Moon For Sale

by Jeff Pollard

  EF-111s served a vital role in Operation Desert Storm, opening a hole in the Iraqi air defenses so big the Spruce Goose could have flown through it. On that first night, Gary and his pilot, Graham Britton, found themselves in a dogfight with an Iraqi Mirage F-1 fighter. The French-built Dassault fighter was much more agile then the heavy EF-111, which was designed to penetrate enemy territory low and fast, not for dog-fighting. In the dead of night, over the sands of Iraq, with no Moon in the sky (an intentional choice as coalition forces had superior night-vision capabilities), the Iraqi fighter closed on their tail. Gary worked quickly to counter the radar of the Mirage, keeping it from locking on to their plane. Graham tried the best he could to out-maneuver the Mirage, but ended up in a turning battle that they would surely lose. These high speed turning battles always go to the more maneuverable aircraft, but there is one caveat. These turns cause both planes to lose altitude. As the Mirage closed on their tail, closing the circle, the Iraqi trained his heat-seeking missiles on the tailpipes of the EF-111. There was nothing Gary could do about the hot infrared signature given off by their two jet engines, and no way to interfere with the detection of that signature by the IR seeker-head of the missile, other than releasing flares at the last moment and hoping the missile is confused by them. Graham called on the radio for help from any nearby friendlies, but to no avail.

  In the darkness of the moonless night, the desert sands were difficult to see, but the EF-111 was equipped with ground following radar to enable high-speed low-altitude penetration. The Mirage also had a ground detecting radar, but a less sophisticated one. Gary simply told Graham to fly as low as he could, ducking the Raven between sand dunes, while Gary listened closely as he searched through radar frequencies, looking for the signature coming from the Mirage's ground following radar. He found the tell-tale signature and immediately switched the jamming equipment to that frequency. The jammer wasn't designed to disrupt such a radar, but rather to disrupt targeting radar's which used higher frequencies. He had no idea if this would work, and only realized that it could when the Mirage plowed into a sand dune and exploded spectacularly, lighting the desert for miles around in a brief flash.

  And that was how Gary Ross became the only Electronic Warfare Officer in history to record an air-to-air victory.

  After Desert Storm, Ross elected to take an early discharge and left the Air Force. He joined NASA and flew two shuttle missions as a payload specialist. Then he was one of the first Americans to ride a Soyuz. He left NASA to work for Virgin Galactic where he served once more as a right-seater during test flights of SpaceShipOne. He'd flown to space four more times in sub-orbital Virgin Galactic tests before he joined SpacEx.

  Sylvia and Gary had been the SpacEx “B” crew for almost two years now, waiting their turn to fly. Sylvia never missed a chance to refer to Gary as her “back-seater.” Having been an F-14 pilot, her Radar Intercept Officer would have sat behind her, rather than in-tandem like in the F-111. It was both a dig at Gary for not being a pilot and also a reminder that she was Navy and he was Air Force. Just imagine being a seven-time veteran of space travel and decorated Air Force aviator and being forced to serve as a “back-seater” to a female pilot from the Navy.

  Griffin 8 is bound for Excalibur as the first mission to a private space station, which would make these four passengers the first ever customers of a space hotel. Justin had written a song that he was preparing to record live in space, but at the moment he was thinking about anything but music.

  The Eagle 9 burned through nearly all of its fuel and approached main-engine cut-off and first stage separation. “Come on baby,” K whispers, standing over Josh Yerino's shoulder as he prepares to guide the first stage to a landing. At stage separation, the upper stage ignites and sends Griffin 8 continuing on its way toward orbit. While most eyes are on the crew of Griffin 8, Kingsley and Josh are completely focused on the first stage. They had a successful test of a powered landing simulation on Griffin 7, in which the stage slowed down to a hover just above the ocean. The following launch lofted an Orbcomm satellite and the Eagle 9 first stage successfully landed on a barge in the Atlantic. But barge landings wouldn't be good enough because they would still expose the rocket to salt-water that would ruin delicate engines. For this mission, they would try to actually land the first stage on actual land. Cold-gas thrusts fire to yaw the big first stage around so the center engine can burn to kill the down-range velocity. The huge rocket turns, with gas thrusters firing to maintain control. The turn halts and the stage is ready to re-ignite the center engine to burn back toward launch site.

  The Eagle 9 attempts to restart its engine, but after five seconds, it's clear that the engines have failed to re-ignite and the stage is continuing down-range at a quite a clip.

  “Try it again,” K says. Josh overrides the computer to attempt re-ignition, but once more there is no response. “Give it a kick with the thrusters,” K says. A big hurdle to re-igniting rocket engines is that in zero-g, as the Eagle 9 is right now, there is no force pressing the propellants to the bottom of the tanks. Josh activates the cold-gas thrusters, accelerating the stage and hopefully pressing the propellants to the bottoms of the tanks. Then he hits the button for re-starting the center again once more.

  “There,” Josh says, looking to a monitor showing a live feed from a camera embedded in the bottom of the stage. Flames jet out from center-engine as it seems to re-ignite. But as quickly as their glimmer of hope appears, it's crushed as the camera feed cuts out and telemetry is lost. A ground-based tracking camera following the Eagle 9 is witness to the explosion of the first stage. The pieces of the rocket spread apart, trailing smoke behind them, in an ever-widening plume of debris raining down over the Atlantic.

  Headlines everywhere would sensationalize the launch as a catastrophic failure that nearly killed famous people. Truth be told, at that moment they couldn't be totally sure, but Kingsley was positive that the failure was some flaw in the engine re-ignition system and never endangered the crew who were quite far away, on their way to space, by the time the first stage exploded.

  “Recovery's asking for all the help they can get in searching the ocean for debris,” Travis says to Kingsley. “So I'm going, if you can spare anyone, I'll take them.”

  “They're all busy,” K replies, “but I'll go.”

  K and Travis board the elevator, heading down to the lobby, hoping they can literally pick up the pieces of their failed rocket. The tense quiet is too much and Travis tries to break the tension.

  “Did I tell you I'm going to propose?” Travis asks.

  “That's great man,” K says. “What's her name again?”

  “You've met her two or three times,” Travis says.

  “I'm awful with names,” K says.

  “Ellie. Eleanor, but she goes by Ellie. And. . . I did maybe promise her that we could have a literal honeymoon,” Travis adds. “Is that one of the perks we get?”

  “Sure man, I'll send you two to the Moon. As long as the wedding's not for a few years and in the meantime you make about a hundred million dollars. Then sure,” K says. “How long have you been seeing her if you're talking about lunar honeymoon vacations?”

  “Came up on date two,” Travis replies as they exit the elevator.

  “What the hell kind of dates are you going on?” K asks as they walk through the lobby.

  “I got the rings picked out already.”

  “Really?”

  “They're carved from a meteorite rich in platinum.”

  “That can't be cheap.”

  “I pocketed it years ago when I was working for NASA, searching for meteorites in Antarctica. You know, it's a perk, like honeymoons.”

  “What are you pocketing from me when I'm not looking?” K asks.

  “I got three cases of space champagne in my basement.”

  “You know, once we get a lot of launches going to Excalibur, maybe you can take her up on a mission with you.”


  “Really?”

  “Yeah, why not. Consider it my wedding present to you. And also your salary for forty years.”

  They exit the building, heading for the parking garage, but will have to walk through reporters to get there.

  “Can I drive?” Travis asks.

  “Why?”

  “I wanna try out the new K-mobile,” Travis says.

  “Nobody calls it that anymore.”

  “It is a one-of-a-kind car that you designed,” Travis says. “So I can drive?”

  “Absolutely not,” K replies as they reach the reporters shouting questions about the explosion. “Your precious celebrities are fine, they were never in danger,” K says as they walk briskly through the unsecured area between the LCF and the garage. “Had we simply allowed the first stage to fall into the sea there wouldn't be any headlines that a rocket crashed. That's just business as usual. The attempt at first stage return is an experimental maneuver, one that we will get right, and it in no way endangered the crew of Griffin 8. Once the stages separate, they could care less if the first stage parachutes to safety or blows up in a blaze of glory. They're fine.”

  K and Travis get to the parking garage next door to the Launch Control building and the reporters are stopped at the door.

  “You realize that all anyone's going to be talking about is that you almost killed Timberland,” Travis says.

  “It's not true,” K replies.

  “I'm not saying it is, but maybe we shouldn't be doing experimental things on manned flights. If we were trying FSR on a satellite launch and it blew up, it wouldn't be a headline,” Travis says. “Oooh baby, that's sexy.”

  “Are you talking dirty to me?” K asks.

  “The car!” Travis says, stopping in his tracks as he spots the new K-mobile. It's similar to the old K-mobile, looking more like a fighter jet's cockpit on wheels, complete with a bubble canopy and a cherry-red finish. “Please let me drive it.”

  “Fine,” K sighs, “I'm getting a migraine from all this shit anyway.” K hits a button on his keychain and the canopy opens up, revealing a driver's seat in the front and a passengers seat in the back. “Just don't you dare call me your backseater,” K says as he climbs in back.

  “Sure thing co-pilot. Where's the keys?”

  “No keys,” K says. Travis climbs in the front seat.

  “Is there a button?” Travis asks, searching his cockpit-like consoles. Several touch screens are blank and powered off. He tries pressing buttons, but nothing works. “Is it voice activated?” Kingsley sighs and reaches up to pull down the bubble canopy.

  “Go, car, go,” Travis says loudly. “Activate. Power on. I'm Batman.”

  “Start,” K says apathetically.

  “Right, start, that makes sense,” Travis admits as the screens turn on and the car powers on silently.

  “Now be careful,” K says, just as Travis puts the pedal down and the car peels out instantly. Electric motors have an incredible reaction time unlike their comparatively sluggish combustion cousins.

  Travis speeds down the circular ramp and exits onto the street. They pull up to a red light. “You don't need to go so fast, we're only going three miles.”

  “That's true, I should just go super slow to enjoy it more,” Travis says sarcastically. A yellow Corvette pulls up on their right and the driver revs his engine.

  “I think he wants to race,” Travis says. “How do I rev this thing?” He jokes. When the light turns green, the Corvette driver doesn't hesitate to lay down rubber. Travis doesn't give in to the temptation to race, and just barely gets on the accelerator. As they go through the intersection, a woman coming from their right is too busy paying attention to her Pandora app on the in-dash touch screen to notice that her light had turned red. The twenty-six year old woman's blue BMW SUV hits the right front corner of the Corvette at over sixty miles per hour. The yellow corvette is snapped sideways, and the nose comes flying around and hits the Tezla right in the canopy. K braces for impact, closing his eyes and turning away as he sees the 17-inch rims flying right at him.

  Time slows down and milliseconds seem like minutes. Kingsley sits upright, finding the canopy completely gone from the Tezla and amazingly it's still rolling through to the other side of the intersection, despite damage to the right front tire. The car comes to a stop up against the center divider on the far side of the intersection.

  Kingsley can't feel anything at all, the adrenaline wouldn't let him feel a gunshot right now. He feels a strange warmth in his lap and looks down to discover Travis's severed head looking up at him. The warmth was from the blood pouring out of Travis's neck. Kingsley just stares at his friend, unable to believe what he is seeing. Dazed, he looks around, seeing the Corvette laying on its side and the SUV's front end with surprisingly little damage from the collision with such a low-to-the-ground vehicle. There's just two other cars at the intersection, now stopped, their drivers still inside, shocked. A man gets out of one of the parked cars, rushing to the Corvette.

  “Help me!” the man shouts to Kingsley as he tries to open the Corvette door that's pointing skyward, not realizing that Kingsley wasn't the only occupant of the small Tezla. “Help me!” the man shouts again at more cars arriving at the scene. A ways behind him, K spots the familiar Black Suburban that's been tailing him for some time. The Suburban does a U-turn and drives away.

  Kingsley looks back to the face in his lap, hoping that somehow it wouldn't still be there.

  Chapter 8

  Kingsley jerks upright in bed, sweating, tense, arteries pumped full of adrenaline. His eyes adjust to the darkness and for a few moments he's still not sure where he is, terrified that he's not at home.

  “K?” Caroline asks, waking up. “Another nightmare? About Travis?”

  “No. Just can't sleep,” K lies. He gets out of bed and walks away into the darkness. Caroline tries to go back to sleep but can't. That's three nights in a row that K has had a nightmare. Caroline is worried about how Kingsley is dealing with the death of Travis. She thinks he probably blames himself since the crash occurred in a car Kingsley designed. Not only that, but had Travis not begged to drive, Kingsley would have been in the front seat.

  “K?” a whisper comes from the door to the bedroom. Caroline is startled awake as she realizes there's a figure in her room. “Kingsley?”

  “Hannah?” Caroline asks, turning on a lamp.

  “Yeah,” Hannah replies from the door. “Where's K?”

  “Why?”

  “There's a weird noise, I'm kinda scared.”

  “Where?” Caroline asks.

  “Coming from the garage.”

  “I'll call K,” Caroline says, reaching for her phone.

  “I already tried,” Hannah replies. The two women head down the stairs, tip-toeing silently. A grinding noise echoes through the first floor coming from the garage. They inch along toward the garage door. Caroline opens the door and they find Kingsley inside with a welding helmet on and running a power grinder against the side of the old K-mobile.

  “Kingsley!” Caroline shouts. He can't hear her. She approaches him as sparks fly off of the side of the car. She lightly touches his back and Kingsley jumps, turning around, startled, whipping the grinder around. He shuts it off and breathes a sigh of relief.

  “What are you two doing down here?” K asks.

  “We heard a weird noise,” Caroline says.

  “I'm just working on the car,” K says.

  “I see that. What are you doing to the car?”

  “You don't care, just go back to bed.”

  “ULA has a new president,” Brittany says, entering K's office seconds after he's arrived after noon. “Late night?” She asks K who looks like he hasn't slept in days. “I don't ask or care about what you do at night, but you might want to at least look presentable when we have the board meeting next week.”

  “New president?” K asks.

  “Yep,” Brittany say
s, “Granderson is out. Sounds like they know they're in some trouble. The Congressional hearings are coming up and I think they know they're in trouble and they're going to fire some people as scapegoats and pretend it was a few bad apples and not their entire company policy that got them in trouble.”

  “Is that what we're doing? Gonna axe me as a scape goat before the hearings?”

  “You'd have to ask the Kokes,” Brittany replies. “There's a bit more,” Brittany says, walking around to K's side of the desk as he leans back in his chair with his eyes closed. “The new president, something Hendricks, wants to meet with you.”

  “Wants to meet with me?” K asks, opening his bloodshot eyes.

  “Yeah. They've called every day this week, trying to get to you. I was going to tell Seth not to put them through, and then I found you have a new secretary.”

  “That deaf mute couldn't answer phones,” K replies.

  “Did you actually pay him a million dollars?” Hammersmith asks.

  “He never made it a month without talking,” K replies. “He got so frustrated with himself for not being able to do it that he quit.”

  “That moron,” Brittany says.