The End of the Beginning

by Mark H Culbertson

  “Some believe that I am the soul of the settlement and that if the dogs kill me, then the settlement will die. I try to convince them otherwise, but it gets harder every year. I have been here since the beginning. All of the original members of our group defer to my judgment and are hesitant to give me any opinion that may differ from what I am thinking.”

  He paused here for a minute, like he was trying to decide what to say next. It took a minute for me to realize that he was crying. When he looked up he said “I’ve failed. I had hoped to create an enlightened community of free thinkers. All that I have really created is a band of superstitious savages that look up to me like I’m the voice of God!”

  Mike didn’t hesitate. She looked him straight in the eye and said “How many of the original settlement did you actually save in those first days? How many people did you take in? How many new lives did you help bring into this world? You didn’t fail. You survived and that’s what matters.”

  He said “maybe, but that doesn’t mean that will continue. The New American’s are as big of a threat as disease or hunger and I’m afraid that they will not wait until we are ready for them before they attack. But I will tell you that we can debate this issue all night. We need to bed down if we are to get anything done in the morning. Because in the morning we will start on what repairs that we can do to your shuttle” and with that he strode to the edge of the darkness and proceeded to take a piss into the grass.

  I looked at Mike for a second and could see the angst in her face. She was undecided as to follow this possible mad man’s lead or to try to figure this out for herself. That’s why she’s a better leader than most. A lot of men wouldn’t have thought twice about it, they would have either continued on their own foolish path or blindly followed the man to their deaths without questioning whether it was the right move or not. After a few seconds she looked around and said “Let’s get check in top side before we bed down, then we’ll see what the morning brings.” With that she motioned me toward the shuttle so that we could check in with whatever station happened to be overhead.

  Mike pulled the hatch shut as we got inside. I started to ask her what she thought, but she held a finger to her lips and started powering up equipment. Once we got some background noise, she looked at me and said “What do you think?”

  My first response was “Well, hell, you know as much as I do”

  That really didn’t get me anywhere. Mike glared at me and said “This is your country, anything that I do here, had better be right. If not, then I will be the person responsible for the destruction of America, not stupid politicians with finger on the button.”

  She was visibly upset, and rightfully so. I didn’t want to admit it but she was right. If a history book was going to be written, then her decision was the one that the history books would either applaud or jeer as the right or wrong thing to do. I looked at her and said “as far as I can tell he’s telling the truth. I think that we should see if we can help him while repairing the Nemesis.”

  Mike nodded at me, "my thoughts also, let's see if we can get radio contact with Moonbase, but we play dumb on our involvement in political situation, forgiveness and not permission, huh?"

  I've had too many hours in combat to argue with that one and Mike knew it. We both had the same things drilled into us. What we do in the field and what the pencil pushers in the office want us to do have no relevance to each other, regardless of where that office was at.

  Mike hooked up with Alpha on the radio and they bounced her to Moonbase where she logged a report. She filled them in on the wild dogs and the fact that we had made contact with a set of locals, she left out the New Americans and the fact that there seemed to be a civil war going on, but she did say that there were some hostile groups in the area in addition to the folks that we had made contact with. She reported that that the locals had offered to help us make repairs but was unspecific about the repairs. When she was questioned about the repairs, her response was that there were security concerns about anything that she may mention over the radio, but that we had control of the situation.

  That seemed to keep moonbase happy, at least for the time being. With that she signed off and said "You will sleep inside tonight."

  I started to open my mouth, but she said "you are the only one that knows how to get Prometheus off the ground. I am not going to jeopardize this mission because of male bullheadedness."

  I couldn't argue with that one. She was right. I just nodded and started repositioning one of the crew seats so that I wouldn't be lying at an odd angle. Mike headed out of the hatch and told me to secure it from the inside, then climbed out.

  I got everything situated and then took a quick look out the front glass to see if there was anything to see. I wish that I hadn't of done that. Nothing seemed wrong, except for the fact that I felt like we were being watched. We probably were, but I couldn't spot anything. This wasn't like our first night. That was just curiosity. This was more like a mouse might feel when being watched by a cat. It wasn't pleasant. I lay down to go to sleep with that feeling and awoke to daylight coming in the front glass.

  I don't remember getting drowsy. I must have been out when I hit the seat. That's another combat trait. I can sleep anywhere and anytime, but usually not so sound. It must have either been a quiet night or nothing made enough of a sound to make it through to the inside of Nemesis.

  I looked out the front glass to see David cracking eggs from a basket that was sitting next to him. There was a coffee pot on the fire. I made my way to the hatch, opened up and climbed down. Several others were stirring and I saw that Mike was already talking to Thomas this morning. When she saw me, she motioned me over.

  As I approached I could see that Mike was concerned about something. Not that I didn't expect her to be concerned, I just didn't expect her to show it. Mike looked up and said "Thomas believes that there will be a concentrated effort to keep us from reaching Lambert or returning topside."

  "They're afraid," he said. "Afraid of what you are capable of. They're afraid that if you report back to your space station that you bring the technology of the moon and stations to oppose them. They know that everyone in space is racially diverse and one of the theories they preach is that the sky cities are responsible for the destruction of the past. They rule by suspicion and ignorance. They aren't running schools that teach academics, they are running military camps that teach children how to kill and how to hate."

  David had quietly approached with three cups of coffee in his hand. He looked at me, then at Mike and said "we are not fighting for land, money or oil. We are fighting for our very survival. Without your help we will die. My little brother and his friends will end up dead or as slaves to the New Americans. The women will have no choice. No woman will fight a man who holds their children as hostages. They will be raped and used as slaves or sold. The lucky ones will be killed. The ones that survive will have to remember what they had and what they lost."

  Thomas interrupted him at that point. He looked at David and said "That's enough, these people are also fighting for their survival and the survival of their way of life. It's not fair of you to play on their sympathy in order to engage their help. They have tough enough decisions to make without our problems. They have an obligation to several thousand people in space to return that shuttle, without it many will die."

  David bowed his head, but said in a strong voice "what about the obligation they have to clean up their mess", as he then turned and walked away.

  Thomas looked at Mike and said "forgive him please ma'am. He doesn't understand the complexities that adults have to deal with. I had better go talk to him."

  As Thomas walked off, Mike looked at me and said, "I think that the young one understands more than his grandfather would like."

  I said nothing as I watched Thomas walk off, but I couldn't help thinking that the kid was right. We had made a mess of things and someone should have to clean it up.

  It wasn't a pretty situati
on, but it was the one that we found ourselves in. Mike knew it too. I could feel it. I looked over at her and said "I'll follow your lead on this one skipper, but I don't know how we'll be able to keep these folks alive and still get Prometheus back up."

  After a second she said "We are going to get Prometheus up and if possible we will get Nemesis back up, but we will help these people out" and walked toward the fire.

  I don't know how long I stood there, but it must not have been long. I couldn't figure this woman out. I knew that she wasn't going to give up trying to figure out how to accomplish our mission as well as help Thomas and his clan out of the mess, but I didn't see how she was going to do this with the little firepower that we had, much less that and get Nemesis airborne again.

  By the time that I made it up to the fire Mike had motioned Charlie and Russell over. She looked at the three of us and said, "I know that I am captain, and that I can order you to do what I say. But that is not what I want today. I want to tell you what I wish to try and for you to agree or not."

  Mike's words were forced and she was having a hard time keeping the Romanian out of her voice. It was obvious that she felt strongly about what she was about to say.

  "Here is what I propose. We try to get Nemesis back into flying shape. Then we take Steve to Prometheus and get it airborne. We then come back here and launch counter-attack against these new fascists with Nemesis as either air or ground support."

  I opened my mouth to object, to say that there was no way that I was going to let her stay here while I took off for topside, but Mike looked at me and said, "Commander Ray, you do not get voice. You have to fly Prometheus back to Moonbase. No one else can do it and people topside counting on you. So shut up and do duty."

  I didn't even try to finish. No matter how you cut it, no one else could do it. As much as I hated it my only friend was going to have to stay behind if they went with this plan.

  It sucked, but she was right. I didn't like it, but I didn't have to. There was nothing that I could say that would change her mind. That wasn't in her, what was in her was all or nothing. If she couldn't get Prometheus up, Nemesis up and save these people she was going to die trying. Trying to get her to do otherwise would be like trying to get the Earth to spin backwards. It wasn't happening.

  I turned around facing the fire so that she and everyone else wouldn't be able to see how upset I was. David handed me a cup of coffee and as I pulled out a cigarette, Thomas pulled a stick up from the fire and offered me a light. I handed him the pack and walked off.

  It wasn't long before someone walked up behind me. I expected Mike, but it was Thomas. He said "Your captain is quite a woman. You would think that someone would have settled down with her by now."

  "I don't think that you understand, there is no settling down with Mike. You either accept her the way she is and learn that she will make her own decisions every time or you're in for one hell of a wild ride that you weren't expecting. I don't think that just any man would be able to put up with that."

  Thomas looked at me knowingly and said "but you would be willing to try wouldn't you?"

  "I'm sorry, I have crossed over into territory that is none of my business. What is my business is that her plan may very well work. I have already dispatched some of my party back to the settlement to bring back help and supplies. We have hydraulic jacks, and tools as well as a couple of running trucks. We will do everything that we can to help get your shuttle off the ground along with getting you to Lambert to get your new shuttle off the ground."

  "So the rest of the crew have already decided to help you?" I asked.

  "No, we do this whether you help us or not. I want to teach these young men that we help because it's the right thing to do, not because we have something to gain. I also want to help insure that the race survives and I'm not sure that those of us left on earth will, so I want to help those of us that are not on earth."

  The rest was foregone conclusion; I knew that Charlie and Russell would agree with whatever Mike said, because she was Mike. She knew it could be pulled off. I was just worried about the costs.

  The next few days were hectic. There were people in and out of camp like you wouldn't believe. Thomas had them organized and they were working two shifts with a twenty four hour a day armed watch, heavily armed. We didn't see any more of the dogs but you could feel the eyes at night. I don't think that they were all dogs, but nothing came close enough at night for us to spot them. I think that the kids had them spooked. These kids were uncanny, every time I turned around there was one at my heels, and not just me, all five of us including Thomas. Some of them were carrying handguns, but most of them had that very deadly slingshot.

  We jacked up the front of Nemesis and blocked it up so that we could work on it. Charlie thought that one of the wheels and tires from Spirit may work for a replacement and the wheel housing wasn't a big deal. You wouldn't want to land with it but take off wouldn't be a problem. The big question was the hydraulic cylinder. We had to be able to get that front gear up and out of the way because the wind drag would wreak havoc on everything from guidance to wind speed.

  Charlie, David and some of the other boys headed back to Spirit of Saint Louis with one of the trucks and our bent wheel to see what they could find. In the mean time I thought that I would take a look at that cylinder to see if I could come up with any ideas.

  I was sitting on the ground underneath the nose eyeing that cylinder. It was just laying there, bent all to shit. There was a crack in the cylinder wall and the shaft had at least a thirty degree bend in it. Not to mention that the seals were shot to hell. I had been sitting there about ten minutes when a voice said "staring at it won't make it fix itself." It was Ian. Ian was probably about ten years old when the world screwed up. He was just old enough to understand that things would never be the same but not old enough to understand what was happening when everything went down.

  I said "I know, I'm just wondering how I'm going to fix it."

  "Why do you need to fix it? You're not going to have to land in space anyway are you?"

  "No, we're not, but we do have to pull the nose gear up out of the way so that wind drag doesn't screw up our maneuvering and wind speed."

  That's when Ian said "If you're not going to have to land in space, why don't you just get rid of those wheels after you take off?"

  I sat there stunned. He was right. Once Mike got airborne, she wouldn't need the nose gear. It could be blown. That was already set up on the second generation shuttles as a safety measure in case the nose gear wouldn't retract. All Mike had to do was blow the nose gear when she got airborne. She could compensate for the lack of weight and the cover would still slide into place once the gear was out of the way. She would just have to blow it at about two hundred mph or just under three hundred fifty kph. Not impossible, but tricky.

  I just had to figure out how to rig it.

  Chapter 9

  I sat there trying to think about how to get something under the nose of Nemesis so that Mike could get it airborne and how she was going to get rid of it when it wasn’t needed anymore. She had to be at about 333 kph or 200 mph in order to get her off the ground. I had already figured out that I could pull some of the cockpit bolts out and use them to secure the nose gear. Ever since the Challenger and Columbia disaster NASA had started to use an encapsulated cockpit with explosive bolts to try to eject the cockpit in case of a major malfunction. It had never been tested but the bolts worked and all it took was a 12 volt dc charge to set them off. That part was easy. Getting something underneath her front end was going to be the hard part.

  I sat there concentrating when Ian said "Too bad we haven't had any snow, we could put a sled underneath them."

  Sometimes we over-think things, all I had to do was put skis on Nemesis. They would be irreparable after hitting 180 mph but it didn't matter. If Mike couldn't get her up to speed and airborne it wouldn't make any difference.

  I asked Ian if he had ever used skis. He
said "No Mr. Ray, but before everything went wrong my dad used to take me sledding in the winter." I remembered back to me and my buddies sliding down the hill on the old Red Ryders. I was the only one whose family had enough money to have a sled and some of my buddies used to use the sides of washing machines with the corners and front bent up at an angle and even old car hoods on the big hills. That's when I realized that I didn’t need skis, but could use a car hood under the wheels of Nemesis as a sled. It wouldn't be very aerodynamic but it could be jettisoned pretty quick after takeoff. Under perfect conditions with the right person at the helm this would work. I knew that Mike was pilot enough, but I didn't know what might go wrong during take-off. All she needed was one of those massive Dogs to hit the front end again while they were taking off and they would be goners.

  I sent Ian to gather up a couple of the boys and told him that we were going over the hill to the shopping center to find some suitable material. I took two adjustable wrenches and a large hammer hoping that I would be able to break any bolts loose without tearing the hood up too much. I knew what we were looking for before we got there. Something from the late fifty's if I could find it. The ones with the pointy nose and curved sides, that way it would have a tendency to push over any obstacles without catching on them. It also needed to be heavy enough that I could attach it to the nose gear and I thought that any of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century cars weren't capable of that.

  I explained to the boys what I was looking for. I needed a car hood that looked like the front of a boat upside down. As we topped the off ramp I started to survey the parking lot. It took me a minute or two to realize that I was alone. Or at least I appeared to be. I had been around these kids long enough to realize what was going on. We were being hunted, but the hunter was becoming the hunted and I was the bait.