Fly Me to the Moon Pt. 03

Alessa's ship, she named 'Malibu'. The last ship went by the simple name of 'ship' since it was going to be taken apart, if possible, and used as the basis for new craft. In a way I felt sorry for it.

After months of training and test flights we felt we were ready for anything. Except for the cost of personnel there was no downside to flying since the ships seemed to be permanently recharged by sunlight.

One of the things we decided to do was give the senators a ride to orbit and then back to their home states. It was a smart thing to do and quickly brought the Senate support we needed to get the funding for new ships. All it took now was for the Malibu people to do their part and build more of them, if possible.

Life quickly settled down to a calm series of events and flights became routine, even quiet since the ships were silent once we had learned to fly without breaking the sound barrier until reaching high altitude. One thing we did on a now constant basis was to fly small satellites into orbit, taking technicians with us to handle the pass off from our ships to orbit. It really opened up space with the cost of of launch dropping to just a nominal fee. All that was needed was to design the satellite so that it could fit through the airlock. Many came as two parts to be put together. This, of course, raised the price since it was more complicated than just moving it out of the spacecraft.

*****

I spent the evenings with Max, talking about this and that, the usual things that married people do when we weren't discussing going back to the moon, trying to figure out how to do it without spilling the beans about the truth of where everything came from.

"Let's go to Vegas," he said, "and have a little fun."

I had no interest in gambling but the buffets were fun and the chance to go to a show was something that I always wanted to do... maybe see David Copperfield.

"I'd love to," I replied.

*****

I could hear Max in the bathroom, drying himself after his shower. He asked me if I was all right and I replied that I was fine and waiting for him. I was listening to the radio on the internet, KFI out of Los Angeles. They were talking about a poor girl who had been killed by sharks. It was so sad and I wondered if there was going to be a 'vigilante' boat like in "Jaws".

"We have all the ships manned now," I said, watching him dry off. "We have enough crews to double them up." I knew that even with all the computer aids the ships had, flying them required vigilance and we didn't want anything to go wrong now that we had them.

"Have I told you that I love you?" he asked, getting dressed.

"Every minute of the day," I replied, smiling. We were still in the honeymoon stage of our relationship and I was enjoying every moment of it.

The next time I took my ship up I was playing "Eight Miles High" by the Byrds and by the time the song was over three and a half minutes later we had reached orbit and were heading eastbound with two new satellites to place. At the time, we didn't know that a series of earthquakes would rock Southern California and as far east as Las Vegas, shaking our Groom Lake headquarters. Fortunately, there was no damage beside some dishes which had fallen to the floor, shattering. Happy Fourth of July.

A month later I received a Skype from Colonel Paras telling me that they had succeeded in reverse engineering the ship's powerplant, leading to the first of the new spacecrafts to be built, a design that was larger than our 'state' ships so that satellites could be lifted without a size restriction. There were no armaments built into the new ships since they were for peaceful purposes and I liked the idea of keeping space non-military but knew that was unlikely to continue.

I had acquired a new co-pilot since Linda now had her own ship, the 'Jersey', as she called it. She was a former NASA pilot and had jumped at the chance to join me.

"Welcome aboard, Mary," I greeted her as she approached 'California'. Although it might have seemed that all it was was playing old rock and roll and giving joyrides to politicians, there was more to it than that, especially when taking satellites to orbit. With the coming of the new ships that task was likely to be lost and the original concept we had would return in full force, that of a functional space force. I wondered how long it would take before Russia or China would attempt to duplicate what we had.

We had the tightest security possible on the ships. Alessa had contracted with a model company to release kits of the two ships but even then, knowing what they looked like did nothing to tell what was hidden away. I bought a couple for gifts.

*****

"This is 'California'" said Mary to Area 51 Ground Control, "ready for liftoff."

"California... One moment, please. Hold your position."

Gone were the historic countdowns since the ships could lift whenever we were ready to go and gone were the potential disasters brought about from the ice that had doomed Challenger and Columbia. But our vigilance was still required as any moving vehicle demanded.

"Ground control, what's the holdup?" It was strange to have to wait. I thought there might be some commercial traffic above us, even though it was restricted airspace.

"We have unauthorized aircraft in the area. We are scrambling two Raptors. Hold your position."

Mary looked at me, a stern expression on her face. "Damn stupid..." she started to say when a large explosion took place near the California, slightly rocking the vessel. "What the fuck?" she said.

I tried to decide whether we were safer on the ground or in the air when a second explosion took place in the air which we could see on our dorsal screen as an F-22 flew past us toward the remnants of what turned out to be a Learjet falling toward the desert.

Our flight was canceled. We moved the ship back into the Hangar and shut it down. I was the ranking officer on base, the generals all having flown to the Pentagon for a meeting.

Two Humvees of Marines sped toward the wreckage but there were no survivors, whether killed by the F-22s or the crash. It turned out it was Jihadists on a suicide run attempting to take out our spacefleet. That was the problem of living in an open society.

We tried to keep the attack quiet but later that day it was on the internet as extremists were taking credit for 'destroying' the spacecraft of the infidels. I so wanted to pay them a visit and show them what 'destroying' was really like. The decision wasn't mine, though and I would have to wait to see what would happen.

One thing I could do, though, was to increase the security around the base, angry that the two Learjets were able to approach as close as they did. People could have been killed. I didn't know what kind of damage the spacecraft could endure and didn't want to find out.

I was Skyping with Max, telling him just what happened. I could tell he was getting angry, his face reddening as he listened and then calming as I reassured him that no one had been hurt and no facilities damaged. Our response, however, was up up to the president.

*****

When the generals all returned from Washington, we could tell that something was going to happen. And happen, it would, I could tell just from the looks on their faces. It was too bad, I thought, that we were going to battle when I had hoped that space would be peaceful. Regardless of what Russia and America were doing politically, the astronauts and cosmonauts were always willing to work together on the space station. The Jihadists, however, were cut from a different bolt of cloth and the warrior in me knew payback was a given.

There was a low hill, several hundred meters high, just north of Groom Lake, and we were going to use it for practice before flying to the Middle East. Our weapons were effective from about two klicks away and the hill ceased to exist, leaving a large crater where it used to be.

*****

It took several weeks before we found out where the extremists were camped out and we figured they thought they were safe, hiding in caves in Afghanistan. I had mixed feelings about returning to the Middle East but knew that it was something that had to be done and I couldn't ask someone else to do what I was unwilling to do.

We decided to take five ships for the attack and to approach at midnight, local time, and make the area cease to exist.

"Task Force One, you are cleared for liftoff. Good luck."

I flicked the right toggles and we were off, heading east to low Earth orbit, "Danger Zone" loudly playing in our headphones.

An hour later our five ships were a half click above the caves and "on my mark," I said. A simultaneous blaze of energy reached out and the area ceased to exist, the brightness filling the night sky.

One moment it was there and then it wasn't. A low boom was all that acknowledged something had happened and then we left the area, smoldering with waves of heat that reached into the returning darkness.

Several days went by without any news from the area although I didn't expect there to be. Why advertise a great loss? Satellite photos a week later showed a small canyon where we had been but no sign of any activity nearby.

*****

I applied for leave with Max and we took a week in Las Vegas and then visited some friends in Phoenix. It felt strange to fly commercial again since I had gotten used to flying myself at much greater speeds. The McCarran airport had slot machines waiting to take your last dollar.

"Welcome to Phoenix," my friend Chris said, taking my carry-on from me. "Good morning, General. How was your flight?"

"Slow, and noisy" my husband responded with a smile. We had tried to keep our situation quiet but thanks to our goodwill flights that was no longer possible and we had learned to live with it.

Chris taught nuclear physics at ASU and had cleared his schedule to meet with us for the week. We were going to visit some old ghost towns nearby and I wanted to get some gold. I liked the idea of gold still in the matrix, that is, the rock that held the ore, and was fascinated by the old prospectors that had spent their lives eking out a living in the middle of nowhere.

One place in Tortilla Flat, east of Phoenix, had dollar bills stapled on the wall and ceiling, all signed by the people leaving them there. I hoped that they had plenty of fire insurance!

I bought Max several T-shirts at Goldfield, another ghost town. We took the mine tour to get out of the heat and then bought ice cream for Chris and his wife.

I was glad to see that there was a Lucille's Smokehouse in Tempe and we all went there for ribs. I love beef ribs and usually had to wait until we went to Vegas at the Red Rock Casino to get some.

That night, after making love, I asked Max how he was feeling.

"I'm fine, why?" he asked, a worried sound in his voice.

"Just wondering... don't want anything to happen to you."

"You're the one that's flying the missions," he answered me, rolling over onto his side and looking at me in the dark. He reached out and touched me, wiping away what turned out to be a tear. "Are YOU OK?" he asked, turning the tables on me.

I was quiet, the last mission to the Middle East having bothered me more than I had originally thought. The devastating power unleashed by the ships were unlike anything short of a nuclear blast without the radioactive fallout.

"Do you think there were families there?" I asked.

Max sighed. "I don't know. Maybe... stuff happens." He held me tightly. "It's not your fault, you know. They hide behind women and children and there's nothing we can do about it. We had to do something. Look what happened in New York and now where we're at. I don't know if it's ever going to end."

I fell asleep in his arms, wondering the same thing.

To be continued...