Genesis began running at full capacity. Each day marked a new level of efficiency. In the habitat service module, engineers learned where everything was without having to think. They worked on maintenance, troubleshooting, and correcting problems. Personnel rotations were used in such a way that each member could develop a working relationship with the others. Most were good at that, one not so good.
Four pilots worked the flight sim in rotation, one team at a time, team substitutions used to make sure everyone was on the same page. Flight-testing became more aggressive. Although the star charts were now in the system, orbital and atmospheric flight remained the primary test bed since it demanded the most from a flight crew. Programming light speed travel began with simulated trips outside the solar system. To the TD’s relief, no one tried to fly through any stars.
When there were breaks in the schedule, engineers and pilots would sometimes be switched to the other simulator. Pilots learned the habitat module system while engineers practiced with flight deck controls and interstellar navigation. Everyone was required to be certified on the Nav system. That standard was set by two very embarrassing incidents from way back in the early days of light travel when navigators became incapacitated and their pilots did not understand the Nav equipment well enough to get back home.
The performances we were seeing from our crews were more than encouraging. They were all so good it was like watching a blockbuster movie. All the unexpected failures initiated by the TD were systematically analyzed and mitigated. There were few instances where missions would not have been allowed to continue. The flight crew was doing so well it worried me. I would sit at my desk and watch them beat almost everything thrown at them. Pilots and copilots were anticipating each other’s needs so well they were effecting inputs before each could finish speaking.
Overconfidence. I could not let them adopt overconfidence.
On a particularly successful day, I waited for Terry to come to my office to drop off daily performance cert records. I made a point of not calling him in. These people were too sharp. If he were summoned to my office, one or two would notice and wonder. Word would spread. So I waited. Midmorning Terry strolled in and smiled at me like a man who was acing his job.
“They are good, Adrian. Really good. I don’t know where you found these people, but your luck is running.”
“I have a concern.”
“What could that possibly be?”
“Too good.”
“Oh. You don’t want it going to their head.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you want?”
“I want them to crash and burn badly at least once, to wake them up to reality. In real life, you don’t always win.”
“You have a point. What do you want me to program?”
“I want a standard deorbit burn, then electrical fire. They lose gravity repulse, and all thrust. They have to deploy wings, come in dead stick with no power at all. The only place to put down is right at the edge of the envelope. The Flight Management Computer says they can reach it, but they have to clear obstacles to do it. When they get there, a temperature inversion drags them down too low to make it.”
“Adrian, that is pure sadism. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I’ll be the first to fly it. That way, they’ll all know what’s coming, but they won’t know the details. They’ll only know that I crashed and burned. They’ll be anxious to top me. They’ll be sucked right in. That’ll get their attention. We’ll all fly it solo. I don’t want the other hot shots getting a look at this before it’s their turn.”
“Well, I must say, you make life interesting. I’m looking forward to this. Putting the best I’ve ever seen up against a no-win situation. I can’t imagine what we’ll get.”
“What will we see on the windshields?”
“At impact, you’ll get a big fireball on all screens. The motion platform will jerk about and shudder. That’ll last for ten or fifteen seconds, then you’ll see the video system reboot.”
“Perfect. Can we run it this afternoon?”
“Absolutely. I’ll just need to make sure the programmers keep their mouths shut. Most of our test team members and crew members have gotten too friendly.”
“I’ll be standing by. Just let me know the scheduled time of my death and I’ll be sure to be there.”
He laughed and headed out the door with software already compiling in his head.
The TCC and flight sim were scheduled immediately after lunch. The condemned man ate a hearty meal. Simulated death on a full stomach. Being strapped in alone in the active cockpit had a slightly eerie feeling to it, but I enjoyed the ascent to orbit, and took extra time to watch the simulated world go by below me. On the way back down, I hit the top of the last mountain at one hundred and eighty-four knots. The sim made an initial “oomph” sound on impact, then an explosive roar as the fireball dissipated and the cockpit settled.
Word spread like wildfire. Subdued, inappropriate conversations here and there just couldn’t be resisted. Shelly was up next, but she was almost too smart. She seemed to wonder about the single pilot requirement. During her descent, the simulated electrical fire did not seem to faze her. Even with the emergency, her reactions in the deorbit were smooth and precise, and despite meticulous flight management she exploded exactly the same way I had. In the TCC, I smiled and gave her a shrug. There was anger behind her eyes, but she controlled it with the skill of a diplomat.
Next was Doc. I changed my mind and rode in the copilot seat, not wanting to miss a master trying to coax a dead airship over a mountain range. Even with symphonic artistry in searching for additional lift, he went up in a ball of flame like the rest of us. Afterward, he came into the TCC sipping a fresh cup of coffee and gave me an expressionless look that said volumes. He knew. He understood what I was doing. He had not been fooled for a second. I cursed to myself and he smiled.
I waited in the copilot seat for reset and Danica. As I waited, a call came in. It was Julia Zeller and Mary Walski on a speakerphone.
“Adrian, you need to come to my office right now.”
“Kind of busy at the moment. It’ll have to wait.”
“No, Adrian. You will want to stop whatever you’re doing, and come here right now.”
I sighed and shook my head. I trusted Julia. She wouldn’t insist unless it was necessary. I could watch Danica’s path to destruction from the replay monitors. I unbuckled, found Doc and asked him to ride copilot and warned him not to give her any help, then headed for Julia’s.
They were on the phone with someone. Julia pointed at the conference caller and then me. “It’s Richard Allen from the Spacecraft Processing Facility. Richard, Adrian Tarn just walked in.”
“Good afternoon, Commander. I was to call you as soon as we had approval from upper management. We’re just about ready to turn your ship over.”
I stood by the side of the desk and the adrenaline began to pump. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the call, Richard. When can we see her?”
“They are installing the last of the inspection seals as we speak. When would you like to come for an initial walk-though?”
“Could it be this evening? We should be burning up the rest of our simulator time in just a few minutes.”
“That would be fine. I’ll meet you at the hanger entrance. Julia has my contact info. Just text me when you’re on your way.”
“My sincere thanks, Richard. We’ll see you there.”
He clicked off and the three of us stared at each other in anticipation. Julia asked sheepishly, “Can we come?”
I nodded as she handed me a pen and pointed to an electronic folder of documents that needed my signature. My look of injury did not sway her. She smiled and tried to look sympathetic.
In a daze, I headed back to my office. RJ caught me in the hall. “Adrian, I just died.”
“You too? Must be something going around.”
“I was trapped outside the ship
and couldn’t get back in because of you-know-who.”
“Oh crap.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Well there is some good news.”
He raised his eyebrows and waited.
“We get to go see the Griffin tonight unless there’s a memorial or something.”
“Wow! Does anyone else know?”
“Not yet.”
RJ dashed off like Paul Revere. I laughed to myself and marched on. In my office, Terry was waiting. He looked disheveled and confused, something I had not seen before.
“How’d it go, maestro?”
“She made it.”
“Who made what?”
“Danica made it. She brought the Griffin in safely.”
“But how is that possible? It was supposed to be a no-win situation.”
“It was. I’m sorry. We even programmed the simulation to adjust the level of temperature inversion to the Griffin’s energy management curve so that no matter how it was done there would be too much pressure differential to allow enough lift to get a powerless spacecraft over those mountains.”
“So how’d she do it?”
“She was way ahead of it. She saw the one to two hundred foot clearance over the mountains on the glide slope indicator and didn’t like it. Everybody else thought it was enough. When she hit atmosphere, she restarted the main APU and when the temperature inversion began to pull her down, she kicked in the restart system for the OMS engines. They wouldn’t start of course, but she got just enough thrust from spinning those engines to clear the peaks. The radio altimeter showed her clearing the highest one by two feet. She even got some bounce from ground effect. She glided in the rest of the way, no spoilers, no flaps, and put the gear down one hundred feet from the runway. She couldn’t have known the gravity release would get them down in time, but she waited that long to avoid drag from the gears. Didn’t even scratch the paint, damn it.”
“Let me get this straight. She’s about to hit the mountain peaks like rest of us, and she commands the engines to restart at just the right moment, and gets enough lift from the dead engines to make it over?”
“That’s it. Like I said, the readouts say she cleared the last peak by two feet.”
“That’s just unbelievable.”
“It’s incredible. What are you going to do about this? She was supposed to get humbled.”
“Is there any chance she saw the program beforehand? Did Doc say anything? Could she have known what was coming and figured all this out ahead of time? Did she talk to Shelly?”
“No. No one said a word. Doc was as amazed as the rest of us. This was just flying by the seat of her pants. I am dumbfounded. She’s always aggressive. She’s always way ahead of the spacecraft. I told you before; you got one hell of deal on this pilot. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What did she come over the runway threshold at?”
“One hundred and eight-two knots. Two knots slower and she would have dropped out of the sky. She was supposed to fail. What are you going to do about this?”
“I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to make everybody do it again, with her in the copilot seat, and she’s going to teach us this. Damn. We’re gonna have a kid teaching us. She said she’d get our man cards if we didn’t watch out. I guess she just did.”
As Terry and I spoke, people began to gather outside my door. The word that the real Griffin was being readied for inspection was spreading at light speeds. Paris Denard pushed his way through the others and did not bother knocking. He opened the door and leaned in.
“Do we need anything special to head over there?”
“Just me, Paris.”
“I’ll wait in the break room.”
“That would be good.”
Terry and I exchanged annoyed stares. Terry asked, “Head over where?”
“They’re letting us into the Griffin’s hanger.”
“Oh jeez! Let me go shut down.”
No one wanted to wait for transport. Everyone took their own vehicle or rode with friends. RJ and I led in the Vette. It looked like a cross between a parade and a circus. The guards at the south gate were at first alarmed, then amused. Everyone had the correct badge. Everyone was allowed through.
Our entourage caused people to stop and stare in the VAB and SPC parking lots. We filled up most of the spots near the chain link fence gate. Director Richard Allen came out and waited by the entrance. He broke into laughter as the army of Griffin lovers followed me en mass toward him.
“Good thing it’s a large hanger, Commander,” he commented as I approached with my hand out.
“Wild horses couldn’t have kept them away.”
He glanced over the group. “This way, please.” He led us to the heavy double metal doors and with a second, questioning glance back, keyed in his pass code and pushed one open.
The Griffin sat like a trophy, polished to a white mirror finish. It seemed larger than the specs or the simulator. She was sitting on short, stubby landing gear assemblies intended to take up as little space as needed when retracted. There were no sharp edges anywhere. Everything was unibody construction that flowed as though it had been poured in a mold. My attention turned quickly to the stellar drives. They were mounted near the fuselage. The intakes formed two ellipses, one large and one a quarter the size of the first, side by side. They were fused together like a single unit. The smaller elliptical body was on the outside. There were covers concealing the intakes. Someone had hung ‘Remove Before Flight’ ribbons on them as a joke.
A voice from behind me cut in. It was Paris Denard. “See that? There are two engines. The smaller one is the sub light, the larger the super light.” He went beneath the nearest one and stood looking up at it.
Richard Allen was guarding the open stairway to the forward airlock. He raised one hand and called out. “Everyone, one moment please. The only thing we ask is that if you enter the cabin please first put the antistatic bags over your shoes. They’re right here alongside the stair ramp. Thank you.”
When the crowd at the stairs began to dwindle, I bagged my shoes and noticed my pulse rate quicken a bit. At the top of the stairs, the airlock seemed different somehow. As expected the flight deck was cold and dark, yet there was a striking sense of life there. Some of the controls and switches on the Genesis simulator were nonfunctional representations, but here everything was real, along with some extras. I looked where the hidden controls for shields and communications were located. There were access panels in those spots that did not exist in the Sim. Once again, the impulse to sit in the left seat crept in, but I held it at bay.
The habitat and aft areas were virtually identical to the simulator, although you could tell everything in this vehicle was functional. There was an intense feeling of complexity all around. I stood just inside the forward airlock, looking into the spacious white interior of the living area and tried to imagine months of suspended life there. It was another slap of reality. In the sleeper section, I touched the upper compartment assigned to mission commanders. I could visualize myself inside, but could not guess at how it would feel. In the gym, everything had inspection seal stickers. The equipment stood waiting to be needed. Farther back in the science-med lab the place was pristine and more kept than the simulator. It smelled like a hospital room. The silver surfaces cast brighter glints of reflected light. Within the aft airlock, the hatch to the service module was closed with a seal on the latch. The rear airlock external door was open with stairs for the walkthrough exit. I turned and looked back at the deserted ship. Home for a year. What would exist just outside this shell six months from now? What would this ship bring back from the unknown? Who would we be then?
Back at Genesis, another secure courier was waiting at the gate talking to my favorite guard. I was flagged over and asked to sign for yet another briefcase. I pushed it through the passenger’s window and plunked it down on RJ’s lap. We pulled in and parked, and he looked at me hoping for an explanation but let it pa
ss when I did not offer one.
In my office I locked the damn door and set the window screen to frost. I knew this briefcase had to be for the Stellar Drives. The same pass codes from the other case worked. I opened it, pushed the security messages aside and was surprised to find two more blank-cover books. I pulled out the one on the left, flipped open the cover, and sat stunned. The title read,
Particle Accumulative Beam Weaponry.
Chapter 15