Tiona_a sequel to Vaz

by Laurence Dahners

  Sophie grinned at him, “It does when the trip only takes eight hours.”

  “What?!” Ralph said over Sophie’s shoulder, having made it through the airlock, and taken off his helmet.

  Sophie peeled an arm from around the Zack and slipped it around Ralph, hugging them both, “We left Houston last night.” She arched an eyebrow at them, then winked. “I’m thinking you guys are pretty hungry? I brought some burritos…”

  The look of eager hope on their faces was heart wrenching.

  As he tried to savor rather than wolf his burrito, Ralph started on the first of his million questions. “How?!” he asked waving around a hand that encompassed the saucer, Kadoma, Bellerphon and the miracle that had just avalanched over the two astronauts.

  First Sophie introduced them to Tiona and Nolan. Then she told them that Tiona could explain the thrusters on their ride home. “First things first,” Sophie said, “Do we need to get anything out of Bellerphon, or can we just start back to earth right now?”

  “Wait,” Ralph said looking at Tiona, “Thrusters? This… flying saucer… produces enough thrust to go from Earth to Kadoma in eight hours? I’m assuming halfway accelerating and halfway decelerating?”

  Tiona just nodded.

  “How much thrust does it generate?! And, and, how long can it do that?!”

  Tiona said, “We came here at one gravity acceleration, but that only takes about twenty percent of its available thrust. Well, actually less than that. We’re trying to stay below seventy percent power to be safe. It generates over 90,000 pounds of thrust at 70% and only weighs about 19,000 pounds so that’s plenty.”

  Ralph’s eyes widened, “And how long will the fuel last at that thrust?”

  “Well, as far as we know, it’ll last as long as its fusion plant will generate power, so presumably quite a few years.”

  Ralph reached back and grabbed the helmet of his spacesuit. Speaking to the microphone inside he said, “Bellerphon AI, how long would it take to finish correcting Kadoma’s orbital parameters to their desired state at 90,000 pounds of thrust?”

  They all heard the reply come out of his helmet. “One hour and twenty-three minutes.”

  Ralph looked up to see the other four people staring at him wide-eyed. “If that’s true, we could complete our mission before we go.” He looked at Zack, “Hey buddy, I know you really want to get home. You willing to put in another hour and a half?”

  “I’ve thought I was dead for weeks now,” Zach laughed in a hollow tone. “I can hang out here another hour or two.”

  It actually took an hour and a half to get ready. They moved the saucer over next to the big ion engine and Ralph got out in his spacesuit. Bellerphon’s AI had been able to advise them where to apply thrust to Kadoma relative to the ion engine because it had needed to gimbal the big thruster to send the force through the center of mass of Kadoma-Bellerphon so it wouldn’t tumble. Ralph watched the saucer come down at the point the AI had chosen. He had it move just a little bit so that it wouldn’t settle on a sharp ridge. The steel vessel around the fusion plant was very strong, but they didn’t want to take a chance on cracking it by applying too much pressure on a small area.

  Tiona gradually increased the thrust to 90,000 pounds, this time with the big disc pushing down through the fusion plant rather than lifting the saucer up off of something. Bellerphon’s AI interfaced with the saucer’s AI to adjust the thrust among the six 2.66 meter discs so that the thrust wouldn’t roll the asteroid.

  With everything stable, they settled in to apply the hour and twenty-three minutes of thrust that should finish modifying Kadoma’s orbit. Ralph said, “I guess we just wait now, huh? I don’t think we really need to retrieve anything from Bellerphon to take back to earth.”

  Tiona said, “There is something we’d like you guys to do for us.”

  “You name it, we’ll do it!”

  “Well, you see, we have a problem back on earth.” From there Tiona launched into a description of how they’d been pursued, had missiles launched at them, and had all of their communications interdicted.

  As she told her story, Ralph and Zack found it hard to believe. In fact, if these weren’t the people who’d just rescued them from almost certain death, the two astronauts would’ve been shaking their heads and denying the possibility that the story could be true. As Tiona wound down, Zach said, “If there really is a shadowy government agency full of bad guys after you, what do you think we can do about it?”

  “Publicity,” the young man, Nolan Marlowe, said. “You communicate with NASA, tell them you’ve been rescued and we’re bringing you home to Houston. Ask them to publicize it as widely as they can and arrange for reporters to be there when we land with you. They can choose the place. Remember, it doesn’t have to be where rockets normally land. We can land right there at the Johnson Space Center if they’d like. No one’s going to try to arrest or sequester us if you make sure the whole world is watching.”

  Ralph looked at Sophie, who nodded. He looked at Zack who said, “For God’s sake, it’s the least we can do. If these guys asked me to shoot the moon at the President, I’d gladly do it.”

  Jason Naylor was manning the Kadoma desk at NASA Houston when a header popped up signaling a call from Bellerphon. His stomach lurched with unease. He hated talking to the doomed astronauts, but it was his turn in the slot.

  He glanced around, hoping that he might see Sophie Bautista. She was usually willing to talk to the guys, though he could tell it broke her heart. He hadn’t seen her all morning, and she wasn’t at her station now.

  With resolve he turned to the screen and pasted on a smile. Touching the channel, he said, “Hello Bellerphon.” Then he blinked a couple of times, trying to process the image he was looking at. Three people were in the frame, Ralph Abbott on the left, Zack White on the right and… Sophie Bautista in the middle! None of the three were quite right side up, typical for a micro gravity situation. Behind and over them were windows, all framed edge to edge like they were in a greenhouse or something. Through the windows, he could see Kadoma. He knew it was that particular asteroid because he could see the big ion drive anchored to it. Part of Bellerphon could be seen to the side.

  Jason glanced around the room, Somebody has to be pulling some kind of video compositing stunt! This is a sick joke when two of the people in the video are about to die. If the media gets a hold of this file they’ll rip us to shreds! Jason couldn’t see anyone looking his way and waiting to get a laugh. He tried to figure out how to distance himself from this travesty without getting the person who’d done it in horrific trouble.

  Then Jason heard Sophie’s voice over the “Kadoma link.” He couldn’t believe Sophie was in on a joke like this. She’d never impressed him as someone with a macabre sense of humor. “Hey Jason,” she said, “good to see you’re the guy on duty. Believe it or not, I’m here on Kadoma with Zack and Ralph. Two things: first, you’ll need to tell your AI that we’re modifying Kadoma’s orbit so that the AI will know that it’s going to have to actively track with its antenna to avoid losing communication, second, I’m hoping you’ll get Mr. Mehta down to the desk so we can talk to him.”

  Jason sat, gaping for the entire thirteen seconds it took for the message to go to Kadoma and back. He wasn’t just gaping, his brain was still actively trying to process the huge series of contradictions it’d just been handed. Cognitively, he still had not been able to make any sense of the situation before a reaction came back from Kadoma. Sophie’s head tilted curiously and she said, “Jason?” She paused a second, but was an old enough hand at these delayed conversations that she went on without waiting for his reply, “I know this is hard to process. Some people in North Carolina have developed a thruster based on completely new technology. They built this… spacecraft that you see around us and flew me to Kadoma from Earth in about eight hours. We need NASA’s help to make a public announcement.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jason said looking around the room for the pe
rpetrator again. He faced back to Sophie and said quietly, “This is a pretty sick joke. I could believe it of some of the guys around here, but it’s hard to believe you let them drag you into it Sophie.”

  Thirteen seconds later, Sophie and the two astronauts all started laughing at the same time, something Jason realized would have been difficult to do for somebody compositing video on the fly. Then Zack spoke, “Yeah, it’s more like the kind of sick joke I would pull, but we don’t have the technology for it out here on Kadoma.”

  Ralph Abbott said, “She really is out here Jason. It’s an amazing story, but we’d like to just tell it once… if you could get Mr. Mehta?”

  Jason’s eyes flicked back and forth among the three and he realized that no jokester would ask him to get Mehta, who notoriously lacked any sense of humor. Before the thirteen seconds for a reply were up, he said, “AI, get me Mr. Mehta.” He sat, focused on the image and not looking away as he wanted to be sure he didn’t miss any video compositing errors that would give the game away. He’d decided to go along with their story just in case they weren’t bullshitting. However, if they were, he didn’t want them to be able to lead him too far down the path.

  Thirteen seconds later, Sophie said, “Thanks Jason. Don’t forget to warn the AI that we are changing Kadoma’s orbital mechanics and it’s going to have to actively track us with the antenna instead of just pointing it where we’re supposed to be.” Just as Sophie said that, several artifacts popped up on the screen and some digital noise corrupted the audio. These were just the kind of artifacts Jason had seen when something interfered with the parabolic antenna in the past, but his suspicions shot up because they were the kind of reception flaws someone might try to imitate in a sophisticated compositing joke.

  Mehta came on the line while Jason was still trying to figure out whether and how someone was screwing with him. Mehta said, “Jason, I’m in a meeting, do you really need me right now?”

  There was a pause while Jason’s mind raced, then he said, “Yes, yes I do. Can you come down to the desk? We’re getting a bizarre message from Kadoma.” Jason thought of telling Mehta that he thought someone might be spoofing him, but if he said that, he was pretty sure that Mehta wouldn’t come.

  Mehta sighed, “Okay, I’ll be down. This had better be good…”

  Jason knew that the sigh was partly over missing his meeting, partly over the concern that he would only be coming down to figure out some stupid glitch, and partly over the distressing possibility that he was about to have to talk to the two doomed astronauts. With Mehta disconnected Jason looked back at the screen. The image had deteriorated severely now. He thought he saw Sophie’s lips move and broken audio came through. She seemed to say something about antenna tracking again. He spoke to the AI and told it to try actively tracking for a better signal, just in case this thing about “changing Kadoma’s orbital mechanics” wasn’t actually a joke.

  To his astonishment, the picture suddenly cleared and he heard Zack say, “If that dumb son of a bitch doesn’t tell the antenna to track actively, Mehta could get down there, find the comms off-line, and decide that some natural disaster took us out!”

  “The dumb son of a bitch has the antenna tracking.” Jason said, dryly, He glanced down and saw that the AI had determined that Kadoma had experienced a significant deceleration. “You guys are decelerating Kadoma?!”

  Over his shoulder, Jason heard Mehta, “What do you mean? They’ve been decelerating Kadoma for months now.”

  Jason looked up at the team leader, “Um, they’ve decelerated it a lot more in the last few minutes. The parabolic antenna slid off track and I’ve had to ask it to go to active tracking.”

  Mehta frowned, “Just a glitch in the tracking I’m sure.” He frowned at the screen, “Are you fooling around with some kind of video compositing?” With a tone of revulsion, he said, “It’s bad enough to screw around and insert the guys into some kind of living room image with Bautista instead of doing your job, but doing it when the guys are in this much trouble…!” He shook his head disgustedly, “Jason, I would’ve thought better of you!”

  Jason said, “If it’s a video compositing trick, I didn’t do it.”

  Jason was about to go on protesting his innocence when Ralph said, “Believe it or not, Jason, Sophie came out here to get us in a little spaceship that’s now been applying 90,000 pounds of thrust to decelerate Kadoma. We’ve been doing it for about fifteen minutes and our AI calculates we need to do it for another hour and eight minutes to finish the correction the big ion engine was supposed to make.” Ralph’s eyes tracked upward a moment and he said, “Oh, hi Mr. Mehta… Okay, we’re going to start explaining just what’s happened out here at Kadoma. Then we’re going to need your help drawing the media’s attention…

  Epilogue

  Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas – NASA announced today that the mission to Kadoma, which many had thought to be doomed, has apparently now been carried to a successful conclusion. Raj Mehta, NASA’s representative, said that a new technology invented at the University of North Carolina has not only allowed them to finish modifying Kadoma’s orbit, but is allowing them to retrieve astronauts Ralph Abbott and Zack White from the asteroid.

  To everyone’s astonishment, Mehta says that the astronauts will land tomorrow at 10 o’clock in the morning. They must have been in transit back to earth for many weeks now so it is a mystery as to why the announcement is just now being made. Some speculate that may be because NASA was concerned that the mysterious process fouling the ion motors might keep the astronauts from successfully returning. The astronauts are presumably already back in Earth orbit and a lander must be on its way to bring them back down to the ground.

  Further, Mehta says that the astronauts will land at the Space Center in Houston. Since the Space Center is not equipped with a field capable of landing any of the current launch and return vehicles, this has led to further intense conjecture regarding the use of some new, so far unannounced, lander.

  It is safe to say that the return of the Kadoma mission tomorrow morning will be one of the most intensely watched NASA events in decades.

  Zack groaned, “Are you sure this is only 0.7 G?”

  Ralph barked a weak laugh, “I told you to keep up with the exercise program. Sure we had to quit when we went on calorie restriction, but you wimped out way before that.”

  Tiona eyed the two astronauts worriedly. When she’d first started to boost back for Earth at a full gravity they’d passed out. She’d seen how deconditioned they were when they took off their spacesuits and their arms were exposed. They’d reduced the acceleration to zero until White and Abbott woke back up, then resumed at a tenth of a G. They gradually increased that, but it didn’t look like they’d get up to a full G before they got back to earth orbit. How are we going to land these guys? she wondered.

  Zack looked over at Ralph and said, “Hah, if you can take it, I can take it!” He turned to Tiona, “‘T,’ take it up another tenth of a G.”

  By the time they made it back to earth orbit—after many recalculations of their trajectory due to the changes in thrust, at one point requiring that they turn over again and boost toward Earth for a while—they had in fact reached a full G. The two astronauts lay prostrate on the acceleration couches, beads of sweat on their foreheads, pale and trembling. Whenever Tiona asked them if they needed her to ease off the acceleration, they just shook their heads. She had the feeling that they were afraid something else might go wrong and that they might in fact not make it back home if they delayed any longer.

  When they had picked a 10 AM landing time at the Space Center, they had thought that they would have plenty of time to make it. Because of the difficulties acclimating the astronauts to the acceleration, they didn’t actually have much time to spare. They made a slow descent to Houston, trying to limit the forces on Zack and Ralph as much as possible.

  As promised, NASA had a couple of their T-38 chase planes begin circling them at 50,000 fee
t. They remained on a perimeter as the saucer continued slowly coming down, eventually grounding as requested on the concrete pad west of the mission control center.

  Ambulance crews showed up with stretchers to carry Zack and Ralph out for rehabilitation. Tiona wanted nothing more than to fly home, but if this publicity thing was going to work she was going to have to get out and face the media. Fortunately, she’d had the foresight to ask NASA to provide ladders. They’d needed them to get the astronauts out of the saucer and so Tiona, Nolan and Sophie were then able to use one to climb down in a little more dignified fashion than leaping off the five feet from the top of the main disc.

  Hundreds of people were crowding around the disc by this point so Tiona called out, “Please step back, the saucer is going to lift back off.” She spoke to her AI and had it lift the saucer six inches. One enterprising fellow had pulled himself part way up onto the disk, but when it lifted into the air he hopped back off with a startled exclamation. Tiona had the AI lift the saucer to fifty feet once it was clear. When she turned around she found a man in an Air Force uniform right behind her. She glanced immediately at his name tag and was relieved to see it said “Cooper,” not “Harding.”

  The general said, “Ms. Gettnor, I am here to convey the profound apologies of NORAD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the President of the United States for the actions of General Alonzo Harding during the past few days. I know you have a press conference to give, but I hope to speak to you more on this issue once it is over.” Then the general stepped aside to let her pass.

  Nolan stepped up beside Tiona and said in a furious tone, “Was that Harding?!”

  “No,” Tiona said, keeping an eye bemusedly on the general. “He says he’s here to apologize for Harding’s actions and claims to speak for the President.”