by CW Johnson
“You had me pretty scared. I thought we weren’t gonna’ be able to get the package.”
“I could tell he was bluffing the minute I saw him.”
“Really? How could you tell that?”
“I don’t know… I could just tell.”
“Did you hear what he said about the box?” Pete said.
“Yeah, what do you think is in it?”
“He said rocks. What kind of rocks could be worth a million bucks?”
She lifted the box and shook it slightly. It wasn’t much bigger than a shoebox. “Sometimes they call drugs rocks,” she said. “Could be drugs in here but… they must be awfully small.”
“We been pickin’ up these packages ever since we got here,” Pete said. “Must have picked up a hundred of them by now. If each one is worth a million bucks, I wonder how much money we got.”
“Maybe Charlie was exaggerating,” Sarah said.
Pete walked along beside her. Sarah took his hand and began swinging it as they walked back through the park.
“Don’t you care?” Pete said.
“About what?”
“That we might be carrying dope around in a box?”
“No, I think it’s exciting.”
Pete fell back for a moment. “You’re different than I thought.”
“Different, like in better or worse?”
“Stronger—smarter. Makes me wonder even more, why you want to be with a dumb guy like me.”
~~~
Pete and Sarah wandered back from where they came, found the old van, and began the short trip back to Newmarket. Pete meticulously obeyed the speed laws just as Brother Michael had told him.
“Do you think that’s dope in there?” Pete asked Sarah.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel very heavy.”
“Let me see,” Pete said. He took the box in his hand, gently shook it and handed it back to Sarah. “Yeah…It’s not very heavy.”
They drove along Highway 95, heading southwest through the town of New Hampton, found Hampton road, and turned west towards Newmarket.
“It’s hard to believe there could be a million bucks in there,” Pete said, breaking a long silent spell.
“Yes, it is,” Sarah said, smiling.
“I wonder what a million bucks looks like.”
“I don’t know.”
Pete kept glancing at the box as they drove. “I wonder if Brother Michael would mind if we look in the box?”
“I don’t know if we should,” Sarah said quietly.
“Yeah, we best not risk it.”
They reached Portsmouth Avenue and turned north. “Hey, you ever seen a million bucks before?” Pete asked.
“No, I’m a school teacher. We don’t earn very much money.”
“Really; a teacher? That’s funny…I didn’t know that. Hmm, a schoolteacher with a dummy like me.”
“Stop it!” she yelled.
“That’s probably not a million bucks worth of drugs anyway,” Pete said, rambling. “It’s not big enough to hold a million bucks worth of—” He reached and knocked the box out of her lap. “Oops,” he hollered, as it hit the floor.
“Pete, you deliberately knocked that box on the floor trying to break it open!”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Yes you did. What if it isn’t drugs. Maybe it’s something fragile.”
“Oh no,” Pete said, I never thought of that. We better make sure. We better open it.”
“I’m not gonna open it,” Sarah said.
“But you said something might be broken in there.”
“I didn’t say that!” she said laughing. “You’re not gonna’ be happy ‘till you look in the box.”
She picked the box up off the floor, carefully pulled the lid off and looked at Pete. Inside the box was a light green bag pulled tight at the opening by a pull-string. She untied the string and pulled the bag open. It had been filled with packing paper. She pushed her hand into the paper as Pete impatiently looked on. “What’s going on?” she said, pulling another small bag to the surface. “Pete, it’s another bag.”
“Keep going,” Pete said.
“This is crazy. How are we gonna’ explain this to Brother Michael?”
“Brother Michael doesn’t have to know,” Pete said, glancing back at the road. “It’s not like we’re gonna’ take anything. We just want to know what’s going on. We got a right to know what’s going on.”
“Ok,” Sarah said smiling, “but I’m telling Brother Michael you made me.”
She gently opened the pull-string and peeked inside. “Pete, look at this!” She tipped the bag. Sparkling green gems fell into her hand. “Beautiful,” she said softly.
“What are they diamonds?” Pete asked.
“They look like diamonds, but they’re green.”
“That can’t be worth a million bucks,” Pete said.
Sarah rolled the jewels back into the bag. “Don’t be so sure. Some gems are worth a fortune.”
She had just finished putting the package back together when Pete rolled into the parking lot of their apartment complex. “Mum’s the word,” she told Pete as she opened the door and stepped out with the package under her arm.
“Huh?” Pete said, rounding the back of the van.
“What? oh, mum’s the word means don’t tell.”
“Oh, you mean, keep my mouth shut?”
“Yeah,” Sarah said, smiling, “keep your mouth shut, Pete.”
Pete grinned.
She shook Pete’s arm. “I think Brother Michael is gonna’ be very happy to see us. Someone’s about to make a great impression on Brother Michael.”
“Really? Who?”
“You, silly.”
They moved up the stairs and walked into the apartment. The couple was surprised to find Barney sitting on the lounge chair. Mallory sat sidesaddle on one of his legs, her arm slung over his shoulders. They were supposed to have been on a delivery. “What time is it?” Pete asked.
“It’s time for you to get your butt kicked,” Barney said.
Pete turned to see Brother Michael standing in front of the TV. He was obviously angry. Pete and Sarah exchanged nervous glances.
“Peter…” Brother Michael said softly, “Why don’t you tell us what you two were up to while you were poking around in our package?”
Pete quickly looked at Barney and back at Michael. Fear swelled in his chest. He had never seen this look on Brother Michael’s face before.
~~~
The docking of the space Trawler Edmonton had been tricky. The Mission docket called for the Edmonton to tow eight fully loaded SRBs, tethered together on a thirty-five-mile-long string, directly toward the space station at 17,500 miles per hour.
En route to the station, the crew had the extraordinarily delicate task of turning the Trawler and its volatile string of cargo one hundred and eighty degrees. The SRBs had to be swung around early in the mission to allow for braking at just the right time. And once aimed, there would be no way of steering.
It was imperative they keep the tethers taut. The only way to achieve that goal, once the procession had been swung around, was for the Edmonton to execute an extraordinarily gradual deceleration. But if they slowed too quickly, they could fall behind the space station’s orbital speed. And if that happened, in the same way a chain is easy to pull, but impossible to push, they would become dead in the water. They also didn’t want to come in too fast because rather than pulling in forwards, they would be backing the string of bombs directly past the space station, fifty feet off its bow and the caboose of this train was thirty-five miles behind the locomotive.
The confines of the physical size of the only available crane, the Canadarm 2, dictated that the flyby be within fifty feet. The maneuver would be so precise, onboard radar would not be able to accurately monitor at what margin the first SRB would miss, or not miss, the station. The whole thing came down to a single mathematical equation.
By the time the
first SRB finally reached the station, the Edmonton had dramatically slowed the colossal procession down. Those aboard the international space station watched anxiously as the first missile whistled past, moving at around three hundred miles per hour. Onboard laser-ranging devices would later report that the string of SRBs missed the station by exactly thirty-eight feet, seven and one half inches.
At the end of the day, the Edmonton had successfully completed her mission and had arrived on schedule. The string of SRBs had been securely tethered to the space station and the Trawler was now safely docked at Unity, opposite the Douglas.
Never before had both been docked at the Unity node at the same time. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the space station, designed for a seven-member crew, was teaming with two Trawler crews of seven, along with the multinational crew of three assigned to man the station itself. The unprecedented size of the crew had been necessary in order to man five three member teams, working four point eight hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day. It was imperative that the propulsion assembly unit be completed and on its way to Dante no later than six days from start up.
Trawler commander Lieutenant Colonel Andrea Lange, payload specialist, John Palm and payload commander Colonel Joyce Shipley had arrived at the space station two weeks prior aboard the Douglas and had spent the night in the confined Joint Airlock Module in preparation for the first scheduled EVA.
Lieutenant Commander Arno Bosley, operating from the flight deck of the Douglas, officially turned attitude control over to RS MCS. Moscow command and control activated Tranzit-B suit communications on schedule and the COM systems within Lange, Palm and Shipley’s spacesuits quickly came online.
At 1300, Lieutenant Colonel Lange stepped out of the crew lock and onto the Crew and Equipment Translation Aid known as the CETA. She was now officially outside the relative safety of the station.
Payload commander Elisabeth Jiang would be controlling the specially built, fifty-five-foot-long, Canadarm 2 from inside the station. She was busily typing commands into her computer, checking and re-checking the monitor screen for confirmation of changes. She clicked on the affirmative box corresponding with ‘operational on redundant string, off on prime.’ The computer confirmed the command had been implemented.
Next on the list: MBS: KA power on both strings.
Again, she clicked affirmative.
“Flight, be advised, SRMS is go.”
“Copy that ROSO. EVA and PHALCON confirm. All clear to go when ready.”
“Copy Flight, going to GPC for manual control.”
Lieutenant Colonel Andrea Lange stood alone on the CETA, gazing at the panoramic scene looming before her. What she saw overwhelmed her. Silhouetted against the massive blue marbled earth, the thirty-five-mile-long string of mighty SRBs stretched out into what seemed like infinity. The sun was rising over the eastern hemisphere and patches of cloudless skies clearly revealed junctions of brown land and blue water. From this unique perspective, the entire earth appeared to be displayed out for her like a masterful painting.
It occurred to her for the first time that she truly belonged to this vast family of man, that the family of man belonged to her. The sobering reality pressed on her. She, and this little handful of people inhabiting this tiny space station…a speck of dust floating in an ocean of space, was the only hope for her kind. She could tangibly feel the men, women and children of the earth watching her, hoping and praying that she, and this tiny group, would be able to do what they had come here to do.
A lump grew in her throat. She found herself fighting off tears just as Colonel Shipley stepped onto the CETA.
“Look at this.” Shipley spoke through the intercom, pointing at the spectacular sunrise, “It’s like looking through the eyes of God.” She turned and looked out at the cyclopean string of SRBs surreally floating on and on, as far as one could see.
Lange managed to pull herself together. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?” she said.
The Canadarm moved to life just as payload specialist John Palm stepped onto the CETA.
The big arm slowly swung towards a tactically placed Power and Data Grapple Fixture, known as PDGF, where it methodically attached itself. Once attached, Jiang ordered it to detach from the original PDGF and pivot to the next one down the line.
The arm flipped end on end and attached itself to yet another PDGF like a herculean inchworm.
The three astronauts watched in awe as the mammoth robotic arm began surrealistically crawling along the length of the station towards the first SRB in line.
At the scheduled time, Lange, Palm and Shipley maneuvered the CETA into position. They slowly began making their way to the other end of the space station.
With the aid of Canadarm 2, the five multinational crews would begin the arduous task of pulling each SRB to a designated spot near the station and assemble each one, one after the other, into a single titanic rocket motor. They had six days.
~~~
“It’s time for you to start coming in every two weeks,” Dr. Yates said, peeling off his rubber gloves.
“Is everything ok?”
“Everything is fine. The pregnancy is coming along nicely.”
“Good,” Maria said, reaching for Todd’s hand.
“It’s just customary for all patients to increase their appointments when they move into the last trimester.”
Maria rubbed her belly. “Okay, we’ll be here.”
Todd helped her sit up. She pushed off the examination table and slowly moved to the adjoining bathroom. Moments later she returned fully clothed. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Todd said moving to the door.
It had become an uncomfortable time for Maria. The humid Tennessee summer heat was starting to take its toll on her. They made it to the car; Todd had parked too far from the hospital entrance for Maria’s liking. “Hurry,” She said as Todd helped her into the car. “Get that air conditioning going before I die.”
Todd ran around, jumped in, and fired the car up as ordered. “It’ll be cool in a minute.”
“Do you think the heat hurts the baby?”
“No,” Todd said. “Your body regulates its own internal temperature.”
She fanned her face with her hand. “It hurts me.”
“Here it comes,” Todd said, feeling the cool breeze blowing from the AC vent.
“I was reading an article in the waiting room,” Maria said. “What’s the number one cause of death in infants, do you know?”
“Same as for everybody I think…birth.”
“No, smart guy, SIDS; sudden infant death syndrome.
“You worry too much,” Todd said smiling. “The baby’s gonna’ be fine.”
“I know. Still I worry.”
“I think that’s normal, especially for the first baby.”
“First and last. It’s time to move to Omaha.”
Todd turned to look at her, “huh?”
“Omaha, it’s time to go.” Maria fidgeted with the air conditioner controls. “Doesn’t this thing get any cooler?”
“When?”
“Right away.”
“How soon, right away?”
“Right away, right away.”
Todd reached and turned his vent towards her. “But, what about your appointments?” Shouldn’t we leave after the baby’s born?”
“No, the baby has to be born in Omaha.”
“Ok,” Todd said slowly. He silently drove for a time. “Are you sure?” he asked abruptly, breaking the silence.
“Very sure.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Maria, could you open up a little? I mean, you’re talking about pulling up and moving off. You’re round about eight months pregnant now and since the Vinces have set us up with everything, we won’t have food or a place to live once we get to Omaha. I don’t have a job. We don’t have any insurance…. Have you thought this thing out?”
Maria turned and looked
at Todd. “We have to go. We’ll be fine; I’m sure of it.”
“But Mar—”
“Please, Todd trust me.”
Todd looked at her thoughtfully and turned his attention back to the road. “Does that mean we have to start packing right off?”
“We have to start packing now.”
“Ok,” Todd said, “but if we’re gonna’ do it, we shouldn’t draw it out. I’m not sure how the Vinces will take it if they find out we’re takin’ off.”
“But Father Jenkins said they wouldn’t interfere with things like that.”
“I know,” Todd said, “but things have been sort of strange lately.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like that business with Father Jenkins, when he told me you called him. Turns out you never called him at all. So how did he know we ever discussed religion in the first place? How did he know about the time I asked you if you had a Bible? I think there’s more to this Father Jenkins business than we know.”
“And that guy,” Maria said. “What about that guy watching us at the picnic?”
Todd nodded, “yeah, what was that all about?”
“I’ll call a moving company this afternoon,” Maria said.
“No, wait, if we have a moving van parked square in front of the house, the Vinces are sure to see it.”
“But what about our things?” she asked.
Todd thought about it. “Do we have to live in Omaha, or will we be there just long enough for the baby to be born?”
“I don’t know.”
“Either way,” Todd said, “we can always come back for our things once the baby’s born. That’s only a couple months away.”
“Do you think the Vinces will keep our things in the house that long?”
“Once we get there we’ll call them.”
“No,” Maria said, “I don’t think that would be a good idea. We should keep our location a secret ‘till the baby’s born.”
“Ok,” Todd said after a moment. “We’ll call them using one of those disposable cell phones, tell them everything is alright and ask them to hold on to our stuff till after the baby’s born.”
“They can’t track us?”
“No, not with one of those throwaway phones, and when we call, we won’t be calling from Omaha.”
“Ok,” Maria said, “sounds like a plan.”
“When do we head out?” Todd asked.
“Tonight.”
“Really? Tonight?”
“Why not? let’s get it over with.”
