Protector

by Luke Norris

  She hadn’t considered that fully. “What is the answer?”

  “I’ve had teams working on this with me,” he replied solemnly. “It’s important that the men and women have work to continue with. Part of the solution has been changing their job description. Secondly, they still need to feel purpose in their work.” Oliver rubbed his temples, “I swear this has been harder than the rocket science. And, you’d be surprised who is putting up resistance to the change. There are government officials, even at the top levels, that have been benefiting for a very long time from the zewka operations.

  Shael had calmed down some and finally sat down at the table near the bunker viewing window opposite Oliver. “So what you’re saying is, Naharain would basically descend into a state of chaos and anarchy if you pulled the plug overnight?”

  She hadn’t really thought it through, and now that he laid it out, it did sound more complicated than simply shutting it down. As long as she’d been alive, the zewka were simply a part of society, permeating so many aspects of everyday life, but it was only really apparent now she thought hard about it.

  “This doesn’t explain the reappropriation of the zewka capital,” she reminded him. “I know Arif was one of the wealthiest men in Arakan, and most of it acquired unethically.”

  “It’s true,” Oliver said, “the money is dirty. I thought long and hard about how to redistribute it. There are many new legal business ventures that the team have come up with to employee the zewka workers, but they will run at a loss for at least the first year, some may never reach profitability. I have decided to use the funds as seed, and incubation capital for these projects. This will give much more back to everyone in the long run. I considered simply giving money to everyone, but my economic advisors tell me that would be a terrible idea. Not in those words, but I got the gist of what they were saying.”

  “What about all this?” Shael waved her hand toward the next room full of engineers, “and the twenty-sixth test rocket out there.”

  “My own savings,” Oliver said. “I know you think this space project only serves me, but space exploration will advance Laitam in so many ways, communication, commerce. Already they have developed revolutionary weather monitoring systems, that could be used to anticipate floods in the Nahariane basin, or eventually anywhere on Arakan, even all of Laitam,” he added passionately. “I am speaking from my experience on Earth.”

  He’s watching for my reaction, she realized. She’d momentarily forgotten that Oliver did indeed have a small fortune of his own. He would find it hard to sell such period antiquity considering the primary buyer, Arif, had been kicked out of his own estate by Oliver himself. Although, the coins could be liquidated more easily.

  “My savings are dwindling very fast Shael,” Oliver added. “They will not be enough to see the space program to my end goal. In fact, they will probably dry up well before we carry even a small test payload into orbit. The program will need funding from elsewhere. I have some ideas,” he smiled at her, then added hastily. “All above board ideas.”

  She felt sheepish by how accusatory and haughty she’d been. Oliver was the man she thought he was. He was being thoughtful and judicious about a complex social problem, methodical about how he treated a disease that had made its host reliant upon it. He clearly wanted the best for the people of Naharain, she could see that.

  A shadow passed across the window, causing Shael to look outside. The twilight during second eclipse had a warmth to it, sure it was darker, but she’d always found it comforting.

  “Oliver,” Doc poked his head and white frizzy hair through the door. “Launching in five minutes.”

  “Come on!” Oliver gestured to the door for her, “this will be exciting. It will be the highest launch yet.”

  She followed him through. “Oliver, you said you had ideas for investment.” She raised her voice over the room full of people calling numbers to each other. “Who will invest in this outlandish idea?”

  “People will invest, don’t worry,” he assured her. “Two primary motivations drive innovations and major advancements. Threat of war, and economic growth. On earth, it was the former that pushed space exploration out of its infancy. Later, it became about the second factor, making money. Those are the two drivers that will motivate people and governments.”

  Fear of death, and money, she thought grimly, as she looked out the viewing window, those are the drivers for technological advancement.

  The rocket stood serenely in the soft half-light of second eclipse, seemingly unaware of the hustle and bustle in the bunker a few hundred meters away.

  “Okay everyone, quieten down.” A younger engineer stood beside the Doc and raised his voice over the hullabaloo. “One minute until launch. Everyone at their stations!”

  “That’s our assistant director, Mern.” Oliver said quietly, leaning into Shael’s ear, “He will play a crucial role in the success of the program.”

  “Mern,” Shael said, “that name is not Naharainee. It sounds eastern. Free Port maybe?”

  “Interesting,” Oliver said. Free Port is the new capital of Shem right? If I recall from Targon’s maps.”

  “It’s on their border. But it’s a city-state in its own right, completely autonomous from Shem and far more powerful economically. A lot of trade flows through there, only Naharain competes with them for gross domestic product performance.”

  “Thirty seconds,” Mern called to the room. The silence suddenly became tense, with the engineers either glued to the window, or their displays.

  Shael felt the expectancy and excitement and was swept up in it. She’d missed many of the recent launches. What she had seen months ago were glorified skyrockets. This was quite different. She angled her head upwards to the sky. The tempered glass window made it difficult.

  “Ten, nine…” Mern began the countdown. The rocket showed no sign of any change. Shael couldn’t tell who in the room was responsible for ignition, maybe it was automated.

  “three, two…”

  Upon ‘one’ white smoke billowed from the rocket’s base. The smoke clouds expanded frighteningly fast, engulfing the entire launch platform. The tip of the rocket quickly became shrouded and completely invisible. The wall of smoke rushed toward Shael in the bunker, like a storm wall from the black mountains. She glanced at Oliver. He watched smiling. Okay, this is obviously normal. She fixed herself to the ground and tried to watch the onrush. The noise was deafening, and loose items rattled on the desks from the vibrations.

  A few seconds later the white smoke changed color to a pale yellow, which slowly became an intense orange. The ferocious combustion blew the white smoke clear so Shael could see the thrusters directly. They were spewing red-hot fire like it was liquid. Sweet Verity! Scaffolding support holding the rocket fell away as the four-meter rocket began to leave the launch pad. It was terrifying to look at. She glanced at Oliver. Still normal. She turned back to the window.

  Suddenly the bottom section of the rocket exploded in a ball of fire. A massive explosion, bigger than anything Shael had seen. A chain reaction occurred, as the sections of the rocket above exploded in sequential order. Billowing balls of orange and black fire erupted and continued right up to the tip.

  Shael was frozen in place, watching the terrifying scene play out in front of her. A deafening crack made her put her fingers in her ears. It was followed a few seconds later by a shockwave of such magnitude she could physically see it racing toward the bunker, flattening foliage and blasting debris.

  She felt herself being pulled to the ground before she could register what was happening. Oliver was covering her with his body. He tightly enclosed her in his arms, his warm breath was on her ears. In the next instant, the tempered glass shattered as the shockwave hit the viewing window. Small pieces of glass and debris landed on the floor beside her. Things were blown clean across the room. A wave of hot air and soot washed over her. Finally, it settled

  “You’re okay?” Oliver asked his head by her
s.

  Was she? She was shaken from the sudden jolt, and had sore knees from hitting the concrete floor. “I’m alright,” she confirmed.

  He sprung off her and called to the room. “Anybody injured?” he received gruff curses and complaints in answer. “Nobody injured then,” he repeated sounding relieved.

  Shael stood up and could see the shock of the those in the room. Doc stood still facing the launching pad, his frizzy hair blown back and face blackened with a layer of soot. He looked even more surprised than normal, as if… well, as if a giant experiment had just exploded in his face.

  She turned to Oliver. He’d established there were no injuries of note, just a few ground crew with glass cuts. Now he looked decidedly dejected. He sat down on his hunches with his head in his hands. The launch had not only failed but in the most dramatic fashion imaginable. She could see it was the combination of failure and putting all the people in danger that made it extra hard for him. She had to hold back the barrage of words she wanted to scream at him. It was not time the time say anything at this moment. But Oliver was planning to strap himself into one of these contraptions.

  He might survive being pushed out of a wasp but, she looked at the charred wreckage. It doesn’t matter what sort of powers he has, nothing would save him in that situation. It was insane. His desire to get back to his friends had completely overridden the logical part of his brain.

  “Everybody back to their data stations!” Mern’s stern voice resounded over the chaos. “Don’t lose any of the data, any notes, anything that was blown on the floor collect it back on your desk.” The ruckus quieted. “No talking please until this is complete.”

  Silence? He wanted silence? What about the bomb the just exploded meters away from them, that Oliver was planning to ride? “If you want to throw your life away,” she yelled at Oliver. “Then don’t ask me to stand here and watch it! You’re impossible sometimes. You are not invincible, do you realize that?”

  Mern frowned, giving her a ‘what did I just say’ look. Well, he could frown away. There didn’t seem to be one brain among twenty engineers. She was the only voice of reason here.

  “Yes I know I’m not invincible, Shael,” he said. “You don’t need to remind me.”

  He’s referring to Verity… Damn it. No! That didn’t excuse him throwing his life away. “Well, it certainly looks like you are not aware of that to me. If you want to continue with this insanity, be my guest, Your Highness.” she pushed past him towards the exit. “But don’t expect me to ever watch another one of these launches ever again!”

  Shael starred through the tempered glass at the rocket. It was taller than the failed rocket a few months earlier. Why in all the god's names had they made it bigger after a failed attempt? The viewing bunker had been moved back considerably, she couldn’t imagine that any explosion, no matter how big, could reach them back here.

  “Why is it taller this time?” she asked Oliver peering through the binoculars. “Wouldn’t it make sense to downgrade slightly after a cataclysmic explosion, rather than go bigger?”

  “Doc told me, the reason the last one blew was the fuel tank overheated,” Oliver said. “The extra height is mostly a large section of insulation between the thrusters and the tank.”

  “It’s disconcerting to me,” she said, still holding the binoculars to her eyes, “how you don’t seem the slightest bit apprehensive after the last launch.”

  He was the excited child again as if the disaster had not even taken place.

  “How would we have known about the overheating,” Oliver said, “if it hadn’t happened here on the platform? Pretty hard to examine debris when it explodes ten kilometers in the sky.”

  “You know that if that happens again, I’m leaving and going back to the city?” A smile crept up under her binoculars. She knew he knew she was bluffing, she wouldn’t leave him. But in all seriousness, she couldn't handle seeing it again.

  The countdown commenced. Oliver stood close to Shael. He was between her and Targon. She could sense his tension and excitement, as he watched the culmination of a year’s worth of work about to be shot into the sky. Or, explode in a giant fireball.

  After the initial shock of the last failed launch attempt, Shael had needed some weeks to calm down. Oliver assured her that a few exploded rockets were just a part of the evolution of the program—not only expected but inevitable.

  To her surprise, she’d developed an interest in rocketry, and the building of the different components. She couldn’t just walk past those manufacturing warehouses without going in and trying to understand what they were building. She had come to understand that it was just two things, the principle was remarkably simple. Alcohol and oxygen. The alcohol burned so furiously that it needed pure oxygen to feed it. Those were the two main tanks in the rocket. But, getting the ratios and feed precise was anything but simple.

  The eccentric Doc had been forthcoming in answering her questions, but Mern, on the other hand, was cagey and aggravated by her questions. She’d mentioned his mystifying behavior to Oliver, but he insisted that Mern was crucial to the success of the space program. She just couldn’t see it. Mern just seemed to shadow the Doc in everything he did.

  “Three, two… ignition.”

  The words snapped Shael’s attention to the launch pad. The familiar scene played out as it had last time. The extra distance of the new viewing bunker and extra glazing in the windows dampened the roaring significantly. White clouds engulfed the platform, the ground vibrated.

  At first, it wasn’t clear if the rocket was moving. Ever so slowly the cone emerged from the cloud as it lifted its bulk off the surface of the planet, fighting Laitam’s gravity.

  Oliver took her hand and clenched it tightly, willing the rocket upwards. “Come on, you good thing!” he yelled, his voice sounding small over the manmade eruption happening outside.

  He didn’t seem as acutely aware of his hand as she was.

  Sure enough, more of the gleaming black rocket slid through the billowing shroud of smoke, until the nozzles were visible as they belched yellow fire.

  Sweet verity! she thought. So much raw power.

  She stood instinctively closer to Oliver. He was oblivious and thumped his arms against the viewing window, yelling in jubilation. The engineers had the opposite reaction completely, watching the displays with hedged emotions.

  The rocket was accelerating fast. It began to greedily gain altitude. The atmosphere in the control room changed as the first stages of the launch were successful. Higher and higher. Shael followed it through the binoculars. The minutes ticked by and it became hard to follow, until a vapor trail appeared behind it caused by the low temperatures at the high altitude.

  “Thirteen kilometers.” Mern’s voice caused cheers and clapping to erupt from the room.

  Shael removed the binoculars and turned to Oliver. “Was that the goal…”

  He was rushing towards her with a smile spread across his face. He scooped her up and swung her around in the jubilation. “We did it, Shael!” His eyes shone, reflecting hope, a hope she hadn’t seen in Oliver before.

  She laughed in surprise, as he released her. He walked over and picked up Targon, doing the same thing. The old man took it in good spirits, although Oliver momentarily forgot about the physical differences between them.

  The second eclipse was almost over. Shael took the Binoculars and pointed them at the now tiny vapor trail reflected in the waxing light. She could make out a parachute guiding the rocket back to Laitam. It would be a while before that came back down.

  Oliver eventually relaxed, but the grin still split his face. He walked over and shook the Doc’s hand, then took Mern’s adding, “You should be proud, Mern! Soon these will be flying far enough that you could virtually fly home to Shem on one.” He winked at the younger engineer.

  Mern shook his hand but was somber at the remark. Strange! Oliver appeared not to notice the adverse reaction and continued into the room congratulating
the others.

  Mern kept watching Oliver, as he patted others on the back and talked to the men and women.

  What is his problem? He just had a successful launch, but that stare could drill holes in Oliver’s back.

  23

  RACE

  You planned this the whole time!” Shael accused Oliver, storming into the warehouse and slamming the paperwork directly on top of the massive stabilizing fin. “Didn’t you? You manipulated the whole thing.” She nodded briskly at the papers, with her eyebrow raised.

  Two strangers shuffled in behind her trying to keep up. They had the red shoulder sashes to denote their position as Naharainee government representatives.

  Oliver was lying on his side, inspecting the fin with a pair of the Doc’s measuring foresips. “Excellent Doc!” he told the engineer, temporarily ignoring Shael’s outburst. He pushed himself up to face her. She still waited, not having changed pose. She felt like a teacher reprimanding a mischievous child. But that is exactly what he was.

  “What is it?” Oliver asked her innocently, handing the measurement gauge back to the Doc, who was reading the cover page with confusion.

  “You know exactly what that is, Oliver McKenzie!” Shael picked up a handful of the papers waving them absentmindedly in his face. “The Naharainee government are going to fund… no,” she corrected herself, “throw copious amounts of money at your space program.”

  A grin split the Doc’s eccentric face, his eyes wide as he read through the pages. “Oliver this is great! They want to fund the space program, and…” he looked up at Oliver with eagerness, “they are virtually prepared to spare no expense.”

  “Huh,” Oliver grunted looking surprised, “no kidding. Let me see that!” He reached for the pages, but Shael snatched them away.