The Orphan in Near-Space (The Space Orphan Book 2)

by Laer Carroll

  The report on the best design and the group's plans to test it came back approved within a week, proving that Jane's bosses still had confidence in her. Jane immediately had Kate send out contracts to several companies who specialized in doing classified construction. She also had her exec schedule the deliveries of the prefabricated parts to Luna City via automated spacecraft and make reservations for the group to stay in Luna City housing.

  Another contract went to the company which had constructed Luna City. Work on the city had trailed off as the city neared completion. There were plenty of shut-down telerobots on the Moon and available robot wranglers on Earth to ramp up a new project.

  The group also had to visit Edwards Aerospace Base to buy new space suits. The ones they already owned (stored at Orbital Technologies near Edwards) were models used for work in space. Models for use on the Moon were different. Among other features their boots had to be able to withstand the great temperature differences of the Moon's surfaces.

  Jane's physical measurements had changed in the time since her old spacesuit had been constructed. She was three inches taller, mostly in her legs, making her 5 feet 8 inches high. She was also somewhat curvier though still slender to most people's eyes.

  Finally all the myriad details needed for the construction of the experimental facility on the Moon were finalized. Jane gave the word to start the construction.

  Prefab parts began to flow to the Moon. They were landed and gathered into an area near Luna City. Telerobots were awakened and moved to the area. When all the parts were available robots began to transport them to the selected crater around the curve of the Moon's horizon from the City.

  Transportation complete, the robots carried the parts into the bottom of the crater and began to assemble them. Within three months the experimental facility was complete. This included a bare-bones habitat covered with protective moon dirt within the facility for human workers visiting the facility.

  It took another three months for the facility to be complete. This included air in the habitat and food and drink and other supplies in the habitat's store rooms.

  Jane and her crew traveled to Houston, Texas, to a motel near the Lunar construction control rooms. There they remotely tested the experimental setup short of actually creating a virtual-matter shield. The variable-output bullet shooter worked perfectly. The automated target perfectly recorded the bullets which struck it. The shield generator between the two powered up and all automated computer diagnostics worked perfectly.

  The Kuznetsov Gang had a party back on Pasadena with all their sweeties and friends and family (some by Skype video), packed up, and took Princess to Edwards Aerospace Base.

  <>

  "This place is bigger than ever," Riku said as he tilted Princess and turned her for their final approach to Edwards commuter airfield just off the original Space Force airfield. He was looking out the window next to his seat in the left side of the cockpit.

  Klaus, looking out the same window from his copilot's seat, said, "Now that Jane's SSTO spaceplanes are in wide use civilian traffic has increased ten fold in the last year."

  Jane knew the increase was about seven-fold but stayed silent.

  At landing the group took a shuttle to a nearby hotel and checked in. It was 9:00-something in the morning and the group had several meetings over the next few days, the earliest at 10:00. Most of the people wanted to meet "Genius Jane" (another of her annoying nicknames which had recently surfaced in online media). However, all of the group's members had their acquaintances to renew and did so.

  Finally three days later it was time to take their scheduled flight to the World Space Station. They boarded the sleek spaceplane which waited for them along with over a hundred other people. JANE immediately assumed her cyborg self and settled into the spaceplane's electronic nervous system as an unseen guardian angel.

  The spaceplane lifted on its floater field and trundled out to its takeoff point, took off in a short run above the tarmac runway till its wings generated lift, and accelerated forward and upward.

  It took them an hour to get up to the Space Station's orbit and rendezvous with it. Riku had another observation as the image of the Station grew on the vision screen on the back of the seatback in front of him.

  "I see the two new cans are in place. Does anyone know if they are habitable yet?"

  The Station had added two new arms off the center. It now looked like a big X slowly turning in space.

  "Two months from now," said Klaus. The civil/mechanical engineer kept up with such things.

  JANE had stayed in HER cyborg state on the flight up. As soon as the spaceplane hooked up physically to the Station SHE flowed out of the spaceplane and into the Station via the electrical umbilicals. SHE could have done so earlier by inserting HERself into the radio traffic of the Station but automated radio-wave traffic monitors might have noticed the intrusion.

  HER new expanded body was in good shape though SHE noted some problem areas. SHE gave a barrage of commands which would soon or eventually correct those problems. "Eventually" in some cases after various purchases were added to the constant inflow of supplies from Earth and arrived.

  Assured of the safety of the Station and everyone in it SHE dropped back into her biological self.

  "We're in the VIP can this time, Captain," Kate was saying.

  "Fine. You're doing, Exec?" Kate had spoken to her using her title so courtesy required Jane to return the favor.

  Kate nodded, looking around to see if anything else needed her official attention.

  After checking in and exchanging their spacesuits for civilian dress Jane began the rounds of meetings scheduled for her and her crew. Among them was the director of the Station, effectively the captain of a ship that sailed forever around the planet. He wanted to thank Jane for her part in replacing chemical rockets with space jets to keep the Station's altitude and attitude good.

  The gang also partook of the dining and entertainment options available to people on the Station. This included a first-run movie in the multiplex theater in Can A, the habitat for regular rather than rich visitors to the station.

  Once again Jane wondered aloud that people would leave the planet to do something in space that they could do much easier and cheaper in their own (figurative) back yard.

  Nicole said, spurting mustard on the hot dog that she'd bought while waiting for the movie to start, "Most people are up here to do something else. This is just to avoid boredom between serious activities."

  Riku was content with butter-flavored sea-salted popcorn and a soft drink.

  "Hey, Cap. Look! One of the movies was produced by your boyfriend." He was pointing at one of the several posters for the movies playing at the 'plex.

  Jane looked and, verifying his statement, nodded.

  <>

  Finally the time came to board the spaceship to the Moon.

  Looking "out of" the video "windows" on the walls of the passageway into the ship Jane and her crew could see an image of that spacecraft. It would never fly in atmosphere so did not have a streamlined skin. It was just a framework of hundreds of girders holding objects shaped like balls and cylinders and rectangular boxes, all in white.

  Jane, knowing the design, pointed out some of the larger space jets. "There are lots of smaller jets for attitude control and the like but even I can't see them from this limited view."

  Riku said, "Does it sometimes give you a thrill, Cap, to know that so much of space travel has been shaped by you?"

  Jane turned her attention inward for a moment. She spoke slowly as she explored her feelings.

  "Not so much a thrill as...satisfaction...that I could contribute to.... Hmm, to a team effort."

  Kate, relaxed from her duties as they shuffled toward the door into the spaceship, looked at her with amusement and affection.

  "One of the reasons we follow you, Jane. We know you'll always do your best for others before yourself. And damned be anyone who stands in your way is MY fee
ling."

  Klaus and Nicole nodded. Riku said, "Aye, aye, Captin Sor. And when do we get our ration of rum?"

  Nicole smacked his nearest bicep, eliciting a call for a court martial from the Japanese-American officer.

  Passing through the door into the spacecraft Robot, who already was viewing it with its esoteric senses, sent out a radio blip which better helped identify to Jane all the ways it could tap into the vehicle's various systems.

  Jane did not immediately connect to the ship. She waited until she was seated then plugged her vear into the entertainment channels. She did this via beamed wi-fi rather than broadcast wi-fi which was forbidden.

  Jane+Robot+Spaceship checked HER well-being and readiness. All was as it should be. SHE leaned her biological body back in HER seat and closed HER eyes.

  HER awareness expanded outward. SHE saw the Space Station, still holding HER securely inside itself. Space nearby had dozens of small craft and over a hundred space-suited people. A spaceplane was approaching a couple hundred miles below and behind the Station.

  Further out was a string of other lesser space stations in a line in front of and behind the Station. One of the bigger ones was the Boeing research station which Jane and her crew had visited well over a year before.

  Even further out were thousands of other orbiting vehicles and satellites. Beams of laser light and radio waves and radio beams bathed and crisscrossed the planet. Above in geosynchronous orbit nearly a hundred communication and GPS satellites orbited.

  JANE carefully probed all the made things around the planet and identified them all. Most interesting were the several Chinese objects. SHE focused on them and mentally tagged each group.

  Those put up by the southeast fragment of the older Chinese Republic she gave the tag Glorious after its official name: The One True Most Glorious Realm of the People of Light. It was the most outwardly aggressive of the three fractured parts of the Republic.

  Its headquarters were in Quangzhou just inland of Hong Kong. The latter had been part of China for decades but continued to be a thorn in the sides of the Glorious Realm as it had been in the Beijing regime. It had been independent for much of a century and the habit of freedom still stubbornly lingered.

  The Glorious Realm claimed Taiwan just off and up the coast from Hong Kong. The island continued to stubbornly resist invasion though the Realm almost daily threatened to "take it back." But the island had a rich, well-commanded, and tough military. It was rumored to have nuclear weapons though Jane knew that was just a rumor. She had infiltrated the island's electronics years before. Still, it likely was the reason the Realm's threats remained bluster.

  Even more likely than the nuclear threat was the fact that the Realm was more focused on the South China Sea almost all the way to the Philippines, which also had a good military. The Sea was rich with harvestable aquatic life, minerals, and oil.

  The northeast fragment she tagged Old Republic. It included Beijing and the remnants of the Republic after its leader was assassinated. It included the area all the way south to Shanghai, the largest and richest of the Chinese seaports. Just a few miles south began the Realm which claimed Hangzhou, also a large rich port city.

  The Republic was friendly to the Koreas to the east, two separate nations, frenemies after the North had been taken over and cautiously liberalized by a younger ruler, also of the Kim family (or so he claimed). Japan further east and up the coast was a firm ally of the Republic. It helped that Japan had a powerful military and was incredibly rich.

  The western fragment Jane tagged Wild West though it was just the opposite of fractious. It was by far the biggest geographically but smaller in population than either of the other two Chinas.

  Of the three Chinas it was the most peaceful and prosperous, partly because it was (officially at least) friends with India and the "stans" to its west: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the stans which were part of the Russian Federation. Of those the most important was Kazakhstan, the largest and richest of Russia's stans.

  The West was also friends with Mongolia to the north. The arid and mountainous region had much in common spiritually with the equally arid and mountainous West.

  The West was ruled from Chengdu, the easternmost and biggest of its cities. It had an uneasy relationship with the westernmost Glorious city, Chongsying.

  JANE contemplated the three Chinas for many hundreds of thousands of milliseconds. SHE was going to have to do something about them.

  But not anytime soon. The cyborg turned HER mind toward the Moon.

  <>

  For nearly two hours the spaceship sped toward the Moon, gradually reducing its acceleration from one gravity to one-sixth gravity to match the Moon's surface gravity. Partway there it swapped ends and decelerated the rest of the way to the space station parked at Lagrange Point 1.

  This was the point where Earth's gravity and that of the Moon was equal and so a good place for a space station. It was roughly 31,000 miles from the Moon's surface, a figure which changed over nearly a thousand miles due to various influences. The space station there'd had chemical rockets which kept it from drifting toward the Earth or the Moon and so falling out of orbit. Until recently. They had been replaced with space jets.

  The space station the ship's passengers saw in the ship's view screens was similar to the ship: a bunch of girders framing numerous balls and boxes and cylinders. Its occupants lived in free fall and periodically commuted to the Moon to avoid the health problems which affected dwellers in zero-g.

  Various objects attached to the spaceship began to drift toward the space station. They contained supplies and other matériel and people. After a while there was an opposite exchange. Most of the objects contained people and things returning to Earth.

  "At fucking LAST!" said Riku. This heralded the movement of the spaceship's life module from its old home in one spaceship to another skeletal spaceship. The new ship was the Moon lander.

  There was a tiny jolt as the module mated with the lander. JANE changed to Jane+Robot+lander and checked out HER new body. It was in good condition. But not perfect. SHE sent commands which would bring it closer to perfection.

  Gentle acceleration built up in the lunar lander to send it away from the station and toward the Moon. The view screens showed the grey-brown barrenness of that world expanding. Till the view spun slowly to show space. The lander had swapped ends and was decelerating toward the Moon.

  Suddenly the screens showed a metal framework rushing spaceward. The lander had been enveloped by the mouth of the Lunar catapult on the equator. Magnetic fields which normally would push laden spaceships off the Moon's surface were now slowing this spaceship to set down onto the surface.

  There was a sudden extra weight on everyone's body and a final JOLT as the lander came to rest.

  "Shit!" said Riku.

  A woman in a spacesuit sitting across the aisle from Riku grinned at him.

  "A perfectly safe landing. But the pilots often like to add to your excitement at arriving by giving us a little adrenaline treat."

  "If I catch them I'll give THEM a little adrenaline treat. And maybe a few bruises."

  She chuckled and stood ready to exit the lander.

  Kate said, "Remember, everybody. We're in Lunar gravity now. Be extra careful how you move."

  JANE returned to her biological self. She remained seated. She knew it would take a little while for everyone to leave the lander.

  Finally it was the Gang's turn. They filed out into an exit tunnel and into the Lunar passenger terminal. They were on the Moon.

  <>

  They arrived in Luna City a half hour later after a ride in a commuter vehicle speeding in an underground tunnel to the City. Automatic electronic guides sent to their vears routed them to the rooms reserved weeks ago in the Victoria hotel. This was one of the several hotels which had commissioned and owned Luna City.

  They divested themselves of their Moon suits by way of a niche in the room near the door to each room. This t
hey did by backing into the niche and triggering the Exit sequence of the suits.

  They gathered in the common living room shared by the suite of rooms. All had visited their private bathrooms and freshened up. Each still wore their colorful form-fitting spacesuit liners.

  On Earth the clinging garments would have caused people to stop and stare. Here on the Moon almost everyone dressed this way. It was convenient if you suddenly had to don a spacesuit, your own or one of the numerous one-size-fits-all emergency suits in niches all throughout the city.

  "The Moon at last," said Riku. He was bouncing in one of the cushioned easy chairs in the room's conversation nook. In one-sixth gravity the bounces sent him a foot into the air. Nicole frowned at him from her sedate seat in another easy chair. Kate watched him with amusement.

  "What shall we do now?" he said.

  "After that trip you want to go out?" Nicole feigned amazement and annoyance.

  "I'm hungry," said Klaus.

  "You're ALWAYS hungry," said Riku. "But I could eat."

  Her crew looked at Jane. She shrugged. So they left to explore the cuisine in the Victoria hotel. There were many other eating places outside the hotel but the restaurant in the hotel was near and undoubtedly good.

  It also had a varied cuisine, not surprising in a luxury hotel visited only by the top five percent well-to-do of the populations of the richer countries. They all spoke into the microphones on the center of the table and chatted while sipping their various robot-served drinks and waiting for their food.

  One big topic was the entertainment available.

  "I want to play Quidditch," said Riku.

  Kate lifted an elegant eyebrow, blond as she disdained makeup in space.

  "You haven't heard?" Riku's voice was incredulous as if you had to be really out of touch not to know about the subject.

  He leaned forward and explained that in the coliseum on one border of the city a multipurpose field had been constructed. In it one could play football or soccer or several other sports. One of those was Quidditch.