Expecting that Tiona would be embarrassed, Nolan was surprised to see an enormous smile on her face as she stepped away from the homeless woman. She was still grinning when they entered the sub shop and Nolan was still trying to figure out what to say about the encounter. Should I ask her about it? How could she explain it other than to admit she eats at the homeless shelter herself?! He decided to just try to pretend it didn’t happen. As they waited for their sandwiches he asked her about her thrust phenomenon research, it seemed a safe subject. Her answers seemed enigmatic, but that might just have been because of the very limited results she could have produced since yesterday.
***
Major Riker stood at the front of the room, waiting nervously. He’d never given a presentation to a general officer before and didn’t know who this General Harding was. A Brigadier, he was supposed to be some kind of hotshot troubleshooter from off to the side of the usual chain of command. Things had sure seemed to happen when Harding started giving orders. Finally the general gave him the eye and signaled for him to start. Riker began his briefing, focusing on the things they had done to try to learn something about what had happened last night. If he only told them what the team had actually learned so far, it would in fact be a very brief briefing.
When he finished General Harding sat tapping a finger on the desktop. “So, let me summarize what we actually know… RDU traffic control recorded transponder signals indicating an aircraft—that did not identify itself—going straight up. Radar at that airport as well as several other civilian radar systems also recorded a return from an object that was apparently going straight up?”
Riker nodded.
Harding continued, “NORAD also detected the object and tracked it to an altitude of 122 kilometers, well beyond the accepted hundred kilometer limit for a space launch.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Yet, two experienced air traffic controllers in the RDU control tower, who specifically look out the tower to the east, trying to see a rocket launch, see no such thing?”
“No Sir.”
“Just about the time that everyone has written it off as a glitch in the system, the aforesaid object falls back out of the sky on a trajectory to impact in a lake no more than twenty miles from where it launched, a surprisingly vertical ascent and descent.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Helicopters sent to the area of the lake shortly after the expected impact find no infrared evidence of heated material suggesting a crash. Subsequent analysis of the descent suggests that the object may have decelerated at a rate of 3 to 5 G’s during the last seven seconds it was coming down.”
Major Riker merely nodded again.
“Radar evidence shows the object launching from a local golf course in Raleigh, North Carolina. Helicopter, satellite, and a man on the ground examination of the golf course and its surrounds show no evidence of a launch site. Additionally there are only a few substantial buildings in the area and inspection of them does not suggest that they could be covering some sort of launch silo.”
“No Sir.”
“Door to door questioning of the people in the immediate neighborhoods surrounding the golf course finds no one who even heard anything that might suggest a rocket launch.”
“No Sir.”
The general sighed and rubbed his eyes. “So in summary, we have a silent launch of a space capable rocket carrying an aircraft transponder. The launch is also confirmed on radar. This UFO reaches outer space, then comes almost straight back down to a lake where it does not crash.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Our only saving grace is that, other than the air traffic controllers, apparently no civilians observed this event to turn it into some kind of Roswell incident.”
“No Sir, but I am concerned that if we continue questioning people about it, that the general public will become alarmed and it might become an incident on some level.”
“Okay. So, we’ll stop interviewing the locals. We will, however, have the NSA let us know if anyone starts talking about the incident on e-media. We’ll also maintain a high overflight surveillance of the general area with whatever type of AWACS craft is available. We’ll station attack helicopters at several locations in the nearby area and put some air superiority fighter aircraft on ready alert at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. If this thing didn’t crash, and it takes flight again, we’re going to track it down! Got that?”
***
Lisanne waited until Vaz had gotten started on his meal. “Vaz, this project you and Tiona have been working on… this isn’t something that might get the government excited is it?”
Vaz froze with his fork partly to his mouth, widened eyes focused intently on Lisanne. “Maybe. Why?”
“Some earnest young men knocked on our door this afternoon. They were dressed in civilian clothes, but I’d swear they were in the military from the way they called me ‘Ma’am’.”
Vaz’s fork hadn’t moved, “What did they want?”
“Asked a lot of questions about loud noises or bright lights. Wanted to know if we’d been outside last night. If so, had we seen or heard anything unusual?”
Vaz’s eyes narrowed, “Did they say why they were asking us?”
“No, I saw them go on to knock on the Johnson’s door after they left here, so I think they were just going door to door and asking everyone.”
Some of the tension left Vaz’s face and he finally moved the forkful of food into his mouth. He began chewing without saying anything.
Lisanne rolled her eyes, “So what are you and Tiona doing that might have the government excited?”
Vaz finished chewing, loaded his fork and lifted it toward his mouth. Just as Lisanne was getting irritated because she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he said, “We built a spacecraft.” He put the forkful of lasagna in his mouth and started chewing.
Startled, and with wide eyes, Lisanne said, “Based on that saucer you were riding around on down in the basement?!”
Vaz nodded.
“But surely you don’t have a battery with enough power for one of those discs to fly all the way into space?!”
Vaz swallowed, “No. We built a bigger saucer so that it would have enough thrust to lift a fusion plant.”
Lisanne tilted her head, “Wait, I thought the fusion plant was small and light?”
Vaz nodded, “But, it’s got five tons of water, boron and layered metal for shielding.”
“Oh!” Lisanne thought for a moment then frowned at Vaz as she said slowly, “Wait a minute. How big is this thing?”
“Do you want to look at it?” he asked somewhat eagerly. “It’s over in Johnson’s garage.”
Lisanne sighed, “As soon as we finish dinner. Does it make a lot of noise or bright lights?”
Vaz frowned, “No. They probably saw us go up on radar and decided it must’ve been a rocket launch.”
“A launch you didn’t have permission for…?”
Vaz just shook his head.
“How high did you go?” she asked suspiciously.
“122 kilometers.”
“Above 100 is considered to be in space, right?”
Vaz nodded.
Lisanne sighed again. “Let’s go see this thing…”
***
Bob Eisner stared at the young woman across the desk from him. “Wait Ms. Gettnor, you got these data… how?” he said, turning his eyes back to the table she had up on his display. The table displayed thrust numbers for a fifteen centimeter disc. And one of the columns—his eyes kept coming back to it—bore the label 122,000 meters. “Did Dr. Weitzel send your package up in a balloon like we talked about?” As soon as he said it, he realized that couldn’t be right. Balloons couldn’t possibly get to that altitude. Then he wondered whether balloons could get to 122,000 feet.
She looked a little embarrassed as she said, “Um, no.”
Eisner was trying to imagine what kind of a mistake the young woman was about to own up to, when she said, “Um, my da
d and I… we built a device using thrusters to send the experiment up that high.” She said that last in a rush, as if trying to get it off her chest.
“A device…” Eisner said, feeling confused.
“Um, yeah. Thrusters can lift things, right? Like propellers, or jets, or rockets.”
“So… you’re saying… you made a rocket that uses thrusters?”
“Kinda. I’d like to show it to you.”
“Okay,” Eisner said half expecting her to pull some kind of rocket out of her backpack.
“Um, ’cause we don’t want the whole world to know about it yet, I think the only time we can do it is at night. I told Nolan I’d show it to him tonight at eleven. Can you meet us then too?”
Eisner sat there dazed after the young woman left his office. He’d agreed to meet her at the soccer field west of Finley golf course at 11 PM. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit apprehensive about the cloak and dagger nature of the meeting. He’d tried to request more details about the device, but she’d refused, saying it would be more fun for him to see it.
What am I going to tell my wife?
***
As Tiona walked to the shelter for dinner, she said, “AI, please contact my dad.”
A moment later she heard Vaz’s voice in her ear. “Yes?”
“I want to take Dr. Eisner up tonight, is that okay?”
There was a long period of silence which didn’t worry Tiona as that was a common event when having a conversation with her father. Then he said, “We think the military is looking for it.”
Tiona’s heart skipped a beat, “We? Why?”
“They came to the door this afternoon and spoke to your mother. They were asking about loud noises and bright lights. Presumably they’re looking for a rocket that launched from near here.”
“Oh,” Tiona said thinking furiously. “So now Mom knows we’ve been building a flying saucer in the garage?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she pissed?”
“Um, I don’t think she’s pissed about what we built. I think she might be kind of upset that we took it up without the government’s permission.”
Tiona laughed to herself. It was just so typical that her dad wouldn’t actually know whether her mother was mad or not. “So, you think we shouldn’t fly it again?”
“I don’t know.”
“It seems silly to have built the thing if we’re only going to fly it once.”
“We’ve proved it works. We can let other people fly it now.”
That’s classic for dad too, Tiona thought, once he’s gotten something to work, he starts losing interest in it! Besides, I think he found riding in it pretty scary.
“Well, I still want to take Dr. Eisner and Nolan out for a ride. You think as long as we stay under a few hundred feet the military won’t notice us?”
There was another long pause where Vaz said nothing. Then, “I’m a little worried that if the military finds you before you go public, they might try to restrict the technology for military use.”
At that startling thought, Tiona stopped suddenly in the sidewalk. Someone muttered a curse as they bumped into her from behind, but she didn’t notice. “Really?”
“Yes. So I think you should announce it now.”
Tiona resumed walking to the shelter, “I want to take the guys up for a ride first,” she said with determination. “We’ll announce it tomorrow. Is it okay if I come by and pick it up tonight around 10:15?”
“Okay,” Vaz said sounding doubtful.
“I assume the AI can turn off that transponder?”
“Yes.”
***
Riker stumbled into the command center that General Harding had set up. When they’d rousted him he’d been catching up on a few winks since he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. He turned to the NCO just inside the room, “What happened?”
The NCO glanced up at him; then said quietly, “NSA picked up a couple of tweets, EPOs and emails from North Raleigh about a ‘flying saucer.’” The Sergeant glanced over at General Harding, “We weren’t going to wake the general up, but it’s a good thing we did. He’s on fire about this crap!”
Riker glanced over at the general as he went over to get some coffee, grateful to the sergeant for letting him know that the general thought this saucer report was important. He probably would have discounted any reports like that as bullshit. Feeling more awake, he moved out into the main part of the room and started trying to make sense of the various displays that were up.
Harding saw him and said, “Riker, get with the AWACS guys and let me know if you can pull anything out of the clutter. NSA is picking up reports of a flying saucer, supposedly heading west from the north side of Raleigh.”
Riker saw a desk labeled AWACS. It was next to a desk labeled RDU, presumably the airport radar system. He went over to lean down between the two desks. “You guys got anything?” he said, skimming his eyes over their displays. “Looks to me like if this saucer is heading due west from North Raleigh it would run right into the airport?”
One of the NCOs answered quietly, “Those are civilian tweets and such, they probably don’t know west from shit.” The NCO glanced up and realized he’d been talking to a major, “Uh, Sir.” After a pause he said, “AWACS is giving us plenty of ground returns and we’ve had the AI screen everything out that’s stationary. But we’re still getting plenty of mobile returns from cars, trucks and such.”
“Have the AI screen out all the returns that are on known roadways.”
“Yes Sir.” He began to murmur to the AI.
Riker turned to the NCO on the RDU desk. “What have you guys got?”
“Nothing squawking a transponder like last night. If it’s flying, it’s too low for the airport’s radar.”
“Sir!” the NCO at the AWACS desk said, “There’s something over this big park southeast of the airport! ‘Umstead Park.’” He pointed at a red icon headed west over the park.
“It’s not one of ours?”
“No Sir, our own assets have green icons. Known civilian aircraft are in yellow.”
Riker was about to call for the general’s attention when the icon went off the southwest edge of the park and suddenly disappeared. “What the hell happened to it?”
“I don’t know,” the NCO said in a tone usually reserved for the sighting of ghosts.
They stared at the screen together for a while. It was practically blank except for the yellow icons of aircraft taking off or landing at the airport and the green icons of the Apache helicopters General Harding had scattered about the area. With nothing to go after, the Apache’s icons were stationary.
Eventually, Riker said, “Let’s see the road traffic again.”
The NCO murmured to his AI and a moment later moving red icons blossomed everywhere, most of them following one another in little lines down various roads. The few isolated ones were presumably on roads with very little traffic. Riker’s eyes went back to where their bogey had disappeared, “Damn!” He pointed, “If our UFO turned and started following the highway here, where it disappeared, it would’ve fallen off our map because the AI was excluding things following roads, right?”
“Yeah!” The NCO breathed.
“What road is that?” Riker asked. His eyes scanned ahead along the road, wondering if one of the many icons he saw there could be the bogey.
“I-40.”
Riker stood, his mind scrambling as he tried to think of a way to figure out which of the icons was his bogey. Suddenly the NCO said, “Sir, do you want me to have the AI track the bogey from Umstead Park forward to its current location? Out of its memory, I mean?”
“Yes!” Riker said with a feeling of relief. He looked up, “General, we may have something here.”
***
Nolan stood by the southwest goal of the soccer field, shivering despite his heavy coat. Damn! It’s too cold to be meeting on a golf course or soccer field in January! He wondered what Tiona could have in min
d. Considering the temperature, it couldn’t be any kind of wild casual sex like he’d briefly fantasized about. A car pulled off the road behind him and he turned to watch it bump out a little dirt lane toward the soccer field. He turned and started that way, At least I didn’t have to wait too long here in the cold, he thought.
As the car approached he realized that it was a fairly late model Volkswagen. Not a high-end car, but something much better than he expected a girl who ate at the homeless shelter to be driving. It pulled up near him and stopped. The door opened and someone got out.
Someone bigger than Tiona. “Hello?” Nolan said
“Hello Nolan,” Eisner’s voice said, “Tiona said you’d be here too.”
Nolan’s brain stumbled heavily over this unexpected encounter. Dr. Eisner! What does Eisner have to do with “something I’ve always wanted to do?!” Then he heard a faint rumbling sound. Not loud, but low in the bass registers. Nolan slowly turned, his eyes taking in the astonished look on Eisner’s face as he did so.
A flying saucer?!
Nolan stood, gaping beside Dr. Eisner as they watched the saucer slowly come down on the field. It was so large that he expected it to settle into the turf, but instead it seemed to barely touch. The fact that it didn’t appear to be crushing the grass made him decide that it was some kind of optical illusion or special effect. He turned to Eisner, wondering what the professor was thinking.
Eisner tore his eyes away from the saucer and glanced at Nolan, “Holy crap! I was expecting her to arrive here with some kind of rocket she’d carried in her car!”
Nolan realized that Eisner knew a lot more about what was going on than he did. He felt vaguely disappointed to learn that Tiona had confided more in Eisner than she had in Nolan.
They heard a door open and a second later a head popped up out of the back of the dome on top of the saucer. Tiona said, “Hey! You guys want to go for a ride?”
Tiona_a sequel to Vaz Page 20
