Rocket! An Ell Donsaii story #4)

by Dahners, Laurence

  “Sure, go easy on me OK?”

  Fred demonstrated a serve for her, suggesting she attempt to land the ball close to the corners. He motioned to her to serve first.

  Determined not to overplay, Ell thought about what she’d learned so far hitting the ball around. It seemed surprisingly easy to control the ball’s position and she was sure it could be hit a lot harder than Fred had been hitting it so far, so she suspected that he was going easy on her as a beginner. Therefore she should probably be hitting it even softer than he had been hitting it and probably shouldn’t put it too close to the corner on the serve.

  She bounced the ball then served it softly aiming it to land about eight inches from the corner. She winced, it was going to miss her aim point and land about four inches from the corner instead.

  Fred watched her bounce the ball too high and hit it softly, typical beginner’s moves but realized that it was going to land tight in the corner. He leapt over and hit it before it landed, a little harder than he wanted against a beginner, sending it up along the side wall. She gracefully stepped over to it, as if she never had any doubt where to go to meet it and again hit it easily, this time to his backhand corner.

  Fred strode to the left back corner, caught the ball after it landed, about eight inches from the wall, and lofted a ceiling shot from there.

  As he stepped out of the back left corner, Ell stepped unhurriedly into that corner as if she already knew that that was exactly where his shot would end up. When it did, she carefully hit it to the other corner, this time about twelve inches out.

  Fred strode over to that corner, astonished that a beginner was keeping a rally going beyond one or two hits. This time he stroked the ball down the right wall, pretty hard and pretty low. Still, without seeming to hurry, Ell appeared at the right wall to plonk the ball back to the left corner, again about twelve inches out! He had to put some significant effort in to get back to the left corner and stroke a backhand down the left wall, this time quite a bit harder.

  Ell was thinking that the game was pretty fun. The ball was moving fairly fast and it was enjoyable to figure out where it was going to be and move to that spot to return it. She returned it to the right corner.

  Fred was amazed. She’d just returned a hard, low shot, with her backhand and placed it about 10 inches from the right corner. The way she was hitting it from one corner to the other reminded him of watching an instructor challenging a pupil. Was she playing with him?! He hustled to the right back corner and slammed a drive up the right side, only a few inches off the floor and rocketing off the sidewall about half way up the court. It was the kind of shot he’d used to win the club championship shortly after moving to the area. To his astonishment, Ell was there, racquet stretched out to return the shot. He could swear that at the last moment she slowed in her reach for the ball to let it go by. Later he would review the video from his AI and continue to have the eerie feeling that she’d intentionally missed the shot.

  For her part, Ell had realized as she excitedly stretched to return the shot, that Fred had hit it really hard and might be freaked out if she returned it. She turned to see his eyes narrowed on her.

  “You’ve never played before?!”

  “Nope, but it is kinda fun chasing that ball down. I got in a lucky series of returns didn’t I?” She smiled disarmingly.

  The rest of the game Ell continued to hit the ball with the same velocity but placed it at least two feet from the corner. She continued to chase the balls down because it was fun, but if Fred had hit it hard, she hit hers into the floor or lofted it to his forehand to lose the point. When she realized that he was going to win 15-0, she returned a couple of his shots so that they hit the front wall only an inch or so up to pick up a couple of “lucky” points. The final score was 15-2.

  “Wow! You’re really good.” Ell said.

  “Wow! You’re really fast! I hope you don’t keep playing or you’ll be beating me pretty soon.”

  Ell widened her eyes and gave him an innocent look, “Oh no, that’d never happen.” They went back to watch the wallyballers.

  After a bit Roger came and sat next to Ell. In a low voice he said, “I watched a little of your game with Fred.”

  Ell looked at him questioningly.

  “Why’d you let him win?”

  She thought about denying it but he’d been there for her foosball faux pas when she’d demonstrated what she could really do when she played “full on.” “Don’t want too much attention Roger. Please help me keep my little secret?”

  He snorted. “What, that you can kick anyone’s ass, at any sport?”

  “I can not!”

  Roger rolled his eyes, “Did you know he’s the club champion?”

  Ell’s eyes widened. “Damn!” she whispered.

  ***

  Sonny climbed slowly down from the tree overlooking the parking lot of the D5R facility. I’m getting too old for this shit, he thought as he stretched his sore muscles.

  Back in his motel room, he used a one time website to send an encrypted message to Dennison that said only, “125.” Since he worked in increments of a thousand dollars, Dennison would know it meant $125,000.

  An hour later, he checked the single use offshore account he’d set up for this project and it had the 125 grand in it. He transferred the money to his own account. He stretched. No time like the present, he supposed. Get this done and I can retire.

  Sonny cursed as he humped his heavy backpack back through the woods to D5R in the dark. The night-vision attachment on his AI showed him general details but it was so dark this moonless night that its cameras didn’t have enough light to work with. He kept tripping over roots and underbrush that the cameras hadn’t shown him.

  Once he’d reached the back wall of the building he opened the backpack and got out a tarp. He pulled off a sticky strip and stuck one edge of the tarp to the wall. He draped the rest of it over himself. He pulled out the business end of his torch and sparked it up by feel, Ah, finally, I can see! He began a horizontal cut about two feet up and cut until he hit a metal stud. Then he cut the other way to the next stud and down on both sides. He lifted the sixteen by twenty-four inch metal segment out and thumped on the inner wall. Sheet rock. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his Sawzall, pulling the trigger to activate the little light. A few minutes later he’d cut out the sheetrock. He pulled his stocking mask down and crawled into the building. He was in some kind of machine shop. Nothing in here looks proprietary. He moved into the next room which was huge. He wandered around it using a dim light and his night vision attachment, looking for something that looked like it might be important tech. Big stainless tables, fancy research machines, various electronics fabrication equipment but nothing that looked like rocket technology. He found a pile of disks that were wired to what looked like epoxy bound electronic packages. They were all plugged into a power source. They didn’t look like things that had been purchased, but they didn’t look like rocket technology either. He shrugged and slipped two of them into one of the pockets of his cargo pants. Ah, a model of a rocket! It was sitting on one of the benches. About 3 inches in diameter and about 3 feet long, with big fins on the back like the rockets in the old sci-fi pulp stories. When he picked it up he nearly dropped it. He’d been expecting an empty shell of lightweight plastic but it was made of metal and must be more than an empty shell from its weight.

  Sonny didn’t see anything else and trying to break into encrypted AIs wasn’t his strong suite. He headed for hole he’d made in the wall, rocket in hand. Hopefully there would be a hose on one of the chemical tanks out back that he could drag in here and start a fire with. That should provide the “setback” that Dennison had asked for.

  ***

  Allan said, “You have another intruder at D5R. This one came in through a wall.”

  Ell leapt out of bed, pulled on jeans and ran for her car. “Tell Steve and ask him to meet me there.”

  ***

  Sonny climb
ed out the hole and left the rocket under his tarp. He walked over to the tank farm.

  After a few minutes he paused with his hands on his hips in frustration. All these big tanks of chemicals and no hoses! What were they doing, coming out here to get the stuff in buckets? He turned in place and finally saw a hose coiled over in a corner. He sighed and got it. Fortunately it fit the dispenser on an enormous tank of kerosene.

  He dragged the other end of the hose into the building through the hole he’d cut and dropped it in the middle of the big room with all the research gear.

  Sonny turned the corner back into the machine shop and was startled to find a girl standing there, obviously having just crawled in through the hole he’d made. She was a skinny kid, though kinda tall. Damn! He didn’t like hurting people but maybe he could just tie her up? She wouldn’t be able to see anything in the dark.

  He wondered if she was hoping her eyes would adjust to the dark. That wasn’t going to happen because it was really dark in here. He could barely see her even with his low light goggles. He reached into his bag and pulled out the duct tape then stepped toward her. Her hand moved and he heard a “pop” sound. Taser! He thought as his muscles spasmed and he fell to the floor. The girl actually stepped forward and caught him on the way down, keeping him from hitting his face! For a moment he was grateful, then he remembered that she was the one that shot him. Before his muscles began to respond again, she’d professionally pulled his hands back and plastic tied them behind him. Then she bound his ankles. Then she turned on the light. She must have been using some kind of night vision too!

  She squatted down next to him and he realized she was wearing jeans and a camisole! The girl looks like a Victoria’s Secret model! She pulled out the dart. Then she pulled off his stocking mask and his AI headband. She looked at the back of it and popped out the PGR chip to disconnect him from his actual AI. Then she pulled off her own AI headband and plugged his chip into it instead. She grabbed him by the armpits and lifted him into a sitting position, leaning his back against one of the big machines. He was surprised at how strong she was. She gazed at him a moment, looked up at her HUD and said, “So, Sonny Alston, who sent you?”

  A spike of fear shot through him, how did she figure out who I was so fast?

  Sonny had no way to know that Ell’s supercomputer AI could search enormous databases for his face almost instantaneously.

  He shrugged.

  She was looking up at her HUD. She said musingly, “I see you’ve been in the ‘joint’ a couple of times. Breaking and entering seems to be a specialty of yours? But you went ‘up the river’ for beating some guys in a bar.” She quirked the corners of her lips down. “Hmmm, not a very nice person are you? You went up another time for using a weapon in a robbery? Hmmm.” She turned to pick up his back pack, then glanced at him before she unzipped the front flap, “Hope you didn’t bring a weapon on this little jaunt cause my AI tells me you go up the river again if you’re found carrying a weapon… Aw, Sonny, look at this.” She pulled open the flap to show him the gun within. “It’s starting to look pretty bad for you. Breaking and entering, theft of that rocket you took outside, carrying a weapon as a felon.” She shook her head back and forth. “And this hose makes it like you were planning to commit arson. You want to tell me who sent you?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Are you the police? You haven’t read me my rights.”

  “Nope.” She said cheerfully. “So I’m not bound by all those rules that restrain them.”

  “You can’t make me a deal then either.”

  “Sure I can…” she paused. “I…” she paused again pointing to her chest, “can just let you go without pressing charges.” She quirked an eyebrow at him.

  “Why would I trust you?”

  “Well, you’d just have to look into my honest eyes and see if you could. Course, the alternative is to go up the river for sure, isn’t it?”

  Sonny glared at her for a minute. “General Electric.”

  “What’s GE got to do with this?”

  “They hired me.”

  “Now, now, now, GE didn’t hire you, somebody hired you. Maybe they work at GE, maybe they work somewhere else? Who is that somebody?”

  Sonny felt like he had pretty good control of his muscles again. It wouldn’t do him much good while he was bound hand and foot. However, if he could take her out of the equation a moment, he knew he could get his hands around in front of himself. In a machine shop there’s bound to be plenty of tools to cut these damned cable ties, he fumed to himself.

  He moaned a little. He just needed to get her close enough. Sonny’d been in hundreds of fights. His fists might be restrained but he knew from personal experience what a good head butt to the face could do. His own crooked nose was the result of a head butt he’d received in a fight that had practically crushed it. He’d been dazed and confused for minutes after that had happened. How could he get her close enough? He tried another piteous moan. She grinned at him. “Sonny, you can stop the moaning. I know you haven’t been hurt all that bad.” Then her eyes narrowed as they focused on his leg. She leaned toward him to him to pat at the lump in his pocket where he’d put the discs with their attached electronics. Sonny lunged up, hard, aiming his forehead at her nose. She had gotten close enough that he couldn’t possibly miss!

  To his astonishment, though he would have sworn it to be impossible, she easily moved her face out of the way. Then she casually slapped him in the nose. His nose exploded with pain and tears poured out of his eyes.

  How in all the Hells did she do that?!

  She leaned back, “Sonny, Sonny, Sonny. That wasn’t nice. I have to tell you, the encryption on your AI wasn’t very good. My AI has finished extracting its memory, including the secret recording you made of your conversation with Mr. Dennison from ILX. I guess I’d just as well call the police.” She stood up and stepped away, just as a couple of beefy security types trotted in the door, out of breath. “Hey guys,” she said to them, “please keep an eye on Mr. Alston here for me, would you?” She left as the security guys narrowed their eyes at him and then one of them squatted down to check his restraints…

  ***

  Ell watched with the group on the big screens in the main research room. The exterior of their modified Lear jet was visible on one. Another showed the virtual remote cockpit. The plane would be flown by AI just like almost all modern jet flights, but they still had one of their pilots standing by at a console to take over in case of bizarre problems. The set up was much like the UAV control stations Ell had been using a year ago. On one screen you could see the throttles advancing on the virtual station, on another they could see flames and steam blasting out of the engine fairings at the back of the jet itself. The rocket engines had been mounted inside the fairings after the jet engines had been removed. They could have removed the fairings and just mounted the much smaller rocket nozzles but they suspected there may be times when they wanted it to look like a standard jet so they left the fairings in place. Other than the bump on the middle of the back of the plane where the airlock adaptor had been mounted, it looked much the same as it had before being upgraded for space. The attitude thrusters were hardly noticeable. Allan said in her ear, “All thrusters except the main engines have tested to full thrust as nominal.”

  “What’s wrong with the main engines?”

  “The wheel brakes and chocks aren’t strong enough to hold the plane still if they were tested fully.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Ell chuckled at herself.

  A few minutes later they watched on the screen as the little plane shot down the runway and into the sky, quickly fading to a dot. They turned to watch the view out the front windows of the plane but it was a boring sky blue. They all went back to their own projects until someone called out that the view out the front windows of the jet was gradually fading to black.

  Ell said, “Allan, how high are we?”

  “Fifty three miles.”

  “How is the cabin pre
ssure doing?”

  “At the equivalent of 8,000 feet, like a commercial airline, Dr. Braun had us start valving air into the cabin to hold it at that pressure.”

  “Are we having any trouble maintaining pressure?”

  “No. Dr. Braun has installed a large excess of 5cm ports. They have high pressure blowers on them but, without a hull breach, he is just letting standard atmospheric pressure air from the D5R facility leak in through a few of them without using the blowers. The facility is at 456 feet altitude so a much higher pressure than the 8,000 foot setting in the cabin. It would require a major cabin breach to cause decompression that the blowers couldn’t handle.”

  “How did the main engines perform?”

  “102% of expected thrust.”

  “Please contact Braun for me.”

  Ell heard Braun’s voice, “Hello?”

  “Rob, congratulations! It looks like a complete success from here. Are there any problems we’re not seeing?”

  “No! It’s amazing, first launch with everything going right! That’s never supposed to happen!”

  “Bring it back down and we’ll get you some supplies to send up to the Station.”

  “You don’t want to go on up to the station this trip?”

  “I’d rather go when we can send them some supplies.”

  “What’s wrong with the supplies we’ve got on board?”

  “You’ve got supplies on board this trip?!”

  “Sure, my daddy told me to never to plan for failure. We loaded it with fresh and canned food, bottled juices and a bunch of stuff we found on a “wish list” one of the astronauts put on the net a couple of years ago.”

  “You sneaky devil! Way to go! Station here we come. How long will it take to get there?”

  “I’m doing it slow to give us lots of time to determine if we have any vacuum induced failures long before we arrive and find that a failure has resulted in poor control. It won’t be for about three hours.”