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

by Laer Carroll

  He acknowledged her and contacted Huizhou Air Traffic Control. Getting an OK to take off he increased power to the engines. This included the space jet in idle mode. Jane had proclaimed this to be standard procedure for space flights. Best to be assured such jets functioned from the very beginning of travel.

  Outside video cameras captured the action. They were from well over a dozen news agencies, including those of Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Korea, and Australia. India, the United Emirates, and several European countries were represented. There was one each from the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

  They took off toward the west but quickly looped back south and then almost directly east. Liu took them to 50,000 feet before they left China airspace. Several fighter jets accompanied them.

  Just outside the airspace fighter craft from Taiwan met Princess. The Glorious fighters turned back.

  They passed over the center of Taiwan at 75,000 feet, nearly 15 miles up. Taiwan fighters followed them briefly but Princess was already moving faster than 7000 miles per hour.

  Almost a thousand miles out over the Pacific Princess passed 100 km, or 62 miles, height. Though there was still a tiny bit of atmosphere around them, this was the usual official point where space began.

  About 120 miles above Hawaii they reached 17,400 miles per hour. They were at orbital velocity.

  Jane got on the intercom.

  "We're in orbit, ladies and gentlemen. We'll be slowly reducing speed. As we do so the 'weight' you feel pushing you back into your seat will go away. I'll be joining you, so don't release your seat belts just yet."

  Jane got out of her restraints and flipped backward then right side up in respect to the floor. A slight pull on the back of her seat sent her floating into the passenger area.

  Jane grabbed the back of the first seat outside the cockpit and used her grasp to stop the motion of her body, feet almost touching the floor. The chief engineer was in the next seat one row in front of her and to her right. The billionaire was in the left seat.

  "Well, we're safely in space, lady and gentlemen. Let me talk to you about getting around--if you want to. It will take us about 90 minutes to return to our beginning point. But don't worry about all that. Just know that we'll spend about 75 minutes in free fall. You can endure that with the help of Dramamine tablets, which we have available. Or you can have fun. Anyone want to have fun?"

  The billionaire said, "Fun!" He was a fiftyish Chinese with an athletic build, or at least a slender build. Jane thought he was athletic, but could not be sure.

  "OK. You others, you can see on the vision screen on the seat back in front of you views of the Earth below. It is a browser view, so you can use familiar controls to zoom in and out of the image. Or call up other images, such as a diagram of the orbit we're taking. Or other related views. You can even send text messages to people, or phone them, or Skype them. Feel free to do so. But remember that how successful that might be will depend on where we are in our orbit. Some places we won't have a communication link.

  "Now, sir. You want to release your seat belts? Follow my lead in getting out of your seat and moving to the back with me. We have a seatless area where you can do acrobatics and such."

  He was indeed athletic. After some expert flips and spins on his part, she asked him about that.

  "I competed in trampoline events in secondary school. In college I was on the diving team. I might have competed but my father wanted to retire, so I took over the business."

  "Good. Now let me check on our other two passengers.

  They had gotten over any queasiness they might have felt and were busy on their view screen. The young intelligence agent had tried to contact a woman back in China. The engineer had reached a son in the US who was working on a PhD in geology.

  Back in the cockpit Jane asked if Liu wanted a break.

  "Not so much a break as glad-handing each of the passengers. That's what real pilots do. At least when they're making history."

  Taking command Jane became a cyborg again and double-checked Liu's monitoring of the health of Princess and of their orbital progress. Everything was fine. She descended from goddess-hood.

  She was staring down at South American when Liu returned. They had dropped below the equator near the west coast of that continent.

  "You won't believe what's happening. Our scared little engineer is competing with the billionaire for most crazy acrobatics."

  "And our spy?"

  "He's talking to some girl on the internet. Or talking in code to his boss in the Intelligence Agency. But I think he really is flirting."

  The two left their passengers to their own devices. Princess passed over the Atlantic, then the southern part of Africa. Space hobbyists in South Africa contacted them and Jane chatted with them for a few minutes before Princess lost contact with them.

  Soon they crossed the Indian Ocean. Their orbit was trending more northward and they crossed the mid-section of India. More space enthusiasts contacted them from a big city in the middle of the country.

  Then they were on the approach to home. They crossed over Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. As they crossed the latter the air force stationed in Hanoi greeted them. Then the Colonel was busy crossing the south China coast and lining up to land back at Huiyang Air Base.

  There the number of news agency representatives had doubled, at least. Everyone was assaulted with request for interviews. The intelligence agent immediately transformed from passenger into a publicist. He set up several interviews and a press conference attended by the Colonel and Jane.

  At the beginning most of the questions were directed toward the Colonel. He turned out to be an accomplished interviewee, not surprising considering that he'd once been the commander of several bases including his last, Huiyang, and sometimes had to talk to news agencies.

  The "publicist" emceed the conference. After the Colonel had gotten his time in the spotlight, it was turned on Jane. The language was changed from Chinese to English.

  Some innocuous questions only required Jane to answer in generalities. How did it feel to look down on the Earth from orbit? "Great. The Earth is very beautiful from up there."

  How well did she get along with engineers from another country and in a language not her own? "Great. I took Chinese in high school and was a member of a Chinese language club at the Academy. And being immersed in a culture you can pick up a lot of nuances very quickly. Though some of the slang still baffles me."

  What were her plans from here on out? "Well, I want to get this group begun on a true space craft, not a jury-rigged test one such as the Princess."

  Then an American reporter spoke up in English.

  "How is it that you can get away with being a traitor to the American people? Aiding and abetting an enemy?"

  "I think our State Department would dispute 'enemy' as a term for the Chinese people. Certainly the two countries have their disputes. But they are talking. And because of this project they will be talking more."

  "Isn't it true that some technologies are forbidden to transfer to a hostile country?"

  "That is true. But if you'll talk to the lawyers you'll see that there are provisions for American citizens to do limited business with businesses in countries in which the US is not complete agreement on all subjects."

  "But you have just put advanced technologies into two military aircraft."

  Jane smiled. "You'll find that I, with my own money, BOUGHT two junked aircraft then rehabilitated them with the permission of the owners of a company in which I have interest. Those two vehicles are the results of the hobbies of what some might call a foolish young woman. In short, perfectly legal.

  "I have answered three of your questions. That's more than anyone else so far. You in the brown jacket. What is your question?"

  Chapter 21 - Return

  A week before Jane was to leave for her five-day visit to her home she received a call from the office of Major Huang, a Captain when Jane and she had arrived at t
he base. The little woman who commanded the air base requested a few minutes of her time.

  "Sure. Come along, Major."

  Jane stood and came around to the front of her desk. She suspected the reason for the visit.

  The Major rapped on the edge of the open doorway to Jane's office on the top floor of the headquarters building. Jane had requested the woman dispense with this formality early on. Everyone was too busy for time wasters like that. The renewed formality reinforced Jane's suspicion.

  The woman braced in front of Jane and saluted, a courtesy not demanded by their official positions: commander of a base and the commander's civilian assistant.

  Jane saluted as precisely as if their exchange was entirely legal.

  "Be at ease, Major. And sit down."

  It was entirely illegal for a civilian subordinate to give commands to her military boss. But the two of them had long ago abandoned the legal pretense that Jane was not the true commander on the base.

  Jane returned to her desk. She sat, fully upright rather than the usual relaxed postures of their meetings.

  "Your reason for this meeting?"

  "I must regretfully inform you that you are restricted to base for the next two weeks."

  "Not an unexpected change in my situation. Thank you for the courtesy of your communication. If you'll forgive me, I must return to work."

  The woman shifted her weight to stand up. She hesitated.

  "I deeply regret having to pass along this change in your status."

  Jane sat back in her ergo chair. She spoke softly.

  "I know, daughter. I would be disappointed if any of my children did less than her duty. I am too proud of you for words."

  Tears edged the Major's eyes as she rose. She paused.

  "You are not my mother, Captain. I have only one. I would be proud to acknowledge you as a grandmother, however."

  Jane stood too.

  "I would be honored--goddaughter."

  Huang paused as she thought through the implications of this Christian formality.

  She nodded and saluted Jane. Jane returned the salute. The woman did an about face and left.

  <>

  At 3:00 in the early hours of the day before Jane would have left for the U.S. Robot touched her mind as Jane slept.

  Jane instantly awoke and left her bed, folding the covers neatly. She went to the small closet in her temporary quarters in the officer's barracks to which she was exiled. She had only a few items stored in it taken from Jane's apartment in Huizhou. There were even fewer items she wanted to pack into an overnight bag. She also took and packed some things from her bathroom.

  She dressed in cutoff jeans, a tee-shirt fronted by a portrait of Argentine singer Carlos Gardel, and tennis shoes. She quietly let herself out of her room and went through the twilight dimness to the stairs at the end of the hall.

  Ascending, Jane came out on the flat gravel-and-tar top of the big three-story building. She walked to the middle and stopped under the drizzling skies of one of the first cold fronts of the season. The water was cold. Jane was not.

  Jane+Robot+Princess III+Huiyang Base inspected HER insides and the area surrounding HER.

  On the second floor her executive officer and a spy upon her for the Exterior Intelligence Agency awoke. A moment later he jumped out of bed and hurriedly dressed.

  In the base's security room two bored guards monitored the many webcams piping images to them. Four other guards paired in two lightly armored trucks mounted with machine guns wove random paths just inside the perimeter of the base.

  The suburban area around the base carried on as usual in the middle of the week, as did the two nearby metropolises, Huizhou and Huidang.

  Further away various commercial aircraft flew, as did fighter aircraft. The latter included craft from Taiwan a couple of hundred miles to the east.

  JANE woke up the Princess part of her. It was fully awake within a minute. JANE twitched open the doors to the spacecraft's hangar. They began to ponderously open.

  One of the guards inside the security control room sat forward in her chair.

  "Corporal! Go outside and see if you can tell what's going on. Take your weapon!"

  JANE rolled onto the pad in front of HER hangar. SHE rotated to her right and began an approach to the closest taxiway to the main runway.

  Wang consulted the telltales he'd installed in the barracks on his slate computer. The hall outside Jane's temporary quarters showed passage. The doors to the outside showed no activity yet.

  JANE/Princess reached the runway and rotated to the left, toward the east. SHE began to move.

  The junior security guard spoke into the phone which was part of his helmet.

  "Sergeant! The plane is taking off! The big one."

  "Shit!" The sergeant spoke into her helmet phone. "Major Huang. The big plane is taking off."

  "Call base alert. I'll be there in five minutes." She hurriedly dressed and ran through her house near the base and into her garage. She jumped into her base SUV security vehicle, triggered the garage door opener, and drove quickly out of the driveway and onto the street.

  All over the base sirens sounded. Those who lived on the base, some 120 people, began to struggle out of darkness into light.

  Wang, outside his room, was still examining his several dozen in-barracks telltales when the sirens went off.

  The roof! She must be there. He began to run toward the stairs.

  Robot's continuing self-refurbishment had revealed that its dissolution weapon was just one mode of a more general system: directed transmutation. It could transmute any element to any other. Dissolution was a setting in which the atoms in any desired object within 3000 feet or so could be morphed into helium. The puff of gas quickly dispersed into the atmosphere around the object.

  Among other settings the transmuter could convert nitrogen atoms into oxygen, the smaller atoms of the two largest parts of air. If enough was done just above someone's body this could not quite lift them into the air.

  Jane's super-efficient muscles could send her 30 feet straight up, or about 100 feet horizontally. With the transmuter's boost she could leap 300 feet straight up. Though coming down would be painful despite her high-gravity tolerance.

  Wang grabbed the knob of the door to the roof. It was locked. It was never locked; it was a safety matter. Doors to roofs had to be operable in an emergency.

  JANE went light on her wheels and lifted into the air. SHE began to circle back toward the buildings of the base.

  Half the people in the base hurriedly left the buildings in which they slept to take their duty stations in case of an attack or other emergency.

  Major Huang triggered the security gate and passed through it at high speed. The gate guard saluted her; she did not notice.

  JANE approached the officer barracks, moving very slowly 200 feet up. SHE triggered HER side door.

  Major Huang skidded her vehicle to a halt in front of the headquarters and jumped out. She went no further. Princess III was approaching. Its air jet engines were totally silent in operation at low speeds. The white spacecraft, poorly lit by base lights, looked like a ghost.

  Was she dreaming? NO. The Major shook her head and watched as the craft approached like some oddly shaped balloon.

  Wang struck the lock the third time with a heavy fire extinguisher. The lock mechanism broke. He pushed open the door and leaped through the opening.

  There before him was Jane. She was turned toward him.

  "Hello, Wang. I'm taking my vacation a day early. See you in two weeks, not one. I'm a little pissed at the Committee. When I get back I'm going to punish them."

  She turned, squatted, and leaped. Straight up.

  Incredibly, she flew.

  <>

  Forty minutes later there was a meeting in the office of the Major. With her was Jane's overseer Wang, the head of Security, the junior of the two night security guards, the head of engineering, and for some reason the base cook.

>   Nobody dared dismiss the woman. She was bear-sized and had a bear's quick temper. Your food could be burned or watered down for at least two weeks if she got pissed at you.

  Huang said to Wang, "And you're sure she said she would return in two weeks."

  "I am, sir. She was quite clear. And I believed her. For she said she was going to 'punish' the Committee."

  The Major puffed her cheeks and blew out a breath. "I'm definitely not going to include THAT in my report."

  The bear-woman said, "Then the Dragon will return in two weeks. I'm going to have to start preparing her banquet right now."

  She stood but stopped when the Major's private phone buzzed. The base commander removed it from her belt and glanced at its face, set it for Conference, and placed it on the table in front of her.

  "Major Huang. Who's with you?" It was the General who was the head of the External Intelligence Agency.

  "General. Only my most essential personnel."

  "I believe you can stand down and return to normal operation. I've just received a phone call from Captain Kuznetsov. Here. I'm sending a recording of it to you."

  The speakers on the phone were good but the conference room's loud speakers were better. Wang had connected his phone, which was also receiving the recording, to them. Jane's voice sounded as if she were in the same room with them.

  "Sorry that you had to get out of your bed, Sir. But I know you would want me to report to you right away."

  The Major paused the recording.

  "How could she have made a phone call? At, hmm, 30 minutes after she left she should be thousands of miles out to sea and a hundred miles up."

  Wang said, "True. And by now she's traveling 5000 to 6000 miles an hour. But remember who we're dealing with. Those who call her THE Engineer are for once not exaggerating."

  The Major resumed the playback.

  "I left a little early for my vacation. No one could have stopped me, and it would not have been safe for them to try. I was really pissed at the Committee. They have no right to block an American citizen from leaving. Especially one has done so much for the Glorious Republic. And will continue do so."