by T I WADE
She and Penny were told to get some rest, Michael Pitt would see to the unloading. The two women headed off for a good night’s sleep before they were to fly into space ten hours later.
Michael Pitt was responsible for overseeing that the three crates were unloaded and transferred to their proper destinations; two were taken over to the supply depot, and the heavy one was broken out of its crate in Hangar Six and readied for loading into Silver Bullet II. The load was gray and lifeless—a lead cube about six feet high, six feet wide and ten feet long. It was as smooth as lead could be made and had one opening, a hinged door with an active security pad on it and a battery underneath the pad. Michael had it placed next to the shuttle while a second rectangular crate was opened and its contents loaded into the rear of the shuttle.
Ryan checked both crates with a Geiger counter several times during the flight into the states and again when the wooden crate was broken away from the lead block. It was the same, a slight movement in radioactive emissions, but nowhere dangerous for humans.
The second crate was removed and he saw the body of the empty nuclear reactor housing, about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Somebody up there in space would need to fill it with the contents of the lead capsule. The reactor had the same lead walls, this time painted a bright green. This unit had a window in the door and Michael could see that the lead was about a foot thick. The weight was 1.1 tons, and that meant this flight was again at maximum.
He organized the roof crane and slowly lifted the reactor housing into the rear area of the shuttle’s cargo bay. The solid rocket fuels had just been loaded and the shuttle had a dozen thick umbilical cords coming out of it, keeping the fuels at their necessary temperatures.
Michael, and the team of a dozen loaders, needed to be careful; after the reactor was installed, small explosive devices, with about a tenth of the power of a normal hand grenade, were set up and armed to release the cargo when necessary. The shuttle had several other personnel working in the flight deck, and even a few wiping down the gleaming aluminum outer body work, as if she was to be entered into a race.
The hangar was busy. Only so many people could fit into the cockpit and for every one of four scientists inside the flight cockpit, there were a dozen outside looking at computer monitors or ticking off checks on clipboards. This shuttle wasn’t coming back for a couple of weeks.
The first piece of cargo took an hour and finally it was in and tight. Now the crane needed to lift the heavier lead case. There were four steel rings on each of the four corners of the hangar on the side with the entrance. The 30-ton lifting crane was positioned over the slightly rectangular lump, and the hangar system didn’t notice the weight as the unit left the ground. It took time, but finally the two pieces of cargo were secure and the shuttle roof doors closed and sealed. Then the whole unit, with the hangar groaning this time, was raised up and placed onto the loading vehicle ready to get the shuttle into the C-5 once the second liquid hydrogen refueling was complete in a few hours’ time.
When the second refueling was complete, three-quarters of the shuttle was loaded through the nose into the Galaxy; before the shuttle was fully loaded, pilots wearing full space suits would be helped into the shuttle. A special lift would help them up to the bed where a carpet was placed on the steel frame over a wooden floor, and they would enter the craft. There was no room inside the cargo bay of the aircraft with the shuttle in there, and they would be literally trapped in the cockpit when the door was sealed from outside. The last few feet of the shuttle’s nose would then enter the aircraft and the nose door sealed. The pilots could not get out again.
The truck looked similar to the loading system on all large jet aircraft, just ten times longer. Its 150-foot rear bed had long motorized steel wheel runners on its floor area which slid the shuttle inch by inch onto the rails inside the mother aircraft.
Maggie and Penny, the shuttle’s two pilots, were fast asleep while Michael was still working. He would be number two pilot to Bob the next morning, and would manage a couple of hours of sleep before takeoff.
Ryan was sitting in his bungalow sipping an excellent chocolate milkshake. He was contemplating what the next day would bring. His biggest concern was the Cloaking Device which would be active for a full eight hours of the flight, or several rotations around the planet. Would it make the shuttle totally disappear? Also, what was he going to tell the people watching? It had worked well in Sierra Bravo I, but the second shuttle’s device was untried.
He needed Mr. Noble, and Mr. Jones, who was now also experienced in space walking, to get the important cargo out of the hold, open the large crate, get the plutonium out and into the reactor, and then secure both units to the fourth wall of the Russian space station. It had been hilarious to hear Mr. Noble describe his partner’s first wall in space in Morse code. Mr. Jones had been described as a baby learning to walk.
The unloading would take another two hours, and the work had to be done slowly and carefully. In space the cargo would weigh nothing, but it still had to be secured to the space station. Then, the plan was to get the two men aboard Sierra Bravo II as passengers, and then bring her down to as low an orbit as they had done on the first flight; only then could Maggie turn off the Cloaking Device and bring her in.
Ryan was preparing himself for the several phone calls he knew he would get, and he decided to put one of his backup plans into action, which would get him a free space station for life.
Chapter 19
The Flight of Sierra Bravo II
On a warm spring day, two hours before daylight, Bob Mathews lifted the Galaxy off the ground with its valuable payload. The technicians refueled the C-5 with sufficient fuel to get up and back and as always, Bob made sure that he checked the exact numbers of the fuel load he took off with. Michael hugged Penny in her space suit for a long time before he had let her go.
The night was dark as they headed through low cloud for the first 20,000 feet. The air was moist; there was some sort of front passing over. The weather reports called for clear, calm air over 30,000 feet and an hour later they passed through into a beautiful scene, grey clouds below and the sun about to rise over the eastern edge of this dark blanket.
“Weather reports were on the button,” he radioed to Maggie and Penny, sitting quietly in the shuttle below him.
“What is the outside temperature?” Maggie asked, looking over at Penny.
“Minus 3 degrees at 32,000 feet, I believe a degree warmer than we expected. I reckon you will have your minus 25 at launch altitude.”
Maggie and Penny sat going through pre-flight checks and making sure nothing was out of place.
“What do you think a five-degree temperature difference will make on our release height, compared to last month’s launch?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t think we will reach the same height. I’m getting better at this, but Michael thinks that we could be as much as 500 feet lower,” replied Bob. “I think you will still be in soft clean air when you pull the plug and head upwards.”
As usual, Ryan was in the C-5 cockpit for the flight. He had slept well and was looking forward to getting his second shuttle into a low space orbit for the first time. To win the Space Race prize, he needed the shuttle to dock with the International Space Station and transfer crew into the space station. The closest the ISS would be to the Russian station would be well over 2,000 miles in front and 380 miles away on its own orbit.
He had spoken to the pilots about the verbal garbage they would say to him. He had written a whole transcript of a drama, which would be picked up by hundreds of listening devices once they got into space. The plan was to go silent for a couple of hours, apart from a faint word or two every thirty minutes or so, showing that they were still alive. Then once the Cloaking Device was shut off, they would come back on the radio saying something had happened, and that they were heading in for re-entry.
Bob went through his usual flight plan. He reached his altitude at the edge of their pri
vate air space, turned the aircraft towards the sun and dipped her nose. Her cargo pushed her down, gravity doing its job, and he slowly brought her out of her dive, Michael gave him full throttles, and he began to climb.
At 52,000 feet, he let his cargo go and they slid out of the back as he kept the wings straight and level waiting for the allotted three seconds before banking the aircraft to the right and out of the way.
“Ignition!” stated Maggie. Ryan and his crew had decided that anybody listening couldn’t tell the difference between the crackly voices of the two pilots over the radio, especially in such a situation, and she was to call out the flight. “Wings fully extended, I’m getting a little control. Confirm a 75 percent angle, speed…passing through 500 knots…54,000 feet.”
Penny watched as the C-5 to her right slid past them a few hundred feet away, closer than the flight before, and Maggie, at 600 knots, began to turn the shuttle around so that they would hang underneath the nose with the sun behind them. Jonesy had lectured them on his “sun theory” and now Maggie was putting his plan into action. It was a little like pointing a rifle at a target and getting your bearings later. She only had a few seconds before the controls would become extremely difficult due to the increased speed, and she had the shuttle and its payload on a perfect trajectory, once the computers took over at Mach 3.
“Passing through 210,000 feet, perfect speed and the sun is slowly coming up to meet the nose,” she stated several minutes later. “Ready for ignition of second stage.”
Ever so slowly they climbed into the blackness of space and as soon as allowed, she turned the shuttle upright again—she wasn’t very fond of flying upside-down—and set up the third stage ion-thrusters at 290,000 feet.
Penny turned on the Cloaking Devise and looked at the notes Ryan had given her for her part to play. She was to play the “statically heard” pilot while Maggie checked the computer for their three-orbit maneuver to meet up with the beer can her man was currently a passenger in.
“Nevada, we have a problem. The shuttle doors were opened and closed, and the operation perfect, but we have some static, like we are flying through a humming magnetic field. I can see outside, the wings have a sort of bluish tinge to them. Has there been a sun flare or something recently? It’s playing havoc with our….” And she cut off her communications, looked over and smiled at Maggie.
The next part of the play was Ryan trying to contact them for several minutes. He sounded concerned and she just didn’t answer. “Sierra Bravo II, we cannot see you on radar, are you still with us? Over.”
Several minutes later it was Penny’s turn. “Sierra Bravo II to ground control, we are still on orbit to meet the International Space Station, but there seems to be a problem with the….skkkkkkkkk,” and again she cut herself off.
“India Sierra Sierra, do you copy? Over.” Ryan called up the International Space Station.
“This is the ISS, we read you. Your shuttle has disappeared off our devices, but we are hearing your conversation. Over,” they responded.
“Ion Thrusters do not seem to be operating correctly. We have this bluish sort of magnetic field around the aircraft. It doesn’t look like we can climb up to the ISS altitude. We will keep working….skkkkkkk,” added Penny.
For an hour Penny kept quiet as Maggie monitored her position and the position of the Russian satellite getting nearer several thousand miles ahead of them. The shuttle speed was already 12,000 miles an hour faster than the old station. They were several miles lower than the larger craft, and their faster orbit would help catch up to the beer can on their next orbit in about an hour’s time.
****
VIN was about to finish dressing for his next spacewalk, and Jonesy was helping him on with his helmet. This time he needed to get three lines set up outside the craft on hooks designed on the craft. It would take him an hour to ready the lines to accept the two cargoes and secure them with tightening pulleys to the outer body of the space station.
****
Ryan’s phone rang, as he thought it would.
“Mr. Richmond, we are hearing from Houston that you have some sort of problem?” asked General Mortimer.
“It seems that there is a sort of magnetic problem with, or around our space shuttle, General. It has disappeared from our screens, also the screens on the ISS, but the pilots are still transmitting. Something about the ion thrusters having a problem, and they might have to go to the liquid hydrogen thrusters as backup.”
“All you need to do, Mr. Richmond, is to link up with the ISS. You have achieved most of that, and I hope you succeed,” and the call was cut off.
The second one was from the NSA asking the same thing, and he repeated what he had told the general.
****
VIN left the unused connection port of the satellite and readied his three ropes. They needed to be tied tight to his outer suit, or they could float into the way of the incoming craft. Once he was done, Jonesy told him through their intercom that he thought he could see the shuttle coming up from below.
He was right. With a thruster on his jetpack, he moved across to where he could see over the edge of the space station, and there she was, a faint glint in the sunlight behind and below them, a long way away. It looked like a star in the sky it was so small, but the shuttle rose rapidly and thirty minutes later they were only a mile or so apart at the same altitude.
****
“We cannot get the ion thrusters to operate at all. It seems like some sort of electrical field, or something is playing with our systems. Nevada, is there anything you can do from down there…..skkkkkkk.”
“Sierra Bravo II, are you climbing up to meet the ISS? Over,” asked Ryan down in the control center at the airfield. Penny was doing a great job and they seemed to be hoodwinking the listeners; he hadn’t had a call for an hour.
“Negative,” Penny replied. “Skkkkkk….we are not able to climb. If we use our second stage, we will not have enough fuel for re-entry….”
“Roger that,” replied Ryan. “See if you can sort out what is going on up there. Are you being hampered by an outside source? We cannot see you on radar, nobody can see you and that is most weird.”
“I believe something is playing with our electronics. I believe it is coming from outside….like a laser beam of energy or something. I feel we are in the middle of a lightening stor…..skkkkkk.”
This time Ryan reversed the first call to General Mortimer.
“General, Richmond here. Are you sure nobody is playing games with my space flight? We are showing no abnormalities from within the craft and somebody or something is putting my flight and its pilots at risk.”
“Not that I‘m aware of, Mr. Richmond; certainly not from the U.S. military. It is very concerning that nobody can see your spacecraft on radar, but the pilots can be heard every now and again. I’ll check with friends and see if they can see your flight,” and once again he hung up.
Ryan didn’t hear anything again for another two hours.
****
VIN was busy. Now he could see the two girls through the shuttle windows and he blew each one a kiss as the shuttle’s computer brought her to within the 100 feet.
Time passed by and Jonesy reminded VIN that he had been out nearly 90 minutes. Foot by foot the shuttle’s side thrusters worked and slowly the craft, longer, and a quarter as wide as the space station, came along side.
Maggie opened the roof doors and, 30 feet from the side of the space station, VIN used his thrusters. They had been in communication with each other for an hour now. The intercom systems of the two shuttles were independent of the radios, and worked over a hundred miles in space.
“Doors open, systems have us in tandem; you can empty our payload VIN. Shout when you want the forward cargo unit separated from the craft. It is the heavy one, but I’m sure you won’t notice that up here. This floating takes a bit of getting used to.”
“Try knocking back a Screw Driver up here!” added Jonesy over the intercom.
“You’ve been drinking again, Mr. Jones?” asked Maggie as she watched VIN slowly head over the gap. “Can’t take you anywhere twice, Mr. Jones!”
“How does the saying go?!” interjected VIN, slowly nearing the open doors of Sierra Bravo II. “Twice only to apologize!”
“Kid, get the loot and get back here. We have a timed re-entry and a cold beer would taste real good right now.”
“Cord connected to your forward load, Maggie,” said VIN. “Blow the charges.” He watched as small red flashes the size of a Ping-Pong ball lit up from the base of the unit, and the three-ton lead weight started floating out of the cargo hold. He pulled it forgetting that wouldn’t work, and, remembering his training, used his jetpack to get him and the load back to the station. Very carefully and very slowly, he spent fifteen minutes getting the floating reactor to a set of “D” ring bolts placed in a strategic position for connecting cargo to the outer wall of the space station. He carefully positioned the reactor and using four similar “D” ring bolts floating out in short chains where the explosions had parted them from the floor of the cargo bay. They had the small ratchets the chains were threaded through and VIN ratcheted each one down tightening the load onto the wall off the space station. He made sure that the door into the reactor casing was clear for him to enter.
Then he headed back for the second smaller case holding the 5 lbs. of Plutonium-238. This one was much smaller, and he was getting pretty good at space walking. As Ryan had said to him, this was his training for walking on the asteroid; Ryan was right, he was becoming an expert.
The first operation–connecting the reactor to the space station had taken thirty minutes. He floated the smaller lead case towards the reactor using his jet pack and opened the reactor’s door. He untied two special aluminum protective sleeves from his left leg. Jonesy had tied them there for him to touch the inner box protecting the plutonium inside the lead case. He managed to fit his arms into the two-foot long glove-type sleeves and then opened the side of the case.
