Solitude: Dimension Space Book One

by Dean M. Cole

  Vaughn smiled and raised hopeful eyebrows.

  A touchpad and lens adorned the wall to the right of the door.

  "Hmmm …"

  He nodded and then turned and jogged two hangars back.

  A couple of minutes later, Vaughn returned wearing gloves and a heavy apron and towing the wheeled twin tanks and hose of an oxyacetylene cutting torch. He had noticed the set-up earlier and mentally marked its location.

  Vaughn donned the goggles and then fired up the torch. He experimented with the knobs on each tank until he had what he guessed to be a proper flame. This was his first attempt at oxy-fuel cutting, but he didn't think it would be too hard.

  An hour later—and with a newfound appreciation for the finer intricacies of cutting torch usage—Vaughn finally entered the smoke-hazed facility. Inside, a highly non-standard aircraft occupied the center of the large hangar.

  He'd found the Aurora!

  The man stared open-mouthed at its dark, glistening skin. Then he jumped as a metallic clatter echoed off of the building's walls.

  Vaughn looked down.

  "Oh shit!"

  He had dropped the still burning torch, and the damn thing had landed with its flames licking at the twinned hoses.

  Vaughn kicked it, removing the immediate threat of a dubious, flaming end to the day. Then he walked back outside and shut off the oxyacetylene tank's main valves before he could find some other way to blow up himself and the spaceplane.

  Reentering the hangar, Vaughn stared at the long, sleek craft. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie, like someone had mated a supersonic SR-71 Blackbird with NASA's hypersonic X-43. The drooped ends of the black plane's swept back wings hung only a few inches above the polished concrete floor.

  Vaughn walked to the aircraft, studying its lines. The spaceplane's canopy sported clear panels, but unlike typical fighters, the glass didn't protrude above the flowing lines of the craft's top skin. The pilot would have unobstructed views up, left, and right, but a video feed must provide the forward field of view.

  He climbed up the access ladder. Looking down into the cockpit, he was pleased to see familiar flight controls. Also, large rectangular computer screens, similar to those in his Black Hawk, filled the instrument panel.

  Vaughn didn't have a lot of fixed-wing experience, but he'd never met an aircraft he couldn't fly. The few times he'd flown an airplane, the man had quickly mastered its controls. Most rotary-wing pilots found fixed-wing aircraft to be an easy transition. In forward flight, they flew much like a helicopter, natural and intuitive, just faster—significantly so in this case.

  Of course, things would get complicated in a hurry if malfunctions occurred. That was when experience and knowledge showed their true worth. Vaughn would have to maximize the little time available to learn as much as he could about the spaceplane and its systems. Fortunately, modern aircraft had a great deal of built-in automation and redundancy. Beyond that, Vaughn would need a certain amount of luck.

  In a compartment on the right side of the spaceplane's spacious cockpit, he found its operator's manual. A few minutes later, he connected a ground power unit to the craft and energized its electrical systems.

  Vaughn climbed into the cockpit. To prepare for the coming spacewalk, he started pre-breathing pure oxygen from an O2 bottle he'd found earlier. This would purge excess nitrogen from his body and, hopefully, prevent decompression sickness or 'the bends,' as most people called it.

  Seated with the book open in his lap, he spent the next two hours studying the plane's displays and electronics. Fortunately, it shared lots of commonality with other aircraft. The computer-generated flight instruments mirrored those in his Black Hawk. The autopilots of the two diametrical aircraft even shared many of the same features.

  Finally satisfied that he had a working knowledge of the spaceplane's systems, Vaughn shut down the bird and climbed out of its cockpit.

  After a systematic search of the area, he found the ship's specialized fuel stored in a cryogenic cell. Vaughn donned the foil-lined protective garments. The man had already tried to blow himself up once today, so he closed the valve of his oxygen bottle before he started the refueling operation. Several minutes later, he had the Aurora topped off.

  Vaughn started up the O2 again and then went in search of the spacesuits. In the back of the hangar, he found a locker room. Long, thin-walled suits with silvery neck rings hung behind several of the narrow metal doors. The third one looked like it would fit.

  Before trying it on, Vaughn checked his watch.

  "Shit!"

  He ran out of the locker room and through the hangar beyond. A moment later, Vaughn emerged under a midday sun and trotted over to his recently acquired truck and its stashed gear.

  Soon the generator purred to life. The antenna he'd brought for the purpose pointed skyward. After another glance up, Vaughn pulled the oxygen mask aside and depressed the transmit key.

  "Commander Brown, this is Army Captain …"

  Vaughn shook his head and smiled.

  "Hey, Angela, you there?"

  Chapter 21

  At the designated time, the radio speaker crackled to life. "Commander Brown, this is Army Captain …" The man's voice stopped mid-sentence. Angela's heart skipped a beat, but then he returned. She could hear the smile in his words, could almost see it on the smoothly shaved face she'd pictured for him. "Hey, Angela, you there?"

  She returned the imagined smile. "Hi, Vaughn. Yes, I'm here."

  "I found it!"

  Angela's eyes widened. "You found the Aurora?!"

  "Sure did!"

  After a pregnant pause, Angela said, "Is it flyable?"

  "Yep!"

  She clapped her hands. "Oh, my God! You might really rescue me!"

  "Might?" Vaughn said with feigned indignation. "Pshaw." Then he chuckled. "It'll be easier than flying through that damned storm."

  "Storm? What happened?"

  Over the next few minutes, the captain told her about a frightful trip through the mountains.

  "Talk about pucker factor! When I finally made it to the other side and landed at Moab's Canyonlands Field for fuel, there was a donut hole cut in my seat. Think I got all the fiber I'll need for the next week or two."

  Angela guffawed, bursting into laughter.

  "Did you just snort, Commander Brown?"

  This elicited a fresh batch of spasming laughs along with a few of the aforementioned snorts. "Guilty as charged," she finally managed.

  "Well I'm glad you find my rectal distress so amusing," he said without malice.

  Angela pictured that smooth-faced smile again. Then she caught a glimpse of her image in one of the Cupola's large glass panels. The reflected grin morphed into a frown on her hollow cheeks. Her gaunt appearance shook the woman to the core. She might be on the cusp of meeting, literally, the last man on Earth, and she looked like death warmed over.

  The astronaut shook her head angrily.

  Screw that!

  She'd never needed anybody, much less a man. Now she was worried about how she'd look to her would-be rescuer.

  No, she was better than that.

  Angela pursed her lips and keyed the mic. "When can you launch, Captain?"

  She winced. The words had come out harsher than intended.

  After a long pause, Singleton returned, sounding confused. "Uh … It's fueled and ready."

  "Already?!"

  "Yeah!"

  "Are you sure? Did you check everything?"

  The smile evaporated from the man's voice. "I got this, Commander."

  Angela nodded. "Okay." Her voice softened. "Sorry. I really do appreciate everything you're doing, Vaughn."

  His voice dropped, matching her tone. "No need to apologize, Angela."

  An uncomfortable silence fell over them.

  Finally, Vaughn spoke up. "From what I saw in the spaceplane's performance charts, it can climb and accelerate at the rate you estimated yesterday. Did you conf
irm those preliminary numbers? Is eighteen hundred Zulu still good?"

  During their previous conversation, Angela had worked out the orbital intercept timing and trajectory for a ship launching from Southern Nevada. Over the subsequent twenty-four hours, she'd double- and triple-checked the timing. It turned out her initial, off-the-cuff estimate had been pretty close.

  "Actually, you have another hour to work with, Captain. A departure time of nineteen hundred Zulu will work."

  "Wow, that was a pretty impressive guesstimate, Commander."

  The woman blushed. Not because of his praise, but because of the way she'd snapped at him earlier. She keyed the mic again. "I told you to make it Angela, Vaughn."

  "Angela-Vaughn?" he said, the smile back in full force. "That's an odd name … but if you insist, I'll talk to you sometime after nineteen hundred, Angela-Vaughn."

  Angela grinned. With a chuckle, she said, "I'll be listening, smart-ass."

  Part III

  "If it happens that the human race doesn't make it, then the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered intelligently at everything about it and the other things who lived here with us on it, and that we celebrated the beauty of it in music and art, architecture, literature, and dance, and that there were times when we approached something godlike in our abilities and aspirations. We emerged out of depthless mystery, and back into mystery we returned, and in the end the mystery is all there is."

  ― James Howard Kunstler

  Chapter 22

  Vaughn closed his eyes. "Try not to screw this up, Captain Singleton."

  The sleek black spaceplane now stood at the west end of a Groom Lake runway. Sitting in its cockpit, the spacesuited man opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He focused on the top half of the instrument panel. The clarity of the ultra-high-definition video painted across its screen created the illusion that he was looking through an actual canopy. Ahead of the spaceplane, the black concrete strips that marked the runway's border stretched toward the east end of the lake bed. In the distance, the parallel lines appeared to converge like the rails of a train track.

  The base's longest concrete runway would have sufficed, but a broken-up Boeing 737 sat in the middle of its long expanse. Conversely, the lake bed runway had no obstacles, and if Vaughn inadvertently veered off of it during the takeoff roll, he was less likely to wreck the spaceplane.

  The pilot took a deep breath and then toggled the starters. The hybrid jet engines ignited with a whine. As they reached idle speed, the noise grew into a thrumming roar. The entire ship vibrated with pent-up power, like an angry bull pressing at the gate.

  Using the spaceplane's on-board auxiliary power unit, Vaughn had already activated the Aurora's electronics, including the ship's space tracking computer interface. Its display showed several orbital targets. Most had arcane titles and icons. However, one image, imaginatively titled ISS, featured the station's familiar solar arrays. Programming an intercept had proven relatively straightforward. The computer-generated time until launch matched the countdown timer on his watch. Angela's calculations had been dead on.

  The numbers of both clocks counted down through ten seconds.

  Vaughn placed a trembling left hand on the ship's dual power levers. His heart felt as if it might burst. The adrenaline dumping into the man's system had it beating so hard he could hear the pulse echoing inside the spacesuit's helmet.

  "Don't screw up," he said again.

  The countdowns hit zero.

  Vaughn shoved both power levers forward.

  Nothing happened.

  "What the he—"

  Then a sledgehammer slammed into the back of his seat. A tremendous shock wave rocked the spaceplane. Around it, the floor of the dry lake bed flared bright white. Then its luminosity appeared to fade as acceleration G-forces grayed out Vaughn's peripheral vision.

  As the man rocketed across the lake bed, it felt as if an elephant had sat on his chest. His universe shrank until he could only see a speed-blurred patch of runway ahead of the rushing spaceplane.

  Tremendous vibrations rattled the rapidly accelerating ship. Vaughn eased the stick back. The tremors faded as the Aurora rotated and then rocketed away from Groom Lake's sandy surface.

  Suddenly, red lights flashed and multiple warning horns bleated!

  Overwhelmed by the sheer number of alerts, Vaughn stared motionlessly for a long moment. They all seem to have something to do with the ship having excess power applied. He started to pull back throttles, but then he saw the autopilot flashing for his attention. Out of ideas, the man pressed the pulsing buttons.

  The nose abruptly lurched skyward, and the autothrottles halved the applied power.

  It malfunctioned! The ship was going to stall!

  Vaughn reached for the autopilot disconnect button, but then he saw the airspeed and yanked his hand away. It was still building, accelerating and gaining altitude at a prodigious rate.

  The man shook his head. "Damn it, Singleton! So much for not screwing up."

  Vaughn had triggered the alarms. The relatively shallow climb that he'd initiated with full power applied had allowed the spaceplane to rocket through its maximum airspeed for that altitude. Likely, if he hadn't engaged the autopilot, the dynamic forces would have soon ripped off the wings.

  When he'd reviewed the Operator's Manual, the pilot had focused on the engine starting procedures as well as those for orbital maneuvering and docking, but feeling short on time, he'd rushed through the sections that covered takeoff and flight, deciding he could wing it.

  Mark would have loved that, he thought wryly.

  Now flying straight up, the apparently homesick spaceplane rocketed through 50,000 feet. Azure sky shifted to indigo. Stars became visible as a few points emerged from the darkening violet sky. Then a universe worth of stars blossomed across the canopy.

  As it crested one hundred thousand feet, the plane's nose tilted from vertical, gradually nosing over. A few minutes later, the ship's hybrid thruster shut down, plunging Vaughn into sustained weightlessness for the first time in his life.

  But he didn't get to enjoy it for long.

  Multiple alarms suddenly rang across the cockpit. An amber message pulsed on the main display.

  INSUFFICIENT FUEL

  (Press For More Information)

  Vaughn felt sick to his stomach, but the nausea had nothing to do with the sensation of free fall. He reached for the message with a reluctant trembling finger. Finally, he touched it. The audio alarm ceased, and a subtext popped up:

  INSUFFICIENT FUEL TO RENDEZVOUS WITH TARGET: ISS

  "Son of a bitch!"

  His high-throttle burn through the lower atmosphere had used up his margin.

  "Shit!"

  On the real-time orbital display, the icon for the ISS was directly overhead. The original flight plan called for him to spend the next ninety-minute orbit matching speeds with the station. However, he could already see that wasn't going to happen. The ISS was quickly leaving him behind.

  Some fuel remained in the tank. Vaughn tried to fire up the thrusters, but the computer refused to accept the command. A new rectangular "Insufficient Fuel" amber caution segment began pulsing on the screen. Vaughn pressed it again, but this time a different subtext popped up:

  ADDITIONAL THRUSTING WILL LEAVE INSUFFICIENT FUEL TO DEORBIT

  OVERRIDE? YES NO

  Vaughn's finger hovered over the green "YES" for several seconds. Finally, he shifted it over and jabbed the red "NO."

  "Fuck!"

  The pilot slammed his head back. In the zero-G environment, it ricocheted painfully inside the helmet.

  The radio sparked to life. "Vaughn, are you there? I see your transponder."

  Blinking, he looked up. Vaughn saw the distant International Space Station as a brilliant point of light. As the pilot watched it leave him behind, he shook his head.

  "You're such a jackass, Vaughn."r />
  "Come in, Captain Singleton. Are you there?"

  Closing his eyes, the man toggled the radio. "Hey, Angela."

  "What's wrong?"

  "I screwed up!" He grimaced and then softened his tone. "I'm sorry, Angela."

  "What happened?"

  "Burned too much fuel during the launch." He hesitated and then sighed. "I'll have to return to Groom Lake."

  After a pregnant pause, the radio sparked back to life. "That's okay, Vaughn." The commander spoke in a non-judgmental tone that only deepened his feelings of guilt. "I've waited this long. Another day won't kill me … probably."

  Vaughn laughed in spite of himself. "Thanks for that, Angela. Wanna give the knife another twist?"

  "No, that should be enough." Her tone turned serious. "I'll calculate the next intercept window."

  Vaughn nodded and took a deep breath. "Okay. As soon as the plane is in the right position, I'll deorbit and head back to Area Fifty-One."

  Still shaking his head, Vaughn started entering the necessary information into the flight director.

  The radio crackled. "Great job getting that thing into space on your first try. Pretty impressive for an Army helicopter pilot."

  Vaughn grinned. "Wow! And the hits just keep coming."

  Angela snorted again.

  It was a beautiful sound. He had seen pictures of the smile that came with that snort. Vaughn truly hoped he hadn't lost his chance to see it in person.

  "I know you'll do better tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow?!"

  "Yep. Orbital mechanics can be a bitch."

  Vaughn watched the station race toward the eastern horizon like a speeding star. "I'm so sorry, Angela."

  "Stop saying that, Captain. You're already my hero." After a pause, her voice returned, softly singing a ballad from the eighties. "I need a hero. I'm holding out for a hero till the morning light. He's gotta be sure. And it's gotta be soon. And he's gotta be larger than life." Then she laughed and snorted.

  And Vaughn felt himself falling in love.

  A lump formed in his throat.