explosion and employ the new Cloaking Device.

“Forty-nine thousand feet, reducing thrust… leveling out……going into dive,” said Bob and now it was up to him to get them as high as he could, release them and then get out of the way. “46… 45… 43… 41… 39… pulling out, full thrust, now I’m feeling the added weight, Jonesy, nose coming up 515 knots, five knots faster than before and fifteen over her limit… 41… 45… 48… 51… 52… Release activated…52,500…….52,750. That’s it guys, speed 420 knots, 52,900 feet. God Speed, Jonesy, VIN!”

The shuttle was already rolling out of the rear of the Dead Chicken and, as before, VIN watched as the larger aircraft crept away above them. Bob lowered the right wing to get her out of the way as they began to drop like a roller coaster. Her nose was still pointing to the blackness above her as VIN was ordered to ignite the first-stage rockets.

“Wings fully extended,” said Jonesy calmly as VIN pushed the ignite button and they heard the roar from behind them.

“First stage ignition and active,” replied VIN as he felt the jolt in his back, looked up to see the C-5 high above them and about a hundred yards to their starboard side and beginning to descend as they suddenly took off like a rocket and within a split second the mother ship had disappeared below them out of view.

“We have ignition, climbing through 64,000 feet at 670 knots, everything looking good… 71,000 feet, 810 knots… 79,000 feet, 930 knots… 90,000 feet, Mach 2… 135,000 feet, Mach 4,” counted out Jonesy as they rapidly climbed.

“Good luck, and fly safe, Mr. Jones,” said Ryan from the C-5 as he watched the vivid plume of the twin rockets already far above and miles to the east of them.

“One hundred eight-seven thousand feet at Mach 9, 7,000 knots, exact same speed and altitude as the first trip,” said Jonesy.

“Still perfect exit,” said ground “beautiful, as good as your first flight. Your contrails are now out of sight of ground.”

“Roger that. It’s getting dark up here again; the sun looks beautiful, changing color, and is right where I wanted it. Make a note guys, this sun is a real help. We need to exact the changes in time and seasons, and thanks to the sun less work has to be done once we get up here… approaching second-stage activation; 230,000 feet at Mach 15.”

“Second-stage igniter ready,” VIN reported to Jonesy.

“Record slight change in flight; the first stage lost power at 241,000 feet, not 230,000 feet, said Jonesy to ground control. “Ignite,” he ordered VIN and the craft continued heading farther into the upper atmosphere.

“The program with full cargo had second-stage ignition at 241,000 feet,” said Ryan still only half way down to the ground in the Dead Chicken. “Perfect height, Mr. Jones!”

The force in VIN’s back was gone and he went through the checks on the new liquid hydrogen motors. “All readouts show perfection my side,” he said in the internal intercom.

“Going through 265,000 feet at Mach 16 under full power…280,000 feet…I’m decreasing the hydrogen throttles, power to 90 percent. Two hundred ninety thousand feet and I’m getting minimum thruster control, turning onto computerized controls. Flight control under autopilot, power reducing to 85 percent, speed Mach 18, I’m manually using top and bottom thrusters 1 and 2 to turn us upright. Speed Mach 19.5, altitude 300,000 feet, computer says we are still climbing on our exact exit path,” added Jonesy.

“Changing heading with port thruster 1.5 degrees to starboard, time to head toward the equator,” replied ground control now monitoring the five onboard computer readouts. “Your speed and exit path are perfect.”

“Roger that,” replied Jonesy relaxing a little. “Power increasing to 89 percent, computer shows us climbing through Mach 21, wow 16,000 miles an hour! I’ve never flown so fast and it all looks so slow from up here. Forty-one minutes to the completion of Rotation One. Over.”

VIN looked at the Earth below them as they departed its atmosphere ever so slowly.

“Climbing through 333,000 feet, Mach 22.”

“Congratulations Mr. Jones, you are now 60 miles, 100 kilometers above Earth and in an official Lower Space Orbit, or LSO. Again, a job well done!” said Ryan over the C-5’s radio as his aircraft was on finals to land.

It was now peaceful in the shuttle, the main work was done, the five computers aboard were doing their jobs and now the pilots only had to monitor their progress for the next half an hour.

Over southern Europe they began to close in on the equator, the shortest trip around the Earth, and tie themselves into a similar orbit with many of the satellites above them, including the Russian station only 22 miles above them, the International Space Station’s orbit 71 miles, or 220,000 feet above the station, and a couple of thousand miles in front.

“Three hundred fifty-eight thousand feet, speed Mach 23. Computers reducing hydrogen power to 15 percent. Cutoff in twenty seconds,” Jonesy said to ground control.

“Computers ready to transfer onto third-stage motor,” VIN reported. The liquid hydrogen motors had done their job and now it was time for the deep space ion thrust drives to be tested for the first time.

Thirty minutes later the time came to open all the cargo doors to release the package. First Jonesy opened the outer roof doors of the shuttle, then the inner Astermine One spacecraft roof doors. Small explosive release modules were fired, releasing the explosive package from the spacecraft. The explosions directed the cargo slowly out of the open doors. Once it was away, all the doors were closed and VIN watched as the large package, the size of a small car, slowly floated away from them.

“Three hundred seventy-nine thousand feet, shuttle outer doors ready for test. We are go for our next phase, to open and test outer doors.”

Jonesy was following procedure to hide what was really going on up there. The whole team knew that the entire communication was being eavesdropped on by dozens of listeners around the world, as Ryan intended.

“Ten seconds to doors open,” said Jonesy five minutes later. “Nine… eight… seven… something is floating off into space. It is already two miles away from us. Nevada we have a problem, Nevada we have a problem. Something is wrong aaaaagh…… !”

“Nevada to Sierra Bravo I do you copy over?” asked ground control as a bright explosion in space could be seen only by the most powerful equipment on Earth. “Nevada to Sierra Bravo I, do you copy over?”

For twenty minutes ground control tried to pick up communications with their “lost” shuttle. Apparently, they could not.

Meanwhile, VIN had activated the Cloaking Device as soon as the shuttle’s cockpit had been lit up by the massive blast behind them.

Jonesy dialed in full throttle to the ion thrusters and gradually their speed increased and so did their next two orbits around Earth. He changed their orbital pattern to coincide with the Russian satellite’s daily orbit program and on the second orbit climbed to the same altitude, now only a thousand miles behind. The International Space Station was still far higher and was several thousand miles behind them.

They needed to lock themselves onto the dormant satellite before the ISS would pass over them in five hours’ time, only 500 miles south of them and 70 miles higher.

“Forward hydrogen thrusters on, ion thrusters at zero power. We need to reduce speed by 500 knots,” VIN said. They both had taken off their helmets to speak to each other. To the rest of the world, they were just dust in space.

Ryan’s cell phone rang. He had been down nearly twenty minutes and was wondering who would be the first to call him; it was a great way to find out who was watching them. He answered the phone.

“Mr. Richmond, General John Mortimer here, from the Pentagon, Adjutant to the Chief of Staff. I’m sorry to see that your first attempt hasn’t been successful.”

“I’m sorry too, General. We were so close. It seems that the outer shuttle doors had something to do with the accident.”

“It seems so. Sorry for the sad death of your pilots. Were they military personnel?”

“Yes, one of yours, Colonel Maggie Sinclair, was our copilot. The chief pilot was civilian. I’m sorry for her accident. Do you want me to contact her family?”

“No, that is not necessary. We will do that from our side, through her commander at Nellis. Does this mean that your chances of winning the space race are over, Mr. Richmond?”

“No, General, just put us back thirty days. We have our backup shuttle, Silver Bullet II which can still win the race. Of course it depends on how ready the other two teams are to send up their next attempts. As I said, we need thirty days to check out what happened and rectify the situation.”

“Thank you, Mr. Richmond. I will be interested if you have any new information. Good luck, Mr. Richmond.” And the cell phone went dead for a second, until it rang again.

“Ryan Richmond.”

“Mr. Richmond, Tom Ward here, Langley, Virginia. It seems that your first attempt exploded just before completing one orbit. You must have just missed winning the space race by an hour or so of space flight. Bad luck; can you tell me what happened? We saw the explosion.”

“Yes, we wanted to test the outer doors while orbiting. We had several important tests to complete in a short time, and opening the shuttle doors shouldn’t have caused a problem. The rest of the craft was totally sealed off, just like the NASA shuttles, and once we go through the computer readouts, I’m sure we will find and rectify the problem before our backup shuttle is launched in just under a month from now.”

“I think you had better hurry Mr. Richmond. Word is out that the other American company in the race is ready to launch.”

“And I’m sure you are totally correct in your information, Mr. Ward, but we can’t go any faster, and we have lost two good pilots today.”

Several more calls came in as he said goodbye to the previous caller. The FBI wanted to know if there was any hint of a terrorist plot. The Air Force called from Nellis, giving him their condolences and telling him that any family members of Colonel Sinclair would be notified.

Then the Assistant Director, West Coast operations of another “no name” agency gave his condolences, and wanted to know what had happened. The fourth call was from a Russian government official wanting to know what had happened and finally, Ryan’s only friend in politics, the former President of the United States, called to give his condolences and ask what had gone wrong. He was the only caller who actually seemed concerned.

The last two calls were the weirdest, though. First a polite Chinese sounding person who didn’t tell him his name wanted to know why his space vehicle had exploded. This foreigner seemed to want to know very detailed information and ten minutes after Ryan hung up, a man from India phoned and politely wanted to sell him parts for his next spacecraft. After that he turned the phone off.

Meanwhile in space, the two recently “deceased” pilots were getting on with their jobs. There were no more communications until the shuttle was docked with the Russian satellite. Once on board the station used an old, different sort of scrambled radio, which only the Russians working with Ryan could remember how to use. It was a Morse code decoder, which could scramble any Morse code fed to it. The scientists knew of only three remaining decoding books to have survived. Ryan had one of them, there was one in the satellite and nobody knew where the third one was; the scientists hoped that it wasn’t presently being used.

“We are within thirty feet from the space station,” said VIN. “Jonesy, it’s time for me to head out.”

The large and odd-looking satellite was floating in formation off their starboard bow. It was shorter than the shuttle by about twenty feet, but shaped like rectangular box, not the beer can shape Jonesy called it. On one corner was the command module, the first part that had blasted off into space. Connected to the command module were docking ports with hatches to two of the other sections. To the side of the command module was a much longer piece of the station, a long hallway with storage bays and cargo canisters around the outside. From this section, two smaller modules—living quarters about fifteen feet cubed, placed side by side—were connected to the hallway section through single hatches on the opposite side to the command module. On the farther end of the hallway module and the two shorter modules was a third long module that was connected by hatches to the hallway and command modules. It covered the entire top area of the space station and the wing-type solar panels stuck out from this section. This was the communal work area.

VIN counted the three docking bays they were going to use frequently during the next several months.

Jonesy pushed a button, which like a submarine periscope, started to raise the tall, three-foot-wide docking tube placed in the rear wall of the cockpit and in between the empty rear passenger seats. Within minutes, Jonesy helped VIN on with his helmet and jet pack, and VIN entered, the inner hatch was locked, and silently he floated upward toward the second outer hatch. Both men had practiced this exit maneuver often on the ground, and for the first time VIN didn’t need to use the docking port’s inner ladder to climb upward and out of the craft’s roof, he just floated out.

The docking port tube stood three feet out of the shuttle’s roof, and once the inner hatch was checked to be tight, the air was allowed to escape out of the tube, and Jonesy turned the port control switch to open the outer hatch. The spacewalker, VIN, with a rope tied to a D-ring inside the tube, then floated out of the port, his eyes riveted on the second already-extended tube of Astermine One, fifteen feet behind the shuttle’s port and toward the rear of the craft. Jonesy had already raised the exact same docking tube on Astermine One from the shuttle’s flight deck.

Gently, without taking his eyes off his objective, he maneuvered himself with his jetpack toward the second craft still in the cargo hold of the shuttle. VIN went through his checks. “OK, Jonesy, I’m opening Astermine’s outer hatch.”

All the docking ports of Ryan’s spacecraft had their outer hatches flush with the outer skin of the craft until extended. They had to withstand all the elements and pressures atmospheric and space travel would load on them. Every control of every part of every machine was interactive throughout all the spacecraft and could even be operated from Ground Control if necessary.

Each docking port had two hatches with a six-by-three-foot space between them. A single spacewalker, or cargo, could fit in the inner hatch. The inner hatch went through a dozen checks before the outer hatch could be opened by either the person inside the hatch or by someone else in any of the spacecraft flight decks.

VIN did not have a second to look around, nor did he want to. This floating stuff was hard to get used to; the jet pack on his back moved him in any direction he wanted, and the rope connected to the shuttle was his safety cord. He didn’t want to look anywhere other than at the spacecraft’s hatch. He grabbed onto the handhold by the hatch and released the cord, which was pulled back toward the shuttle’s docking port with a motor activated by Jonesy, and for a split second he was holding on by one hand. He entered the spacecraft’s tube feet first, began the checks to close and seal the outer hatch, and started the inner hatch checks, which opened automatically once air had been allowed into the port, and it was safe. The hatch into the spacecraft opened to allow him in.

Within an hour, and with Jonesy’s telling him distances and angles, VIN had Astermine One out of the shuttle’s cargo hold and connected with one of the space station’s docking ports, the same type of docking port he had just entered. He went through check after check; Astermine’s outer hatch, now working in unison with the external hatch of the space station, opened.

Because air and pressure from his craft filled the longer inner area of the tube to the inner hatch of the space station, he entered the tube, Astermine’s inner hatch closed and sealed itself behind him. Then he allowed himself to float through the tube toward the space station’s inner hatch. After more checks it opened; the bright green safety lights suddenly went orange inside the docking port he was in as he floated into a dark space station.

“Jonesy, I’m in. Lights in the tube are now orange, not red, so the air is better than space in here. It is pitch black in here. I’m in the command module…switching on my helmet light as we rehearsed… OK… the second docking ports is on the outer ninety-degree side wall of this command module ten feet from where I am now. I can clearly see it. I’m floating over to the docking port the shuttle was use now.”

As planned, Ryan built all his spacecraft with Russian-made Soyuz “probe and drogue” docking mechanisms. This station used the same system and so was one of the docking ports on the International Space Station.

It was a simple system of docking two sealed thick metal rings together; both spacecraft hatches were inside the outer ring of thick metal, which sealed the mechanisms from the outside.

“I can see the shuttle’s docking port through one of the portals,” VIN said.

The shuttle had already been placed in an inverted position to his docking port by Jonesy to get the shuttle’s roof in line with the Russian space station’s docking port. Just like VIN had done with the spacecraft, Jonesy was peering through a small see-through periscope-type instrument in the middle of the port’s outer hatch to match it onto a red dot the same size on the other outer hatch. He had the shuttle-thruster controls on a wireless device in his hands. Jonesy looked through the hole, pushed a couple of the thruster buttons blindly, not taking his eye from the red dot, and asked VIN the distance to go.

“Ten feet… 9… 8…..6…..4 feet, Jonesy.”

The pilot pressed another button, the opposite side thruster whooshed for a split second and VIN continued.

“Three feet, 2.5…2 feet…1 foot. You are one foot away from the outer hatch.”

“At least we are close enough so the Space Station shouldn’t see us, if they just happen to glance our way,” replied Jonesy. “I’m turning off the Cloaking Device. It’s starting to drive me crazy.”

“Good idea,” replied VIN. “It might make this Russian beer can disappear and somebody out there might notice,” suggested VIN.

“Good thinking kid, it is off. We are hidden as best we can be. I have one more foot to go, that’s it.”

Jonesy tapped the port thruster button for a fraction of a second and seconds later VIN heard Jonesy swear. “Crap! I’m a fraction of an inch behind the damn dot. He touched the rear thruster button and the two craft gently connected. The shuttle’s computers immediately started the mating connection and slowly, three lights came on next to the still-closed inner hatch; red, orange and finally a green light shone.

“I have a connection,” said Jonesy.

For the next few minutes he worked the shuttle’s small thrusters to slowly roll the shuttle and the larger Russian satellite over so that the shuttle faced away from Earth. It should be out of site from the passing space station for the next month.

Jonesy checked the outer hatch, which showed a green light. He pushed a button on the shuttle’s control display, and the two outer hatches unlocked and swung open. The green light in the shuttle’s tube blinked on and off a couple of times and then turned to orange. Orange meant that the air was dangerous to breathe, not the right quantities of oxygen; red would have meant no oxygen at all. The space station’s inner hatch was still closed.

“It looks like the air isn’t good in there,” said Jonesy. “I think you need to return to the shuttle after we activate the station’s life support systems.”

Jonesy, still wearing his full suit and helmet, floated the nuclear battery into the docking port and gently pushed it toward the space station half a dozen feet away. He immediately closed the inner hatch and slowly the tube lights turned to green.

VIN then opened the station’s inner hatch, grabbed the floating battery and closed his hatch again. VIN moved it, strapped it down, and connected it to the space station’s systems.

Then he began checking the list he had gone over a dozen times back at the airfield. He turned on several old-style switches on the main control board of the station’s command module, and their small lights began to brighten. He needed to wait, as a couple of very ancient black and white computer screens began to flicker, looking like they needed time to power up, so he decided to open the connecting inner hatch to the rest of the space station.

He carefully unscrewed the hatch’s opening wheel, much like he had seen in submarine movies, and orange lights could be seen everywhere as he entered a fifty-foot pitch black hallway. The plan of the station he had studied back in Hangar One had shown that two three-man upright sleeping compartments would be located through the closed hatches to his right, and a communal room would be on the other side of the closed hatch at the far end of the hallway.

VIN carefully looked at his smaller plan of the interior strapped to his right forearm. At this temperature, the plastic diagram was beginning to crack. He entered the hallway and the darkness was absolute where his narrow beam didn’t shine. “Minus 60 degrees on my temperature gauge, same as in the command module,” VIN said. “That is Celsius, not Fahrenheit, Jonesy, its cold in here! Something must be working. We were told outer space is about minus 170 degrees or so. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s what we learned. You can’t roast marshmallows at that temperature. Even alcohol will freeze. Oh crap!” Jonesy replied from the shuttle, realizing what he had just said.

“I’m going back into the control module,” said VIN. “I’m closing the hatch behind me. I’m sure something must be working to keep the temperature up.”

“Roger that,” replied Jonesy. “If I don’t hear from you in five minutes I’m coming to get you. I’m reading your telemetry from in here. Your inside suit readouts are all perfect, outside suit temperature shows minus 60 Celsius, as you said. Your outside air sensors show your problem, 71% nitrogen, 5% oxygen, 3.04% carbon dioxide, and the air pressure is only 65 kilopascals. That’s the reason the lights are showing orange. The sensors should show 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.5% carbon-dioxide, and air pressure should be at 101 kPa. There also seems to be a higher normality of radiation, twice the normal level, but not dangerous. I think that there must be a weakness in the outer walls, or we have let some radiation in during our connection. VIN, see if you can turn the systems up.”

VIN closed the metal hatch connecting into the rest of the space station. Inside the command module he now had four dull red lights glowing on the flight console and two the two small computer screens showed nothing. The little area he could see looked much like the cockpit of their shuttle, but far older, and everything was in Russian. He leaned against one of the pilot seats and looked at the four dim red lights.

“Jonesy, can you hear me?” VIN asked.

“Loud and clear, kid,” he replied.

“Do you have your satellite diagram? Mine is beginning to break up from the cold. Third dial to the left on the flight control center. It has a red light above the dial, it’s all in Russian.”

“Flight Module Heat Temperature Gauge. It should show the same temperature as your suit’s telemetry.”

“Affirmative, it is an old thermostat, round and the needle is pointing to minus 60,” responded VIN.

“Below the gauge is the control dial. Turn it to the right.”

“I turned it to the right; nothing happened,” replied VIN.

“OK, I forgot Step One; the Flight Module Master Control dial should be on the wall to your left. See it?”

“Affirmative,” replied VIN. “It’s also a round gauge with a needle. It is flickering at 5 percent power.

“Good, it must still be working. Slowly and carefully turn the dial underneath it to 20 percent power; gentle now, you don’t want the dial to come off in your hand or something,” instructed Jonesy.

VIN turned the dial very slowly and suddenly there was a slight hum around him, the darkness dimmed, and the red light flickered and turned orange on the dash. “It’s working!” reported VIN excitedly. “Now it’s not only black and scary in here, its black, scary and something’s humming.”

“Occupied power settings should be set at 60 percent power for Human Sleep, it states here, and 75 percent power for Human Activity. Set the Master Control at 75 percent and see what happens,” continued Jonesy.

VIN did, and suddenly the module around him lit up and he could see a neat, tidy, and very empty small command module, where half a dozen men could stand up if they stood close together. He could also see the two docking hatches both craft were connected to, one above his head, and the other on the side wall of the square eight-foot high command station.

“I’m sure it will take hours to get her livable, but check out the module’s hatch and see if the system is running the whole ship.”

VIN was pleasantly surprised to see light in the hallway where there had been pitch blackness before. He then checked his suit, and as he expected, the temperature hadn’t changed.

He went back into the command module and left the hatch open this time. He saw that two of the lights were now orange and two still red. He explained to Jonesy that the first red light was the fifth gauge from the left and Jonesy told him that it was the temperature light. Jonesy told him that he thought it all right for him to turn on the nuclear battery in its position underneath the module’s main control panel.

Ten minutes later VIN had the new battery operating, still in its twelve-inch-thick lead case in the battery compartment. The module’s lighting system dials and many operating system lights, mostly still orange and red, had certainly brightened up once the new power was being fed into the old system.

VIN checked his suit. The temperature had risen to a toasty minus 55 degrees and Jonesy checked the monitors on VIN’s suit. They showed that oxygen levels had risen slightly, but were still half the amount the average human required.

All VIN needed to do before returning to the shuttle was to send a coded message to Ryan, which he did from the satellite’s antiquated Morse code radio system. He was now well acquainted with Morse code and after the message was sent, he needed to wait for a response, so he inspected the rest of the ship.

The ship was tiny compared to normal ground accommodations, but up in space it was roomy enough for six people to live and work. Most of the storage compartments were empty. There were dozens of storage bins of all types, and VIN knew exactly what his partner was hoping he would look for. He found three unbroken bottles of frozen liquid in a temperature-proof supply bin. The characters “?????” was written on the sides of the bottles, and VIN had seen that word before, over Christmas, in the airfield bar: real Russian Vodka.

He headed back to the docking port connected to the shuttle and, once Jonesy had activated all the hatches, he floated into the shuttle and gave the bottle to his partner. There was no need to stay around to wait for the old craft to warm up. A good celebration was needed, some food and then sleep.

His job, on his first day in space, was finished. VIN had not even looked out at the vista while he completed his first spacewalk floating around outside. He was far too scared.

VIN and Jonesy had entered “The Final Frontier.”

Chapter 18

A whole Month!

Ryan was ecstatic when one of the Russian team shouted to him that the first message was received; his two men were safe in the Russian satellite.

The message said that there was power, minimum temperatures, and oxygen. It looked like the space station was still fully functional, as his Russian scientists had promised, and that VIN had connected the nuclear battery with the one pound of American plutonium-238.

“How much Russian vodka do you think is up there?” Ryan asked the scientist who smiled back at Ryan.

“When I ordered the last team to close up the control module nearly twenty years ago, they were ordered to take everything. I know cosmonauts well, and they would have each left something behind as a token; it’s a Russian custom to leave something for the next person. I would say at least one bottle, plus some frozen food packs, maybe even a few cans of frozen caviar. You never know,” he smiled again and left.

For Ryan, this was the very beginning. He had already won the space race, taking humans up to connect with another spacecraft. It would have won him the prize. The prize money was the same amount he spent every week on his program.

Now that his first two astronauts were up there, he had little to do for the rest of the day, and decided to take his Audi for a spin for the first time in more than a month.

He drove out of the gate, remembering that the next shipment of three aluminum cylinders, each on a tractor-trailer, were due in the next day.

Maggie had really grown to like that gruff SOB Mr. Jones over the last couple of months. He might have a big mouth, but he was as good a pilot as he said he was, and now he was up there with very little to do for the next month. At least he was out of harm’s way, or was he? The idea of going to space excited and frightened her at the same time.

She remembered her younger days with her parents. Often she lay on the hammock in the garden during the summer nights watching for meteors. Now she was going to live among them, in a cold and uninhabitable place. This was one of the reasons she knew that Jonesy was a mental prop for her. At least they could continue their affair up there, without military personnel spying, or trying to find out what she was doing in her private life. Most of the men she had thought of as possible suitors in her career had been good married men; the others seemed to be lousy SOBs who had a grudge against everything. She found it weird how men acted in the Air Force. Many became little gods as they rose in rank, thinking they were supreme beings after having more and more personnel salute them and treat them with respect.

She was impressed with many of Ryan’s inner-circle scientists, and got on well with them. Some of these people were fantastically smart. Many of the older scientists only lived for their work, and beyond work disappeared into groups, playing chess, or taking walks around the runway they ran around three times a week. Everyone on the base was sound in mind and body. The food was good, the exercise a healthy alternative to sitting in front of a computer every day, and Maggie Sinclair began to really feel at home for the first time since she had left the Air Force Academy in Colorado, a place she had loved. She cried when she was transferred out.

Michael Pitt and Penny Sullivan were also happy. They also had a little thing going on the side. Again, the Air Force had halted both of their chances of finding a mate, and now it was bliss, enjoying a passion for flying with someone special who shared the same interests.

Ryan didn’t miss a thing. There was nothing that went on around his airfield without his knowing about it. However, he was a little jealous of the blossoming relationship between his favorite girl and VIN.

Suzi. He had a real soft spot for her. He didn’t mind that she needed a wheelchair; her character was so strong that one forgot about the chair when she smiled at you and her eyes sparkled.

Ryan had never been a womanizer. He had been so busy creating ideas that he often forgot to go out and socialize for months at a time. He could remember only two girls he would have married; the first, in high school, a girl so pretty that he automatically fell in love with her at first sight. Unfortunately, she was the girlfriend of the school’s biggest linebacker, and he wasn’t a guy to mess with.

He did hear that she dropped him a year or so later after the linebacker never made the big leagues and began drinking heavily. By this time he was on the other side of the country, but often thought about driving back to see if she would marry him.

The second was a girl at MIT. She reminded him of his first love at high school, and turned out not to be interested in men. She had forthrightly told him that after several dates, exactly at the time he thought appropriate for a first kiss.

That had ended his love life. Sure there were girls willing to do anything for his money. He could see them coming a mile away and took advantage of their willingness on occasion. But, Suzi had ignited his interest on a ski holiday in the Bavarian Alps years earlier. Yes, she had legs then, sexy long ski legs, and he spent a month taking ski lesson after lesson with her. She was at university, and also worked as a ski instructor in the Bavarian ski town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen whenever she had a month, or a week free.

He became so good at skiing that she refused to teach him anymore, also stating kindly that she needed to get back to her studies in Munich.

Ryan didn’t see her again for several years, until one day she listened to a lecture of his in Berlin, and she came up in her wheelchair to introduce herself to him. After the initial shock of seeing her crippled had worn off, she suggested a beer or three, just like their old times after skiing. He gladly accepted, and they caught up with each other’s life, he offering her a job in the United States, starting the next year. Suzi happily accepted.

Suzi had struggled after her autobahn accident. It had been a foggy day driving the 90-odd kilometers from Garmisch to Munich. She had just finished her final year and was returning to clear out her belongings from her Munich apartment. She was about to go to Berlin to begin her Masters in microbiology at the university there, when her Porsche had been in a pile-up. She wasn’t going the usual 120 miles an hour, but a sedate 85 for the misty conditions when the dark gray shapes of motor vehicles suddenly appeared out of the fog in front of her. A few seconds of hard braking probably saved her life. There had been no warning on the radio and she was still in one piece when her car came to a grinding, crashing halt, but her car was immediately struck hard repeatedly by several other cars that came behind her.

Minutes later the fog slowly lifted, and the carnage could be seen. Over forty cars had been destroyed and several people killed.

She stayed in the Munich hospital for months; her spine had been fractured in the extreme lower vertebrae area. All three doctors attending her said she would never walk again.

Suzi got used to the idea. The state paid for all of her hospitalization, including a wheelchair and a used modified Volkswagen Kombi to get around in.

Ryan drove slowly. He didn’t want to get a ticket at this time of his life as he traveled into Las Vegas, just to get out of the base and see something different. He drove up and down the strip a couple of times with the odd young girl waving at him, and then he drove back, reaching the airfield just before dark.

Jonesy shared the half-full bottle with his partner. VIN checked that the sensors were registering readings inside the beer can.

“Jonesy, that hulk of metal out there doesn’t look anything like a darn beer can.”

“It looks more like a beer can than a vodka bottle,” replied Jonesy, both men a little worse off after the vodka had melted.

Earlier they had taken off their space suits, tied themselves into the pilots’ seats, turned on the CD player, grabbed a pouch of what astronauts called “food” and looked out into space at Earth floating past beneath them.

With Frank Sinatra loudly blaring out one of his most famous hits, they toasted each other, passing the bottle back and forth with a finger always atop the neck of the bottle, making sure that the floating liquid inside the weightless bottle didn’t escape.

They fell asleep in their chairs, exhausted and as intoxicated as one could get in space. Frank Sinatra also gave up thirty minutes later, and there was silence once again in the outer universe.

After nine hours, refreshed from a weird, floating sort of sleep, both men were awakened by a computer alarm beeping. Because they were not allowed to communicate from the shuttle to the outside, nobody was around to wake them. Jonesy checked over the shuttle controls, as he had done every few hours while the kid slept. Nothing much changed, except that for a couple of hours they were in sunshine, and then darkness as the Earth rotated between them and the sun.

“I wonder why we have to stay up here for a whole month,” VIN wondered, stretching. “I hope they have an exercise machine up here.”

“I remember Ryan saying that there was an exercise bike or something. It seems that the old beer can has more room in it than this little space.” Jonesy looked over the dials and checked his notes on what was a habitable environment. Both men were not scientists, just pilots, and all this was new territory to them.

“Beer can’s temperature 10 degrees on the plus side this time, toasty! Nitrogen 78 percent, oxygen 12 percent, carbon dioxide 1 percent. It looks like we are still here for another twelve hours,” Jonesy said. “Let’s eat some of those pouch things. I like the orange juice one, also the chicken in vegetable soup; it tastes like soap, but I doubt there are any diners up here we can just pull the beer can up to. Hey! I know, kid! We could follow the International Space Station, say we are angels from heaven or something, and see if they are serving bacon and eggs for breakfast. I would even accept the crappy Air Force powdered eggs we used to get. Kid, I think we are going to starve to death up here.”

After six hours of listening to Sinatra in the background and watching Top Gun on his tablet for the umpteenth time in his life, VIN couldn’t take the Sinatra anymore and checked the wireless sensors from the space station. The readouts were better; temperature 20 degrees Celsius. He checked to see what that was in Fahrenheit: 68 degrees. The nitrogen had balanced out earlier at 78 percent, the oxygen was now 19 percent and the carbon dioxide was just less than one percent. What was important to VIN was that the inside air pressure showed 97 kilopascals, four below normal air pressure at sea level.

“I’m going in,” shouted VIN. “Can you turn off the music? It’s too loud. It should be OK in there. Jonesy, help me to get my helmet on again, and I’ll bring you back a bottle of Vodka.”

“There’s another one?” Jonesy asked looking like a dog about to get a bone.

“It’s half the amount of the last one we drank last night. We could have it for dinner tonight,” suggested VIN.

“Of course, kid, you just tell me when the sun sets around here, and we can call it five o’clock somewhere. Its darn five o’ clock around here about three times a day! Yay! I’ll look for some Jimmy Buffett on the music system, we can celebrate five o’clock with him on the next round.”

Jonesy helped VIN on with his suit, which took an hour, and then he climbed through the inner hatch. The middle hatches opened and the lights stayed green this time. The same happened when he opened the inner hatch into the space station and sailed in. It was brightly lit this time by LED lights in the command module as well as several in the hallway on the other side of the hatch he had purposely left open.

All of the inner hatches in the space station were open, as he had left them. Two were to his right, with bright lights in them as well.

First, he checked the module controls. The readouts looked the same as in the shuttle and he checked the cool-box for the promised bottle of vodka. He was surprised to see it was still frozen, just as he had left it, and was impressed with the freezer. Maybe the cosmonauts had left the stuff in this unit knowing that it would be the best place for the liquid and bottle to survive.

VIN then checked farther down into the freeze and was rather surprised to see more bottles standing upright below the upper bottles; six full bottles of vodka! He pulled them out one by one and inspected each one. Then he tallied up their month’s stash of Russian liquor; six full bottles, one half and one a quarter full.

Smiling to himself, VIN decided not to tell Jonesy about this treasure just yet, and looked even farther down into the square eighteen-inch unit. He pulled out jars of some black stuff with red labels. What is black, Russian and comes in small jars? he thought to himself. Then he remembered Christmas Eve. All the Russians had received these same jars of eggs, fish eggs, caviar they called it. That’s right! Russian caviar! Yum!

He had tried the fish eggs at Christmas; Suzi had shown him how to eat them. They looked like little black squishy balls, which they put on a cracker. After getting used to the interesting taste, he enjoyed the tiny black things. He told Suzi that they tasted like salt. A drunken Jonesy sitting next to him warned him that those eggs could kill non-Russians, and looked away when he tried them. Yes! These are all for me! he thought.

VIN searched farther down and found flat pouch-like packets of something, described in Russian. Could be that Russian soup stuff, he thought to himself. Twelve jars of the black caviar and twelve bags of soup stuff. He suddenly felt like he had hit the lottery.

That was it; he replaced everything carefully, strapped down the quarter-full bottle for Jonesy in the command chair, and shut the cold-box.

It was time to check out the rest of the craft, so he floated out through the command center’s open hatch, and into the long round hallway. It was surprising how much equipment was in the walls of the hallway. He saw a couple of foldout tables and chairs. There was several supply cylinders of what looked like liquid gas. It was all in Russian. He floated into the open first sleeping chamber directly in front of him. There was nothing floating in the room, except three upright sleeping bags, and a space toilet and shower system in an enclosed corner behind a privacy metal door. There was no hatch to the second room, so he returned to the hallway and floated into the second hatch farther down.

The second room was exactly the same as the first. Then he floated into the end hatch, leaving the others open. This room, three times the size of the sleeping chambers, was the same width as the hallway, just not as long. His diagram on Jonesy’s plastic sheet showed in translated English a work/relaxation/exercise room. He was happy to see large comfortable looking captain’s chairs with tie downs next to desks, a softer twin chair with straps to tie down, and in the corner an exercise bike secured to the wall, much like many he had used on Earth. The only difference was the bike was at ninety degrees to the “floor,” having straps everywhere so whoever rode it would stay on the bike and not float off.

VIN had been floating in space for nearly twenty-four hours now and was getting used to it. In a drawer in a storage compartment he found large metal slip-on shoes with straps. His “feet” would fit into them and he realized that the entire craft was far bigger than their cramped quarters in the shuttle cockpit; it was time to move in.

He returned to the control module and checked all the dials. They were the same as twenty minutes earlier and all the lights on the console were still green.

“Jonesy, it is showing safe to live in here. Shall we open the hatches all the way through? Ryan said that the connection tube would be as safe as the rest of the two craft, once both systems were working.”

“Good idea. Open the first hatch from your end, if the tube lights stay green, I will open the shuttle’s inner hatch.”

VIN opened the hatch and then waited.

“Still green,” Jonesy said. “Hold on, one is flickering, so is the second one. The first light turned orange. OK, it changed back to green. Now the third one turned orange. I think that must be the air pressure warning light.”

“I think so,” replied VIN. “The third light in here has gone to orange. I would assume that the air pressure must have dropped to fill the connection tube with air. Two of mine are now green.”

“It’s getting better here, too,” replied Jonesy. “I have two greens and one orange. Great! I have three greens. I’m opening my hatch.” He did so and nothing much happened. All the lights stayed green and both men sighed with relief.

Jonesy left the hatch open and without his suit on glided through the open connection port and, smiling at VIN, grabbed the frozen bottle out of the spacesuited younger man’s hand. Jonesy let the bottle float and helped his partner off with his helmet.

VIN thought the first breath of space station air was like breathing straight out of a scuba cylinder; the air had a sort of metal taste, but it was breathable. The temperature was colder outside than his warm suit, and slowly they got his top part off. The process wasn’t easy as both men were floating around the command module like two convulsing birds in flight. Then VIN remembered the metal shoes. He told Jonesy to follow him and like two aircraft in formation, they swooped down the long hallway and through the end hatch. Jonesy tried to grab a shoe, but being weightless, the shoes didn’t move until he placed both his feet on the ground, and pulled them off the magnetic mother unit.

“Crap! These magnetic shoes nearly caused me to head butt the wall,” Jonesy said. He put on a pair and so did VIN once the last of his outer suit was removed, and suddenly they could walk around the floor of the craft, also the walls of the craft, and even walk around the roof of the craft, just like flies.

The next morning, refreshed after his eight-hour drive the day before and his usual early morning run, Ryan went into to Hangar Seven.

Astermine Two was being prepared for its first flight into space. The five computers on board were already live and were tracking DX2014 from daily inputs from the engineers. Astermine One, at the space station, was also already tracking asteroid DX2014; Jonesy and VIN would land on it in four months’ time.

Astermine Two was still waiting for her new more-powerful hydrogen rocket thrusters. Nobody considered the upgrade that important, as the calculations on the magnetic pull of DX2014, showed that the older thrusters could still get either fully loaded craft off the asteroid with 30 percent power to spare.

The space coordinates of DX2014 were being fed into all ship’s computer memories every twelve hours. The information came directly from Ryan’s friend, the guy who had found DX2014 in the first place over a decade ago. The tracking computers at the large space observatory 450 miles west of Austin, Texas, where he currently worked, were feeding the information over the Internet.

With the Observatory tracking over 18,000 pieces of rock in space, the small, slow-moving asteroid in the middle of nowhere wasn’t very important, and the automated reports sent to Ryan’s computers in Nevada weren’t noticed by anybody other than the man who had set up the information channel.

DX2014 was still more than a hundred million miles away and heading to the same general area of the solar system where Earth would be in four months. The asteroid was traveling toward Earth at a sedate 3,000 miles an hour faster than Earth was moving through space.

The second shuttle in Hangar Six was being loaded with the mining equipment: two large brush sweepers, each five-foot tall and weighing in at 300 pounds. They had been soundly vacuum-wrapped in sterile plastic sheeting and were about to be placed into separate aluminum canisters to be loaded into the shuttle.

Ryan headed back to his office after seeing that everything was running smoothly and contemplated his next moves. His project was like a game of chess. He was trying to think a dozen moves ahead of anybody else who could become interested in his project in the near future.

Now, relaxed after his drive, he grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down to contemplate. He had twenty minutes before his next meeting. There was little he could do for the next few days. He was to travel over to Turkey with the C-5 Galaxy to pick up his Russian plutonium-238 in its leaded storage container; his current problem was to come up with a salient reason he could give the Air Force as to why he needed to fly their aircraft to Europe. The only things that came to mind so far were a possible promotional tour, an investment gathering trip to raise more capital for the project, or maybe even that he was negotiating agreements with private companies to take products, or scientific tests into space for them.

As he pondered the problem, his only conclusion was to use part of all three reasons. All he really wanted to achieve was to get his four-ton lead container, currently inside a six-foot wooden packing crate back to the USA in time for Ms. Sinclair to fly it into space. Once in space it was safe from anybody who would consider it dangerous, or wanted to get their hands on five pounds of pure, clean plutonium-238.

He was still deep in thought when the three C-5 pilots knocked on his door and entered his office.

Meanwhile, a hundred miles above Malaysia, his other two pilots were having a party. After losing track of Nevada time, they had slept too long, then both worked out on the stationary bike; and one had completed his first spacewalk, this time taking in the wonders of space.

After a weird but solid workout VIN donned his full spacesuit with the jet pack connected to the system on his back. All three docking ports were on the outer three walls of the command module. While VIN got comfy in the suit Jonesy entered the third unused docking port and secured a long thin cord to the inner wall of the docking port. Then he secured it with a D-ring to VIN’s suit connector. VIN was ready and he floated head first into the vertical tube. Jonesy sealed the hatch, and slowly reduced the pressure from the command module’s control center, and for the second time in his life, VIN opened the outer hatch, and floated into the vacuum of cold black nothing.

All five of the future space pilots had rehearsed this procedure a hundred times during the winter months, and this spacewalk was necessary to get to the canisters of supplies from the third and fourth cargo holds of Astermine One. The forward supply compartment could be entered from the craft’s docking port, but the third, fourth, and fifth cargo areas were not hatched, as the tanks of liquid gas were stored in the inner walls.

Slowly VIN allowed himself to glide out of the hatch. It was a tight fit with the jet pack, and he had to be careful that none of his equipment hit hard against the metal of the craft. A couple of feet from the craft, he took a few very frightened seconds to see the nothingness around him. Wow! he thought to himself. This is even better than viewing a space movie at the IMAX theatre.

His control monitor was showing everything was working correctly and the fresh American bottled air tasted better than the old stale air in the Russian beer can, which tasted like metal. VIN secured his cord to the outer wall on his first return so that the port would close and operate with a canister inside.

Using the small jetpack thruster, and allowing the rope to play out, he gently aimed himself away from the third hatch, so that he could float over the corner of the station and to the next wall where Astermine One was connected.

Meanwhile, Jonesy was maneuvering through the open connection port to the spacecraft to open its small side cargo doors. VIN came over the roof to see the silhouettes of the two spacecraft as the sun appeared behind them; he wished he had a camera. As he approached Astermine One he watched as the two side doors of the third and fourth compartments opened. Jonesy was controlling them from the flight deck.

Ryan’s plans dictated that each flight into space would carry the maximum allowed cargo, and inside Astermine One’s rear cargo holds were ten canisters, seven empty for the mining expedition, and the three top canisters secured in a pyramid formation held supplies. Each silver canister was exactly sixty inches in length, twenty inches across, and small enough to get through any of the space hatches.

The nuclear battery had been permanently fitted inside one of these cylinders, its connections and dials interfaced into the cylinder.

Ryan had designed these canisters for several uses in space, with 10 empty canisters fitting in a pyramid form perfectly into each of the three rear compartment areas of the Astermine craft for the precious metal cargoes they were about to fetch from DX2014. Sixty canisters could fit inside the larger cargo areas of the shuttles.

VIN needed to transfer three canisters into the space station. The rest of the supplies were in the connecting supply compartment behind the spacecraft’s cockpit, and that was Jonesy’s job.

Over the next hour, VIN carefully unbuckled one canister at a time, connected it to a special clip on his suit, and then returned to the docking port. There was no rush apart from his maximum-allowed three-hour spacewalk, and he often looked down at the Earth, sometimes below his feet, sometimes above his head. There seemed to be a large storm in the middle of the Pacific. Maybe a hurricane, he thought to himself. The best part was when the sun, hidden behind the Earth, made its round edge look bright and glow like a halo around the face of an angel.

Just to make sure that they were hidden from any searching eyes, Jonesy switched the bay lights off each time VIN left the cargo area.

The last canister, showing a weight of 130 pounds written on a piece of hard plastic taped to its side, was placed inside the docking port. He decided that he needed a rest and, still with ten minutes before the port would become free, he let his 150-foot line play out to its full extent and just hung out there for waiting for Jonesy to get the cylinder out of the chamber, tie it down in the second sleep room, and then ready the hatch for his return.

“You going to hang out there all day, kid?” asked Jonesy as he saw his partner just floating out there enjoying the free ride. “You had better watch out. A great white space shark might glide in and think you are a meal.”

“Tell me another bedtime story, Mr. Jones. You couldn’t even scare little kids with that one. I could see the monster coming from several light years away.”

“Come on kid, hurry up. I will feel better once we are all sealed up tight like a can of tight, crappy sardines again.”

Vin carefully returned to the inner sanctuary of the their living quarters in space and, after taking the needed hour to get his complete suit off, he tried out the shower system aboard the beer can.

The water smelled horrible; a whole pint of it ran around an inner plastic suit, like a rain coat, except this time the water was kept inside, not out. The suit gave him one pint of water to bathe in, and one pint to rinse.

He read the instructions given to them in English and managed to exit the suit, which then enabled any wet remains to be sucked into the craft’s water cleansing system, and seal up the suit again. He felt about five percent cleaner than when he went in, and began to realize that living in space did have its downsides.

Being a positive person, he dismissed the disappointment and thought about a grand dinner of vodka, orange juice, fish eggs, soup, and whatever he decided on from the American rations. After months of dirty, sweaty living conditions in Iraq, five percent cleaner was better than what he had been accustomed to in desert operations.

Jonesy closed the outer hatches to both outer craft for security after his flying partner floated in. He smiled at VIN’s feeble attempt to sing in the shower and imagined that the kid was having an interesting time in the spacecraft cleansing system.

Dinner was what he expected. There was no need to open the new U.S. supplies VIN brought across yet.

The bottle of vodka left out by his partner was beginning to defrost and he could see that it was about a quarter full. They made a small hole in one of the pouches of liquid orange juice, squirted the yellow bubbles of juice into the vodka bottle, doing their best to mix the two liquids together, and aligned the openings of the two bottles. Then Jonesy, who thought himself best at this delicate space maneuver, allowed as close to 50 percent of the floating bubbles to pass from one bottle to the second and stopping the flow with a finger of each hand so VIN could cap both bottles.

He felt like a drug addict preparing his fix, but who cared? It wasn’t as if he was being watched up here.

An hour later Jonesy turned away as VIN opened a sealed pack of American crackers and, working close to his mouth so not to lose any black balls into the air, proceeded to noisily slurp down some of the tiny black eggs from a jar, and then throw a cracker in his mouth.

It sounded awful. Jonesy was sure it tasted awful, but the way VIN was slurping, sucking, and biting down on any escaping particles would have even impressed the Russian cosmonauts. Jonesy closed his eyes, quietly sucked on his floating Screwdriver and listened to Jimmy Buffett in between VIN’s vulgar sounds.

VIN thoroughly enjoyed himself; the caviar tasted just like fish. He nearly let several single balls escape but managed to catch them and slurp them down an inch or two in front of Jonesy’s cringing face. His partner seemed to relax once he had consumed three jars of the eggs and a whole sleeve of crackers one by one; then he started on a self-heating pouch of scrambled eggs on toast in-between slugging down his Screwdriver.

Both men were intrigued by this totally new and interesting world. They didn’t realize it was five o’clock somewhere, actually in Perth, Australia and not in Nevada, where Ryan was having a morning meeting with the inner group of scientists.

Two weeks later, in Nevada, the second spacecraft was ready and packed for the third flight into space four weeks from then. The second shuttle was still being readied for its deployment into space, and its cargo was due in from Turkey.

Jonesy and VIN had now spent two weeks in space. They were gaining a little bit of weight, even though they upgraded their fitness routines to four hours per day each. The magnetic shoes had come in handy and were used in ways their designers hadn’t planned. Both men would put a set of shoes on their gloved hands and with now four magnetic holders keeping them grounded, they could do push-ups and other exercises.

Much of their enjoyment came from devising new ways to exercise every muscle in their bodies. They had certain command module, shuttle and spacecraft monitoring requirements every eight hours, and if one was asleep the other would attend to noting the readouts on all craft, check quantities of all necessary supplies, turn their energy usage down from day-mode to sleep-mode, and make sure that the two large solar antennas on the outside wall of the communal room were perfectly aligned with the sun.

The International Space Station passed them once every three days, each time at a slightly higher orbit at least 300 miles from the Russian craft.

In their daily coded communications with Earth they were told that the craft had dropped two feet closer to Earth than when they arrived, currently losing altitude by one foot a week.

Life was pretty monotonous for the two men with little to do in orbit. The exact opposite was true in Nevada.

***

Ryan decided to tell the Air Force that he had a couple of potential investors that wanted to be part of the program, both from countries friendly with the USA, and they wanted to meet.

For the first time since he had opened the airfield for his project he allowed an Air Force jet to enter his airspace and to land for a briefing on what he was up to. Ryan didn’t want the world to arrive on his doorstep and said that one small jet only would be allowed to land.

Before the Air Force jet’s arrival, he had the C-5 towed outside its hangar onto the middle of the apron and left the massive hangar door open. Then he ordered the second shuttle, Silver Bullet II, to be wheeled out and its hangar door also left open. The rest would be out of bounds for the visiting VIPs, with the other hangar doors closed.

The small Gulfstream came in from the south on time. It flew low overhead and the pilot set up for a landing from the west. Of the half dozen people he had invited, only three said they would be on the flight, a member of the Air Force, the CIA, and the NSA. There were actually four men after two Air Force airmen stepped out of the rear side door and stood at attention once the aircraft was towed into Hangar Three, out of the afternoon sun.

Ryan was there to welcome the VIPs with his head of security, and Bob Mathews in kakis as chief pilot.

“Welcome to my airfield, gentlemen,” Ryan greeted the men as he walked up to shake their hands.

“Mr. Richmond, General Allen Saunders, United States Air Force and base commander at Nellis. May I introduce General John Mortimer, Adjutant to the Chief of Staff in Washington, Tom Ward, Assistant Director, CIA, and Joe Bishop, head of the National Security Agency for the West Coast.

“Welcome!” replied Ryan introducing his men. “On my left is my Chief of Security; Major Parry, U.S. Marine Corps retired, and to my right, Colonel Bob Mathews, USAF retired. I have put on a small buffet with a bar for you, after we have toured what we have outside. General Saunders, your Dead Chicken has been kept in great shape, and we have really appreciated the use of her.”

“I remember you, Bob. Andrews, 1987,” said General Saunders. “You were the test pilot on the first drone designs, testing them in flight before we flew the first unmanned drone to Dyess in Texas and back; 1988, I think. I watched you fly her on the simulator. You were a lieutenant colonel back then, correct?”

“Correct, General, I believe you had just achieved major when we met,” replied Bob.

“Well, you have an excellent pilot here, Mr. Richmond,” added General Saunders. The other three men spoke little.

They walked out into the sun and toured the C-5. There wasn’t much that Ryan had done to change the large aircraft, except show the men how his shuttle was loaded in the front and how it was released out the back.

“I assume you are releasing at about 45,000 feet, Colonel?” asked General Saunders.

“No, actually we are close to a 53,000-foot release using a 75-degree climb slope, General,” Bob replied.

“How is that possible?” asked General Mortimer, also in Air Force officer uniform. He stopped walking and looked inquisitively at Ryan, and then at General Saunders. General Saunders had never flown the aircraft and knew very little about her. Bob Mathews continued and explained her modifications to the group.

“Wow! 53,000 feet for a C-5! I must tell Boeing about that,” said General Saunders. “I honestly think nobody will believe me, but the way you worked it out, first going into a dive, hitting max speed, climbing at full throttle and then using her cargo as a weight to push her uphill. Is this one of your great ideas, Bob? Only you could come up with that idea.”

Bob wanted to say that Jonesy had worked out the system, but Ryan had reminded everybody meeting the VIPs that Jonesy had never existed, Colonel Sinclair was now “deceased,” and to say nothing.

The other two men dressed in civilian dress said nothing. They were more interested in the silver shuttle ready for inspection.

In the flight cockpit the two Air Force generals were impressed. “Just under fifty percent the size of our old NASA shuttles you say, and with fully retractable wings and tail, and five motors. I’m sure Martin Brusk at Earth-Exit would love to see this beautiful bird. So would that Brit guy. Designed by your team?” General Mortimer asked.

“Correct,” Ryan replied. “The cockpit can hold four with a squeeze, two sitting in the pullout seats on each side of the round space-docking port. The outer hatch is part of the shuttle’s outer skin for flight, and is then extended out, up as far as five feet, a foot at a time. The docking device is the same as the International Space Station and can be used for connecting with both Russian and NASA external hatches.”

“And this is an exact replica of the one you lost a few weeks ago?” Tom Ward asked.

“Yes, we have inspected the cargo door seals and systems, and believe we found a problem, and have rectified it. I doubt we can complete the race to dock humans at the ISS, but on the next flight at least three orbits of Earth will be achieved.”

“Pity about Colonel Sinclair. She was a good and hard-working pilot,” said General Saunders.

“Yes, an unfortunate and very sad moment,” replied Ryan looking solemn.

“She was pilot-in-command?” General Mortimer inquired.

“No, copilot. Another one of your retired Air Force test pilots was pilot-in-command,” replied Ryan.

“So, what are your chances of winning this race?” asked Joe Bishop, an older plump man in his late sixties, with a blatantly arrogant streak.

“Unfortunately not good after our last disaster,” Ryan continued. “Our shuttle here, Silver Bullet II, is far ahead of her time, thanks to my team. We have employed several ex-NASA guys, a dozen or so Russian scientists, all current American citizens may I add, and a few scientists from the European Space Agency, also all recent U.S. citizens. She is far superior in flight to anything the British team, or Martin at Earth-Exit have put together and, after this race is over, I hope that NASA might take me up on my offer to take my shuttle and continue to supply the ISS from Florida. I would be more than happy to one day work on an even more advanced spacecraft with them.”

“Does everyone on your team have U.S. citizenship?” asked Joe Bishop.

“Correct. I didn’t final-contract anyone without citizenship, and asked those who didn’t have it to become citizens. This is an American project after all. The former President kindly helped me obtain citizenship for several of my specialists after hearing the fantastic capabilities these men and women brought with them. I was quite surprised how quickly the State Department, or whichever department was involved, got the necessary papers together.”

“What happens if you don’t win, Mr. Richmond.? Will this billion dollar operation be a waste of your money?” asked Tom Ward.

“I don’t think so. I’m willing to work with NASA in the future. This project has been a dream of mine since I was a kid, and shall I say, this very expensive hobby is far more exciting than anything I have previously done. I was aboard the first shuttle when we completed one orbit and returned to Earth late last year, and I feel I have already got my money’s worth. I also hope to be on one of the shuttles into space very soon, hence the two extra seats in the cockpit. That will be my reward for success, whether I’m beaten or not, Mr. Ward.”

“What are in all the other hangars?” asked Tom Ward directly. Ryan had been waiting for this one question and replied.

“Understand Mr. Ward, there are several liquid gases needed for space flight. One hangar produces liquid oxygen, one each produces, liquid nitrogen, helium, argon, and of course liquid hydrogen. Each gas must be separated and kept separated, or this part of Nevada could look like the old nuclear test facility it was during the 1950s. One is for the production of xenon gas, the main fuel we use as a backup for liquid hydrogen in space. Another hangar is our computer hardware and software integration systems; the first hangar is our production plant for our space suits. We are not NASA, Mr. Ward. We make everything here on site.”

“And those panels on the trucks that have been dropping by here for the last year?” asked Joe Bishop.

“We use those panels as sterile room panels, just like NASA needs to build space parts and pieces inside sterile compartments inside the hangars. Plastic doesn’t work and without those panels there is little chance that my project could ever make space, never mind win this race,” Ryan replied unblinking and honestly.

“Can we see inside the hangars, Mr. Richmond?” Tom Ward asked.

“Unfortunately, no, Mr. Ward. They are sealed from the inside. Many of the scientists working in there live in those sterile environments, and even I don’t go in there until a project is finished, and it is safe for me to enter. I haven’t been in Hangar One over there for a month. They are building a more sophisticated docking chamber and Hangars Two and Four are beginning to build a replacement shuttle and were sealed only last week. They are sealed now for the next several months.”

“How do the people working in there eat and sleep?” asked General Mortimer.

“We pass food through a hatch once a day. It enters their living chamber. They cannot enter their working areas until they have gone through a shower and dust collector system, the same used in the European Space program. Different shifts enter for a week and then swap out. I was told that Airbus has the same sterilization systems for their intricate work areas.”

“So does Boeing,” added General Saunders.

“Pity, I would have felt better having a full tour,” added Joe Bishop. “But, hearing that all the people working here are citizens, and that you could be working closely with NASA in the future makes me feel more confident.”

“More confident about what, may I ask?” replied Ryan.

“We at the NSA, have to always be sure that there are no hidden agendas in large projects, Mr. Richmond. We have the American public to protect. Tom Ward and I have seen things around the world which would shock most people. We also need to know what is going on across America, to protect the population and, of course, the government. Your project was becoming suspect with all the materials being shipped in here. Also, and thanks to the ex-Commander In Chief, you were allowed some of our plutonium-238. Where is that?”

“Unfortunately somewhere in the far corners of space,” replied Ryan truthfully. “It went up with our last flight. Is there any chance of some more?”

“I doubt it, Mr. Richmond,” replied Joe Bishop. “The new President certainly wouldn’t allow any more. How is the government going to be compensated for the last load that was destroyed?”

“I believe the $10 million I paid Congress for the loan of the plutonium will help compensate for its loss,” added Ryan sarcastically.

“You paid for the stuff?” Tom Ward asked.

“That is correct, Mr. Ward. I paid that amount for a twenty-four month loan of second-hand, and virtually useless, plutonium-238, something any terrorist agency wouldn’t even want or find of much use.”

“Oh!” replied both men and left it there.

“General Mortimer, I would like to fly your C-5 Galaxy to Europe, via Andrews and Ramstein for refueling and then on to Turkey,” continued Ryan, facing the two Air Force officers. “May I have permission to do this one flight? And I would accept three of my four remaining Air Force offered tanks of JP-8, one at Andrews and Ramstein for the outward flight, then part of a load from a KC-125 tanker over the English Channel, and then a second KC-25 over the U.S. East Coast during the return flight. Bob Mathews and Captain Sullivan will be the pilots and your Captain Pitt has become a good C-5 flight engineer. Since we are flying empty, I don’t need any of your pilots for this extended flight, just your permission.”

“What reason would you need to fly the C-5 to Turkey, and why would you need in-flight refueling?” asked the general.

“I have a potential source of investment in my company from an oil company in the Middle East. What I can divulge to you is that I will be speaking to a Royal Family controlling one of our friendly countries; and this agreement could be a real plus for our country, to tie in a more reliable source of oil. They are interested in developing a space authority of their own and would like to use my ideas to piggyback on. This country is one of the best friends to the U.S. and, naturally once any contract is signed, you will get copies of all that is going on. Only if and when an agreement is signed will I be allowed by the King to divulge the name of his country. We are to meet in a third country, Turkey, to discuss a possible $10 billion investment, a substantial sum for me to continue my work. They want to see the actual aircraft that is propelling our shuttles into space and how we can achieve space at only twenty million dollars per flight. In-flight refueling will be necessary on the way home as this member of the Royal family can only meet with me on a certain day at a certain time, and our second mission start time for space is in a tight forty-eight hour window of my arrival for this meeting. In other words, time is tight and I cannot change the itinerary. It is out of my hands.”

“Is that Jordan?” asked Tom Ward.

“I would not like to say right now,” replied Ryan. “But, it might be.”

General Mortimer was given nods of approval by the two men in civilian dress, and the matter was put to rest.

After an hour of expensive snacks, including the same Russian caviar VIN enjoyed earlier that day high above, and a few glasses of quality California red wine and champagne, the visitors climbed back into their little jet and headed back to Nellis Air Force Base.

“It didn’t seem that they knew about Congress charging you for your plutonium,” suggested Bob Mathews as they watched the jet take off on its short return flight back to Las Vegas.

“Even the former President doesn’t know,” replied Ryan smiling. “At least this visit will keep them off my back for a while, and my mention of the second-hand plutonium has given me a new idea of how to extend my value to them.”

Ryan achieved the next part of the plan with the flight to Turkey via Andrews, then Ramstein in Germany, including in-flight refueling so that he wouldn’t have to land anywhere on U.S. soil. If he ever had to testify in court, he could honestly state that the purchase was not landed on U.S. soil, only at his airfield. It might help.

Over the next week the flight was planned by the pilots. Because the C-5 was flying over with no cargo, its usual 2,500 mile range was extended by a good 40 percent. On its return flight, the first tanker could refuel the C-5 from Ramstein in Germany, and then the second from Andrews over the East Coast to reach Nevada.

Bob Mathews, who was an expert on this type of flying, contacted the necessary Air Force personnel at Andrews and Ramstein air bases to set up the perfect timing of their outward journey; on their way home his efforts would bring two aircraft together at 350 miles an hour to transfer more fuel in the air than was often stored at a small gas station.

Several days later, with just enough JP-8 to get to Andrews, the mammoth plane took off. On board as crew and passengers were Bob Mathews, the pilot in the left seat, Maggie, in the right seat as copilot, both Captains Sullivan and Pitt who were backup pilots/flight engineers, two of Ryan’s experts in radioactive material, and Ryan.

Andrews was a large airfield and the base commander, an old friend of Bob Mathew’s. While the aircraft was being refueled for the flight to Europe, the base commander invited the crew in for dinner at the Officers’ Club. Maggie stayed in the aircraft; Ryan didn’t want her recognized by any Air Force personnel. Food to go was brought to her by the others to remind her of the good Air Force cooking she was missing.

Two other C-5s were heading out to Ramstein, and Ryan’s aircraft was invited to join them for the flight over the pond. Several hours later the three aircraft began their descents into Ramstein. Refueling would be a three-hour event and dawn was still an hour away when the twelve tanks of the thirsty aircraft began receiving fuel. Ryan was often on his satellite phone speaking to his contacts at their destination, 1,200 miles in front of them.

Seven hours later Bob Mathews began his descent into a small commercial airport in eastern Turkey. It was the first time a U.S. Air Force aircraft had ever landed on this short, narrow runway.

Ryan expected to see smaller commercial jet aircraft at the small five-gate terminal; he was sure that many of the passengers and Turkish flight crew would not believe their eyes when they saw a U.S. Air Force aircraft, the biggest in the world, using their airport.

Bob was shown where to taxi by a Turkish airport civilian police car, and steered the aircraft to the cargo area of the airport where they came to a halt in front of a large hangar.

Bob began the checks to open the large forward nose door, and once the nose was opened, the hangar doors were opened; all he could see was a flatbed truck inside the hangar with three large, square, wooden freight crates, each the size of an SUV. The old rusty flatbed reversed out and Bob was quite surprised to see the rear of the old truck’s bed begin to rise to the cargo floor height of the C-5, a dozen feet higher than its load. This vehicle looked as though it had been modernized just for this one load. He went down to the cargo area to watch the loading. Captain Pitt, experienced at loading an aircraft of this size, was already at the front nose door watching the three crates slowly rise up to the C-5 door height.

“Looks like the same system we use back at the airfield,” Bob said to Pitt. Ryan and his two scientists watched the loading from the concrete apron below the aircraft.

“Exactly the same,” replied Pitt. “It also seems to have the same wheel system which will run the three crates into the cargo bay. The base on each crate has been modified to sit on the same tracks the shuttles use, and the middle one, I’m told, is the heavy one, at three tons. The others are European food supplies for the airfield personnel, and weigh one ton apiece. The entire cargo only weighs five tons, Colonel, so we won’t see much more fuel usage on the way home with such a light load.”

“Is that a radiation detector in the boss’s hand?” Bob asked realizing what Ryan and his two guys were holding. “I thought we were coming here to meet a king or something.” Bob had not been in on any of the meetings and wasn’t told of the real reason they were flying to Turkey.

Michael Pitt told him what he was allowed. “That story was for the interested parties who came to visit. One of these crates holds a special power unit for space travel, and as you can see, might show radiation.”

“Is that why we are surrounded by Turkish police cars?” asked Bob. “May I assume this is our next load into space in thirty hours?”

“Correct!” Michael smiled. “Ryan doesn’t want the government to know that it even arrived in the States. One could say that it is hazardous cargo in transit, not needing customs approval. Straight in, straight out, in transit! Why do you think we are all being paid so much, Colonel Mathews? Not a bad deal for a bit of hazardous cargo.”

Bob happily agreed with that statement. He could enjoy a far better life after two years of retirement work for Ryan. He would be able to afford a new cabin cruiser and go fishing in Florida.

He went back to the flight engineer’s table in the cockpit to plot the flight home, and input the five-ton cargo into the computer to calculate the aircraft’s fuel needs. The tanks were still two-thirds full; a top-off would be due over Ramstein, and then one over Maryland for their last leg into Nevada. Bob Mathews, who was as good as any flight engineer, worked out what he would need to suck out of the two air tankers that were going to meet up with them on the way home.

The stop at the Turkish civilian airport had been planned for a duration of three hours. Ryan knew that military cameras in space would be following their every move, so he had arranged for the arrival of a white civilian jet, which just happened to park close by, and he entered the jet for an hour. It cost him plenty but it was worth it.

He was also hoping that the three crates would look like a gift, or supplies, and, in fact, the two crates full of eastern food and delicacies fit that description. He was quite partial to a bar or two of Turkish Delight every now and again, himself.

Bob watched as two hours later the small Gulfstream jet took off and Ryan walked out to the apron with a stack of what looked like white envelopes, and shook the hand of every Turkish policeman around the aircraft; there were thirty or more of them, and Bob noticed that Ryan handed each man an envelope. He was sure that the envelopes had money in them.

Ryan then met with the three men in the hangar who had been there to deliver and load the cargo, and again envelopes were handed out. They all shook hands. Ryan signaled Bob to close the nose and then sat down in the hangar for a tiny cup of Turkish coffee.

Michael Pitt checked the positioning and tie-down of the cargo, and Ryan spent several minutes with the men in the still-open hangar drinking coffee and chatting.

The flight back to Ramstein was uneventful. The Stratotanker was climbing into the agreed location and Bob, a little rusty at in-flight refueling, was ribbed by the tanker’s young pilot about being a little off with his aim. After pumping in 25,000 pounds of fuel, they said their goodbyes, and the C-5 flew out over the Atlantic.

Seven hours later, with the sun about to set over the western horizon and a strong headwind from a cold front, they met up with the second air tanker over Maryland and took on enough fuel to get back to Nevada.

Maggie took over the flying duties from Bob Mathews after the second refueling; they arrived in Nevada thirty minutes late due to inclement weather the flight went through over the Atlantic. She touched down lightly on the runway and taxied the C-5 to its usual place on the apron.

She and Penny were told to get some rest, Michael Pitt would see to the unloading. The two women headed off for a good night’s sleep before they were to fly into space ten hours later.

Michael Pitt was responsible for overseeing that the three crates were unloaded and transferred to their proper destinations; two were taken over to the supply depot, and the heavy one was broken out of its crate in Hangar Six and readied for loading into Silver Bullet II. The load was gray and lifeless—a lead cube about six feet high, six feet wide and ten feet long. It was as smooth as lead could be made and had one opening, a hinged door with an active security pad on it and a battery underneath the pad. Michael had it placed next to the shuttle while a second rectangular crate was opened and its contents loaded into the rear of the shuttle.

Ryan checked both crates with a radiation detector several times during the flight into the states and again when the wooden crate was broken away from the lead block. It was the same, a slight uptick in radioactive emissions, but not dangerous for humans.

The second crate was removed and he saw the body of the empty nuclear reactor housing, about the size of a small automobile. Somebody up there in space would need to fill it with the contents of the lead capsule. The reactor had the same lead walls, this time painted a bright green. This unit had a window in the door and Michael could see that the lead was about a foot thick.

He organized the roof crane and slowly lifted the reactor housing into the rear area of the shuttle’s cargo bay. The solid rocket fuels had just been loaded and the shuttle had a dozen thick umbilical cords coming out of it, keeping the fuels at their necessary temperatures.

Michael and the team of a dozen loaders needed to be careful; after the reactor was installed, small explosive devices with about a tenth of the power of a normal hand grenade were set up and armed to release the cargo when necessary. The shuttle had several other personnel working in the flight deck, a few even wiping down the gleaming aluminum outer bodywork, as if she was to be entered into a race.

The hangar was busy. Only so many people could fit into the cockpit and for every one of four scientists inside the flight cockpit, there were a dozen outside looking at computer monitors or ticking off checks on clipboards. This shuttle wasn’t coming back for a couple of weeks.

The first piece of cargo took an hour and finally it was in and tight. Now the crane needed to lift the heavier lead case. There were four steel rings on each of the four corners of the hangar on the side with the entrance. The 30-ton lifting crane was positioned over the slightly rectangular lump, and the hangar system didn’t notice the weight as the unit left the ground. It took time, but finally the two pieces of cargo were secure and the shuttle roof doors closed and sealed. Then the whole unit, with the hangar groaning this time, was raised up and placed onto the loading vehicle ready to get the shuttle into the C-5 once the second liquid hydrogen refueling was complete in a few hours’ time.

When the second refueling was complete, three-quarters of the shuttle was loaded through the nose into the Galaxy; before the shuttle was fully loaded, pilots wearing full space suits would be helped into the shuttle. A special lift would help them up to the bed where a carpet was placed on the steel frame over a wooden floor, and they would enter the craft. There was no room inside the cargo bay of the aircraft with the shuttle in there, and they would be trapped in the cockpit when the door was sealed from outside. The last few feet of the shuttle’s nose would then enter the aircraft and the nose door sealed. The pilots could not get out again.

The truck looked similar to the loading system on all large jet aircraft, just ten times longer. Its 150-foot rear bed had long motorized steel wheel runners on its floor area, which slid the shuttle inch by inch onto the rails inside the mother aircraft.

Maggie and Penny, the shuttle’s two pilots, were fast asleep while Michael was still working. He would be number two pilot to Bob the next morning, and would manage a couple of hours of sleep before takeoff.

Ryan was sitting in his bungalow sipping an excellent chocolate milkshake. He was contemplating what the next day would bring. His biggest concern was the Cloaking Device which would be active for a full eight hours of the flight, or several rotations around the planet. Would it make the shuttle totally disappear to radar? Also, what was he going to tell the people watching? It had worked well in Sierra Bravo I, but the second shuttle’s device was untried.

He needed Mr. Noble, and Mr. Jones, who was now also experienced in spacewalking, to get the important cargo out of the hold, open the large crate, get the plutonium out and into the reactor, and then secure both units to the fourth wall of the Russian space station. It had been hilarious to hear Mr. Noble describe his partner’s first wall in space in Morse code. Mr. Jones had been described as a baby learning to walk.

The unloading would take another two hours, and the work had to be done slowly and carefully. In space, the cargo would weigh nothing, but it still had to be secured to the space station. Then, the plan was to get the two men aboard Sierra Bravo II as passengers, and then bring her down to as low an orbit as they had done on the first flight; only then could Maggie turn off the Cloaking Device and bring her in.

Ryan was preparing himself for the several phone calls he knew he would get, and he decided to put one of his backup plans into action, which might get him a free space station.

Chapter 19

The Flight of Sierra Bravo II

On a warm spring day, two hours before daylight, Bob Mathews lifted the Galaxy off the ground with its valuable payload. The technicians refueled the C-5 with sufficient fuel to get up and back and as always, Bob made sure that he checked the exact numbers of the fuel load he took off with. Michael hugged Penny in her space suit for a long time before he had let her go.

The night was dark as they headed through low cloud for the first 20,000 feet. The air was moist; there was some sort of front passing over. The weather reports called for clear, calm air over 30,000 feet and an hour later they passed through into a beautiful scene, grey clouds below and the sun about to rise over the eastern edge of this dark blanket.

“Weather reports were on the button,” he radioed to Maggie and Penny, sitting quietly in the shuttle below him.

“What is the outside temperature?” Maggie asked, looking over at Penny.

“Minus 3 degrees at 32,000 feet, I believe a degree warmer than we expected. I reckon you will have your minus 25 at launch altitude.”

Maggie and Penny sat going through preflight checks and making sure nothing was out of place.

“What do you think a five-degree temperature difference will make on our release height, compared to last month’s launch?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t think we will reach the same height. I’m getting better at this, but Michael thinks that we could be as much as 500 feet lower,” replied Bob. “I think you will still be in soft clean air when you pull the plug and head upward.”

As usual, Ryan was in the C-5 cockpit for the flight. He had slept well and was looking forward to getting his second shuttle into a low space orbit for the first time. To win the Space Race prize, he needed the shuttle to dock with the International Space Station and transfer crew into the space station. The closest the ISS would be to the Russian station would be well over 2,000 miles in front and 380 miles away on its own orbit.

He had spoken to the pilots about the verbal garbage they would say to him. He had written a whole transcript of a drama, which would be picked up by hundreds of listening devices once they got into space. The plan was to go silent for a couple of hours, apart from a faint word or two every thirty minutes or so, showing that they were still alive. Then once the Cloaking Device was shut off, they would come back on the radio saying something had happened, and that they were heading in for reentry.

Bob went through his usual flight plan. He reached his altitude at the edge of their private airspace, turned the aircraft toward the sun and dipped her nose. Her cargo pushed her down, gravity doing its job, and he slowly brought her out of her dive, Michael gave him full throttles, and he began to climb.

At 52,000 feet, he let his cargo go and they slid out of the back as he kept the wings straight and level waiting for the allotted three seconds before banking the aircraft to the right and out of the way.

“Ignition!” said Maggie. Ryan and his crew had decided that anybody listening couldn’t tell the difference between the crackly voices of the two pilots over the radio, especially in such a situation, and she was to call out the flight. “Wings fully extended, I’m getting a little control. Confirm a 75 percent angle, speed…passing through 500 knots…54,000 feet.”

Penny watched as the C-5 to her right slid past them a few hundred feet away, closer than the flight before, and Maggie, at 600 knots, began to turn the shuttle around so that they would hang underneath the nose with the sun behind them. Jonesy had lectured them on his “sun theory” and now Maggie was putting his plan into action. It was a little like pointing a rifle at a target and getting your bearings later. She only had a few seconds before the controls would become extremely difficult due to the increased speed, and she had the shuttle and its payload on a perfect trajectory, once the computers took over at Mach 3.

“Passing through 210,000 feet, perfect speed and the sun is slowly coming up to meet the nose,” she said several minutes later. “Ready for ignition of second stage.”

Ever so slowly they climbed into the blackness of space and as soon as allowed, she turned the shuttle upright again—she wasn’t very fond of flying upside-down—and set up the third stage ion-thrusters at 290,000 feet.

Penny turned on the Cloaking Device and looked at the notes Ryan had given her for her part to play. She was to play the static-filled voice while Maggie checked the computer for their three-orbit maneuver to meet up with the beer can her man was currently a passenger on.

“Nevada, we have a problem. The shuttle doors were opened and closed, and the operation perfect, but we have some static, like we are flying through a humming magnetic field. I can see outside the wings have a sort of bluish tinge to them. Has there been a solar flare or something recently? It’s playing havoc with our… ” And she cut off her communications, looked over and smiled at Maggie.

The next part of the play was Ryan trying to contact them for several minutes. He sounded concerned and she just didn’t answer. “Sierra Bravo II, we cannot see you on radar, are you still with us? Over.”

Several minutes later it was Penny’s turn. “Sierra Bravo II to ground control, we are still on orbit to meet the International Space Station, but there seems to be a problem with the… skkkkkkkkk,” and again she cut herself off.

“India Sierra Sierra, do you copy? Over.” Ryan called up the International Space Station.

“This is the ISS, we read you. Your shuttle has disappeared off our devices, but we are hearing your conversation. Over,” they responded.

“Ion thrusters do not seem to be operating correctly. We have this bluish sort of magnetic field around the aircraft. It doesn’t look like we can climb up to the ISS altitude. We will keep working… skkkkkkk,” added Penny.

For an hour Penny kept quiet as Maggie monitored her position and the position of the Russian satellite getting nearer several thousand miles ahead of them. The shuttle speed was already 12,000 miles an hour faster than the old station. They were several miles lower than the larger craft, and their faster orbit would help catch up to the beer can on their next orbit in about an hour’s time.

***

VIN was about to finish dressing for his next spacewalk, and Jonesy was helping him on with his helmet. This time he needed to get three lines set up outside the craft on hooks designed on the craft. It would take him an hour to ready the lines to accept the two cargoes and secure them with tightening pulleys to the outer body of the space station.

***

Ryan’s phone rang, as he thought it would.

“Mr. Richmond, we are hearing from Houston that you have some sort of problem?” asked General Mortimer.

“It seems that there is a sort of magnetic problem with, or around our space shuttle, General. It has disappeared from our screens, also the screens on the ISS, but the pilots are still transmitting. Something about the ion thrusters having a problem, and they might have to go to the liquid hydrogen thrusters as backup.”

“All you need to do, Mr. Richmond, is to link up with the ISS. You have achieved most of that, and I hope you succeed,” and the call was cut off.

The second one was from the NSA asking the same thing, and he repeated what he had told the general.

***

VIN left the unused connection port of the satellite and readied his three ropes. They needed to be tied tight to his outer suit, or they could float into the way of the incoming craft. Once he was done, Jonesy told him through their intercom that he thought he could see the shuttle coming up from below.

He was right. With a thruster on his jetpack, he moved across to where he could see over the edge of the space station, and there she was, a faint glint in the sunlight behind and below them, a long way away. It looked like a star in the sky it was so small, but the shuttle rose rapidly and thirty minutes later they were only a mile or so apart at the same altitude.

***

“We cannot get the ion thrusters to operate at all. It seems like some sort of electrical field, or something is playing with our systems. Nevada, is there anything you can do from down there… skkkkkkk.”

“Sierra Bravo II, are you climbing up to meet the ISS? Over,” asked Ryan down in the control center at the airfield. Penny was doing a great job and they seemed to be hoodwinking the listeners; he hadn’t had a call for an hour.

“Negative,” Penny replied. “Skkkkkk… we are not able to climb. If we use our second stage, we will not have enough fuel for reentry…”

“Roger that,” replied Ryan. “See if you can sort out what is going on up there. Are you being hampered by an outside source? We cannot see you on radar. Nobody can see you and that is weird.”

“I believe something is playing with our electronics. I believe it is coming from outside… like a laser beam of energy or something. I feel we are in the middle of a lightning stor… skkkkkk.”

This time Ryan reversed the first call to General Mortimer.

“General, Richmond here. Are you sure nobody is playing games with my space flight? We are showing no abnormalities from within the craft and somebody or something is putting my flight and its pilots at risk.”

“Not that I‘m aware of, Mr. Richmond; certainly not from the U.S. military. It concerns me that nobody can see your spacecraft on radar, but the pilots can be heard every now and again. I’ll check with our people and see if they can see your flight,” and once again he hung up.

Ryan didn’t hear anything again for another two hours.

***

VIN was busy. Now he could see the two girls through the shuttle windows and he blew each one a kiss as the shuttle’s computer brought her to within 100 feet.

Time passed by and Jonesy reminded VIN that he had been out nearly 90 minutes. Foot by foot the shuttle’s side thrusters worked and slowly the craft, longer, and a quarter as wide as the space station, came along side.

Maggie opened the roof doors and, 30 feet from the side of the space station, VIN used his thrusters. They had been in communication with each other for an hour now. The intercom systems of the two shuttles were independent of the radios, and worked over a hundred miles in space.

“Doors open, systems have us in tandem; you can empty our payload, VIN. Shout when you want the forward cargo unit separated from the craft. It is the heavy one, but I’m sure you won’t notice that up here. This floating takes a bit of getting used to.”

“Try knocking back a Screwdriver up here!” added Jonesy over the intercom.

“You’ve been drinking again, Mr. Jones?” asked Maggie as she watched VIN slowly head over the gap. “Can’t take you anywhere twice, Mr. Jones!”

“How does the saying go?” interjected VIN, slowly nearing the open doors of Sierra Bravo II. “Twice only to apologize?”

“Kid, get the loot and get back here. We have a timed reentry and a cold beer would taste real good right now.”

“Cord connected to your forward load, Maggie,” said VIN. “Blow the charges.”

He watched as small red flashes the size of a Ping-Pong ball lit up from the base of the unit, and the three-ton lead weight started floating out of the cargo hold. He pulled it forgetting that wouldn’t work, and, remembering his training, used his jetpack to get him and the load back to the station. Very carefully and very slowly, he spent fifteen minutes getting the floating reactor to a set of D-ring bolts placed in a strategic position for connecting cargo to the outer wall of the space station. He carefully positioned the reactor and using four similar D-ring bolts floating out in short chains where the explosions had parted them from the floor of the cargo bay. They had the small ratchets the chains were threaded through and VIN ratcheted each one down tightening the load onto the wall off the space station. He made sure that the door into the reactor casing was clear for him to enter.

Then he headed back for the second smaller case holding the five pounds of Plutonium-238. This one was much smaller, and he was getting good at space walking. As Ryan had said to him, this was his training for walking on the asteroid; Ryan was right; he was becoming an expert.

The first operation–connecting the reactor to the space station–had taken thirty minutes. He floated the smaller lead case toward the reactor using his jet pack and opened the reactor’s door. He untied two special aluminum protective sleeves from his left leg. Jonesy had tied them there for him to touch the inner box protecting the plutonium inside the lead case. He managed to fit his arms into the two-foot long glove-type sleeves and then opened the side of the case.

VIN had trained for this operation many times down in Hangar Five and knew exactly what to do. He used both his protected arms and allowed the inner case to float out of the one-foot think lead case. There were three wing-nut connections he needed to make. Two to secure the case inside the reactor, and the third connected the plutonium to the reactor itself. Then he closed the reactor door, and grabbed for the empty lead case, which was starting to float away.

He ratcheted down the lead case to a second set of bolts next to the reactor on the outer wall of the space station. He would transfer the lead case into the new space station once it was built.

This long procedure took an hour before he breathed a sigh of relief. He finally connected the thick cord of the reactor to a power port he opened in the wall of the space station and using a large, bright red switch on the reactors console turned it on.

“We should have a positive connection and power feed, partner,” VIN said to Jonesy.

“Roger that, I saw everything go brighter. Dials are reading the added power. Turning off inner battery pack.”

Now VIN had to return the ropes to the station and help Jonesy get across to their awaiting flight home.

Jonesy was already hot in his suit as he closed down the inner hatch of the Russian beer can. He had already closed down equipment on Sierra Bravo I and Astermine One to dormant mode before returning the space station’s systems to 30 percent power, as the scientists had instructed him to do before he had left Earth.

VIN headed back to Maggie’s shuttle and connected the rope’s other end to the connection port. He was the only one wearing a jet pack, and he would need to help Jonesy along the tight cord to the shuttle’s open hatch.

Jonesy emerged and VIN closed down the outer hatch of the space station. With a short thrust he left the station and propelled himself away from the side of the craft, and helping his partner, worked his way along the rope to the shuttle.

“You guys are ten minutes ahead of schedule so don’t rush. Penny is still doing her…skkkkkk… part.”

“This is the most useless I have ever felt in my life,” said Jonesy. “It’s the first time I have ever had to depend on a designated driver to get me home.”

“Be nice, partner, or I’ll cut the rope and let you and Frank Sinatra float off. Do you know, ladies, how much I have had to listen to Frank Sinatra for the last month? I bet I could even handle listening to rap after that. Remind me, Penny, I gotta ban any Sinatra on the next trip. I’ll go crazy!”

Slowly he helped his partner move along the rope to the other craft. The hatch was ready and open as Jonesy reached it and, feet first, slid himself in closing the outer hatch behind him.

VIN had to wait until the hatch would allow him in, so he had plenty of time to go back to the station, undo the cord, and even showed the women a dance move or two while he floated with the cord to the shuttle.

He opened the now empty hatch, slid in, and it closed above him, sealing him in. The green lights came on, somebody inside opened the inner hatch, and he floated into the cockpit got out of the way and helped Maggie automate the lowering of the system back into the cockpit.

Both women were still wearing their entire space suits, and Penny pulled out a radiation detector and swept it around VIN. Surprisingly, there were no positive readings other the usual higher reading in space and, while the computers descended the shuttle toward reentry, all four crewmembers took off their space helmets.

After Jonesy kissed Maggie he climbed into the pilot’s seat. Maggie was happy to let him do the driving; Penny sat in one of the rear jump seats and continued to make weird noises every now and again into her radio.

“It seems we have picked up some other item,” said Penny into her mike. “This weird blue field has weakened slightly and I can hear you better, Nevada. Do you have us radar visual? The computers are working fine; we are just going around and around up here; we still don’t… skkkkkk… Over.”

To Ryan, the message said that the cargo had been delivered and the two men picked up. Now they only needed one orbit to decrease altitude and get as far away from the Russian Space Station as they could, so as not to bring attention to their position.

“Negative, we still don’t have you on radar,” Ryan replied, back in Nevada.

“It is not possible for us to get to the International Space Station,” continued Penny. “We suggest a quick return to Earth…..skkkk…one more orbit. Over.”

“Roger that,” replied Ryan. “You will be on your own. Weather on your reentry track is good. I believe your interference is from an outside source. We have gone over all the readouts we have obtained from your computers, and they don’t show any problems with your vehicle. I recommend the exact same height and reentry angle as the first test flight. Over.”

To everyone listening, the radio reception seemed to get better as the craft decreased altitude closer to its reentry height. Forty minutes later, and to everyone’s surprise, Sierra Bravo II suddenly appeared and disappeared a couple of times as Maggie played with the Cloaking Device. As the reentry mode began, the shuttle could again be seen by all watching. Ryan’s phone rang ten seconds later.

“Ryan, Tom Ward here, Langley. It seems that your flight to the ISS has failed.”

“That is correct, Mr. Ward,” Ryan responded in an unfriendly manner. “Maybe your CIA personnel could tell us what interference was happening to our shuttle, and who is behind this act of sabotage?”

“We don’t believe that anybody was interfering,” replied the Assistant Chief of the CIA.

“You were tracking our craft on radar, and I’m sure there were other forms of tracking systems, NASA, the Air Force, and probably everybody on the Internet. I know we won’t make YouTube since our craft actually disappeared from all sources of detection.”

“It seems so, Ryan, but we here at Langley are sure there was no foreign intervention.”

“That’s sounds fine; then I must have some sort of ‘stealth shuttle’ up there, Mr. Ward. Better than any stealth fighter or bomber the Air Force has. Nobody could find her in space; she completed twenty-one orbits and was totally undetected by everybody on Earth. Are you still sure there was no intervention from anybody?”

“I’ll get back to you, Ryan,” and the CIA man hung up on him.

Ryan checked back with the dozen personnel monitoring the flight in ground control. It was important that Jonesy bring in the shuttle in one piece; his best astronauts were on it and this was only the second reentry for Sierra Bravo II, and the third for test pilot Jonesy.

Chapter 20

The Russian Beer Can Gets High!

VIN felt very weak after being helped out of the shuttle once it had been towed into Hangar Six. He was shocked at how gravity pulled so much, and his body felt heavy.

He struggled slightly to take each step and had to be assisted by the astronauts to the contamination area to get help removing his flight suit. Radiation detectors still did not show any dangerous amounts of radioactivity.

Ryan was there and smiled when he heard Jonesy shout out, asking if it was five o’clock in Nevada, something VIN heard daily up in space. It had taken VIN’s strength and courage, but he got by for the first two weeks with them drinking only the three opened bottles of booze before allowing his partner to know about the other bottles.

After VIN suggested that their private stash might have to last for quite a while, they got through week two without drinking a drop. Then Jonesy suggested that Saturday nights, just like on base, would be good. In week three, he had demanded Saturday and Sunday nights, and during week four, Jonesy tried hard to stay off the booze, but the two had just missed drinking a whole bottle between them that week. The vodka helped them stay alive and break the monotony of having very little to do.

Ryan was a happy guy. He was smiling and glad to have his pilots and his shuttle home, until he got a message that there was an incoming jet from Nellis Air Force Base demanding permission to land. He didn’t have much choice.

He gave permission to land and the small commuter jet, the same one as before, came in quickly from the east and taxied up to the man waiting for it on the empty apron. The shuttle was in Hangar Six and the C-5 was being checked over by Bob and his team outside Hangar Three.

General Saunders, who was the jet’s pilot, and Joe Bishop, the West Coast Head of the National Security Agency, exited the aircraft. Ryan had a couple of armed security personnel run up to escort them. The pilots had headed off to the shower, and only the three men waited for the jet’s engines to die down.

“Mr. Richmond, congratulations on a successful flight,” said General Saunders, the Nellis base commander. “Pity you couldn’t achieve your goal of meeting up with the ISS.” Ryan noticed that Bishop wasn’t smiling, shaking the man’s hand.

“Yes, a great achievement, twenty-one orbits of Earth by a spacecraft, a private one at that. I’m sure NASA and our President will be sending letters of congratulations. I have a few questions pertaining to this problem you had up in space, and if you don’t mind, I would like to check out your spacecraft with a radiation detector to see if any dangerous, or shall I say hazardous materials reentered with your shuttle craft?”

“And why would any radioactive matter be the concern of the NSA, Mr. Bishop?” Ryan asked dryly.

“Everything matters to the NSA, Mr. Richmond. We like to know what is happening in our country, and we get very worried if something doesn’t seem right to us,” the man replied.

“I’m sure that my scientists will check over the craft and if there is a problem, I would be more than happy to send you a copy of our findings, Mr. Bishop,” Ryan replied.

“I would prefer to find out for myself, Mr. Ryan. I would like access to your space shuttle.”

“Do you have a warrant, Mr. Bishop?” Ryan asked, not amused.

“No, but I can get one within fifteen minutes if you so wish, Mr. Richmond,” Bishop replied smiling politely. “I hear that our new President doesn’t think much of your business ethics either, Mr. Richmond.”

“Nor do I think much of his,” Ryan replied. “We are busy, I have flight debriefings, and I want to go through the computer readouts to try and find what, or who, stopped us from getting to the International Space Station. What do you really want, Mr. Bishop?”

“I would like to check the interior of the spacecraft that has just landed, for radiation, to see if there are any radioactive fingerprints from what happened to your craft, and to see if there are any radioactive signs around your hangars. The CIA heard mutterings of radioactive materials being moved, and our equipment will quickly tell us if there are any radioactive materials on your airfield.”

“That’s fine with me. You can check Hangars Three and Six for radioactivity. I would be interested to know myself; and, if you wish, you can check around each of the outside areas of my twelve hangars. Will that satisfy you and the President, Mr. Bishop?

The man nodded, two more men in suits clambered out of the commuter jet with large radiation detectors and Ryan asked his security guards to follow them.

Ryan watched as the two men began checking, and he remembered his last brush with the newly-elected President of the United States. The then-governor was on a nationwide tour trying to drum up new business for his own state. He was searching for companies who wanted to open up a second center of operations, or a manufacturing plant, in his area of government. He was introduced to Ryan by the local head of his political party. At the time, Ryan had his company’s main office in the area around Silicon Valley. The governor suggested that tax incentives and lucrative business deals could be easily done in his state if Ryan was prepared to start a new center of manufacturing there. Ryan could see no benefits to his business to do such a thing, and even with the governor offering great tax breaks and assistance, there was no way that a move to that area would benefit Ryan’s business. It would actually weaken his business. He explained that directly to the governor, and the upset man thanked him for the opportunity, then, in a straight tone, said to Ryan that he wouldn’t forget the fifteen minutes they had spent together. Now the governor was the new President.

Bishop and his team headed straight for the C-5 outside the hangar. Bob Mathews as usual was on top of the aircraft, on one of the wings with Captain Pitt, in flight gear, who saluted upon seeing his old base commander from Nellis.

“Checking for cracks?” shouted General Saunders as they entered.

“No Air Force crew chiefs to do the grunt work around here, General,” shouted Bob back and the general smiled.

The radiation detectors went through the main cargo area of the Galaxy and found nothing amiss. Then they headed over to Hangar Six, where a dozen scientists were all over the shuttle. This time readings of radioactivity were noticed by the portable counters.

“We have something incriminating here,” said Joe Bishop excitedly as the radiation detectors omitted slight noises of radioactivity.

“Oh, no you don’t, Bishop!” said a voice entering from the open doors behind them. “Any aircraft that has flown in high altitude at speeds over Mach I can show increased radioactive readings, especially any craft that has been out of Earth’s atmosphere. But a guy like you who couldn’t fly a freaking Cessna 150 wouldn’t know that. Maybe you should ask Allen Saunders here if he would agree with me,” continued Jonesy, coming up to the shocked man from the NSA.

Jonesy did not look happy. “Allen Saunders, good to see you again; a real general now, I see,” added Jonesy checking out the man’s rank. “Always enjoyed working with you. You were major when we last met,” Jonesy said, saluting respectfully.

“Likewise, Colonel Jones,” the general replied, smiling and returning the salute.

“Mr. Richmond, you are employing disgraced Air Force pilots as well?” Joe Bishop demanded, looking angry and pretty worried at the same time.

“I only employ the best, Mr. Bishop. Do you have a problem with that?” Ryan asked suddenly figuring out how his chief pilot knew this NSA guy.

“General Saunders, is this renegade right about space flight?” demanded Bishop looking at the general for verification.

“It was in our most basic studies at the Air Force Academy, Mr. Bishop. You, as a former Air Force pilot, should remember. On the first NASA flights the returning astronauts were kept in quarantine for this precise reason, until they found that the amounts of radiation, not radioactive bits of material hanging on the sides of the returning craft, were not hazardous to humans.”

“Men, I want the outside of every hangar checked, and then we are out of here,” demanded Joe Bishop angrily.

“So, Bishop, the Air Force couldn’t handle you either and you sank even lower, down to the NSA, after you were politely asked to leave. I wonder why you suddenly left the Air Force. Could it have been over that million gallon fuel discrepancy at the base? When was it, about three years after you got rid of me?” added Jonesy, making the older man uncomfortable.

“I was cleared of that small problem, and it is a privilege to work for the agency, Captain Jones, your discharged rank if I remember,” replied Bishop, now on dangerous ground.

“Yes, I read up on your court martial, Bishop. I see that two of the officers who cleared you now work for the NSA as well. As far as I’m concerned, you are a stinking liar and a dirty little fat thief. They never found that lost million or so gallons of JP-8. It just disappeared into thin air, and it took you less than a year to lose that amount of taxpayers’ money. Ryan, I think you should get this poor excuse for a G-man slob out of here before I finish what I should have in the Air Force; scalp the SOB!”

“Mr. Jones, please go back to the briefing room,” replied Ryan calmly. “I don’t appreciate my staff insulting visitors, and Mr. Bishop will leave this airfield very soon.”

“Allen, want a cup of coffee while this plastic G-man tries to screw up more crap?” Jonesy asked General Saunders, and both pilots headed over to the hangar’s coffee machine.

“I think you should get rid of that pilot, Mr. Richmond, He will cause a lot of trouble for you and your project from the Agency,” added Joe Bishop regaining his composure.

“Is that a threat, Mr. Bishop?” Ryan asked. “If it is, I suggest you get in your aircraft and wait for takeoff. You have checked out what you want and found nothing. As of this morning, the United States of America is a free country, and I do not need to be inspected by any government agency on a whim of theirs. And next time, if the NSA wants to inspect my airfield, they had better bring the correct paperwork. I hope your boss knows you are here, because he is certainly going to hear from me. Security! Escort Mr. Bishop and his two colleagues back to their aircraft. They can wait there for General Saunders.”

Bishop looked at Ryan angrily, turned, and the dumpy man went back to his plane. The two colleagues were collected, and the three men sat inside the small jet while Ryan joined the two pilots for coffee.

“I have a problem with that guy,” General Saunders was saying to Jonesy as Ryan approached. Ryan asked the man to continue.

“After you left the Air Force, John, he got rid of two of the best maintainers I ever worked with, Samuelson and Piccard. They had worked on a problem with a C-17 for me for thirty hours straight; they were tired, and Bishop, who had just come on duty, demanded why they looked such a mess. Both told him where to go and both left the force a few weeks later.”

“They were excellent techs,” Jonesy agreed.

“And there were also fuel discrepancies at our old base for years after you were gone. We found out that non-Air Force jets were flying in for meetings, NSA and CIA civilian-marked aircraft we believed, and were being refueled every time they came in. Sometimes up to a dozen jets a week. They always came in empty, stayed overnight, and left fully fueled the next day. We later found out that the Air Force unknowingly was supplying fuel for free to these agencies due to budget cuts, and the flights weren’t even real business flights. It was all hushed up by General Mortimer. Careful of Mortimer, Ryan, he has very few friends in the military and certainly is not liked by any of the other Air Force senior officers I know. Whether the Chief of Staff is a friend of his, I don’t know. Also the CIA guy, Tom Ward, I remember him well from those days with Bishop. He was a good friend of Bishop’s, always getting fueled up, tanked up and staying over at the Visiting Officers’ Quarters.”

“And the new President?” asked Ryan.

“That I don’t know, but Bishop has boasted about his new contacts in Washington several times, as if he could be directly reporting to somebody there. I heard that retired General Bishop was seen showing the new President, a governor then, around the base at one time several years ago. I think the President was a state governor at the time and maybe he was just doing his duty. I was returning from flight ops in Germany and dismissed the gossip as unimportant.”

Ryan thanked the base commander for the heads up and the jet taxied out and left twenty minutes later. He was satisfied about the success of the visit, also extremely happy that Saunders and Jonesy were old buddies, respected each other, and he might have found a possible ally in future times of need.

“Beware of Bishop,” added Jonesy as they watched the small jet takeoff and quickly disappear. “That piece of crap is a walking psychopath.”

“So are several others in Washington, Mr. Jones, and I hope General Saunders is a good man. I also have my contacts in Washington, but rather limited after the last elections.”

The next day, life got back to usual. Jonesy was still weak from space and didn’t do well in the morning’s run. VIN ran beside him, easily looking the more powerful runner with his metal legs, and Suzi ran at the rear for the first time ever, hanging out with her Herr Noble.

Later that morning there came a phone call for Penny Sullivan. The call needed to be taken in the security office with a guard listening in. It was an old friend from McChord Air Force Base. Her old friend had decided to leave the Air Force due to a quick and already ended romance with another officer, and wanted to ask Penny what she was doing. Penny asked her how she had got this number, and her friend, Kathy Pringle, said that she had been given the number from the base commander at Nellis.

“Ryan, I have a friend looking for a job,” reported Penny at the pilot briefing later that morning. “She was my flight teacher on C-17s for two years at McChord. It seems that a short romance has suddenly forced her to leave the Air Force. She is a darn good pilot, far more experienced than I am. Maggie, you might know her, Colonel Kathy Pringle. She must have gone through the Academy the same time you were there.”

“Yes, she was a year behind me!” replied Maggie happily. “We flew gliders together at the Academy and then I instructed her on C-130s at Seymour Johnson in North Carolina a couple of years later.”

“I think we could use another pilot. You said that she got your number from Nellis?” Ryan asked.

Penny nodded.

“Mr. Jones, do you trust General Saunders?”

Jonesy nodded that he did.

“He is the only person there who I believe who has our number. Let’s see if this works out and we can trust both of them. Ms. Sullivan, ask your friend to call the Nellis base commander and see if he can get her to Creech for pickup ASAP. I’m sure Mr. Noble needs a new bottle of Jack Daniels.”

An hour later, the news came through to Ryan’s phone. The pilot briefing was still going on, with Jonesy describing the problems of living in space. VIN had just been debriefed on spacewalking and listening to Frank Sinatra, and Jonesy had just started his description of space and living with VIN when Ryan’s phone began to buzz. This didn’t happen very often and Ryan listened for several minutes, his face showing little emotion.

“Sorry about that, team,” he said, after finishing the call. “It seems that the Earth-Exit team launched into space this morning and connected up with the International Space Station a few minutes ago. It is all over the news and there is live feed. Mr. Noble, please turn on the television.”

“…..we are so happy to be aboard the ISS with their crew and, as a gift from Earth, we have brought a bottle of good Californian champagne, fresh orange juice and made-this-morning on Earth, fresh Danish for the crew up here,” said a smiling man in a space suit holding up the gifts for the ISS crew.

“Well, the race has been won by team Earth-Exit, very closely following the failed attempt yesterday by the Astermine team out of Nevada,” carried on the news reporter with the space crew working on releasing the cork.

“He better put his finger on the top of the bottle. Oh! There it goes! Champagne all over the space station!” remarked VIN as they watched the floating liquid escape from the open top and spray out in every direction in millions of droplets. “Jonesy and I are experts in the field of space drinking, aren’t we, partner?” Jonesy said nothing.

“We have reports in from yesterday’s launch that the Astermine Company had difficulties with some magnetic field, which caused a problem with their shuttle space thrusters. These thrusters were to propel Astermine’s shuttle up to the space station. Even though Astermine’s shuttle completed twenty-one orbits of Earth, it wasn’t enough to claim the ten million dollar prize money. The President himself is flying out on Air Force One to Earth-Exit headquarters later today to present its CEO with the trophy. Comments are already in from the British team in the race. It seems that there are no hard feelings from the other competitors, and their CEO said that the British project to take passengers up at $200,000 each was only weeks away. I’m sure congratulations from Astermine’s Ryan Richmond to Earth-Exit aren’t far behind. NASA, who has been watching the progress of all three companies, is expected to intern one of these companies into its new space program, and it looks like Earth-Exit is the current favorite. And now for the latest weather….”

Ryan got on the phone and congratulated the CEO of Earth-Exit.

A week later VIN waved at the same police cruiser in its usual place after picking up Colonel Pringle, a tall extremely good looking pilot, a bit younger than Maggie. It was good to feel his Audi around him again, but it had taken him a while to get his metal leg movements gentle enough not to spin the tires on his way down to Creech Air Force Base.

After a day’s worth of the usual entry requirements into Ryan’s airfield, Kathy Pringle was the quickest person ever to be immediately presented at the next day’s pilot briefing. Normally Ryan checked them out first, but it seemed he was a little taken with her, and she had happily signed a contract and agreement as soon as she arrived; her friends, Penny and Maggie, had completed all the same papers and she trusted them implicitly.

For the first time, Suzi and Mr. Rose also attended the pilot’s meeting. Bob Mathews wasn’t in attendance, nor were his pilots.

“I would like to welcome the newest member of our pilot staff, Colonel Kathy Pringle, who is retiring from the United States Air Force in a week,” began Ryan. “She has the rest of the week to use up her leave and, General Saunders was most accommodating in allowing her to come over here on such short notice.”

He observed Maggie’s and Penny’s warm welcome to the new woman earlier at breakfast. They seemed very happy to reunite, and there was a lot of camaraderie among the three. Ryan thought Kathy Pringle was extremely good looking; a long-haired, six-foot tall California blonde with a deep raspy voice, green eyes and only two inches shorter than he. She was a year or two older than he was, had large laughing eyes and he immediately felt good that she had joined the crew. She also looked much like Sharon Stone. Now, his team of beautiful Air Force “she-pilots,” as the chauvinistic Mr. Jones always called them, looked more like Charlie’s Angels. Maybe he should call them “Ryan’s Angels,” but decided to get on with business.

“Ms. Pringle, under the supervision of Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Sullivan, has signed the contracts to allow her into our inner pilot circle. Ms. Pringle is single, has no dependents and, I believe will become an asset to you, our flight crew. Ms. Pringle will immediately go into shuttle simulator training with Mr. Pitt for the next few months. She told me that she doesn’t have a fear of heights, even the dark Frank Sinatra heights of space!” There were some sniggers at his joke.

“We are six days away from our third launch, but first I must bring you up to date on our last week of outside news. As you know, Earth-Exit won the competition, and it was amusing to watch the President tell the world on television that Earth-Exit was his favorite company to win the race, and he was behind them all the way. He should be, as he has over $50 million of his own money invested with them, and has been an investor for a couple of years now. His telling the world that NASA has the government’s blessing to take over Earth-Exit for two billion dollars is, in theory, giving him a 300 percent return on his money. Not very many people know this. It is very possible that he now finds himself in an awkward position, and I’m sure he doesn’t want the world to know about his previous dealings. We have all the necessary information on his investments as well as our friend General Mortimer’s even larger investment in the same company, and we will keep that information under lock and key until needed.

“Second, our friend General Mortimer phoned me from the Pentagon and wanted to know what our new plans were, and whether I was going to continue. I told him we were. An hour before his call, which I was expecting, I spoke to a friend, the current head of NASA, Bill Withers. We are on friendly terms, even though I picked up most of his best scientists and engineers when he laid them off. Now he wants them back, and naturally I declined his offer. What I did discuss with him is the failing Russian space station. He considers it to be the most dangerous object about to fall back to Earth, anticipated next year. I told him that my next attempt was in a week’s time and, since I now couldn’t win the race, my team could try to solve this dilemma. He was extremely positive about our team flying up there and seeing if we could lift the old beer can, as Mr. Jones calls it, into a higher orbit. He had an agreement from the Russian government an hour later, stating that we could destroy the station if we needed to.

“I also explained to him that within a year, and after one or two dozen more practice launches, I could complete a flight every ten days. He immediately asked my cost, I told him, and then suggested that I get on the phone to the Department of Energy. He suggested that I see if I can work out a way to help the U.S. dispose of its growing radioactive waste; there are thousands of tons sitting around waiting for Congress to pass some sort of bill to store this stuff. He thinks that the government would pay well for the expulsion of as much waste material as possible, and liked my idea of getting three-ton loads in short-duration protective containers into outer orbit, and unloading the stuff directly into the sun.”

The pilots were looking at Ryan as if he had totally lost it. “Actually, I put this idea into his head about six weeks ago as an interesting alternative to merely taking passengers into space. I suggested that a better project would be to take our radioactive waste into space, release it at 19,000 miles an hour, and let it head into oblivion. The problem is that we need thousands of flights to get our current waste supplies out of here, but I told him ‘as with all crappy jobs, somebody has to do it!’ So he is enthusiastically working on getting more support in Washington for a new space program like this.”

“Now I’m going to drive a radioactive dump truck?” asked Jonesy.

“Mr. Jones, with the time it takes for anybody to make their minds up in Washington, I promise I’ll drive the dump truck myself!” Everybody laughed at the joke.

“These two ideas will show interested parties that we might be beaten, but we are not out of ideas,” continued Ryan. I didn’t tell him about my ‘Project Gas Station’ yet. Part of my plan is to build a space gas station in a low to middle orbit, and anybody in the future can fuel up with xenon or liquid hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, helium and argon, when needed. This is where part of our mining project comes into play and brings us to our next mission.

“Mr. Jones and Ms. Sinclair will command Silver Bullet II, whose call sign, Ms. Pringle, is Sierra Bravo Two, to fly her into space with the mining operation equipment in its hold. Suzi and Mr. Rose will be suited up and aboard the shuttle with several tests and experiments needed to be done while the space station ascends into outer space. Mr. Noble will be the fifth member on board, and will stay up there to help transfer our scientists into the safety of the station. Mr. Noble, I will figure out how to get an extra seat in the shuttle’s cockpit for you. There will be thirty-six canisters of cargo in the shuttle’s cargo hold. A dozen will be Astermine One’s mining equipment, food, water and liquid gas supplies, and you need to transfer them to Astermine One. Another dozen will hold supplies for the space station; six canisters are plants, soil and tests for Suzi and Mr. Rose, and six are empty. These are to replace the canisters removed from the mining craft to make sure Astermine One heads to DX2014 with her full quantity of thirty empty units for mining.

“Mr. Jones, your first job will be to connect Sierra Bravo II to the Russian Space Station’s Number 3 docking port with your rear rocket motors facing toward Earth, the opposite way Sierra Bravo I is facing. Then, you and Ms. Sinclair will help the passengers exit, or leave them in the shuttle’s cockpit until the station can receive them. You will leave the computers of Sierra Bravo II on standby, pass through the space station into Sierra Bravo I, and reposition her also to face upward into space. Next, you will link up both shuttles’ computer systems and control both rocket systems from Sierra Bravo I.

“Once the computers have completed the transfer of information, which will take about three minutes, you will rotate the space station and everything attached to face the direction of orbit. Once the computers at ground control show that you have achieved that maneuver, we are ready for you to proceed with the mission. Timing is extremely important. Aim in the direction of orbit, burn both of the shuttle’s rear hydrogen rockets for three minutes at 50 percent power; this first burn will increase her orbital speed by approximately 500 miles an hour after one orbit. When the first orbit is completed, get the computers to direct the nose to point outwards into space by three degrees and complete the exact same burn.

“After your second orbit, your speed should have risen to 14,000 miles an hour, instead of the 11,000 miles an hour she is currently orbiting at. After the second orbit—and this is important because at this time the ISS will be on the other side of Earth—you increase the nose angle by another 12 percent to outer space, and burn the rear motors for exactly seven minutes at full power. This will increase the forward orbital speed of the space station to 20,000 miles an hour. The seven minutes of thrust will help her climb out of her current orbit and rapidly increase her orbital altitude by approximately 100,000 feet per orbit.

“Mr. Jones, your last maneuver will be the fourth burn of both shuttles’ liquid hydrogen rear motors on the sixth orbit for exactly ten minutes, allowing her to climb away from Earth on an ever-widening orbit of 900 miles per day.

“For your information, Mr. Jones, your remaining bottles of vodka up there will be passing by the ISS orbit height on its third orbit, and with the added speed, 5,000 miles behind. By the time you pass close to each other again, two orbits later, the difference in altitude will be 200 miles; the beer can will be higher, there will be approximately 700 miles between the two stations, and one of the shuttles will have already returned to Earth. These maneuvers, Mr. Jones, will leave you with just enough hydrogen for your usual low reentry.

“Once your fourth burn is complete, you and Ms. Sinclair will return in Sierra Bravo I to your usual reentry point. No Cloaking Device will be used on this trip. The idea is that we will have completed a perfect mission as we said we would; we will have propelled the space station upward and returned to Earth. Ms. Sullivan, Suzi and Mr. Rose will stay with Mr. Noble.

“Because your total flight time is twelve hours, the next flight up will be ten days, twelve hours after your return. This will be our fastest turnaround flight to date. The next cargo is the first set of eight flat aluminum panels into space. You will fly with Ms. Sinclair. Use the Cloaking Device while Ms. Sullivan, with Suzi as copilot, reenters the other shuttle. We still need to hoodwink any interested parties into thinking that this launch was just another routine test flight. Shortly after that, Mr. Jones, you and Mr. Noble will be heading out to DX2014.”

After VIN’s suggestions about banning Frank Sinatra, the meeting came to an end. Now it was time to train ten hours a day for the next flight.

Three days later the news was full of the British team reaching space and connecting with the International Space Station, and more bottles of champagne and smiling faces visiting the station for the first time. This news made Ryan a little subdued. Maybe he should have won the race for his team, but that would have brought the government closer; they would then be nipping at his heels. He knew that he was correct, especially when a member of the European government on the television feed said that was what he was worried about. The high-ranking official said that the British CEO would be working with them on their new projects, something the British CEO quickly declined on a news flash less than ten minutes later, adding that when he had asked for financial assistance the European Union had ignored him.

Eleven days since their last reentry, the C-5 left terra firma for the next flight up to 50,000 feet. Ryan and Kathy Pringle were in the Galaxy’s cockpit to view the launch.

Inside the fully loaded shuttle, Jonesy, Maggie, and VIN, were ready for their next trip. Suzi and VIN had a sort of double seat to squash into, on one side of the docking bay, while Penny and Mr. Rose had the other one.

VIN smuggled a fifth of Jack Daniels into Suzi’s cargo. He had told her that there were only three bottles of vodka left on the beer can and he hoped that he could tempt his partner not to play Frank for the odd swig of bourbon every now and again. He laughed when her sealed cargo unit was finally weighed with the bottle hidden inside.

Bob Mathews expertly ejected the shuttle at 53,000 feet and Jonesy complimented him on a great job; the shuttle wings were extended, and ignition was achieved.

As usual, Jonesy lined up the sun to his back, and the shuttle climbed into the sky with the mining supplies and cargo heading skywards; they carried the equipment VIN and Jonesy were going to get rich from, by mining platinum and other valuable rocks.

At absolute maximum payload, Jonesy monitored the computers as they took over and, ever so slowly, the morning sun came up to kiss the nose of the shuttle as they reached the blackness of space. Maggie sat silently next to him.

“At $20 million a pop, this must sure be emptying Ryan’s bank account,” commented VIN as they entered a low orbit, every one removed each other’s helmets, and the craft went into space-mode.

“What did he say? Maybe ninety flights? That must be about one-and-a-half to two billion bucks!” replied Jonesy, monitoring the readouts and computer LEDs. “You guys OK in the back? You must be pretty squashed.”

“Cozy and warm, and feeling very lightheaded. Is this real space yet, Herr Jones? Just like I had in the International Space Station?” Suzi asked.

“Yes, Überfrau, this is real space. Welcome to Mr. Richmond’s dream. Pity Ryan will be one of the last to actually feel space. Maybe he will change his mind or his dream once he’s been up here for a month or so. I will be igniting the hydrogen rockets for a three-second burst, and then switch to our ion drives to get in close to my favorite beer can,” Jonesy added. “You will not feel the burn since we’re weightless, but stay secure in your seats until we reach the space station. I will align the shuttle so that you can have a clear view from the side viewing ports. Twenty minutes to reaching the space station. She is 3,200 miles ahead of us and two miles above our current altitude. We can’t see her yet, but I’m sure I saw a silver glint a minute or so ago and, we are clear of the ISS watching us. VIN, this won’t be a walk in the park like last time, and I don’t want to have to come and fetch you out there. If you lose your safety connections, you are history, understand?”

VIN nodded. “Setting up exit hatch,” VIN responded, the only one now floating around checking the hatch for his entrance to check the station.

Maggie watched the instruments as the Russian space station grew large in the cockpit glass. She couldn’t believe that they were travelling at 11,000 miles an hour.

Jonesy noticed that the beer can had rotated slightly; the other shuttle was on top of the space station, and not on the side furthest away from Earth. He would have to rectify that. As he approached the upper craft, the forward speed of the shuttle slowed, with the computers using the thrusters to make minute adjustments every few minutes.

“We are forty-nine feet from the bottom of the station; I am inverting the shuttle for docking.” Jonesy said.

He was getting good at this and had the shuttle docked twenty minutes later.

VIN entered the hatch as Jonesy sealed it behind him. Jonesy then opened the middle hatches, and the lights flickered from green to orange.

“Have we used this docking port before?” VIN asked.

“Negative,” Jonesy replied.

“That’s why I think the lights are orange. I will open the hatch to the station and the inside air should clear this old stuff out.”

“I think you are on the ball, partner,” replied Jonesy as he watched VIN enter the last hatch into the spacecraft.

It took a while, but two of the three lights turned green.

“Air and air pressure are OK, temperature minus five,” said VIN a few seconds later from inside the station. “The passengers can enter; it’s cold but fresh in here. I’m turning up the heater.”

As all the passengers were suited up with full helmets again, it didn’t really matter.

“Suzi, Penny, Mr. Rose you may undo your seat belts and you are free to float around the cabin. Please no smoking, or drinking my vodka once you are inside the beer can!” he joked.

Jonesy and Maggie got the shuttle ready and exited. They checked on the passengers already inside the station, Jonesy holding Maggie’s hand to guide her, VIN already showing the others, all holding onto magnetic shoes to stop them from bumping into each other.

They entered Sierra Bravo I and went to work turning on the systems. Jonesy rotated the station with a short side thrust so that the shuttle they had just left would disappear from Earth’s view on the station’s dark side. Then he gave the computers time to download their upgrades from the other shuttle. Finally he turned the shuttle to face outwards and got ready to begin the blast phase.

Ryan watched the news while he monitored his shuttle’s progress.

“Astermine’s shuttle has just reached the dark and uninhabited twenty-year old Russian Space Station, we have just learned from its CEO, Ryan Richmond. Astermine came in last in the three-company race to space this week, losing out to Earth-Exit by a week, and the private British company just three days before this successful launch,” said a CNN Newscaster in Atlanta. “The Head of NASA announced today that Astermine’s mission has been changed, and even though they won’t win any awards for reaching the derelict Russian Space Station instead of the International Space Station, they are believed to be preparing a halt to the station’s descent to Earth. This significant piece of dead space junk would have reentered Earth’s atmosphere sometime next year; Ryan Richmond’s shuttle will help the station orbit farther out, which will solve this dilemma. The Russian government has been refusing to comment. If Astermine succeeds on this mission, it will stop this satellite from putting people or property at risk here on Earth, but won’t bring the lucrative first prize back to Richmond’s Astermine.”

Jonesy completed all four of the maneuvers without a problem. It did not seem anything had changed, but he did see his forward speed and altitude computer readouts had altered drastically as they disengaged the shuttle from the space station. They said their goodbyes over the intercom and headed away from the station; the computers set up the next orbit for the approach into reentry position, two orbits later. VIN and Suzi had several days to unload the other shuttle.

Maggie completed the flight after they passed through the fiery section where there was no communications; both pilots were becoming experienced with the same procedures, having repeated them several times. Maggie had now been to space, although she was so occupied with checks and more checks, before floating through the space station for three minutes and then out to the shuttle, it felt like nothing more than a dream once the new, larger parachutes brought them to a rapid halt on the hot desert runway.

With three of his team still in space, radio silence was still part of the strategy to make sure Ryan’s plans remained unknown.

NASA called to congratulate him. This timer the caller was a newly elected Chief of Operations, not Ryan’s usual contact, Bill Withers. The new man, Hal McNealy, told Ryan that he would soon become head of NASA, and that the government would be intervening to get their most valuable employees back to Florida and Texas from Nevada.

The next call was from the new President himself, also congratulating Astermine on a job well done. This time he asked Ryan to work with the government, and release the government scientists to return to NASA.

“I know we have had our differences in the past, Ryan, but this time the country needs these fine men and women back in NASA’s new development program to send astronauts back to the moon in a decade. Ryan, it is vital that the USA shows its lead in space advancement by completing another moon launch.”

“I agree with your policy on space, Mr. President, but I signed a contract with these scientists at a time their employment was terminated by the government; they were free agents, and I offered them jobs. I believe that after their contracts are completed, they will be happy to return to NASA, and I hope they will take a lot of the new ideas we are working on here in Nevada. Unfortunately, I am in the middle of a project. The Space Race was just the beginning and, even though I didn’t win, my project cannot be halted in the middle.”

“I did hear about your trip to Turkey and I’m sure it was a successful investment trip. If it is compensation you want, the government will reimburse you for any money you or others invested, once you release these scientists, even the $10 million you had to pay for the plutonium you borrowed,” the President continued. “I was part of that, and now regret that it wasn’t a fair deal for you. Even though it was destroyed in space, we will forget it ever happened.”

“I don’t think I am interested, Mr. President,” Ryan replied. “You are more than welcome to have my scientists at the end of my contract with them, but I’m not going to bow to Presidential pressure.”

“Mr. Richmond, I don’t believe Congress will take your answer lightly. The race is over, you did not win, and as far as I’m concerned we don’t need to have private organizations competing against our own space program. I will allow you a few months to close down your operation; I’m sure we can find you a management position in NASA when the time comes. I can’t promise anything but I will do my best to make sure NASA looks at taking you and a couple of your other team members on. Think about it, and we will be in touch.” The phone went click in his ear and Ryan looked forward, staring into space glumly. The real space race was about to start, and just how he had predicted.

Chapter 21

22,500 Miles in Space

The next morning Ryan’s flight briefing was short. He explained that the U.S. government wanted everybody to walk away from this project and explained to them that they were willing to pay top dollar to get their hands on all of his projects, drawings and designs, but he wasn’t going to relent just yet.

“We have a few months of peace before the guys at NASA come sniffing around. I still have an ace up my sleeve, which I believe will allow us a few more months, and then either our project will be complete, or the heavies will come in here to take over.”

“They can close you down?” Maggie asked in shock. “This is a private company.”

“Unfortunately, the government can illegally do whatever they want,” responded Ryan sadly. “They often work above the law of the land they make others follow. This form of bullying and private company closures has been getting worse since the first Desert Storm operation. This year, we have a new government and the same type of people in control who were the instigators of most of our wars for the last couple of decades. Secret business closures have been done before, several times when the government has intervened on behalf of their governmental interests; as examples, private concerns standing against oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and even food companies were broken apart, or made to disappear through what the government calls fraud, non-payment of taxes, internal security and national interest. The media reports whatever they tell them; the result is often to crucify the company or the people opposed to a system certain people in power want to protect. I don’t want to get into this situation until our project is complete; when we are self-sufficient in outer space and they can’t touch us. So, I will continue throwing out morsels of information to buy time.

“Actually the last ace I have, and the most important, is something that will also help NASA in the future. It will give the government the ability to achieve what they really want NASA to do: mine the moon for resources to pay off the government debt. My last ace is a gas station 22,500 miles above Earth, supplied from our own mining missions, and which will operate just like a gas station here on Earth. Instead of gas or diesel, any long-term spacecraft can fill up with liquid xenon, hydrogen, methane, oxygen, argon, or any other gases they need up there. NASA will save billions by not having to launch supplies into space and I will own the only gas station in space, I would say several years from now.”

“Won’t they approve of your idea?” asked Penny.

“Yes, but as usual they don’t want to be in the position of being dependent on a private company, so I assume they will eventually try to take the gas station over. In the world of space, the U.S. government needs to realize that they don’t own it, nor do we; nobody does. Currently they think they do. They think even the moon belongs to them. Imagine how they would react if the Russians, or Europeans, or the Chinese sent up mining operations to the moon? The U.S. government would go ballistic! I believe that many in Congress think that our sun actually shines only on Capitol Hill!”

The next few days were busy. Three tons of mining equipment, dozens of cylinders of gas, canisters of food, water and basics had to be loaded and carefully tied down aboard the shuttle waiting in Hangar Six. Most of the canisters were for the mining expedition, and with Astermine One’s cargo hold having three separately walled compartments, the aluminum units would be packed in such an order that VIN, helped by Suzi this time, would correctly pack everything into the spacecraft in order of necessity in space.

Each aluminum gas cylinder or canister of gear or supplies had to be positioned and recorded back to front for transfer to the spacecraft’s cargo hold, in order of need on the asteroid. Astermine One, connected to the Russian space station was now 7,000 miles above Earth and still climbing.

Ryan’s radio operators listened for chatter from the ISS when the Russian Space Station passed its altitude and rose out of range forever; however, nothing was heard. Both stations were thousands of miles apart and no excited radio communications were heard from anybody in space.

The fourth crew member was a total surprise to Maggie, Penny and Jonesy; Ryan suddenly decided to be part of the next launch, and his 250 pound weight, which included his spacesuit, was programmed into the five shuttle computers.

All four of the crew were dressed in spacesuits as they were crowded into the small cockpit; the shuttle was loaded aboard and the C-5, piloted by Bob Mathews and his team, took them up to launch altitude.

The shuttle was heavy on this trip, 50 pounds heavier than any launch before and, on a shimmering spring morning, Bob beat his record and released the shuttle 400 feet higher than his previous best; then Jonesy took his boss into space to live the dream he had wanted since he was a young boy.

Ryan Richmond went to space.

“Viewers, we have a live feed with Ryan Richmond, the CEO of Astermine, who is currently 110 kilometers above us in space, and completing his first orbit of Earth. In our first interview with Ryan over a decade ago, he said that this had been a dream of his, and today he is achieving his dream. Unfortunately we only have radio communications with him and no visuals. Ryan, can you hear me?” asked the CBS anchorman.

“Yes Charlie, I can hear you. It is wonderful up here. We went weightless about seven minutes ago, and I feel like this is the best day of my life.”

“Ryan, Nora here… you have waited for this for 35 years. What does it feel like to finally get up there?”

“Actually, 36 years Nora! It feels wonderful. The feeling of success, of achieving the goals of a lifelong dream, only happens to very few people, and I would assume only once in a lifetime. I’m blown away with my team’s achievements so far.”

“Ryan, you didn’t win the race. You had bad luck at the very end, and lost by a few days. What is left for you and your team of astronauts and scientists to do? Is this flight just the icing on the cake, and your last flight into space?”

“Oh, no, Charlie! There is so much to do up here. I spoke to my good friends at NASA just last week. Of course, they want their scientists back. I hear NASA’s next project, with the new and modern technology from Earth-Exit’s Space Race success, is about to begin. I’ve already spoken to the Department of Energy, and discussed possibilities of taking up radioactive waste and sending it out toward the sun in three-ton loads. Our last flight, to save Earth from a possibly catastrophic event when the Russian Space Station reentered Earth’s atmosphere, was a test to show that we can become a successful private company partnering with the government. We have several projects, totally different from NASA’s, but Astermine is prepared to work hand in hand with them to the final frontier.”

“I’m sure taking up toxic waste into space will be an important task for the future.…Ryan Richmond, thank you for talking to us down here at CBS. Have a safe flight!”

“What was that all about?” asked Jonesy through the intercom.

“Buying time, Mr. Jones, buying time. The press will check with the DOE, and I’m sure will applaud your new job as dumpster driver.”

The next interview came through from Fox News.

“Congratulations, Ryan, on achieving your dream. What is next for the team of scientists you have put together over the years, now that the race is over?”

“Great question, Jim. The race was just the cornerstone of bigger projects to show that space travel is necessary. I’m extremely glad NASA’s next project is going to be combined with Earth-Exit. Martin Brusk has a great company, and I’m sure the new President hoped an American company would win the race. He has always maintained an interest in the Space Race, and I’m glad that he is seeing the results of the American commitment to continue learning about our Solar System.”

“What is next for you, Ryan?”

“To perfect this ride into space, Jim! It is fantastic up here. I would recommend it to anybody who can afford it to sign up and reserve a seat with the successful British space company. A ride to space is certainly worth the price they are asking. It is mind-blowing. My shuttle systems still have several necessary empty launch flights into orbit to make sure that when we do get the opportunity to carry cargoes, like the radioactive toxic waste I mentioned earlier, we are ready. I believe that we, as a private company, can become extremely important in clearing our planet of dangerous radioactive waste and regularly sending it off to the sun.”

“Great ideas, Ryan. Thanks for your time and reserve a seat for me… Now for your local weather…”

“More buying time. I see your point,” added Jonesy. “We are five minutes from our first burn. Once you are done with your radio interviews, boss, it is time to eat up some liquid hydrogen and head upward.”

Ryan completed two more interviews, all staged and programmed by his team on the ground to get the company’s message out. His idea to go into space was geared toward telling the American public what his company was doing, and make sure any interested parties stayed away. The powers-that-be couldn’t really close him down if the American public thought that he was doing something worthwhile up there. Also, he didn’t want Jonesy to be the dumpster driver; he wanted NASA to do that, and he would refuel them in outer space. It was a market economy down there—and in space, too—after all.

“Starting six-minute hydrogen burn,” said Jonesy. “You won’t feel anything, but you can see our speed and altitude change on the screens on the front panel.”

Ryan watched, and thought he did feel something. Slowly the forward speed climbed through 19,000 miles an hour and the shuttle began to climb. A dial showed rate of climb from the last orbit and on the screen in front of Maggie, he saw the computer draw an orange line to the position of where they were to meet the climbing space station. It would take five orbits to get up to the current 9,000 mile altitude of the beer can. The shuttle’s speed needed to increase with each revolution. He had studied this programming when they were feeding the calculations into the computers, and it showed that the higher space station was orbiting twice a day at 24,000 miles an hour.

Slowly it looked like Earth was receding and he was glad that he had decided to join the flight.

After three more orbits the bright blue and white-clouded planet looked like it did in Hollywood movies.

“Third burn coming up,” said Jonesy. “This time a two-minute burn will be enough to get us up to altitude to align with the station’s ascent.”

Now space was pitch black. Only the Apollo teams had been up this far from Earth, and even though the blue planet still filled all the windows, it was beginning to shrink.

“We will be within a hundred miles of the station in twenty minutes. VIN, can you hear me over the intercom?”

“You are beginning to come through clear. Everything is A-OK up here, partner. We are waiting for you, and Suzi and I are suited up and ready to transfer the cargo. Who is going to detach Astermine One for cargo placement? I’m getting used to vertical sleeping but I’d still like to load horizontally with Astermine’s belly facing Earth. I’m not yet a fly on the wall. Over.”

“Maggie will be coming through the connection port, once we have green lights,” replied Jonesy. “I will position the shuttle ready for her to bring Astermine One alongside. VIN, I’m still sure that it would be easier for you if I turn the shuttle and invert her above the spacecraft; then you can take the load from above and just place it in the cargo compartments. Just my way of thinking, partner.”

“That sounds like a great idea. How close could you get the shuttle inverted above Astermine’s open doors?”

“The shuttle’s tail is four feet high, but I can retract it. The spacecraft’s cargo doors are two feet high; so, if I keep them three feet apart, about six feet. If Suzi is standing upside-down and roped in the shuttle’s hold, and you are directly below her, you could easily get your connection lines into each separate compartment, get them hitched up and tight, and then she can clasp the equipment to the safeties and with a slight push float them down to you.”

Within an hour, Suzi and VIN were busy transferring a dozen full xenon gas cylinders into the forward hold behind the cockpit to be used as fuel for the 22-day outward flight. The xenon gas for the ion drives on return flight, which was six days shorter, was already in the inner hollow walls of the spacecraft.

For a full three hours, the maximum time allowed for a spacewalk, the two worked hard emptying the shuttle’s cargo hold. Half of the aluminum canisters were food, water and supplies for the space station, and were floated in one by one through the connection port vacated by Jonesy in the shuttle. Then he reconnected the third craft to the space station and sighed with relief. It was now time for a good Screw Driver, hopefully shaken and not stirred.

Jonesy got his wish, and so did the whole crew aboard. When he finally completed dozens of checks aboard the shuttle, he was happy to see VIN feeding a few orange pouches into one-third full bottles of good Russian Vodka bubbles.

“I liked your inverted idea,” said an extremely happy Ryan. Under VIN’s guidance he was opening up his own bottle of Dom Perignon French Champagne, just like the astronauts from the other companies had on the ISS. Then he was shown how to celebrate in space, Jonesy-style, by taking a swig and then holding a finger on the bottle.

The temperature inside was a warm 69 degrees, and with the top halves of their suits off, Suzi and VIN slowly cooled down from their excursions outside. Even though weightless in space, the constant checking of lines, emergency connections, reconnecting canisters, etc., was hard work in a sealed suit.

After an interesting night’s sleep for Ryan—in a vertical position for the first time ever—he sat with the crew in the space station’s command capsule, eating a self-heating pouch breakfast, and checking up on the latest readouts; forward speed 27,000 miles an hour, altitude 11,990 miles above Earth, still two orbits per twenty-four 24 hour period. The thrusters, being used every hour for a few seconds, were already beginning to slow their forward orbital speed down. The orbital speed at 22,500 miles would only be 6,700 miles an hour, to be a geostationary point on the equator of Earth over the Pacific Ocean.

“It will take another week to get our new space station to our designated 22,500 mile altitude, our secret position above the satellite communication satellites,” said Ryan. “Suzi, you will need several minutes of side thrusters from the shuttle remaining with you until your position is slowed into an exact geostationary position; the computers are programmed to do the work, but you must monitor the progress. By that time Kathy Pringle will have completed her first flight as copilot on the next flight with Maggie. Then we can get both shuttles operational on our “test flights” as I’ve told everybody down there. Once this “beer can” of Mr. Jones is stationary, we can begin bringing up our panels, spiders, and materials to get the first section of our own space station together.

“Our nearest neighbor will be a private communications satellite; it has no cameras aboard, and the owner of the communications company is a friend of mine, and he won’t, or can’t really check to see what we are doing up here. His satellite will be at the exact same stationary position directly above the equator, 20 miles directly below our Space Station, and will help hide our new headquarters from viewers on Earth.

“For our next flight into orbit, we will again use our Cloaking Devices when the two shuttles meet up in orbit. Most of Earth’s systems won’t be able to track us once we are out of the lower atmosphere, and I hope, will not have much interest in doing so. I’m sure several dozen powerful telescopes could watch what is going on up here, but only a few of them have the strength to see us building our platform 22,500 miles above Earth. From now on, the shuttles will need 10 percent more liquid hydrogen fuel for the extra burns to get up to our new altitude. Extra tanks will be installed on the cargo bay walls behind the cockpit. Your future cargos will also include an extra 100-pound cylinder of liquid hydrogen, from which the shuttles can siphon off fuel up here if necessary.

“Once up here, the three Astermines will not return to Earth. Astermine One and Two will be constantly on the go, heading out to either an asteroid or our moon, using Asterspace Three as a cargo hauler. We might even get to the Asteroid Belt one day, or Mars, to search for materials to formulate into new building materials to continue our advancements in space. Our new space ship, America One, and the small gas station we intend to build up, here will take all of the building supplies we currently have on Earth.

As far as our asteroid mining is concerned, we have a maximum of four to five months to visit and mine DX2014; after that, DX2014 will be too far away from Earth. However, our area of space will be visited by a second much larger asteroid sixteen months later, this time over ten miles across. Her name is DX2016 and she will pass by 2.12 million miles from Earth. Taking into account this asteroid’s far greater speed and distance, we will be able to achieve only two thirty-day visits before she heads out of range. By the time DX2016 arrives, we will all be up here in our new space station, and be able use all six of our craft to mine her.”

“Will we be taking rock down to Earth? Would we land on the airfield? How will we get back into space without the C-5?” asked Jonesy.

“It all depends on the U.S. Government and the tactics they employ to either help us or destroy us. I think the playing field will change once we arrive on Earth with our first valuable cargo. The interest in our company could change from a power play to just plain greed. In other words, Mr. Jones, I don’t know. All I care about right now is getting all of our equipment up here. Once that is accomplished, we are free to do our own thing up here; then I can think about what’s next.

“To get back to our mining missions…once DX2016 gets out of range, there will be no asteroid near-passes for a decade, so we will have no choice but to either go out farther to find one, or, maybe mine our neighbor, the moon. If we are noticed there, that will piss off everybody on Earth who thinks they own it. Our last resort is that we could go to Mars and begin mining there in 2016. Since NASA has equipment on Mars that will make them mad, as well. Our arrival on Mars could also make NASA look stupid. Mars will be closest to Earth during the third week of May 2016, 46.8 million miles away, and again in 2018 on July 27, 35.8 million miles away. These times are great opportunities for everybody to get there, including us. We will be more advanced enough to set up a permanent base for the two-year period, and return to our automated gas station to replenish fuels.

“Our team in Hangar One is working on larger ion drives and hydrogen thrusters for all of our spacecraft. Asterspace Three was designed to transport our cargoes from lower space orbit to our higher space orbit, but now we have this Russian space station. Asterspace Three’s interior design and accommodations are to be made more comfortable for longer distance travel to help with the mining expeditions. Also her large open plan cargo compartment will be fitted with liquid gas tanks that can be installed when necessary, six of them. Much like a gas tanker, her second job will be to supply our space gas station one day.

“In addition, Astermine Two’s forward supply compartment, the compartment for astronaut supplies is to be modernized into a living area with horizontal sleeping units, horizontal sleeping is possible in the Astermine craft due to the electromagnets in her floor area, and also a bath-bag system for long-distance travel. Much like the large freight trucks around today, her second compartment will be turned into a more comfortable living area for you astronauts.

“Finally, it is time to name our new space station. From now on, our new ex-Russian Space Station will be called after one of my favorite Russian cosmologists; Yarkovsky Effects of meteoroids or asteroids.” I know you have never heard of this man, he died in 1902, but thanks to him, my idea of mining asteroids came about, from his work and ideas of possible refraction of asteroids out of their exact paths. Much of the work that is currently being done is based on his theories of moving asteroids, or smaller meteors away from paths which would collide with Earth. So I’m naming this ship Ivan, plain and simple; all radio work now to do with Mr. Jones’ “beer can” will be Ivan, understand?” Everybody nodded, smiling.

“Also good news for you pilots, our newest shuttle, Sierra Bravo III for our radio communications is a third of the way to completion. I decided a couple of months ago to build a third, more powerful, more modern equipped shuttle to increase the speed of our payloads into space. I’m hoping that she will be ready by Christmas, and we will have the media, government officials, and hopefully the President arrive to launch our new shuttle into space. I’m hoping that we can use a juggling system to launch our needed equipment faster and faster. The VIPs will be told that Sierra Bravo III will be testing new radioactive protective sleeves to take the waste into space. I’m going to ask NASA to develop a sleeve for us, and we can even take a news team up into space to show it being sent off in the direction of the sun. I’m sure a news team would be happy to get a free ride into space.

“Let’s move on. Once we have Ivan at 22,500 miles altitude, it will take the next shuttle ten orbits, and 29,000 miles an hour to reach it in a five-day orbital mission. The thrusters will then need to slow it down to 6,700 miles an hour over the eleventh orbit as it rises up to the station. This is a large waste of time; to get in the window of three, maybe even four launches a month, we need to practice a direct flight to and from Ivan. This direct flight path will be possible after two long thrusts from the hydrogen thrusters, while completing two accelerating orbits of Earth. The computer scenarios show that we can reduce the flight time by three days on the first flight; this is the main reason our new thrusters are being built. Imagine if we were in Earth’s atmosphere; we could easily use wing airbrakes or afterburners to accelerate and brake to lower the travel time. Unfortunately, in a vacuum, we would go directly past, due to hydrogen-thruster acceleration and deceleration times. Remember, changes in speed take forever up here. Computer readouts show that the return journey, even though it is the same distance, will take eight hours longer than the outward flight, due to three Earth orbits being needed for deceleration, and to align the craft to our usual reentry window.

“The out-going shuttle will climb up and fly in formation with the returning shuttle for the last orbit only on each swap over, using our Cloaking Devices to show only one shuttle up here. Also, the exiting shuttle will fly above the returning shuttle, and within two hundred feet to show one glint of sunlight down to Earth, or one moving light or “star”, and not two “stars” flying in formation. I’m sure more interest will be elicited from Earth once we get busier. Any questions?”

Twelve hours later Jonesy said goodbye to Maggie. There was a chance they wouldn’t see each other again, and they hugged for a while. She was in command of the empty Sierra Bravo II shuttle returning to Earth with Ryan as copilot. Penny, with Suzi as her copilot, would be flying Sierra Bravo I back to Earth once Maggie lifted off with the next load in ten days’ time, a day after VIN and Jonesy were to leave for DX2014 in Astermine One.

Jonesy watched as the shuttle slowly moved away from Ivan, and thirty minutes later was just a speck on the horizon below them, rapidly accelerating with her hydrogen rockets, several miles away.

He and VIN had time to prepare for their flight to DX2014 and they spent most days riding miles on the exercise bike.

Ivan had changed since Suzi and Mr. Rose had set up camp, which included placing plants and vines under lamps; the lamps were bright and often VIN wanted to wear sunglasses while riding the bike. He and Suzi were now stationed in the second sleeping chamber; Penny, Mr. Rose and Jonesy had the other chamber, and gave the couple their privacy.

Another six days were needed before Ivan’s onboard computers, working together with Sierra Bravo I’s computers, made Ivan a geostationary satellite, 22,497 miles above Earth.

Chapter 22

DX2014 - Asteroid Mining

A couple of days later and after the next shuttle had docked with the last supplies for their trip, Jonesy and VIN, now dressed comfortably in lower half space suits, slowly drifted away from Ivan in Astermine One. VIN could see the remaining crew through one of Ivan’s portals waving goodbye and, for once in his life he felt scared, and gulped at what he and Jonesy were going to attempt. In this small, cramped spacecraft, with a cockpit the size of a minivan’s interior, they were going to fly farther than any man had ever flown from Earth before. Three million miles farther. DX2014 was currently 4,985,988 miles away, travelling at 3,020 miles an hour and getting closer to Earth by 1,907 miles every hour.

Their flight would take twelve days; Astermine One would close in on the asteroid 4,490,000 miles from Earth. Earth’s orbit around the sun was on a tangent to the asteroid, and the mining craft had to first accelerate out of its geostationary position to Earth and turn back in the opposite direction from Earth’s continuous orbit around the sun. In other words, they had to head out in nearly the opposite direction to Earth’s sun orbit.

Jonesy didn’t have to worry much as the five computers aboard the spacecraft would automatically plot their course to the asteroid’s ever changing position. The computer showed that their destination was close to 500,000 miles in front of where the asteroid was currently located.

Their total mission was fifty-one days; twelve days out, thirty days mining, and nine days back to space station Ivan. The 51-day duration, gave Ryan the opportunity of six possible ten-day launches during that time; the first one was scheduled for the next day; its mission, to get enough panels into outer space to build the first cube.

The spiders needed thirty hours to weld two panels together and the sixth flight would bring up the last walls to complete Cube One, as Ryan called it. On the shuttle’s sixth return flight, the first four tons of the returning treasure from the asteroid would be taken to Earth.

It had been impossible for Ryan’s team to figure out how to weigh the treasure on the asteroid. They had estimated a 1 to 9 percent maximum gravity to Earth on the potentially all-metal piece of rock. The scientists had worked out that each aluminum canister full of heavy rock from the desert around the airfield would weigh 1,250 pounds on Earth. The thirty empty canisters in the second, third and fourth compartments aboard Astermine One would return to Earth with about twenty tons of rock.

In orbit, VIN moved the thirty canisters previously taken to Ivan into the three compartments in Astermine One; some were filled with liquid xenon fuel, some contained oxygen cylinders, food and water, and others held mining equipment.

The canisters were moved with a little help from the onboard 25-pound electromagnet. As Ryan had explained about the large electromagnets in his large space ship, each Astermine craft also had a smaller version placed under the skin in the lower belly area of the craft, in-between where its three one-foot legs would deploy for the spacecraft to land on the asteroid.

Made of neodymium, this magnet had two important reasons to be there other than to repel cosmic rays. The first reason was to aid the craft in landing on an asteroid covered, hopefully, with metal; the magnet would help bond the craft to the asteroid. The second reason was to give the crew aboard the craft 15-25 percent of Earth’s gravity during their long journey into space. This artificial gravity would stop anything from floating about, and the pilots could sleep without restraints in the flight chairs—which were designed to extend into beds—and also allow them to use metal knives and forks on metal plates.

Since the magnet couldn’t be turned off, the craft’s hydrogen thrusters had to be more powerful than the pull of the magnet and any gravitational pull, to propel the craft off the asteroid for their return flight.

“So, where do we go from here, partner?” asked VIN as Ivan slowly floated away behind them.

“These ion thrusters, or drives, whatever Ryan wants to call them, sure wouldn’t win a drag race,” said Jonesy. Our speed has increased twenty miles an hour in the last thirty minutes. It’s going to take us two days to get up to speed. I still think liquid hydrogen is a far better bet at least for initial acceleration. This is plain boring. When is our first communication scheduled with Earth?”

“Three hours,” replied VIN.

On board, all Ryan’s five spacecraft had the same Russian-designed communications system as was on Ivan, an old form of Morse code with which they could communicate secretly. Due to the long distance communications from DX2014, each message was expected to take four or more minutes for the signals to reach Earth. No listening devices outside Ryan’s system could tell what the messages were, or where they came from; they would just sound like space static.

“Jonesy, we don’t need to drag race up here, liquid hydrogen usage is ten times more per hour than the xenon fueled ion drives, and the liquid hydrogen is better for slowing down. So it doesn’t really matter how fast we are travelling, it looks all the same outside, and I think slowing down is far more important than accelerating. There is nothing to do, partner, so I’m going to catch some shut eye for a few hours. I wonder what it’s like on Earth today; I seem to be forgetting what it was like living down there.”

Forty-eight hours later they passed the 240,000 mile mark; they were now farther away from Earth than the moon and, as Jonesy described to ground control, Earth looked like a little blue and white volleyball.

All the men could do, apart from monitoring the readouts and their curve toward the incoming asteroid, was watch movies on their tablets, play chess, and watch the moon. Earth was behind them, now the size of a tennis ball, and just visible on their port side.

Astermine One was a slow, extremely low-powered craft, compared to the shuttle. The two small, forward motion ion thrusters—the first thruster Ryan’s team had made—used minimum amounts of xenon gas. Jonesy did not believe that the xenon motors were strong enough to actually make a piece of paper flutter if placed behind the motors, but in space, they continuously propelled the craft forward, its speed always increasing.

The computers closed down the two ion drives seventy-two hours later at 29,360 miles an hour, five days into their mission. There was no need to go any faster; the ion drives had done their job. In another seventy-two hours, the craft’s computers would ignite one of the liquid-hydrogen side thrusters for the first time to begin the long sweeping curve aligning them to their rendezvous path with DX2014.

Slowly, the days passed; they did not have the comforts of the much larger space inside Ivan. They did have one of the bag-type baths in a closet on the rear wall between the rear of the pilot’s chair and the round wall of half of the round docking port that took up room on the flight deck. The other half was in the cargo compartment. With a pint of water each time, the crew managed to bathe themselves before putting the lower half of their space suits back on. Usually one of the two employed the bath-bag while the other slept. VIN left his new legs on while bathing; they were now a permanent part of his body. The connections to the remains of his real legs would be checked by the doctor only on his return. Due to the small pseudo-gravity from the magnetic battery, there were no vertical beds in Astermine.

The spacecraft’s cockpit was a little shorter and narrower than the shuttle’s flight deck. The exact same connecting or docking port was in the usual position projecting out of the rear wall of the flight deck, which made the cockpit a tight place to live. On one side of the rear wall was the aft hatch to the storage compartment, which had their supplies. It was full of canisters and there was no way to get farther into the craft’s belly, into the third compartment, as the wall was a solid fuel tank.

They were getting closer to their destination and outer wall doors to the hydrogen thrusters opened on each side of the craft for the first time. These two hydrogen thruster motors, each the size of a ten-pound electric motor, were automatically positioned on arms which extended them outside the craft on two-foot-long struts. Now they faced forward, and once every hour both burned for ten seconds, reducing the craft’s speed by a few hundred miles an hour at a time.

These two maneuverable motors would be the only thrusters Jonesy would use to land and to take off from the asteroid, apart from the rear ion drives, which could only thrust the craft in a forward direction. He could turn the thrusters to face any direction: to the side, up, down, forward, or back, to change the trajectory or angle of the shuttle. Instead of the usual ailerons on the wings and tail of any atmospheric aircraft, these two hydrogen motors did the same job, and could point in any direction independently. One could even face the side of the craft and push it in a reverse-thrust maneuver.

By this time life aboard Astermine One was getting monotonous. There were only so many computer games one could play, seven games of chess was Jonesy’s limit for one week, and the hard drives full of movies on board were films both astronauts had already watched down on Earth. Earth was now the size of a dime, a small blue planet in space. VIN and Jonesy looked through the portal often to see it. The blue planet was now stationary on the left side of their craft as they swung in on their long curve to meet up with the incoming asteroid.

The space radar screen, as Jonesy called it, was surprisingly similar to an atmospheric radar screen on Earth. On day ten, they approached the asteroid, now showing up on the radar screen only a few hundred thousand miles ahead. Earth was now at ninety degrees outside their port or left portals, and the moon, slightly larger than an average star, could be seen close to Earth. The sun never seemed to change in the distance; a small round distant light about the size of a quarter that often gave them slight gray shadows in the cockpit.

Twenty-four hours later the forward thrusters brought their speed down to 7,000 miles an hour; the craft was still in a left-banking curve with Earth now at a 120 degree angle to them in the left side forward portal. It looked like they were heading toward Earth at a tangent, pretty close to the way they had headed away.

The computers were right on target, preparing to get them alongside the asteroid, now only 60,000 miles away. They would only be able to see it at a distance of twenty miles.

DX2014 was a small, oblong, hot dog-shaped asteroid, three miles long and a mile wide. Even if it entered Earth’s atmosphere, ninety percent of it would burn up, and the rock wouldn’t cause a major catastrophe. The only importance DX2014 had to Earth’s space watchers was that she passed within a million miles of Earth every few decades. The current path into the vicinity was picked up around 2001 by a team at Kitt Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, which plotted every potentially dangerous piece of rock larger than a small-sized car in the solar system.

DX2014 had an elongated orbit around the sun, and several years earlier had passed as close to Mars as it did Earth. The asteroid was also slow-moving, which made it less dangerous compared to others traveling a hundred times faster. Its speed was what interested Ryan; it would be slightly easier to land on a slow asteroid than one traveling at a 100,000 miles an hour, plus it spent more time close to Earth, making it easier to connect with.

Over the next several hours, the distance closed. Astermine One’s computers were curving her flight path toward the path of the asteroid, which was now moving slightly faster than the spacecraft. The asteroid would travel past the spacecraft’s right side, about a mile away, and then Astermine One’s computers would blast its hydrogen thrusters to match its forward movement, and carefully position the craft within a mile of the rock for Jonesy to go to manual control. Then it would be Jonesy’s job to match her tumbling, and gently bring the craft down to where he thought was the best landing site.

Three hours later the asteroid was visible on the starboard bow, and Jonesy could study its rotating movements. Not only was it rotating slowly sideways at nearly two rotations an hour, it was very slowly rotating back over front, about once an hour.

“I’m going to feel sick on that thing for a whole month,” said VIN, once he had closed all compartments, cleaned up the cockpit and strapped himself down, fully suited. Jonesy wasn’t fully suited as Ryan and the scientists had ordered them to be. He needed total concentration and the experience of hundreds of hours in the simulator where he practiced landing on this small piece of rock. He didn’t want to be covered by the suit and, if something went wrong, death would instantaneous. Nobody was coming out to rescue them anyway.

“VIN, get the signal off to Ryan that we are within three miles of the asteroid’s rear and we should be on the ground in a couple of hours. We will send the success signal once the ‘eagle has landed’.” VIN typed the message into the keyboard on the dash, much like an email.

Jonesy had practiced this landing, certainly the hardest one he would ever attempt, with hundreds of landing simulations in the Astermine simulator. This time there was no room for error. The artificial training certainly helped, but nothing was the same as the real thing. The asteroid loomed large as Jonesy manually took them in closer.

“We must find a flat landing spot,” said Jonesy. “VIN, look through the side portals to see if you can find a rocky type outcrop we can land next to; maybe a flat piece of ground next to some sort of crater, cliff or incline. I’ll look forward. I don’t want just a flat piece of ground. The scientists said that there could be more chances of small rock accumulation in crevices, or by crater walls.”

Both men studied the slow turning rock for several minutes. With the hydrogen thrusters, Jonesy could accelerate the craft forward or slow it down, and first he went forward from the rear of the rock to the front with the thrusters propelling them forward.

They reached the bow of the large asteroid, and he slowed them and the front of the rock began to move ahead of them. Jonesy also had to move the craft with the slow tumbling of the asteroid in two different directions and this was taking all his concentration. It also seemed that there were certain areas where something was gently pulling them in, and he had to change the angle of the thrusters slightly to stay at 500 feet.

“It seems to have some gravitational, or maybe a magnetic pull. I feel the craft wanting to go closer. Power still at 15 percent.”

“The back end of the asteroid is coming around behind us,” warned VIN, and Jonesy compensated by following the nose of the rock down.

“There!” said VIN a few minutes later. “There is a crater just coming into sight below us!” He pointed to a large crater about 800 feet across with a crater wall on the forward side about a hundred feet or so high. “It looks like something plowed into that hole. It looks like this asteroid was hit by another, and the area underneath the cliff doesn’t look shiny at all.”

“Looks as good a place as any,” and Jonesy pushed the switch to extend the legs. A light above the switch went green a few seconds later showing that the tripod legs were down and locked. “She certainly wants to get down there in a hurry,” said Jonesy, using the thrusters to rotate the craft over the wide crater. He floated the craft down to within 200 feet of the rough surface and slightly to the side of where he wanted to put her down. “Any rocks larger than a foot?” he asked.

“There seems to be a rough area about fifty or so feet from the wall,” VIN answered.

“I’m going to have to take her farther away from the crater wall. It seems to be pulling us in at an angle. There is quite a pull on the craft. I have the thrusters at 20 percent power, and we are still being pulled down. This is certainly not the correct gravitational pull that is supposed to be on such a small asteroid” He moved a dozen more feet away from hovering over the cliff, lined up the craft at a ninety degree angle to the rock, always compensating for the roll. “Here we go, partner, 100 feet to touch down. I hope they made those legs strong. Crap! We are being pulled in. Thrust power to forty percent, forty five, altitude 50 feet…power 55 percent….60….70 percent,” and they landed on the asteroid with enough force to bounce the craft’s legs and make VIN’s neck muscles feel the landing as the legs took the hit. “Power down to thirty percent….twenty…ten….power off.”

“That was pretty hard!” observed VIN. “Were you expecting that?”

“Nope,” replied the pilot. “The guys back home thought that I might need 20 percent to a maximum 30 percent due to the expected gravity of less than 10 percent of earth’s, but I don’t think they expected this asteroid to have such a strong gravitational pull. It must be magnetic. VIN, Send your message that the eagle has landed, and also tell them I needed 70 percent thrust on both motors to bring her down. I’m pretty worried that we could be stuck here. Loaded with rocks and things, I don’t see us getting off that easily, even at 100 percent thrust, empty. VIN, see what they think.”

Four minutes later there was jubilation back in Nevada upon hearing that Jonesy landed Astermine One on the asteroid. It only lasted several seconds until the lead scientist read the second half of the report.

“They needed 70 percent thrust to stop from crashing into the asteroid, a possible magnetic interference” he told Ryan, who looked at him, his face growing white.

“What do you mean?” he asked the scientist.

“Mr. Jones needed 70 percent thrust to land her hard. That means with any load of materials aboard, and using 100 percent thrust from the two hydrogen thrusters, whatever pulled them down onto the asteroid might not allow them to leave.”

“Oh, my God!” said Ryan. “Why didn’t you guys compute that an asteroid could have such a powerful magnetic pull?”

“Why would we?” was the reply. “We expected that an added 10 percent thrust might be needed to equal the electromagnet if there was any opposite pull from the asteroid. There should be little to no gravity. Even if the thrust needed to liftoff was three times as much as we predicted, maximum possible; 30 percent, there was still 10 percent thrust remaining. We never assumed that a 70 percent thrust would be needed to just land her.”

“How much could a load hamper her liftoff?” Ryan asked.

“The possible magnetic force from the asteroid is not so important,” replied the man in the white coat. “It will be the magnetic weight of the cargo inside Astermine One which will add to her liftoff problems.”

“So what would a new thrust equation show? That we are short of power?” Ryan asked.

“It is impossible to say, but I think 100 percent thrust could be what Mr. Jones is going to need to lift off with minimum cargo, say one to two tons,” the scientist replied doing calculations on a pad.

“So, our choices are to get them off with a ton or two of rock, or take them off right now and head back empty?”

“There is a third scenario,” suggested the scientist and Ryan looked at him questioningly. “Mr. Noble could cut away the electromagnet based in the floor of the craft, haul it out of the craft, and leave it on the asteroid for later pickup, to save the weight.”

“Is that possible?” Ryan asked.

“It would probably take him several hours after emptying the three center compartments; the electromagnetic batteries are screwed into the floor of the craft. They could cut off parts of the metal with a mining torch and take it out piece by piece. The electromagnetic metal, neodymium, is probably a hundred times more magnetic than any precious metal cargo the same size. The electromagnet is about the same size as ten car batteries in each of the three compartments. By cutting away pieces, he could remove them, and each piece would help with liftoff. If he took out the whole electromagnetic system he could reduce any magnetic pull of the asteroid by up to 30 to 35 percent.”

“So, Mr. Jones would still need 100 percent thrust to get off?” Ryan asked. The scientist nodded. “Let’s say nothing for now, but I want the new, more powerful hydrogen thrusters in the other two craft before they are sent into space. We need the teams to work hard and fast to finish Astermine Two. Can we exchange Astermine One’s thrusters in space?” The team around him said that it was very possible. “How much time did it take to manufacture the magnet, and how much did it cost?”

“Six months and 3.25 million dollars,” was the reply.

“Get started on a new one that can be fitted and taken out easier. Oh God! I hope we can get them off that rock!” Ryan muttered. “Or we are going to have to use Astermine Two to go and get them.”

VIN looked around, still strapped into his seat. Outside the portals, the surroundings looked like they had landed on a rough and bumpy broken-up gray aircraft carrier deck. The cliff or crater wall on one side stood high above them, about sixty feet away, and the sun drew slight variations in color and shadow movement on the dull surface. The shadows moved eerily, like creeping snakes, as the rock rotated. VIN actually did feel a little seasick.

“Kid, I have this horrible feeling that somebody didn’t do their homework right, and that we are stuck here, in between two mating magnets.”

“We could always throw out all the equipment,” VIN suggested and Jonesy nodded at that idea.

“I’m sure that we might have to do that with the whole load if we are not careful.”

Because they were so connected to the rock, VIN didn’t have to get out and secure the craft to the surface. They had brought large steel pegs and a large-headed mallet to pound the half-dozen pegs into the asteroid to tie them down.

The crew of Astermine One had already done a day’s work and decided to sleep before VIN would go out on his first discovery mission.

They wouldn’t experience such a thing as day and night, more like a dirty gray and black arctic night with months and months of semi-darkness. Their clocks had changed with computer-controlled lighting, turning lights on and off to replicate day and night. Now they would be scheduled to sleep twelve-hour nights and stay awake for twelve-hour days. With no alcohol aboard, Jonesy found that the extra hours of sleep made him more relaxed, and he always felt better after a couple of weeks of not drinking.

The next “morning” over breakfast, they viewed the outside of the craft through the six side portals and the larger two-foot-by-three-foot-long, foot-thick glass windshield. Nothing had changed.

“Looking for monsters out there?” asked Jonesy, watching VIN peer out of his side portals while breakfasting on a self-heating pouch of scrambled eggs and ham and a cold pouch of orange juice, without the usual additive.

“Do we have any weapons, just in case?” VIN asked. “You know we Marines never leave base without something.”

“Not that I know of. Maybe take the mallet,” replied Jonesy looking serious. “It should pound in a few alien heads….or whatever they have on top of their necks….that is if they even have necks,” he tried to say, thinking about what could actually be out there. “Let’s assume they need to have teeth to eat you,” the older man continued, trying hard to keep his “I’m serious” look. “Or, they could suck you up like you eat that black fish egg crap!”

“Oh shut up. If you think you are so funny, Captain Jones, maybe you should go out first and scare them to death with your jokes,” replied VIN not finding his partner very funny at a time like this.

“Sorry, partner, not in my job description. Hey! You have the metal legs. If you see something, give them a karate kick to their whatevers, and then look for a head, and pound it in with the mallet. That should squash them into jelly….if they are not jelly already!”

By now he was smiling. They had discussed the chance of alien life several times during the boring trip out to the rock, and since Jonesy knew that it was his partner’s job to go out there, he had thought up weird and freighting ideas of what extraterrestrial life could look like. He looked over to his partner to see that VIN wasn’t listening anymore. He had his helmet on, and was telling Jonesy to secure it; and he wouldn’t hear anything through it.

It was time to get the docking port raised out of its shaft, so that VIN could get out, and then Jonesy realized that it was going to be hard for his partner to get out of the top with all this unexpected pull. Their spacesuits had as their major components; metal. They had practiced this several times wearing full suits in Hangar Seven before they left. Luckily for them, the team designing and manufacturing the docking hatches had welded aluminum ladders into all the three-foot-wide docking tubes so that they could do the necessary drills in a heavy gravity situation, and tie cords to them in space.

Jonesy was already thinking about how much design had gone into this mission, and also how much had been omitted; the weak thrusters, and now the asteroid’s heavy magnetism, had not been considered.

Lucky for VIN the designers also placed a folding ladder inside the top part of the hatch; when extended, it would help the astronaut float across the top of Astermine One, if need be. Now VIN would have to use it as a real ladder and not just for floating handholds.

When he was on the surface, VIN would signal Jonesy to release the outer side doors on the three rear compartments.

Jonesy was already pondering how to load the craft. Now, with the canisters too heavy to just float in full, the whole loading system would have to be rethought.

By this time VIN was in the hatch. Jonesy sealed it and checked that the intercom worked. “Outside temperature, minus 163. I’m going to raise the docking port only three feet, the same height we used to practice on Earth. Did you copy, partner?”

“I checked it before I left, but thanks. How am I going to do this one giant leap of man thing Neil Armstrong did when he landed on the moon? I might lose my footing and fall over the side of the craft,” VIN worried.

“Maybe try the words ‘one giant screw-up for mankind?’ You can’t use the same words. Make up your own. I have the camera in here filming you. Just grab your American flag, the flagpole and sort of throw them out, so that you can use both hands on the ladder. And remember, partner, with your metal legs, you are pretty heavy, and you nearly broke the ladder the last time you climbed up it at the airfield. I reckon you could weigh the same out here.”

VIN did as suggested. When Jonesy sealed the inner hatch and released the outer hatch, he climbed up the internal rungs, opened the heavy hatch, and played out the fold-up ladder across the cold, shiny frozen roof of Astermine One and down the side until it touched the ground. Then, he slowly reversed back into the docking port and grabbed the American flag and pole. “How the hell am I going to get this flag up? Maybe I should get a stick of dynamite and blow a hole in the darn surface to place the pole in.”

“I would say that your first foray out there, Mr. Noble, is to find loose platinum rocks to place around the base of the flag pole. I hope the flag doesn’t flutter. It’s not as pretty as the one Neil Armstrong left on the lunar surface.”

“At least he didn’t have to blow a darn hole in the surface!” replied VIN standing with his head outside the craft and for the first time looking around. “It sure is beautiful out here.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is, and if I remember, the Apollo crew had to make a rock pile for their flagpole too,” added Jonesy.

VIN threw the flag and pole as hard as he could and he was surprised to see the flag on its metal pole head out and then, just as it would on Earth, hit the ground several feet from the craft. He was only fourteen feet above the ground and, even if he didn’t hear it hit, he was sure that it would have made one hell of a noise if he were on Earth. The flag actually bounced as it struck the surface of Asteroid DX 2014.

Carefully, rung by rung, he maneuvered backwards to the side of the craft and, he let his feet find the rungs going down to the ground; there were thirteen before he touched solid ground. Jonesy was filming him from one of the side portals and could only get the back of VIN’s space suit into the picture.

“One small step for a man, one giant leap for Asteroid Mining,” said VIN and felt his feet touch the surface of the asteroid at the same time.

“What do you mean ‘a man’?” asked Jonesy.

“That’s what Neil really said,” VIN replied. “He said, ‘One small step for a man’ but nobody seemed to hear the extra letter ‘a’, and I’m sure it sounded better without it. So I’m saying this for Neil, he was one of my heroes, and I just added the Asteroid Mining thing. Are you getting this on camera?”

“Yep! Even with your speech now that you have stepped away from the craft. Do you want to say anything else, like hello to Santa Claus, or are you going to check out a perimeter and grab some rocks for our flag? Did you take the mallet?”

“No I forgot, but it looks pretty quiet out here.”

“There is no atmosphere, so no noise. It better be pretty quiet out there, partner.”

“Except for your crap!” replied VIN.

Jonesy kept the camera on his partner as he took a few steps to the darker, less shiny area below the rim of the crater. At the same time he sent a message to Earth stating that VIN was on the ground and that the gravity, VIN thought, about five percent as strong as on Earth.

VIN looked hard trying to see contrast on the ground. There was little difference between the grays on the surface, until his right foot connected with something. It was a loose, round, rough rock, about five inches across. He bent over and picked it up. It was heavy and he returned to the rear of the craft, forgetting the flag and telling Jonesy to open the cargo doors to the three rear compartments.

Jonesy did so, and VIN pushed hard to open the three-foot-by-three-foot aluminum door. Inside was the machine that would analyze the rock he was holding. The MMA, or Magnetic Metal Analyzer, was on a table that slid out. It slid out of the door and VIN unfolded its two legs, placed them on the ground, locked them, and then let the three-foot-high machine glide out on its small wheels. After he locked the machine into position, he asked Jonesy to turn it on from inside the cockpit. He could have done so himself, but the fingers of his suit were large and bulky, and it was easier for Jonesy to do it.

Every now and again, VIN checked behind him, expecting to see something creeping up on him, but nothing was there.

The machine began blinking at him. He couldn’t hear anything outside but slowly, one by one the twelve lights in a single row, the same lights he had practiced with in the Hangar, went from red, to orange, to green.

The rock was heavy and fit into the feeder-box mechanism; it worked much like a DVD player that closed when a disc was placed into it.

“This first rock is heavy, about the size of a baseball, and I have it in.”

“It seems to be reading it,” replied Jonesy. “It’s supposed to take thirty seconds.”

Exactly thirty seconds later the readout showed in the cockpit as well as on the front of the machine; first metal symbols and then the name and quantity of each metal. This piece of rock only had two metals.

“Hey, Jonesy, this rock looks like the rock Ryan wanted us to find more than any other.”

“Well, it states Pt78, native platinum, 92.1 percent; and Ir77, iridium, 6.8 percent. Partner, it looks like you just hit pay dirt with your landing, a gold mine on the first try. Sorry, I mean platinum mine. Well done! I’m sure this whole asteroid could be a traveling platinum mine. I’ll send back the description to Ryan. See if there is more out there.”

For the next hour, VIN walked around looking for rocks. Most were smaller than the first one, and he carried them back a couple at a time. Then he found one twice the size. It was heavy, he struggled to lift it and carry it to the detector. It just fit into the square slot and the readout seventy seconds later showed 89 percent platinum and 10.1 percent iridium. Again, no other metal showed up. VIN couldn’t figure out why there was a slight discrepancy in the amounts, but that wasn’t his job.

By the time three hours were up, his maximum allowance for spacewalking, he had collected and tested a couple of dozen rocks. As Jonesy had suggested correctly, this was native platinum; every test showed at least an 87 percent quantity of the noble metal, seconded by iridium. One smaller rock had shown a 3 percent amount of nickel ore with 8 percent of iridium, but the platinum was still in the 88 percent range.

VIN also had erected the flagpole; the lifeless flag just hung from the pole toward the asteroid’s surface and didn’t move. The recently collected rocks kept it from falling over.

Jonesy sealed the rear doors as a tired VIN climbed up the ladder, over the top of the spacecraft, entered the tube, closed the hatch and waited for Jonesy to pressurize him so that he could take a nap. Working on a piece of rock worth hundreds of trillions of dollars with a heavy magnetic pull was certainly darn hard work.

Chapter 23

New Hydrogen Thrusters

Thirteen days before VIN’s landing on the asteroid, Ryan was happy. He had just received the good news that Astermine One had left Ivan and was on her way to DX2014. He went to Hangar Two to see the first load of aluminum panels about to be transferred over to Hangar Six to be lifted and placed into the shuttle’s hold. The next shuttle’s liftoff was only twelve hours away.

Refueling was complete; the meticulous solid-fuel refueling system took twenty-four hours. The two hybrid rockets on each side of the cargo bay were opened by cutting the last graphite weld that had sealed the fuel in the combustion chamber for the previous flight. It took a day just to cut one side open. Then the top half of the tanks were lifted off, the combustion chamber opened up, and solid cakes of black rocket fuel, specially molded to fit exactly into the combustion chamber, were placed in one by one. These solid fuel cakes, about three and a half feet long and on average a little over three tons each, were placed in very slowly before being pushed hard against each other. Thirty of these cakes fit into each side and the combustion chambers before they were closed and sealed. Finally, the tops of the rocket engines were replaced and, again, it took three graphite welders on each side twelve hours to seal the motors. The liquid rocket fuel would only be added at the last moment. Ryan had already purchased 150 tons of this specially made solid fuel, at $90,000 a ton.

Now the shuttle’s cargo could be loaded as the liquid rocket fuel in the hybrid rocket system would be fed into the shuttle just before launch. Once the cargo was loaded, which took an hour, the liquid hydrogen pumps needed eleven hours to fill the liquid fuel tanks with 2,840 gallons in each of the two ten-ton pressure vessels in the forward area of the rocket motor, a cost to Ryan of $650 per gallon to manufacture. This added another $4 million to the fuel bill. In all, each lift cost $17.5 million for the first and second stage rides. In total, it took twenty million dollars to launch to get eight million dollars’ worth of aluminum panels into space.

The timing was a big gamble and Ryan needed Astermine One to return with some treasure. His three billion dollar investment was 70 percent used up; he had enough fuel for twenty-four more shuttle flights after this one, and then he would be out of money.

Ryan watched as an extra piece of 40-foot double-thick hangar wall was placed on top of the pile of eight independently sealed panels to hide the cargo from eyes watching their every move. The same tractor that towed the C-5 Galaxy in and out of its hangar towed the long flat trailer across the apron in the hot desert sun from Hangar Two and into the coolness of Hangar Six on the opposite side.

The covering piece of hangar was then removed by the crane, and the hangar’s heavy crane was placed over the cargo; when it was connected, the whole load was lifted carefully into the shuttle’s hold an inch at a time. The hangar piece was then returned to Hangar Two on the trailer. To the eyes watching in space, if there were any, the trailer looked exactly as it had on its initial journey across the apron an hour or two earlier.

Next, the three automatic robotic spiders were placed into the hold, each in a canister. They would be turned on, connected to the first panel and operated from Ivan by Michael Pitt when he and Maggie got up there. Once they were underway, a computer included in the cargo controlled their operations.

Jonesy, Michael and Suzi were now all fully trained spacewalkers, and all had trained with VIN throughout the learning phase. Michael would spacewalk, carrying each spider one by one and placing them, floating next to the first flat aluminum panel after he had opened the thin seal with a small knife.

Then Michael would get a second panel ready and move it into place slowly next to the first panel. The panels were then locked at each end with the same type of device used on a convertible’s soft car roof. Like the human welders below them at the airfield, the robotic spiders would float an inch away, along the edges controlled by remote cameras and begin welding an extremely hot graphite compound to join the two panels together. Welding was an extremely slow process, each robot completing about one foot an hour, but the graphite compound was actually far stronger than the panels themselves; thick, black and square, the compound would be the actual frame of the completed cube. Seven of the panels on the first cube were slightly different. Two had outer hatches built into them where a complete docking port was to be added underneath, and five panels had sliding doors allowing foot traffic to pass through into the next cube, or to the corridors jutting out into space on three sides of the cube. These doors slid open sideways and were transparent. Each of the seven cubes would have two docking ports.

The first cube would need six sides, but each cube after that only needed five. The single wall between the cubes would be enough to protect the next cube if one was breached. The remaining panels, the six extra sides, would be the cubical Space Gas Station Ryan was planning to build.

Ryan’s mind came back to his watching the shuttle loading.

Finally, the last supplies for this shuttle flight, three canisters of food and one of water, and a couple of liquid hydrogen cylinders were loaded to make up an exact 4.1 ton load; when everything was tied down, the roof doors of the shuttle were closed and the inside sealed for the journey.

By the time Jonesy and VIN completed their first full travel day in Astermine One, Maggie was aiming the heavy shuttle into space with Kathy Pringle, her copilot, and two passengers, the spider technician, and shuttle pilot and spacewalker Michael Pitt.

On time, they met up with Penny Sullivan and copilot Suzi approaching them on their second orbit, one orbit before Penny would be low and slow enough to begin reentry.

On the count of three, one Cloaking Device was turned off and one was turned on. Nobody on Earth knew or realized that there were two shuttles up there. Ryan’s plan was working well.

By the end of this flight a couple of days later, Ryan heard from NASA.

“Well done Ryan, your idea of lifting up radioactive waste material has been accepted by Washington. They are willing to sign a preliminary contract of ten flights at $21 million per 3-ton load.”

“What about my asking price of $25 million a load?” Ryan countered. “That doesn’t leave much money to run my establishment here in Nevada.”

“I understand that it is costing you twenty million for each launch, but they want to test your system with the first of your ten launches over twelve months. We, NASA, will supply the three-ton single-use only protective lead shield around the cargo of radioactive waste and which will protect your employees and pilots for up to twelve hours from the time it reaches your airfield.”

“As you are aware, Bill, we are still testing our shuttles and expect to do so until the first protective cargo arrives, as you said, in twelve months’ time. If we are not ready, we might need to still test your protective lead units with one or two filled with rock or soil, and see what happens when we get up there to release them. Bill, please make Washington understand that it takes time and practice to get these new types of space flights operative. Remind them how long it took NASA to get things right, and even when they were right, there were always snags and problems. I certainly don’t want one of my shuttles exploding in atmospheric flight, or even 100,000 feet above ground, spewing three tons of radioactive waste across the United States.”

“I will do my best, but you understand Washington, Ryan. They want to see results and fast.”

“Just ask them if they are going to hold me liable if they rush me, and one of my shuttles explodes and sends tons of radioactive waste through the walls of Capitol Hill.”

“That is my next topic, Ryan. They want you to move your entire operation to Florida. I was sure that idea would cross their minds. They don’t care if Europe gets the fallout from an exploding shuttle, but they don’t seem to want Washington as a potential target. They are very brave in Washington. I know what you are going to say, you can’t do all this in a year and move your whole operation. So, Ryan, I fudged the discussion and told them that your live shuttles full of waste could head out in a southeastern direction over Texas instead of the East Coast. This suggestion seems to have done the trick for the first contract of ten cargoes, and gives you more time to change your computer programs and prepare your move over to Cape Canaveral. So try a few liftoffs in this direction, they will be watching through the eyes of the National Security Agency. It was the only way to buy you time.”

Ryan thanked his friend. “Without NASA’s knowledge, Bill, I sent out a small unmanned spacecraft to the moon as a test last week. The mining craft that went up in one of the shuttle tests is fully automated and has a sweeper-type, rock collection system which can pick up any loose small rocks and return them to us on Earth. Bill, I hope to have a ton or two of native platinum to sell in a few weeks, if the craft can transfer its cargo to my shuttle, which will return its cargo to Earth during one of my orbital test flights.”

“No wonder you lost the Space Race, you clever guy. I’m sure your treasure would be of more value than the first prize. How much can this machine of yours carry in one load?”

“I’m hoping for about two to four tons of precious metals, or at worst some iridium or rhodium,” replied Ryan.

“I have a friend at the Federal Reserve Bank. I’m sure they would be interested in any wholesale gold or platinum you bring back and, I will gladly pay top dollar for any iridium or rhodium, or any other rare earth metals I can get my hands on for our new space program. How much could your cargo be worth, Ryan?”

“About fifty to two hundred million dollars, Bill. Between you and me, the money is getting short, and the mining craft could get to the moon and back three or four times in the next twelve months. I know you need iridium and other rare earth metals for your program, so work with me, and you won’t have to buy that lousy Chinese-mined stuff for your program.”

“Deal, partner. I will help you to keep sending up these test shuttles for as long as I can. I knew there was a reason why you were doing so many test launches all of a sudden.”

Ten days after that discussion with Bill at NASA, Ryan learned that Astermine One might not be coming back at all; he was even more perturbed a couple of hours later when Jonesy sent through the first readings of the rock VIN had tested. It was pure native platinum, exactly what he had been told to expect on this asteroid by his friend at Hubble, and one 20-ton load would pay for the balance of his whole project.

This news caused him to worry about his two brave astronauts three million miles away, who might be there for eternity.

Throughout this time he spent most of every day in Hangar One watching the more powerful hydrogen thrusters being fitted into Astermine Two. He had made an immediate decision to add the thrusters the experts had been designing and building the first four hydrogen powered side-thrusters for the new space station for nearly ten years. Luckily for Ryan they were in their final stages of production, and could be fitted onto the shuttles instead.

Several months earlier he had asked the design team to remodel more of these new powerful thrusters to fit into all of the spacecraft, as well as on the side walls of the mother ship. These motors were still small compared to the massive aft thrusters in the shuttles, about twice the size that were on Astermine One, and pushed out triple the thrust. Upon hearing about the problem on the asteroid, he immediately told the team working on the new shuttle to help the hydrogen team fit them onto Astermine Two’s side struts.

These engines would now be needed on any craft heading out to DX2014. The first two engines were a week away from being completed on Astermine Two.

A few hours after hearing about Jonesy’s problem, Ryan had the solution that would actually save him and his company from financial disaster; he would send up Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Sullivan, who were both ready to fly Astermine Two; they could help Astermine One off the asteroid with their craft’s additional thrust. If they couldn’t get the first craft off, then they could return with his astronauts, and their load of cargo. Again he thanked God that he had thought to upgrade the living compartment aboard his second mining craft.

Working his teams day and night, he also had several days to change the next shuttle’s payload, and get VIN and Jonesy some help. He knew that they would never get off DX2014 with any decent load and the next ten days would be a gamble. It could even mean a double load in both returning spacecraft, or nothing!

Chapter 24

DX2014 – Can We Get Them Back?

Jonesy and VIN, unaware that Nevada had finally realized that they were not going to leave their new home with cargo, continued collecting rocks. Even though Jonesy had to stay in the cockpit most of the time to monitor the inner workings of the craft and VIN’s spacesuit readouts, he ended up nearly going crazy, often getting into a suit and joining VIN to collect the heavy rocks.

The view was breathtaking, especially when the asteroid rotated to show them Earth and the sun, or the opposite way when the Milky Way was close enough to jump up and touch; VIN was sure he had touched a star or two while trying to jump up to get them. Never on Earth were the stars so close and so bright.

Jonesy, who had flown thousands of night flights at high altitude, had never seen such beautiful space views. He promised VIN that next time they would bring a telescope and on downtime, become avid astronomers.

During the first ten days, both men collected a thousand rocks, about a quarter of the smaller rocks from a large area around the spacecraft. There were many larger rocks, rocks both men couldn’t lift, which wouldn’t fit into the canisters anyway. Working on near Earth-type gravity VIN was able to get the Magnetic Metal Analyzer to compute the weight of the load. So far the two men had collected four and a half tons of rock, of which 91 percent was pure platinum, 7 percent was iridium and 2 percent could not be identified.

The first rock gathered by VIN from the other side of the forward part of the crater, three or four hundred feet from Astermine One was a pretty, very bright silver-colored oblong rock, a little smaller than a tennis ball. There were thousands of very small rocks like these, the bigger ones the size of toy marbles that looked exactly like the first one, and actually lit up this whole area of the crater when the sun was visible. The extra light made the area look like morning dew shining in the morning sun. There was so much rock to collect that VIN still hadn’t visited the rear area of the massive crater.

Both men got excited when the readout came. The MMA showed 67 percent RH45; rhodium, 21 percent was platinum, iridium, 10 percent, and 3 percent palladium. So there were different rocks in the crater VIN realized.

VIN sent a message back about adding rhodium and small amounts of palladium to the load.

“I need to begin your flight briefing by telling you that your next mission has changed,” said Ryan two days before Maggie and Kathy Pringle were about to replace Penny Sullivan and Michael Pitt, who was now Penny’s happy copilot. Michael had been told to connect up all the panels he had up there so that the spiders could work while he was back on Earth. Suzi was to help with the next load; but, as Maggie was about to learn, their next load wasn’t panels, it was Astermine Two.

Ryan explained about the magnetic problem on DX2014, and he watched as Maggie’s face drained of blood.

“Ms. Sinclair, are you ready to fly to DX2014 to help Mr. Jones and Mr. Noble?” Maggie looked at him in shock. Ryan continued. “I just want to thank whoever it is up there for looking after me and my team and allowing me to always be ahead of the curve. We have fit Astermine Two with the more powerful thrusters to pull Astermine One off this metal asteroid. Ms. Sinclair two new and far more powerful hydrogen thrusters are being installed on Astermine Two right now. You will not need to take any mining gear, but you will take extra food, water, oxygen cylinders, xenon fuel, hydrogen fuel and empty canisters to fill with rock.

“Your new thrusters will use up fuel at a faster rate, but with the extra thrust the extra fuel could be minimal. Also the new thrusters could be used to treble your acceleration and reduce time by half. Astermine Two will be a far faster craft than Astermine One, until we get the same changes made to Astermine One. Unfortunately, we will have to bring Astermine One back to Earth to have her new engines retrofitted, something I didn’t expect. Ladies your new mission is to head out toward DX2014 exactly seven hours after you reach Ivan. Astermine Two’s five computers are being reprogrammed to get you to the asteroid; it will be a million miles closer to Earth than when Astermine One arrived on the rock, and your flight time will be seven days.

“You will locate Astermine One. Your inter-craft communications will work within a few thousand miles as usual, and you are to land as close to her as possible. We will send out instructions to Astermine One in forty-eight hours telling them of your future arrival time, and that they must leave all the machinery they can on the asteroid, even as much of their gravity electromagnet as Mr. Noble can cut out. The reason for this emergency flight is that the magnetic pull on the metal rock is nearly as much as Earth’s gravity, maybe even more. Astermine One doesn’t have the power for liftoff, loaded. We don’t even know if she can lift off empty. Also her reserves of hydrogen fuel are minimal, and we don’t want Mr. Jones to attempt takeoff until you have arrived with extra hydrogen.

“Astermine Two’s electromagnet is being redesigned to be easily removed in sections, if it is necessary to do so. Once Astermine One has the aft two-thirds of her electromagnet out, Mr. Jones will try for liftoff with a load, any load. If he can’t get off you are to help him by getting the four Kevlar cords you will take with you, connected to the bolts inside the spacecraft’s cargo area. Then, with both craft working together, you will pull Astermine One off. It will be OK to leave the roof doors of Astermine One open until you are off the asteroid and, if you can, load her up as well. So, Ms. Sinclair, with your excellent flying ability and your extra thrust, you will attempt to help Mr. Jones lift off the asteroid.

“Leave everything from both craft you don’t need to return with. Make sure that there is sufficient food, water, oxygen, xenon and hydrogen for both craft to return to Ivan with at least a week of reserve supplies, over and above your craft’s usual seven-day reserves. Remember, there is nobody here able to come and get you if something goes wrong. Ms. Sullivan, Mr. Pitt, with Suzi and me as copilots, will have to complete the shuttle flights in and out for the two shuttle flights you will be away.

“Hopefully, both craft can return fully loaded, but I would suggest a three-quarter load; fifteen tons of rock per craft to help you get off the asteroid. Try to lift off with five tons, then ten tons and finally attempt fifteen. Ms. Sinclair, you must not use any more than 66 percent of your maximum thrust for liftoff, as the other third might be needed to aid Astermine One.

“Our next mining mission will be to return to the asteroid within a month, after the new thrusters are fitted to Astermine One. The same equipment will be there to continue mining.”

***

It was two days later and just as Astermine Two reached Ivan, that Ryan received the good news from VIN. He had found rhodium, a lot of it and, with the value of this precious metal twice as much as gold and a third more than platinum, and a lighter metal, he sent back orders to continue loading the silvery rocks instead of the heavier gray platinum. He also gave them the news that Astermine Two would be there in a week and Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Pringle were coming to help them get home.

***

“Hey, partner, it looks like mission control has finally figured out that we can’t get out of here loaded,” VIN told Jonesy over breakfast, as he decoded the long message.

“I could have told him that a couple of weeks ago,” mumbled Jonesy. “What are they doing about it? Sending a UPS package of new engines or something?”

“I remember Ryan showing me new, more powerful hydrogen side-thrusters for the large space station that were half complete before we left. It seems they’ve been now installed in Astermine Two, and Maggie and Kathy are coming to get us.”

Now that sounds better than what I’ve been thinking about,” replied a relieved pilot. “If Astermine Two has more powerful thrusters, maybe she can pop us out far enough to get out of this magnetic pull. I reckon that two hundred feet is all we need to get our craft out of the problem zone, and a load back to the beer can on schedule.”

“It’s now called Ivan,” admonished VIN, always enjoying his partner’s directness.

“Kid, you can name it what you want, but that Russian vodka supplier will always be called the beer can in my book. When are the ladies due?”

“Seven days and seven hours from about ten minutes ago,” came the reply. “And that silver rock is lighter than the gray ones, and Ryan wants them packed in the canisters and up to fifteen tons, no more.”

“Good,” replied Jonesy. I think we should take out some of the canisters we have already packed away.”

“It looks like we need to take them all out,” VIN replied. “Ryan also wants us to cut out the electromagnet to help us get off. I’m assuming that this rock is more valuable than the magnet.”

“Losing the magnet will decrease our pull by a fair amount.” Damn, those canisters are heavy; it will take us a day to lift them out again. I wish we had a crane or lift of some sort,” Jonesy replied.

“I will send a message back to Ryan telling him to design us one. Remember, both of our suits have the added hydraulic lifting mechanisms. We can move them like we did to the side door and lift them off from there and make a pile to repack them again.”

“VIN, why don’t we fill a canister with those silver rocks? The weight will be less and maybe we can fit these heavier ones into Maggie’s craft when she arrives. How many empty canisters do we have?”

“About twelve, and that’s a great idea!” replied VIN.

For the next three hours VIN and Jonesy worked hard, harder than they had ever worked on the asteroid. Both were wet with sweat when the returned to the cockpit and closed down the hatch for the next twenty-one hours to rest. In three hours they had emptied eighteen canisters out of the side doors, and had begun to pile in the whiter rock— 500 pounds, the most they could lift in the first canister.

Each canister would be still less than half-full, due to the powerful pull. The scientists had worked out that 1,250 pounds of rock would fill each of the thirty canisters; with only an expected 1 to 9 percent gravity, the two men could easily carry them full, weighing only 200 to 300 pounds. Now, at 500 pounds, less than a half-full canister was the most they could lift and maneuver into the side doors. Being cylindrical, ten canisters would be lifted into position in each compartment and then individually tied down in the necessary pyramid formation.

The next day, they placed the heavier canisters in rows away from the craft, and then both men took an empty canister over to the other side of the crater and half filled it with the shiny silver marbles. VIN used the sweeper machine for the first time. It moved over the stones sweeping up the marble-sized rocks and placing them in a bag behind the sweeper. Every few minutes VIN would detach the bag and empty it into a canister. The sweeper was far faster than they could collect the small stones.

An hour later they carried the half-full containers back to the ship. They were still far lighter than the other canisters, and they filled two more before their three-hour spacewalk came to an end.

They did the same for the next three days, filling all the empty canisters half-full. Since they had no way of weighing the thousands and thousands of small rocks, they picked up one of the heavier canisters to get a sense of what 500 pounds felt like, and then judged each one they filled to be about 450 pounds, easier to carry and hopefully easier to get liftoff.

On the fourth day, they received their first coded message from Astermine Two; they were now only twenty-four hours away, the rescue craft was on schedule, and the bath bags needed modification for cleanliness!

The next day, VIN looked up as Earth passed by overhead and realized that they were actually closer; the planet had grown to look the size of a quarter again. He could even see the moon off to the left side of Earth, and the distance between the Earth and the moon had grown slightly. He worked the space-welding torch on the heavy batteries and Jonesy controlled the torch heat from inside the craft. VIN was careful not to get the torch near the outside wall of the craft, and the half-inch flame was bright white.

It took VIN two hours, and he needed Jonesy’s help to lift out three separated pieces of heavy magnet, which on Earth would have weighed less than three pounds. On this weird asteroid, each lump weighed nearly as much as a heavy canister due to its magnetic attraction to the ground below it; and now they could fill this compartment with the lighter canisters.

“Astermine Two to Astermine One, do you copy? Over,” said the radio which woke both men up with a jerk. They hadn’t heard another voice for weeks.

“Maggie, is that you?” asked a sleepy Jonesy.

“No, it’s Santa Claus, you oaf!” Maggie replied.

“Well it’s the sweetest Santa Claus voice I have ever heard in my life,” Jonesy replied happily.

“Heard many?” Maggie asked in a questioning tone. “Now, I know your mental capabilities needed to be checked out before they allowed you in the Air Force, Mr. Jones.”

“I hear you are coming to rescue us. You didn’t by chance pick up one of those nearly empty bottles from the beer can on your way through, did you?”

“No, but I do have a gift from the boss for you. He told me to tell you that our having to recue you is costing him two extra flights at twenty million apiece; but, he has no hard feelings, and supplied a bottle from his Russian friends back at base.”

“Well, send him a message that it is his damn spacecraft, and it’s totally underpowered. The most underpowered piece of junk I have ever flown. We could have got here faster in the C-5 Galaxy.”

“Now that’s the Mr. Jones I came to rescue,” laughed Maggie. “You should have us on radar. We are sweeping in behind the path of the asteroid. Your rock is 50,000 miles ahead of us and I’m coming in at 12,000 faster than the asteroid. These new thrusters are great for acceleration and braking, and we will be with you in seven hours.”

“You had better use some reverse thrust, Maggie, or you will go shooting past. How powerful are your new engines?”

“Three times more powerful than the old ones, and I don’t be a backseat driver,” she laughed. “Remember, I was certified on many different aircraft in the Air Force.”

Maggie proceeded to tell Jonesy how she was to help them off while VIN headed out to begin work. Jonesy followed him after taking down the notes from Maggie and sending off the daily report to Ryan. He didn’t tell the boss that the canisters weren’t full. He and his team could figure that one out.

Three hours later, and after cutting out the several pieces of magnet from the third compartment, which again felt like nearly a ton, they managed to load and tie down eight of the 450-pound canisters in the middle compartment; then they entered the spacecraft to wait for Maggie and Kathy. Jonesy’s math had worked out that liftoff with this weight aboard was possible at 100 percent thrust.

They had marked out a landing zone for the second craft, carrying out six full canisters to make a rectangular landing pad about 400 feet from Astermine One and closer to the lighter silver rocks. Jonesy didn’t know if debris would be thrown up from her downward thrust as she came in to land. Also, it was always easier for a pilot to concentrate on a fixed object on the ground while coming in.

Maggie told them that they had thirty empty canisters on board that Ryan wanted filled. Jonesy then explained to Maggie the different canister weights. They would now only pack the lighter rocks into Astermine One, pack the platinum into Astermine Two and see how much power she would need for liftoff. Ryan had told him that Maggie carried extra cylinders of hydrogen fuel on board for them.

They watched the radar as the second craft rapidly closed the distance. She slowly came into visual range a couple of miles behind them and Jonesy could see the strobe light above the cockpit of the dark craft just over the crater wall. Jonesy watched as Maggie used the thrusters intermittently to slow the craft down, and waited to see her scream by them at a high speed. She didn’t. Maggie brought in Astermine Two to the left of them, and both Jonesy and VIN could now see the white light of the thrusters as she slowed her forward speed and began flying in formation on their port side several hundred feet away.

Jonesy helped her by describing the continuous roll of the asteroid. Slowly Maggie got the side and forward roll movements right and she closed in. She saw the landing zone the two men had designated for her and she brought Astermine Two in, telling Jonesy her thrust usage as she came in.

“Two hundred feet, thrusters at 5 percent… 150 feet, 10 percent power… 100 feet, 15 percent power…50 feet 20 percent power…10 feet 22 percent…5 feet, wow! Suddenly 25 percent power… we are down Astermine One. Wow! That was some pull! It seems that the magnetic pull is most severe at 100 feet and below and less severe above where the wall of the crater starts.”

“It seems so, Maggie. I was so busy working out my thrusters that I didn’t check the altitude so much on my way down. That was a lot of needed information. Thanks Maggie, It seems that if we can get Astermine One 100 feet up and out of the crater walls, we will be away.”

“You know, I think it is only this crater that has this magnetic pull. I bet it is less on other parts of this asteroid,” suggested Maggie.

“Maybe that’s because of this valuable rock?” suggested VIN.

“Well, tomorrow you can lift Astermine Two out of the crater. VIN and I can get a load of these heavier rocks into your craft and see what happens. VIN says we have about eight tons of platinum ready to load. We can record your thrust usage and see how much eight tons of rock holds you down on the ground. That should tell us your maximum thrust needs with a full load. Ryan said that your maximum liftoff thrust should not be more than 66 percent. You used nearly half of that just getting down.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Maggie. “Ryan told us not to leave the craft, and guess what, Mr. Jones? We have an extra bedroom on our craft. The rear supply compartment has been modified into a second room and Kathy and I picked pink as its theme color.”

“Sounds really exciting, the pink design,” mumbled Jonesy shaking his head. “We have used up our allocated space time today, so we have to just sit here and blow kisses to each other and wait another 20 hours.”

“Maybe we could play radio chess, or I Spy?” suggested Maggie and both men again rolled their eyes.

Twenty hours later VIN and Jonesy carried the heavy canisters one by one across the 400 long feet to the other craft; they had made space for them by removing the empty canisters from Astermine Two and placing them near after the bright silver area. They managed to get only ten canisters tied down in the third, center compartment in their three-hour time limit, and Maggie sealed the side compartment door as they headed back to their craft.

“The load is not as much as we anticipated,” said Jonesy, still semi-breathless, back in Astermine One’s cockpit as he helped VIN remove his helmet. “Your cargo is about five tons. We could see the difference in thrust needed and then figured out what you could actually haul out of here with us on the end of a couple of ropes. Astermine One weighs four tons plus our supplies and us, say five tons without added cargo, the same weight you have in your hold right now. If you can’t get off as is, Astermine One might be staying here forever.”

VIN’s helmet was removed, and since their work was done for the day, they got out of the unnecessary parts of their suits, had a pouch of food and then got back to work.

“Maggie, what do your hydrogen fuel gauges show?” Jonesy asked.

“Half,” she responded.

“OK, my tanks also show half. I want to see how much fuel is needed for liftoff. Then I want you to hover out of the crater and find a landing zone on a flat surface and not inside any craters this time. It is important to see if this excessive pull decreases outside our crater. How much extra fuel do you have?”

“Enough to refill my tanks from empty, and two 100 pound cylinders for you, about a quarter of a tank,” Maggie responded.

“I also have two full cylinders, but these craft hovering low over this powerful pull will use up a lot of our fuel.”

Maggie powered up the spacecraft. It took twenty minutes to get her ready for liftoff. There were hundreds of checks to do, but finally she was ready. Both men watched as she spewed out several small stones for fifty yards from underneath her as the thrusters tried to get her off.

“Forty percent power!” Maggie reported “forty-five percent power… 50 percent power, 55 percent power.” Jonesy watched as nothing happened to Astermine Two, for maybe thirty seconds, except more rocks were being thrown out from around the craft. The two thrusters faced downwards and several feet above the shiny surface where white blasts were pushing hard. “She’s coming off…69 percent power…we are away… 10 feet,70 percent power, 30 feet…70 feet… she is beginning to accelerate rapidly…reducing power to 50 percent… 40 percent…25 percent. Jonesy we are out of the crater. We are at 300 feet and at ten percent power…I’m heading forward to find a new place to put her down.”

Jonesy was shocked at how much power Maggie needed just to get out with a quarter of the cargo. They were never going to get out.

“I found a place. It looks clean, about 300 yards in front of your crater. Jonesy you put her down in the only crater I can see.”

“Maggie check your craft rolls, the back of the asteroid comes at you fast if you don’t watch it.”

“I have the roll perfect, Mr. Jones… 200 feet, 10 percent power… 150 feet, 11 percent power, 100 feet, 12 percent power… 50 feet, 15 percent power… here we go…20 feet, 20 percent power, 10 feet, 28 percent power… we are down. It is sure more dirty up here. We are spewing dust in every direction.”

“Well done, Maggie. Ask Kathy to view how far the stuff spews out from you on liftoff.

“OK, taking off………….Wow! She just jumped off at 30 percent power.”

“OK, Maggie, put her down again and close her down,” said Jonesy. He just had a great idea, computing the thrust numbers in his head. “I think the time has arrived to see if VIN and I can get this underpowered firefly out of this crater.”

They heard Maggie land the craft back onto the asteroid. “Thrust 27 percent this time!” added Maggie.

“Jonesy, the blast wash radius of small rocks and grains is about two hundred feet. It is actually quite dusty up here, and the dust is falling rapidly back to the surface,” added Kathy.

“OK, we have about a ton and a half on board, plus we dissected that magnet as ordered. We are leaving all the equipment behind and coming out to join you ladies. I have an idea.”

It took Jonesy the same amount of time to ready Astermine One for liftoff. VIN cleared up the cockpit and put everything away. Outside, all the equipment was far enough away not to get damaged.

“I have the thrusters at 50 percent power,” said Jonesy, “sixty percent… 70…80… 90 percent power. The two thrusters were vibrating the interior and still the craft hasn’t moved. I’m up to 99 percent power, she’s feeling light. The crater wall is pulling us toward it…100 percent power… Wow! 105 percent power, I never knew she had more than 100 percent. We are off but not rising. We are floating toward the crater wall… putting her down again… she won’t lift…she’s down, no damage… that was sure interesting.”

“Shall we return?” Maggie asked.

“Negative,” replied Jonesy. “We will unload some of our weight on our next walk; that should help us get out of here.”

Jonesy told them about his plan and worked out thrust equations for several hours after that. The two newcomers on the asteroids surface above them were enjoying a far better view of the universe around them.

***

Back in Nevada, the shuttle was being refueled for its next flight. Now they were a load of panels behind and Ryan was thinking about asking the crews on DX2014 to stay out an extra ten days so that he could have the panels up to complete the first cube for Suzi. The robotic spiders could be stopped and left dormant on the panels at any time, but with time being so tight and now most of his pilot crew away, he was short and still wanted to stay ahead.

The good news arrived from Astermine Two that she had managed to get out of the crater and Ryan was excited to hear Jonesy’s description of a way to get Astermine One back to Earth to get her new engines.

Ryan also decided to add Astermine Two’s crew to work on the third shuttle, SB III as he called her, as the team had very little to do. Astermine Three was also having her new engines fitted.

He wanted this shuttle armed with a laser addition and modified to accept four of the new more powerful hydrogen thrusters coming out of the production line in a few weeks. With two first-stage rocket motors, two larger second-stage hydrogen motors, four of the new hydrogen thrusters and the latest ion drives, this third shuttle would be able to whizz around space like a kid’s toy.

Maybe a defense spacecraft built like an Air Force gunship could be an important weapon in space, Ryan thought to himself. There will soon be no more Mr. Nice Guy.

***

Twenty long hours later, VIN and Jonesy exited their craft to unload some of their cargo. Jonesy had worked out that they should be able to get out of the crater with four of the canisters removed, 1,800 pounds of weight.

They spent another two hours loading more of the shiny rocks into a few of the empty canisters Maggie had brought. Her liftoff had helped them slightly as it had piled up the silver rocks around her landing area, a hundred feet away. The first two canisters were filled in the first hour from blown piles of small rock; the sweeper quickly vacuumed them up and threw them into the silver containers.

“Firing up the thrusters,” Jonesy said later. They had entered the craft, cleaned up, and eaten a pouch of stew, and an orange juice. VIN had cleared out everything else in the rear holds of Astermine One. There wasn’t much, but here and there he piled up what he thought was another 100 pounds of unnecessary metal items.

“My partner says that we should get out of this hole this time,” VIN said to the ladies who were anxiously waiting higher up on the surface.

“It’s like fixing a flat tire and hoping the darn repair works when you drive off,” Jonesy added. “Fifty percent thrust…60…70…80…90…100,” said Jonesy. VIN noticed that he wasn’t playing around much this time as the fuel gauges showed just over a quarter full. They had used up a lot of fuel on the last try. “She’s floating sideward again, but climbing slowly. I’m going to redline her!” and he pushed the throttles hard forward. The limiter showed the thrust at 106 percent and they were rising, very slowly.

“The crater wall,” suggested VIN.

“Yes, partner, count me the distance to the wall, altitude 30 feet……… 35 feet……38 feet, she’s easing away.”

“Crater wall about 70 feet and just as high above us…about 60 feet,” VIN added calmly, but he felt a lump in his throat. If they hit the wall, they would be no more.

“Altitude 50 feet… 57… 63… 65 feet. VIN, are we going to make it? Like take off, there will be a point of no return.”

“I think we passed that already,” replied VIN. “We are about 40 feet away at 70 feet altitude, Press the gas pedal as hard as you can! Jonesy, the front wall of the crater is a little lower than this side; can you at least point her in that direction?”

“Not yet, partner! I’m waiting until we are ten feet away from the wall and then I want to push us off with the right hand thruster. Count the distance, kid… 75 feet and rising.”

“Twenty feet; it’s getting close and now I can’t see the top of the wall anymore we are too close…15 feet… 12 feet… we are as close as you want to be; the wall is just outside the window, Jonesy!” shouted VIN his eyes now glued to the thruster on his side. Suddenly it turned outwards and the blast hit the wall of the crater several feet away.

“Oh crap we are going down… 87 feet… 85 feet… 81 feet…; VIN, how far are we away from the wall?”

“Twenty feet, Jonesy!” VIN shouted back and he watched the thrusters push downwards again.

“We are steady at 75 feet… climbing through 76… 78… 81… Distance, VIN?”

“Fifteen feet and closing again!”

“Still climbing, I think she’s releasing…83 feet… 85 feet, VIN, how is that wall?”

“Ten feet again, and we have about ten feet to go.” VIN watched the thruster point toward the wall again, but not at such an angle. “About seven feet and we seem to be crawling up the wall ever so slowly…still about seven feet, one foot to the top…I can see over the top, but we are edging over again. Five feet!” He watched the thruster turn sideward slightly and the craft now seem to stop in mid-space.

“Altitude at 90 feet and steady, we have tons of room on the other side, I’m starting the ion drives. It took several seconds before they were at full power and the craft was still not moving. “I’m propelling her sideward again away from the wall. We will have one chance at this partner. Call out the distance!”

“Four… 5……maybe 6… 7… 9… .12… 14… 18 feet!”

“Altitude 87 feet… 85… 84 feet,” added the pilot. VIN!”

“Twenty-feet… .30… about 40 feet………55 feet!”

“OK, I’m bringing her to face the other side of the crater. I’m hoping the ion drives flutter against the wall. VIN!”

“About 80 feet, where we started; the craft is turning 90 feet…watch our butt Jonesy… about 100 feet!”

“Eighty-two… 80 feet… 78 feet! VIN, do we have enough room?”

“I would say about 150 feet and I can’t see the wall anymore. We must be right of the wall. Jonesy our fuel gauges are hovering just above empty!”

“Not something I wanted to know about, kid…here we go!” and VIN watched as his side thruster point downwards again. “We are climbing; I think no fuel in the tanks is helping… 105 feet… 107 feet and we are moving forward.” Astermine One glided out of the opposite lip of the crater less than a dozen feet over the surface of the asteroid.

It wasn’t over yet. “Thrusters down to 90 percent, we are still climbing away 189 feet, 210 feet, we are out of the pull, thrusters down to 60 percent. Maggie where are you? We are coming round, I need to get her down quickly!”

“On your starboard side about 300 feet from us; surface looks flat and clear of rocks,” said Kathy.

“Roger that; coming in fast, I have you visual…thrusters at 50 percent, ion drives off.”

Jonesy brought her in fast, like a helicopter dropping off troops in a battle. He even flared out the 140-foot craft as one would a helicopter, and Maggie was sure that the legs would break as they hit the surface and bent. Slowly the legs took the force, the craft stopped its downward movement, and Astermine One came to a rest with no broken legs.

“Well done, Mr. Jones, perfect flying!” shouted Maggie and he smiled as a bead of sweat slid down his face. He switched off the overworked thrusters, hearing applause from the other craft. He looked over at VIN who was just sitting there: ramrod straight, his face white.

“We did it, kid!” Jonesy said.

“We could have taken off all our cargo and it would have been easier,” he said.

“Well, my calculations were a few percent off, the pull stronger than I thought, but we are out and it worked. Now, as long as we haven’t damaged the engines, we came in at 45 percent power, so I reckon we can get off here with at least eight tons of cargo.”

***

Ryan was ecstatic when the message came through from Astermine Two that both craft were out of the crater and said that he needed a drink, and a bottle of Vodka mysteriously appeared from one of the desks.

***

The latest message from Ryan to Astermine One that morning informed them that they needed to sit tight for another week. Both men didn’t seem to mind, as it decreased the workload somewhat and they could take it easy. They decided to still head over to the other craft and go down into the crater.

The two men spacewalked across to Astermine Two. The magnetic pull certainly wasn’t as heavy up here; actually, VIN strode too hard on one of his first steps and bounced off the asteroid a foot or two. Sleeping conditions had also changed; they felt light, and although they did not float off the surface of their beds, they awoke often thinking they had.

Maggie and Kathy were happy to welcome them into their craft, once they had removed the full canisters from her hold, and they squashed in for the flight back into the crater.

Before they left, both men had to sit in the second room. It was not pink as they had been told, but had two narrow bunk beds with extra shelves and storage underneath. A small two-foot-wide aluminum desk was on one side and what looked like a tiny bar refrigerator on the other. Jonesy looked at Maggie inquisitively, who opened it to show him real food! Fruit, the promised bottle of vodka, a half-full bottle of real orange juice, and several packets of cookies looked back at him. On a shelf above the fridge was a single-cup coffeemaker. His mouth hung open when he saw the stash. He and VIN were certainly traveling third class!

This time Maggie had no problem getting the empty craft down. The spacewalkers still had two hours of walk time, and they managed to get a dozen of the light canisters into the third hold and the rest of the heavy canisters into the fourth hold. This time Jonesy calculated that they had closer to six tons on board, plus his and VIN’s weight.

Maggie was not shy with the power this time, and they left the crater floor at 95 percent power and shot up into space 200 feet before she reduced the thrusters to 20 percent power and brought the craft in to the same landing place next to the canisters.

Jonesy immensely enjoyed feeling the extra power of Astermine Two after their close shave with the crater wall the day earlier.

They still couldn’t all sleep together in the bigger unit, so even though their three hours had been used up, they headed back to their craft after the women had given them each a mouthful of the Jack Daniels from Ryan.

Over the next several days, Jonesy and VIN were flown into the crater where they filled the rest of the empty canisters from Astermine Two with the lighter silver rocks, which seemed endless. The sweeper worked well and, as a team, with VIN guiding the sweeper and Jonesy hauling the canister next to it, they filled two canisters an hour. After three more days lifting everything they had out of the crater, they piled up all that was staying behind and left the crater for the last time. They had time and the two men took a day off, spending time in Astermine Two’s compartment. Clean and tidy, it felt like a tent they were camping in, enjoying each other’s company, out of their suits and enjoying the real food.

The next day VIN and Jonesy emptied and reloaded thirty of the lighter canisters into Astermine One’s holds, securing them down.

It took another two days to load the canisters into Astermine Two. The heavy canisters were now a third of the weight, but each one of the sixty canisters in both craft returning home had to be properly secured in the holds.

They then took over the fuel cylinders allocated to them and spent three hours carefully transferring the liquid hydrogen into their fuel tanks from outside. Astermine One ended up with half-full tanks of hydrogen fuel, enough to lift off and get back to Earth. It would have been more difficult if they had left earlier, and the delay saved them flying time back to Earth.

Maggie still had full tanks once all of her cylinders had been emptied, and she could always tow them, or Jonesy tow her, when they were close enough to Ivan.

After the last day of packing rocks they left, eleven days past the original departure date, 900,000 miles closer to Earth, their trip twenty-four hours shorter.

It was time for another day off and Jonesy did his numbers for Ryan. He would only send them to him once they were spaceborne. He had six tons aboard.

Maggie’s load of the eighteen canisters of platinum and twelve of the shiny rocks weighed only 14,000 pounds, or seven tons, far less than the original twenty tons Ryan had anticipated.

“Thruster on, tanks at half, here we go, hold thumbs girls,” and he pushed the throttles forward to gain output. “Fifty percent… 60… 70…getting light… 85…..95 percent, we are off and out of here!” shouted Jonesy enthusiastically.

“Thruster on, tanks full, watch this power, Jonesy,” said Maggie. “40… 45 percent, we have liftoff and going home! I’m already looking forward to a real bath.”

In formation, Maggie allowed Jonesy to lead. He wasn’t wasting time. Jonesy had allocated half of his fuel for liftoff, and he had only used half of that, so he used the extra hydrogen with the ion drives to accelerate. Within an hour, and by the time he let the computers take over he was well over 30,000 miles an hour.

A day later, the thrusters were pointing forward, already powering up once an hour to slow them down. They were heading directly to where Ivan would be seventy-two hours from then.

Ryan sent them dozens of congratulation messages, even when he was told of the lesser cargo weight on board both craft. His fifth message duplicated what Jonesy already surmised: that they would go on their second mining trip with the more powerful thrusters installed in Astermine One, and return with thirty full canisters. Ground control had computed 90 percent power for a full twenty-ton load for a liftoff above the crater.

The cargo manifest made Ryan even happier after VIN reported that they were returning with six tons of platinum, a ton of iridium, six tons of rhodium and about half a ton of palladium.

Ryan sent them a message six hours later saying that their load was worth three-quarters of a billion dollars and the six tons of rhodium, at today’s prices worldwide, was worth more than the other three metals all put together.

They rested over the next two days and then began preparing to meet up with Ivan. As they neared to within twenty miles, they could see the five sides of the first cube welded together. It far outsized the original Ivan by nearly three times, and they were surprised at how big the new space station would actually be. The first cube was floating with a long cord attached to Ivan and Ivan was kept in trim by the two shuttles on her sides. Jonesy remembered that they were ten days late and that the shuttle must have just arrived.

As they neared, one of the shuttles separated itself from Ivan, and with Penny on the intercom guiding him, Jonesy rotated and docked Astermine One into position over the middle docking port. Ryan wanted both types of rock which meant that they needed to unload Astermine Two first.

Within an hour VIN, with a happy Suzi to help him, unloaded eight of the platinum canisters and ten of the rhodium canisters into the shuttle’s empty cargo hold.

VIN also loaded all the other samples he had brought in an empty food canister from the supply compartment. It weighed about 300 to 400 pounds and was also placed in the cargo hold. Only four people could head down to Earth in the shuttle’s cockpit and the Astermine pilots had this privilege.

While Maggie, Kathy, Jonesy and VIN said their goodbyes and headed away from Ivan in the loaded shuttle, Michael went out to place the final eight panels unloaded from the second shuttle, and Penny maneuvered Astermine Two onto the last docking port. It was getting like a traffic jam up there.

***

As the shuttle flew into Earth’s reentry, and all signals blacked out, Ryan’s phone rang.

“Mr. Richmond, Tom Ward here, with General Mortimer aboard. We’re an hour out, and heading over to your field from Washington. You seem to have a problem. I heard from the Federal Reserve that you might be bringing illegal contraband into the country. Congress wants us to inspect your entire operation, and I have three platoons of US Army on board a C-17 several minutes behind us. I want you to clear your field immediately and open all your hangars for inspection. I have Joe Bishop flying in from Los Angeles, and we are all due over your field in fifty-five minutes. Understood?”

“No, I don’t understand, Mr. Ward. Do you have a search warrant? And you are not entering my airspace with threats. This happens to be my airspace, Mr. Ward. I own it as a United States citizen.”

“You don’t own crap, Richmond! All land belongs to the United States government and you, as a citizen, do not own U.S. occupied land. And no, I don’t need a search warrant. Members of Congress never do and I have one Congressman with me, who will give the orders to search your entire airfield.”

“What for?” asked Ryan puzzled. “What laws have I broken?”

“We will read you your rights when we arrive.” And the phone connection clicked off.

Ryan’s first call was to Nellis Air Force Base. He told General Saunders what was happening and that he had an incoming shuttle from the west. The General said that troops and Air Force jets would be on the way from Nellis within ten minutes.

Then Ryan called his friend Bill at NASA. Bill was currently at Edwards Air Force base, twenty minutes flying time away, and about to take off for Florida, and would swing by. Then Ryan called his friend at the Federal Reserve, who knew nothing about what was going on. He was about to land in Los Angeles and would also immediately divert to Nevada.

After that call, Ryan called his good friend, the former President who suggested that he get a couple of news crews on the ground fast. He could do that for him and said that he knew the ABC, NBC and CBS reporters in Las Vegas, and they all owed him a favor.

Lastly he called the new President of the United States of America. He was politely told that the President was unavailable and please don’t call back.

Then he sat down in shock. He hadn’t broken any law, state or federal, apart from transferring the plutonium from Turkey through Nevada and then into space. They could never prove anything, and there were absolutely no laws on this continent saying that he could bring non-dangerous cargo in from space, unless Congress had just passed one in the last few days. That was impossible since no law passed by Congress was law until the President of the United States signed it, and he was sure the President hadn’t recently signed anything. He had friends there, and he would have been told.

At least the shuttle would be down with Jonesy, his best pilot at the controls, before the airfield’s air space was invaded by a swarm of bees.

It was going to be close, and he believed he could get the shuttle parked and in Hangar Six before the bad guys arrived. He still had forty minutes before Ward and Bishop arrived, and Jonesy was only twenty five minutes out, with a very heavy shuttle and coming in fast!

Books by the Author

The Book of Tolan Series (Adult Reading)

Banking, Beer & Robert the Bruce —Hardcover and eBook

Easy Come Easy Go —Hardcover and eBook

It Could Happen —eBook draft format only

AMERICA ONE Series (General Reading)

AMERICA ONE —eBook, Paperback, Audiobook

AMERICA ONE II, The Launch —eBook, Paperback, Audiobook (Christmas 2013)

AMERICA ONE III, The Odyssey —eBook, Paperback, Audiobook (2014)

AMERICA ONE IV, Return to Earth —eBook, Paperback, Audiobook (2014)

AMERICA ONE V, NextGen —eBook (December 2013) Audiobook (2014)

INVASION USA Series (General Reading)

INVASION USA I: The End of Modern Civilization —eBook and Paperback

INVASION USA II: The Battle for New York —eBook and Paperback

INVASION USA III: The Battle for Survival —eBook and Paperback

INVASION USA IV: The Battle for Houston … The Aftermath —eBook and Paperback

INVASION EUROPE: The European Side of the Story — eBook (2014)

The Banker’s Club (Teenagers and Adults)

The Banker’s Club I: Defaults —eBook

The Banker’s Club II: Acquisitions —eBook (February 2014)

The Banker’s Club III: Withdrawals —eBook (April 2014)

About the Author

T I WADE was born in Bromley, Kent, England in 1954.

His father, a banker was promoted with his International Bank to Africa and the young family moved to Africa in 1956.

The author grew up in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and a fictional depiction of his life is humorously described in his novel EASY COME EASY GO, Volume II of The Book of Tolan Series. Once he had completed his mandatory military commitments, at 21 he left Africa to mature in Europe.

He enjoyed Europe and lived in three countries; England, Germany and Portugal for 15 years before returning to Africa; Cape Town in 1989.

Here the author owned and ran a restaurant, a coffee manufacturing and retail business, flew a Cessna 210 around desolate southern Africa and finally got married in 1992.

Due to the upheavals of the political turmoil in South Africa, the Wade family of three moved to the United States in 1996. Park City, Utah was where his writing career began.

To date T I Wade has written thirteen novels.

The Author, his wife and two teenage children currently live 20 miles south of Raleigh, North Carolina.