America One - The Launch

by T I WADE

  “Is the first kitchen part complete with the opposite rotating mess hall?” VIN asked.

  “As of one hour ago, if you can call it a mess hall; it seats eighty, VIN. Its mechanics are more like a Ferris wheel than a mess hall. We haven’t got the rotating part working yet since we don’t need it for another two months, but the kitchen has its electrics in, and we are putting in the space ovens and bolting the tables to the floor. It should be ready by dinner tomorrow night.”

  “If the cafeteria had windows, we could dine with a view of Earth in our windows,” added Suzi still very European, “but I’m glad the designers didn’t add the windows. How could anybody eat watching the whole space station revolve around their heads?”

  “True,” Fritz commented.

  “As long as we get our promised onion soup,” added another unrecognizable voice.

  They exited Cube One and the doors to Cube Two slid open. Here the gravity was on and Suzi floated back down to the walkway reluctantly. “Mr. Rose, are you in Cube Two anywhere?” Suzi asked. “Oh! I forgot I’m wearing my helmet. Bridge, ask Mr. Rose where he is, please.”

  “Bridge to Mr. Rose, Suzi is suited up and looking for you,” stated the loudspeaker system throughout the ship. VIN and Suzi couldn’t hear the loudspeakers, but they did see Mr. Rose’s head stick out from the corner control and computer room each cube had. He, with no suit on, and wearing magnetic shoes grabbed a two-way handheld intercom radio and walked over to the two space suits coming towards him.

  “I was just checking the computer that is controlling the water drips per minute on the avocado trees.” Mr. Rose spoke into his handheld intercom devise. “Going to Cube Seven?”

  “Two chocolate milkshakes please, Mr. Rose, and I might take Suzi for a walk in the space park behind Cube Seven,” smiled VIN.

  “Not until I get the frozen milk up here, Mr. Noble,” replied the elderly man smiling. “I asked Ryan to send up cocoa on one of the luxury flights, as well as 500 pounds of pure dark chocolate; but until then chocolate cakes or milkshakes are not possible. I also hear that with the earth much closer now, a spacewalk is a treat for any lady today.”

  “It sure will be,” responded Suzi. “We are now descending four times faster than before towards earth. Ryan wants us closer for some reason.”

  “I hadn’t noticed an increase in speed or in altitude descent,” replied Mr. Rose, “nor am I interested in what is going on down there on Earth. I will never see it again, and won’t miss it. I have all the warm bright sunshine up here I need and at least a year of work in the cubes before I can relax.”

  “You wouldn’t even miss blue skies, frost, and thunderstorms?” VIN asked.

  “Nope! Blue skies maybe, frost; I was never a winter person, and thunderstorms or rain… I can create rain in here just by increasing the water pressure and let the water spray out everywhere. The system wouldn’t lose a drop.”

  As they carried on, VIN was surprised how differently people would react to the extended stay in space.

  As they passed through the cubes they noticed the growth in each one was a little less dense with hundreds of different plants growing at their normal rates to their full sizes and eventual harvest.

  The bees were flying about in Cube Five and VIN was shown a small flower garden that dozens of bees were pollinating; they watched and admired how nature could take its course and do her job in space.

  Cube Six was still in disarray. The gravity was on and the original stocks of chickens and rabbits were atop several electromagnetic batteries powered up to increase the gravity levels for the animals to stay strong. The egg layers, now over their strenuous flight into space, would hopefully soon be producing eggs.

  “They currently have 45 percent gravity with the extra batteries meant for the kitchen and hospital cylinders, until we have the animals stationed in their upper-level cylinder coops and hutches,” stated Suzi.

  “When is that planned?” asked VIN.

  “In about a month,” replied Suzi. “They have enough gravity for now, but we will have them in their living quarters at about the same time the milk arrives for our chocolate cake. Remember we need eggs and milk to make the cakes and we think the eggs will come more quickly under normal gravity conditions,” laughed Suzi.

  VIN asked the men working in Cube Seven on the other side of the wall from them, if the door could be opened; he was told that the air pressure was good enough, so was the air mixture, but the temperature was only 45 degrees and it would help if they could leave the door open for a minute to allow the air to mix with Cube Six. The open door would help warm the last cube and a ten degree drop in Cube Six wouldn’t hurt the animals. VIN did so, and for a couple of minutes he held the door open. VIN stared into the empty silver and black rectangular cube bare of plants and life, and remembered what Cube One had looked like a couple of months earlier. The bare cube looked so large compared to the others, which were now full of vegetation.

  The door was allowed to slide shut and now, with no gravity in the last cube, they floated up to where two crewmembers were unsealing the silicone seal to the first cylinder holding the supplies. Neither he nor Suzi were needed so they went up to the docking port above them. As usual there was a 100-foot cord inside the tube and VIN entered first, allowing Suzi to control it from inside the cube. The inner hatch closed and the outer hatch opened to allow him out into space. The hatch closed as Suzi worked the system.

  Within three minutes, she floated out and VIN latched her onto the end of the cord. He had his new, smaller jet pack on. The jet pack was now a permanent part of the new top part of his suit sent up a couple of flights earlier.

  Exiting from the last cube, VIN first looked towards the rear, to the new thruster exhausts twenty feet behind them. He couldn’t hear anything, but he could just see light coming out of the nearest six-foot wide exhaust.

  “VIN to Bridge, how long is your blast going to last?”

  “Forty-three more seconds, Mr. Noble,” was Pete’s reply. “The next burn, a ten minute burn is due in 120 minutes. We are currently heading through 11,800 miles altitude, 24,300 miles an hour and descending by 3,700 miles per twenty-four hour period. One more burn will get us to the 4,000 mile per day descent rate. Burn ending in ten seconds.” VIN noticed the light disappear from the exhaust.

  Now that the thruster was off, they could spacewalk. Suzi and VIN looked towards the front of America One.

  Construction was proceeding at a rapid rate with twenty crew working shifts on the exterior of the ship. The front of the ship, 100 yards in front of them looked a long way away as they looked down the length of America One. The spaceship certainly looked long and big from where they stood. The three outer corridors in front of them extending horizontally between Cubes One and Four were complete, now standing 400 feet at the end of the vertical corridors from the walls of the cubes. The horizontal mid-level corridor level, 200 feet out was also complete, binding the vertical corridors together.

  One of the outer level horizontal cylinders was complete over Cube Five. Once the section between Cube Four and Cube Seven was complete on all three sides, the whole accommodation and work sections of America One would be complete.

  It was hard to imagine why the scientists had designed such an ugly and ungainly craft, but it was beginning to look whole.

  “Suzi, I want to see the rear engines. The engine crew should be appearing in one of the craft pretty soon.” As VIN said that, he saw one of the spacecraft detach itself from the upper docking port on Cube Two.

  The spacecraft, or the shuttles, could dock facing forward, aft, or sideways across the space ship from the three docking ports on each side wall of Cube Two. The three upper ports were positioned in the space underneath the midlevel accommodation cylinders.

  There was ample room to maneuver with 100 feet between the horizontal mid-corridors and the ports, and 120 feet between the vertical corridors. Spacecraft could also dock on the underside of the ship.

&nb
sp; On Cubes Two, Three, and Four, where there were no landing-legs, attached freighters, or supply cylinders on the underside, America One had three more docking ports.

  The six of the seven main docking stations were all situated on the four forward cubes of the ship, and there was one emergency temporary docking port on the thickened fuel compartment behind Cube Seven. This was where VIN and Suzi floated out of the way, so that Astermine I could dock, and allow the crew to continue work.

  They watched as someone floated the craft, still upside-down from being connected to the forward port. It connected upside-down to the aft port and deposited a crew member inside the engine room, as VIN called it. Then the craft detached itself and another crewmember floated out of the outer hatch, waved at VIN and Suzi thirty feet away, and entered one of the aft cylinders where the exhausts were. A second floater, as VIN now called spacewalkers, floated out of the hatch and followed the first.

  “Which engine are you guys working on?” VIN asked through his intercom.

  “The second hydrogen thruster,” stated Vitalily, the same man Ryan had spoken to in the cavern. “The boss wants it connected as soon as possible. We can only work now between thrusts and it will still take three days before we can test it. The third one should be complete in two weeks and then we can work on the ion drives.”

  “Sounds like a lot of spacewalking,” Suzi added.

  “Da, Suzi,” replied the never-smiling Russian. “We have to work with one guy in the engine chamber while two of us work outside until the outer systems are all welded up to the outer cylinder walls, and all the electrical connections are live. Once that happens, then all three of us can work inside the engine chamber, entering from the cube without suits once we can pressurize the engine compartment in about two weeks. Once that happens we will be able to work around the clock. We should have full power by the time Ryan gets up here.”

  “When is Ryan’s flight from Earth? Still the last flight?” Suzi asked VIN.

  “That’s the plan, but I have heard rumors that he promised the president and his cowboys that he will be there when they arrive. You know Ryan, he won’t break a promise.”

  “Ja, he is far too honest, even with his enemies,” replied Suzi.

  They continued their spacewalk around the rear of America One. She wasn’t a beautiful sight. More like a lot of squares and cubes of aluminum, but she was big, a thousand times bigger than anything humans had ever put into space with all the cargo sent up in the last eighteen months.

  The spaceship’s rear engine exhausts were far bigger than the shuttle’s rear exhausts. Over twice the size and from the rear and seventy feet behind them, they actually looked like the rear of a real spaceship often seen in Hollywood movies.

  Earth, behind the bow of America One was getting larger and larger as they descended. Speed and velocity did not exist in space and after thirty minutes of doing nothing they reentered the world they would live in for many years to come.

  Chapter 24

  A new weapon

  Nothing much happened on January 15th, nor was there any invasion on January 16th. On January 17th SB III left earth for her next flight aboard the Dead Chicken.

  SB I reentered on time nine hours later, about the same time Jonesy saw America One, a small silver dot high in space, 200 miles above him.

  Seventy-three hours had elapsed since the first call between Joe and Ryan. Now they were on their third call of the day. Tanks were 160 miles from the Israeli border and the former president had promised the Prime Minister of Israel that they were about to unleash a new weapon against the oncoming army.

  Jonesy was on his third orbit at 199 miles above earth. The still rapidly descending America One was about to level off at 400 miles altitude. Two of the spacecraft were at full thrust slowing her forward speed down. Astermine I and II were facing backwards using both their rear thrusters at full power. The large ship’s side thrusters, two of the several she would have one day, and both on her underside and directly underneath the Bridge, were also at full throttle bringing her nose up to a horizontal flight direction for her first orbit around her home planet.

  Even at 200 miles away, Jonesy could see her through the telescope. He also had the shuttle in reverse and full thrusters on reducing his speed so that they would get maximum time over the target. Boy she looked ugly! Not something you saw in the movies, and certainly not as pretty as the smaller craft.

  Both ships were over Hawaii and had less than half an hour to slow, so that they could have as much target time as possible for their first pass over the Middle East. Their second opportunity would be 110 minutes after they went over the horizon.

  America One was at a faster forward speed than SB III and was catching up to her, even though her orbit was far longer than the shuttle’s. SB III was also being readied to meet up with Asterspace III which was to have the cargo transferred to her under the control of Fritz Warner.

  Ryan wanted America One ahead of the shuttle so that her more powerful laser bursts would pass miles in front of the shuttle’s nose. VIN was behind the four 48-inch screens in the laser control area on one side of the Bridge. One screen showed a normal radar screen image of the target area, the second a camera view of the same ground area. The third screen showed the target through a thermo-heat image and the fourth an infra-red image.

  The size of the target area could be enlarged or reduced at any time. VIN was using this time to practice. It was night in Hawaii and as they passed he reduced the screen to a ten mile radius at 400 miles. Now he could see buildings and houses in a small village. With the radar screen, he could see a couple of vehicles driving down a road. On the third screen, he could even see the heat of their engines. One had the heat in the rear; it looked small and VIN guessed that he was looking at an old Volkswagen beetle.

  He decreased the view down to its lowest point, one mile radius at 500 miles and the outline of the vehicle began to take shape. He looked at the thermal-heat screen and the shape of an old Volkswagen minibus could be seen, not a beetle. The camera screen was black, and he couldn’t see anything except beams from the headlights. He placed the radar screen onto “map-overlay mode” and the fake line of the rural road the minibus was traveling on could now be seen. The radar computer was using maps from saved maps in its memory from more than one company. Sometimes it used stored data from MapQuest, or it would flip over and use Google maps.

  If an area in space was targeted, it was a totally different view. The area of space being viewed was three-dimensional and targets could be seen traveling in 3-D viewing. On Earth, viewing was in 2-D, and the computer worked on latitude and longitude coordinates changing many times a second. It worked well if it could pick up the remaining GPS satellites now 12,000 miles higher than the ship, and at this high altitude, it wasn’t a problem compared to Earth. They could see three satellites at all times.

  “Sixteen minutes to first sight of target,” stated Jonesy over the intercom. “Partner, I will feed in the latest target coordinates to your computers.”

  “Eight minutes until America One is flying straight and level, altitude 403 miles, speed reducing through 16,000 knots ground speed, I anticipate 15,000 knots by the time we are over the target. Over,” stated Captain Pete a few feet away from VIN sitting in his command chair.

  “Roger that,” replied Jonesy. “We are at 198 miles above earth, speed 14,900 knots, flying straight and level. You should be ten miles to our portside and overhead in nine minutes. Over.”

  “Asterspace III to Sierra Bravo III, we are ten miles behind you at 207 mile altitude,” added Fritz Warner. “If you are not going to make any sudden changes in ten minutes, I can hand over control to my co-pilot and go about transferring your cargo. Over.”

  “Roger that, Asterspace III, slow to our speed, I will have reverse thrusters on for another 95 seconds, I’ll turn the shuttle to face forward, and you can begin. Since we have live animals aboard, I can only open the doors once you are spacewalking, and
within twenty feet of our roof. Ryan said that you have 29 minutes to transfer before the little bunnies and chicks freeze. You will need to re-warm your cargo bay pretty quickly once you have the roof doors shut.”

  “Ten minutes to target acquisition,” stated Maggie from her co-pilot’s seat. Neither of them had their helmets on in the shuttle. It wasn’t possible to accurately aim the laser through darkened Plexiglas.

  “Roger that, Mr. Jones. I’ve done an animal transfer in 19 minutes. We have two dozen ceramic hot heaters on full power in the cargo hold. The temperature is showing 68 degrees. It took twelve minutes to get the hold above freezing when we did a trial run a few hours ago, so I don’t need to rush. You just shoot straight at whatever you are shooting at, and let your future wife keep her steady while I transfer,” smiled Fritz beginning to climb into the top half of his space suit.

  “Partner, nine minutes to target,” added Jonesy talking to several people at once. “The Atlantic looks very green down there this morning. I can see a sunny France on the horizon. The Alps sure look heavy with snow.”

  “OK, guys, listen up,” interrupted Ryan over the intercom. All his craft were so low, that they were within range of private communications to ground control over their internal system. “I’m putting Joe Everson on the intercom. He is with the FBI. He has visuals to drones flying over the Iranians. Joe has as good sight of the vehicles as you have, maybe even better since his drones are at only 20,000 feet. Joe is on conference-call mode with me, and he will guide you in. If his ‘eyes’ can see your hits, that is, vehicles stopping or blowing up, then he will guide your bursts onto other targets he wants you to annihilate. Mr. Jones, do you have the targets in sight?”

  “Negative,” replied Jonesy. “We are four minutes to our possible first viewing. I have my radar site tuned into Cairo at the moment. VIN, can you see Cairo?”