Earth Lost Without Power

by L. S. Wood

  Not one member in the entire space station’s crew were without the pain of loss of a loved one; whether it be a mother, brother, sister, father, child, spouse, or relative of some sort.

  The unprecedented missile invasion of neutrons on Earth’s atmosphere left no family on the planet without heartache of a loved one or friend of some kind. Due to the greed of a small number of controlling want to be powerful greedy people of the world, living in a country full of wonderful caring beings. When Commander Anderson received the horrific information from Russia, he wanted to throw up from its most disturbing news. He had formed a strong family bond to Chenco, Sebastian, and the rest of the crew of the space station after having lived there among them for over a year, and felt a strong grieving feeling only a related family member could experience from such unbearable bad news.

  He longed to help his fellow cosmonaut family in any way he possibly could, but not in being the bearer of sad news to them. He didn’t want to be remembered this way, especially by the ones who helped save his life. He knew he had to tell his friends something, but he did not want to give them any of the bad news up front that he had just received from the Kremlin earlier that day. He didn’t want to take away any hope that anyone might have in returning home to Russia to a life they had once so joyfully enjoyed in their youthful years. He would rather have his friends find out the bad news themselves when they returned back home to Russia and find out for themselves. He had a choice to make and knew whatever choice he made would be the wrong one now that he knew the real news of everyone’s heartache.

  His face showed great sympathy, apathy and apprehension when he spoke to his fellow cosmonaut friends later that day. Gina saw right through his deep feelings and emotions. She knew something of great significance was bearing heavily down on his kind mind, but that was all she could read in his troubled looking face. He was not his same old happy-go-lucky self today, and everyone around him could tell he was deeply troubled but unwilling to let go of the painful attacking alligator that was biting at his insides.

  “What is it commander? What is wrong?” Gina said caringly searching. He had a way about him in turning his facial expressions of concern around and putting his outward appearance of concern toward a different friendly matter all of them together. He was good at covering up his emotions for the most part, and blamed this deep look of concern on the relief their fellow cosmonauts were not going to get from their own home country of Russia. Seems their country could not do a damn thing to help those lost in space or would not do a damn thing to help their friends aloft. He was not sure the United States could or would send another dangerous shuttle mission skyward to help them out either. This was the look of despair he was wearing all over his face, and he was worried sick for his and their friends’ welfare aloft, if nothing soon was to be done to help them!

  He told them this little white lie to cover the looks of despair that covered his concerned looking face for them, but he had to tell them something about these damn concerns he was unable to hide that he had spread out all across his face. He knew right then and there as he was talking to them, that his government, the United States and their associates in NASA and from around the world, were coming together at that very moment in time to try to prepare another mission just for the purpose of saving the astronauts aloft. It would take another several days before the refitted shuttle could possibly be ready for launch if all went well.

  He knew this would either be a mission to bring them all home, or some very unlucky souls would have to live out there until their elder years if they possibly lived that long within the space laboratory floating in an orbit of doom in space. Possibly burn up within it should the space station become entrapped in the earth’s gravitational pull and be pulled back into the Earth’s atmosphere, and burned up on reentry.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Going Home

  We have a special military aircraft waiting and ready to take you all home tomorrow at 0800 hours at the adjoining airfield if you so choose to go. As you all know by now, and have witnessed things here on Earth around this globe of ours have changed significantly. We have made the best that we can out of a very difficult situation. Flying is very risky at times, as the “thing” in our atmosphere, all those wild neutrons, can snuff you out at the most unsuspecting moments in time.

  We have lost a few aircraft since we started flying again, but we cannot tell if it is due to mechanical failure, pilot error, or that the life of the pilots flying these aircrafts had been snuffed out by this creature in our sky that dislikes anything invading its territory.

  We are very limited in our hours of flight these days, as we can only fly during daylight hours, seeing we have no way of navigating in the darkness without electronics, lit up controls on our flight control panels, or lit up runways on the ground to land on. We especially do not fly during stormy weather if possible to do so, unless in a dire emergency condition.

  Our flight engineers have designed and made up a hand-operated mechanical fuel injection system we use which allows the pilots to bring the multi-finned turbine jet engines up to full capacity in speed the same exact way the electrically operated flight systems we use to use did.

  These new injectors are a little more mechanically cruel in nature, but they work quite well with our intended application for takeoff, flight, and in our landings.

  The reverse thrusters on our aircraft, do not, and I repeat do not work as well as our pilots would like them to, so we need the entire length of our runways now to slow down and stop our aircraft.

  I am certainly thankful that I had the opportunity to sail into your lives a second time in my lifetime. I’m glad I was able to offer my assistance a second time to you all for what you did for me and my crew of the Twitchel in our very desperate time of need in our lives. Listen up now! Sergeant Jones and Lieutenant August will be your own private limo drivers, your chauffeurs, for the remainder of your stay at the base. They will take you wherever you would like to go. Do not be afraid to use any of the services offered to you. Everything you want is on us, the people of the United States.

  Do not be afraid to purchase whatever you desire in any one of the stores around to enhance your well-being, and remember to have a good time doing it.”

  The words flowing from Commander Anderson’s mouth were like those of a well-prepared programmed computer talking while he was using his eyes to look into the eyes and souls of everyone who stood before him in the room. His own heart was bleeding in awful distressing pain for them as they were all his friends. He was intentionally withholding distressful life changing news form them and was having all that he could do in conveying the good news of the day while withholding the bad news, at least for now.

  “I have to leave you all now and see if there is anything in this crazy world possible we can do for your fellow cosmonauts and Commander Khrushchev. Good day ladies and gentlemen.” With saying that, Commander Anderson hastily turned with his eyes welling up with tears.

  He felt self-betrayal of guilt in his heart that he had let his friends down by not telling them about their families, especially Chenco who had no one in the world left to go back home to. He felt like a little child about his actions, leaving the room weeping about his decision as he closed the door to the briefing room behind him leaving his friends and his other family from space.

  Entering his outer office, Colonel Anderson informed his secretary, Linda, that he did not want to be disturbed for a little while. He went in and closed the door with a hurried push. She could tell by his awkward looks and hurried actions what he was going through, and would honor his request even if the president of the country, President Stallman, wanted to talk to him. Linda would put his life on hold for at least an hour or so because she had great respect for her boss, and would grant him his requested peace and tranquility to reorganize his self-esteem.

  As he wiped away the tears from his eyes, he cou
ld not imagine where all these silly tears in his head were coming from. He had not felt this way in all his natural life. He had gone through losing several of his best friends in combat, even lost his grandparents to old age when he was small, and one to a heart attack, yet now he was crying. He was shedding tears for friends who were still alive. It didn’t make any sense to him.

  Was he crying for them, with them, or was he crying for himself? He did not really know why he was letting go now. After two long hours of emotional crying and feeling foolish from releasing all this built-up anger about the idiots who had caused this travesty to happen to the world in the first place, he felt much better about himself.

  He again put on his old thinking cap, without his head filled with cobwebs and feeling guilty or shameful about his weak feeling toward himself or others. He had finally gone through the grieving process by letting go all the deaths in family and friends so he could go on being the same old reliable structure he had always been. Colonel Anderson felt greatly relieved by his final decision to not telling his dear friends about the slaughter of their families. The choice he made was right for the time being, anyway. The hurt and healing process would have to wait another day or two or maybe even longer for his friends. The ones who wanted to leave for home would do so the next morning, and he would see them off personally at the airstrip.

  In the morning, Colonel Anderson met in the debriefing room, saying his goodbyes to the ones of the crew who chose to leave for home. He informed them about the new mission in progress being planned to save as many fellow crewmembers above still held prisoner aboard the space station as possible. With a little bit of luck and a lot of prayer, everyone aboard the ill-fated craft would return back to Earth on this last mission of mercy of his. If any chose to remain aboard the space station, they would be up there for the remainder of their lives.

  This would be the last mission into space NASA was going to permit. The last of the shuttle fleet was now sitting in hanger number three, being outfitted for space travel as had been the Twitchel, and there were no more units left if something were to go wrong with this craft. The government was not all for this mission, but felt it was their duty to send this last mission because of what they had done for the crew of the Twitchel. This would definitely be the last mission sent into outer space.

  Commander Anderson traveled on the bus with them down the base’s airstrip where the jumbo Galaxy jet air-cargo aircraft was sitting ready for takeoff on the far end of the runway. It and its crew were ready to carry them back home to Russia. This particular aircraft was capable of carrying back the last two remaining soviet-made space modules with them to the United States in its huge cargo bay. The two modules would help in the rescue mission of the trapped cosmonauts stuck in the space station.

  As soon as the modules from Russia were back and safely cradled aboard the shuttle in its cargo bay and the onboard hydrogen tanks and oxygen tanks filled, and the necessary electrolytes needed to charge the dry batteries aboard. The shuttle would be ready to shoot skyward for its final mission into space to rescue the remainder of the space station’s personnel.

  Colonel Anderson hugged everyone on the bus including the men before they boarded the air cargo aircraft as he bid them all a farewell. He watched as the huge jumbo jet revved up its four huge Continental engines, and taxied out onto the runway. The cargo jet shot off swiftly down the runway and into the early morning sky above. He had wished them all a safe flight home and a happy reunion with their families and friends when they all returned home to Moscow. He knew there would be some happy times and many sad times to be had by all.

  He was glad they would be back home together with friends and family hopefully when the news of their losses was revealed to them, especially Sebastian with all of his losses. The only true family Sebastian had left in the world, even though they were not true blood relatives, was with him on that plane.

  Colonel Anderson’s only true wish for him was that Sebastian would soon find himself a wife, and that his family of cosmonauts would keep him well physically and mentally during his long transition of settling into this new way of life he was about to enter into. He would not recognize his simple-minded mother for whom she once was, and his father had passed away becoming yet another victim to the neutron masses when he had gone down the mountain to fetch some food and supplies for their home. His father was becoming fearful that he would lose his own mind trying to take care of his very sick wife, but he lost his life instead. Commander Anderson was sure of it. He had made the right choice this time by not telling any of the crew about the worst that had happened to family and friends. They would soon be in the country of their homeland and with people of their own kind who they could relate to better in this desperate time of need and a true soul searching experience.

  He waved them off down the runway as the jumbo jet rose up into the clear morning sky above, and then it was gone. He returned on the bus with Gina and Chenco, the only two who chose not to return back home for the meantime to their temporary base housing unit. They were going to be staying there while Gina waited to deliver her little twins. It was going to be rough on Commander Nelson, but he was going to tell Chenco the bad news about his lost family when they returned to their temporary base housing apartment.

  Commander Anderson felt it his true duty at this time, and Chenco would take it a whole hell of a lot better with Gina being there to console her husband. Sebastian at least had his mother to go back home to, even though the rest of his family was gone. But how would he take seeing the last of anyone he knew, who had raised him, acting like a child of a very young age?

  Chenco had Gina and would have two little ones of his own running circles around him that would help keep him and his mind busy, hopefully helping in the healing process with his soon to be broken heart.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  The Last Flight To Space

  Commander Anderson busily found himself rounding up the crew from his last mission aboard the Twitchel. This would be his last and final flight back into outer space, even though he had promised his wife, Becky, the last mission he commanded almost a year and few months ago would have been his last. Somehow Becky knew down deep in her heart, the second her husband recognized the six cosmonauts in the life raft as those being from the International Space Station, that there would definitely be yet another mission by her husband into space, God bless him, and he would be at the head of its controls.

  Nelson was a good man, and would do anything to help another human being out, even if it meant losing his own life in trying to help whoever it might be in need of him. She knew it would not do her any good trying to reason with his kindness even if he had asked her permission in going to save his friends. She knew he would go against her denied permission and wishes anyway because of the caring man he was and for the many lives at stake. She could only wish him the best of luck in his quest, and for him to please come back home to her safe and sound. She loved him down to the last little strand of gray hair upon his aging balding head. Her hair was turning gray slowly. Not so much from old age that might have had a little to do with it, but mostly because of her husband’s daring traits and his need to help others that were always in need of his help.

  It was a bright early sunrise on another new Monday morning in time, when Commander Anderson knocked again on the front door of the quaint little farmhouse door in the Great Northeast Kingdom of Lunenburg, Vermont.

  Ann was busy as usual preparing a healthy breakfast for her family, with her mother right alongside of her in the kitchen whilst her father answered the early morning knock at the door.

  Her father could see the rays of sun beaming off the stern looking Commander’s face, as the sun came rising up over the early morning horizon from the east. Her father, seeing Commander Anderson standing there, experienced an instant feeling of fear for his daughter develop in the pit of his stomach, that hit him like someone or something h
ad just hit him hard in the groin with a baseball bat. If he did not have ulcers by now, he sure as hell felt like he had them when he opened up that damn door.

  Commander Anderson said, “Good morning, Mr. Hamilton” to him, with a very firm sounding tone in his official sounding voice this time, not like before when he had asked for Ann.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hamilton! Is your daughter Ann at home, sir?”

  He knew damn well right she would be.

  “Yes, sir, Colonel! She is in the kitchen with her mother, Dot, preparing our breakfast, thank you! Would you like to come in Colonel? The damn door is for you again, Ann! Commander Colonel Nelson Anderson is here to see you again, Ann!”

  His voice was very jittery and loud when he called out to his daughter, and she could sense it in his trembling voice. Ann’s usual morning happy-go-lucky smiling face of a very happy homemaker and mother suddenly turned sullenly stern like the granite rock of the “Old Man in the Mountain’s” face. When she heard her father’s voice echo out the name of Commander Anderson for you at the door again, it brought back the memory of the last time he had come to the farmhouse to visit, and that was not just to say hello then, and it sure as hell would not be just to say hello this time either.

  She dropped the dishtowel she was using from her hand to the floor as she hurried out of the kitchen door to greet him at the front door. Memories from his last visit came rushing back into her mind as she stepped back in time for a reflected minute from the past. The sudden sick feeling she was experiencing that moment was as if she was a very small content peaceful little happy island out in the ocean in the direct path of this huge wake of an enormous tidal wave, a tsunami. There was nothing she could do to avoid being overtaken by its huge size and authority. It was a feeling like she was still in boot camp, and the instructor told the new trainees to jump off the so-called tower of death into the pool of water, and did it because of the authority the training instructors had over them. Colonel Anderson had that type of influence over her, and she was afraid she could never tell him no.