Days of Future Past - Part 3: Future Tense

by John Van Stry

  I looked at the rest of the section; it was smooth, with no openings along it, well other than several large holes and tears, probably from the explosion. But not a hatch or an entryway along the entire length of it.

  "What's wrong now?" Heather called.

  "I can't go in through the open end, too much shredded metal and debris is blocking the way."

  While I was pondering what to do next, the other ship, the Damsel, rotated by and I saw it, a blurry bright yellow streak. Turning my spacesuit I tried to make it out through the edge of my helmet, where it wasn't covered by the patch. It definitely looked arrow shaped, and may have had some words written on it.

  "Maybe you should come back then, Hon?"

  "No, wait, I have an idea," I said as I unhooked myself from the line and started to watch as the whole thing slowly spun around again. The two ships were almost at the center of the spin axis, being as they were the heaviest things there. So they weren't moving as much as the end of the sixty-foot arm that was really spinning around rather fast at the end.

  I waited as the ragged end of section three went by, and then I quickly jetted in, making as straight a line as I could for that yellow arrow, having to add a slight side thrust to keep it in view.

  As I got closer I could see the words 'rescue' were written along the large yellow arrow in bold block letters. I also could see a small square panel at the tip of the arrow, because someone had thoughtfully outlined it in white, as I turned my suit a little to get a better view, the red button in the middle of the panel became clear.

  I let the side of the Damsel rotate into me, and with my right hand I activated just enough thrust to keep me pushed against the side of the Damsel while with my left hand I pressed that red button, causing the small panel to pop open. And there it was! A yellow handle with a cord on it!

  I pulled the yellow handle out and tossed it behind me, letting it float away from me until the line snugged and stopped it. Then grabbing it with my left hand, I wrapped my hand around the line once and gave it as hard a tug as I could.

  I didn't hear the explosion, but I sure felt it through my contact with the ship and saw the flash through my blurry visor as the door suddenly blew out and went flying away with enough force that the rotation of the entire structure picked up a new angular momentum.

  Thankfully my grip on the line saved me from sliding too far away, and then I watched as air streamed out of the Damsel for a couple of seconds.

  Letting go of my controls I grabbed the line with my other hand and carefully pulled myself inside of the ship. Then I quickly made my way to where the docking hatch was, and opening it, I climbed up into the small airlock that led into the remains of section three.

  "Okay! I'm in the other ship, now I just have to move through the remains of the section and into ours."

  "Why not take that other ship?"

  "Because I blew the door off of it," I told her, "I'm not sure if that would be safe."

  "You blew the door off?" Heather sounded a little shocked by that.

  "Yup, now let me concentrate," I said and opened the inner hatch to see what was left of section three.

  It was a complete mess, there were lines everywhere, and a lot of bent metal and floating shards as well. I had to proceed carefully, as one cut on my suit could possibly kill or injure me. I started first with just grabbing the floating object and freeing them from their entanglement and then pushing them towards the open end. After that I just carefully bent the things out of my way that I could, and carefully maneuvered around the ones that I couldn't. It was slow going, but I made it, even if it seemed to take forever to go the twelve feet from the one side of the docking section to the other.

  It didn't help that I was hanging and climbing up into the Phoenix, but at least we weren't spinning fast enough for that to create enough weight for it to be impossible.

  I had to fumble with the hatch a couple of times, pushing it open against the air pressure inside while hanging by one hand. It wasn't easy, but on the fourth attempt enough leaked out that the fifth push let me open it all the way and evacuate the rest of the air. Then it was simply a matter of pulling myself inside and closing the hatch behind me.

  I looked at the controls by the hatch. I turned the one marked 'station power' to off, and hoped that the batteries hadn't tried to engage when station power had been cut and been shorted out in that mess outside.

  Pulling myself over to the pilot's control panel, I flipped the switch for battery power, and nothing happened.

  Swearing I moved back to the circuit breaker panel. I couldn't see clear enough to read anything, so I ran my hands over it. Several of the breakers were sticking out, so I pushed them all in and went back to try the battery switch again. This time it came on.

  "I'm in," I sighed on the radio.

  "Thank the gods," I head Sarah say with an answering sigh of relief.

  I pulled myself up into the pilot's seat, at least it wasn't upside down due to the rotation and I looked at my situation. I could just jettison the docking ring and toss all that stuff off, but with my luck, it would hit the girls.

  So I turned on the reaction jets and put some opposite spin in, giving small measured bursts. Once I had it slowed down to where I could barely feel it, I checked for where the Kramden was, and as we were turning away from it, I hit opened the two red guarded switches and triggered the two of them at the same time.

  I heard a loud metal 'bang' as the clamps released, and then I used the reaction jets to move me away from the whole mass so I wouldn't be hit by it, as it came around again.

  I looked at my batteries, I was down to thirty percent, so I deployed my solar panels and then I turned on the docking system, leaving the radar in standby.

  "Heather, there's a panel that says 'Docking Controls' can you see it?"

  A moment went by, and then she replied, "Yeah, I see it."

  "Find the button that says 'beacon on' and press it.

  "One minute..." there was a pause then, "Okay, it's on."

  "Fine. Now look for a panel labeled 'Station keeping' on that same board.

  "Found it."

  "Press the button labeled 'gyroscope' so it lights up as 'on'. Make sure the others are all off."

  "Okay, done."

  "Now press the one labeled 'station keeping' so it lights up as on."

  "Okay, done. Now what?"

  "Now you wait," I said and I looked at the batteries. They were at thirty three percent and climbing. I could have started the internal APS, but that burned fuel, and I didn't have a lot. Checking the gauges a second time I realized that there was a lot less in the tanks than I had left. I hoped that there weren't any holes anywhere, and that Buzz had just been doing some shuffling for station balance or something.

  So I definitely wanted to save as much fuel as possible for docking.

  I turned the docking radar to active, and then slowly turned the ship until I had the beacon centered on my target crosshairs. The problem was, I couldn't see the crosshairs very well. Docking was a precision exercise and the blurry helmet was making it too hard to see. The sweat running down my head wasn't helping either. What I needed was to take my helmet off, which meant I needed to get an atmosphere back inside the Phoenix.

  Climbing back out of my seat it took me a good ten minutes to finally find the system that controlled the atmosphere and turn it on. Mainly because I couldn't read very well through the helmet. As soon as I got that running, I got back in the pilot's seat and started moving the ship closer to the Kramden. I wasn't centered on the docking ring, but that wasn't a big issue, yet.

  It took me an hour to dock, I had my helmet and gloves off my then, and there was a decent atmosphere in the Phoenix, if a little cold. When the docking rings finally clamped home and locked up, I opened the hatch and was quickly swarmed by Heather and Sarah who opened their side immediately.

  Refueling took about an hour, I also took the time to update the Phoenix's navigation computer from th
e Kramden's seeing as its navigation system had lost power and was pretty well scrambled. Once refueling was finished I made sure to program the Alice Kramden to enter a stable orbit, left the option for Apollo or Buzz to take control, and then sealed both of the docking hatches.

  "Okay, let's get everything stowed and ready for re-entry," I told them as I checked the tanks to be sure they weren't leaking.

  "Do you know where you're going?"

  "Look out the window," I joked.

  "It is a very big planet, Paul," Sarah said looking at me, "I would like to land somewhere close to home."

  "I know when to start us down," I told her.

  "Why have you not contacted Apollo?"

  "Because he won't be in range for another twenty minutes and I really don't need to talk to him," I told her, "This really is the easy part."

  She gave me a look then but went and floated over to her seat at the rear gunner station and belted in. Sarah was definitely not the space traveler type. Weightlessness really didn't agree with her. Heather on the other hand seemed to have absolutely no problems with it. She didn't even seem to feel confined being inside all the time like I did.

  I went and gave Sarah a kiss and then floating over to Heather, who was already strapped into her station I gave her one too.

  I then checked the switches on the copilot's station; to be sure they were set as I needed them, then climbed into the pilot's chair and strapped in tight. We were already traveling upside down backwards with the entire Earth above us. I'd put us in this position after we'd undocked from the Kramden and I'd moved us a safe distance away.

  Checking my instruments I went through the re-entry checklist, and got ready to do the engine burn. Our orbit had been skewed a little by the explosion at the space station, and we'd drifted enough after all of this time that I'd now be coming in over northern California, rather than Baja Mexico, but that didn't matter as much as it might have, because this wasn't a glider. I'd turn south after we passed the Rockies, and head to Groom Lake from the north.

  I checked my position a second time, and then looked up out of the window to confirm it. I'd done this enough in the simulator that I probably could have flown it without any instruments at all.

  I fired the engines then, twenty seconds at fifty percent thrust was all it took, then I flipped us over to be nose first and with a nose high attitude I waited.

  Twenty minutes later the nose started to glow.

  I checked the re-entry list a second time, to make sure everything was properly set, then just sat there and flew the profile.

  When the flames came up over the windows, it was actually kind of a pretty sight. Heather made the appropriate noises, Sarah just swore a few times and I guess looked away or closed her eyes.

  Once we'd slowed down enough that we didn't look like a meteor, I made a couple of long sweeping S-turns to bleed off more of our speed, and then lowering the nose to level flight I started looking for landmarks.

  We crossed over the California coastline at about mach six and one hundred and sixty thousand feet. By then we were bleeding speed and altitude pretty fast, the Phoenix was neither light nor small. So I did the engine start checklist for our two turbine engines, and as we went below mach three, I opened the air intakes for both engines and did air starts on the left one first, then the right. Once they were running normally, I brought the throttles up to eighty-percent. Optimum flight performance and fuel consumption for the engines was at point six-five mach, or about four hundred knots at twenty thousand feet in a two degree nose down attitude. Level flight was considerably slower and not recommended for lengthy periods.

  "I have several contacts on my screen," Sarah called out.

  "What?" I said looking back at her station. "How the hell can that be?"

  "I see them too," Heather called. "They're climbing up to meet us. They're not moving as fast as we are, but they're ahead of us."

  "Well hell," I said and reaching over I flipped the switch to arm all of the weapons. "Don't shoot at anybody until we know who the hell they are."

  I looked at my own heads-up display, now that the girls had identified the other aircraft, I could see the ones that were ahead of us as I made a sweeping turn to the south and pushed the throttles up to a hundred percent power. If I wanted to go supersonic however, I'd have to light the rockets.

  "Phoenix calling Apollo, do you read?" I said keying my microphone.

  "Groom Lake to Phoenix, this is Apollo and I read you fine, Colonel. The weather is clear; there is a five-knot wind from out of the east. Altimeter setting is two nine nine one. The runways are all clear for your use, and you have six dragons coming up out of the mountains to the west of here to meet you."

  "Am I safe to assume that they're not friendly dragons?" I asked.

  "Do you know of any other kind?" Apollo replied and I almost laughed.

  "You heard the man," I called back to the girls.

  "You mean computer," Heather corrected me.

  "Fine, you heard the computer. They're hostile; don't waste your shots, but fire at will.

  I lowered us down to fifteen thousand feet, we were about eighty miles out, I could have held us higher, but I didn't want to have to circle around to land. I was actually planning on going straight in. At a hundred percent power, the two turbine engines couldn't sustain level flight at anything more than two hundred and eighty knots and this beast would stall once it got below two hundred and ten knots, so it was going to be ungainly as hell it got under three hundred. By dropping down that extra five thousand feet, I got the speed up to point eight-six mach for a little while, and it handled a lot better.

  Two missiles were ejected from the port and starboard missile bays and launched in quick succession, quickly disappearing out of sight in the blink of an eye. A moment later and there was a rather large explosion off in the distance.

  "Scratch one dragon!" Heather laughed from the back.

  I put the nose down and started our descent towards the airfield then. The dragons were at ten thousand feet and two of them broke away from us when the nearest one had blown up. Heather launched missiles after each of them, but we were still to far away, so none of them hit, though one did go off rather close.

  The three in front of us were at twelve thousand feet and started to dive down as we did, turning to head straight at us, so I turned into them. We had two missiles left, but a lot of machine gun ammunition, as well as power for our lasers, and both Heather and Sarah had started with the gatling guns, though I had no idea what Sarah was shooting at, so I popped a couple of flares and broke hard right.

  I saw it then, the two that had turned away had turned back, and they were coming at us from behind. I guess my turn confused one, because he stopped dodging and then suddenly he looked like he had a case of explosive acne, as Sarah must have targeted him with the gatling gun dead on. His wings folded up and back and he just started to tumble as I broke back towards the runway.

  We were down to eight thousand feet and twenty miles out.

  Another missile popped out of the starboard bay and rocketed off hitting and disintegrating a dragon that was less than a quarter of a mile ahead of us. I had to bank hard and pull up to clear the body, causing the ship to shudder a little as air speed bled off drastically.

  Pushing the nose down, hard, I made sure the turbine throttles were all the way forward to the stops and put my hands on the rocket levers; I'd use them if I got desperate, but the amount of thrust coming out of them this close to the ground could ruin my whole day if I didn't get the nose back up immediately.

  I could only see the one in front of us on my display so I kept the nose down as our speed climbed back up, then I pulled up hard at three thousand feet. We were back up to three hundred and twenty knots and we were ten miles out.

  "Move left!" Sarah called, so I jinked us to the left.

  "Right!" she called and I moved that way next.

  "Right again!" I followed her commands while Heather k
ept shooting at the one in front of us.

  "Left!"

  "Right!"

  "Hard Left!"

  Suddenly there was a big bright flash in front of us, and the dragon that was trying to come at us was flash fried. He literally glowed for a moment and then just disintegrated in a cloud of ash. I felt a momentary sense of vindication at that and wondered if he'd had a moment to realize what was happening to him, like Dean had.

  "We're in range of Apollo's defenses!" Heather called.

  "The last one is breaking off and running for it," Sarah said.

  I looked at my instruments; we were five miles out, and fifteen hundred feet. I pulled the throttles back to fifty percent and raised the nose to level flight burn off airspeed as we were still over three hundred.

  Checking the instruments, I lined up with the runway, then looked out the window to confirm as we came over the last rise.

  "Gear down," I said and pushed the gear switch down and watched for three green lights.

  I bumped the power back up as the speed got below two eighty, pushing the throttles back up to full power as I caught the glide slope and just rode it down. When the tires hit I pulled the throttles back to idle, pulled the nose up hard to get as much aero-braking as possible, then lowering it down to the ground I rode the brakes slowing us down until we were just at a fast jog.

  Turning off the runway, I taxied us towards the hanger we'd used last time, then stopped us, set the brakes, turned off the engines, did the shutdown checklists, and then turned off the batteries.

  "That was fun!" Heather yelled from the back as she undid her seatbelts.

  "No, we are not doing that again," Sarah sighed.

  "How many did we kill?" I asked.

  "I got two, Sarah got one, and Apollo got one," Heather called.

  I looked outside and one of the automated transports had pulled up.

  "Looks like our ride is here. Time to go!"

  - 17 -