The Good Ship Bison

Sounding more calm, she said, "Sure."

She paused, and her image appeared on the wall in front of us, and our image appeared in the selfie-window.

She was wearing a green t-shirt and standing in a dining room, it looked like. On my wall, her cell phone video appeared alongside another window showing the video from her computer's webcam, then another video link that showed the view from what was probably a home security camera on a high shelf behind her.

Pat could do fun stuff.

"Sir. What can I do for you?"

"I need a pilot, with flight experience in lots of different kinds of aircraft. They have to know what both FAA and military procedures are, so I don't get in trouble. I'd like to hire you, at whatever pay rate you think is reasonable. Name your price. You'd live onboard my spacecraft, free to leave at any time."

"Uh... You'd want a pilot? You're already a pilot, right?"

I chuckled, "Uh... No. Sorta. I'm a high school student. I just happen to own a giant alien spacecraft. So, yeah, like I said, a sort-of a pilot. But really, I'd like to not get in trouble with the law, and I suspect the law is that I gotta have someone aboard who's a pilot. There's probably lots of FAA rules I'm breaking, and I want to do things the 'right' way."

She paused for a moment to let it sink in.

"You want ... me. For this...?"

I pointed to Madison, standing next to me. "You wouldn't be alone. I have Madison with me."

Maddie said cheerfully, "Hi! People call me Mads."

"Hello? This is so bizarre, ma'am."

"Tell me about it! And, I'm not a 'ma'am', I'm 18. I was in class, in high school, this morning."

She laughed, "Kind of a busy day for you. To the moon and back."

Mads gushed. "It's SOOOOO cool!!! We'll probably go back pretty soon. You're welcome to join us."

"What would I be doing again, sir?"

"Just be the person here who knows how pilots are supposed to talk on the radio. Maybe take over the controls in a limited capacity for some durations, so I can sleep. Oh, and, the mundane stuff I'm clueless about, like, uh, filing flight plans? What frequencies to use? I think I sound like an idiot on the radio. Probably it's 'cuz I _am_ an idiot."

"I doubt that."

Mads piped up, "He's really smart, Ms. Watkins. Don't let him fool you."

I interrupted, "I'm not trying to fool anyone, Mads. I am pretending to be humble, I guess, sometimes I'm kind of full of myself, I shouldn't be, I'm sorry. I'm kind of putting you on the spot. I have sooooo much to learn. So, yeah, I'm an idiot right now. An ignoramus, really. I think I can probably pay you a good rate, Ms. Watkins, as soon as I figure out how to make money from this deal. Maybe you get a trip to the moon or two out of it, too."

Her smile started to brighten significantly as it dawned on her that this was realistic.

"Are you interested?"

"Yes?!?!"

"Okay. So, the caveats. I can't pay you for a couple of weeks, probably, until I get some income. I have to figure out how to convert _having_ a spacecraft, to _running_ a spacecraft-business. Maybe you can suggest some ways to make money."

She got a gleam in her eye, "I can think of a few."

"Well, don't tell me yet. I still have to tell you the downsides."

"Riding around in an alien spacecraft, jaunting into orbit and back? Uh, okay?"

"Limited privacy around here. Frankly, there might be nudity almost anytime. I'm not very shy, and Mads isn't either, and there's gonna be about 7 or 8 more crew, all women."

"So... you're ... "

"In an anime world, I'd be harem-building. But, you're not on the list, you're the 'grown up'. You're older than me, so that means you stop in every once in a while, make a withering comment, and I get so embarrassed I sprout a pyroclastic nosebleed."

('pyroclastic nosebleed' was a friend of mine's word for it, I'd stolen that phrase, it captures the spirit of visuals nicely)

She laughed her head off at this. Apparently she'd seen some anime.

After she stopped laughing, she said, "Mr. Cooper, as long as I'm not part of the harem. I just got over a relationship, I'm not doing that again for a while."

"Cool by me. It's a job. Workplace rules, mostly."

Her eyes went sideways, considering something,

I added,"So - I'd offer to come pick you up, but... I'm parked at Moffat, at NASA-Ames."

"Saw that on the news. Flown there several times. Marines."

I looked at the time, "It's almost midnight. We're 'wheels up' about 8 am? Not sure? No real way for you to drive here. I could come and get you, if you like? That lets you get some sleep tonight, and pack."

"How long should I pack for?"

"Figure a week. Don't know. I might get grounded if the FAA doesn't certify me. Maybe. Not sure yet. I have to hire some lawyers, I think."

"How do I get there, then? On TV it was a circus outside the gates."

"Hold on. Just listen in, I'm going to ask a question. Pat, conference-in General Schmidt to this call."

It rang, he picked up immediately. "Schmidt."

"It's Kevin Cooper. Quick question."

"Shoot."

"I need to get a retired USMC pilot from San Diego, here, in the next few hours. How hard is that?"

He laughed, "Well, since you are both civilians, normally, I'd suggest finding a red-eye that gets here in the morning. But - and this is a big one - I've been ordered by President Ortiz to give you 'all aid and assistance it's in my power to give, as a matter of national pride', so you're in luck."

"Excellent. USMC Captain Janice Watkins is on the call here with us. Jan, say hello?"

"Hello, General, pleased to meet you."

"And you, ma'am. I'm having my aide look you up now. You're in San Diego, he said? Anywhere near MCAS Miramar?"

"Just outside base, sir."

"When you're ready, walk or get a cab to the main gate, it'll be reimbursed or paid by the gate guard. Bring your ID. The guard will escort you to an aircraft. You'll be wheels up soon after that. Kevin, she'll have to land here, I'll get clearances set up, it'll probably be a Gulfstream business jet, maybe a fast mover, not sure. USMC markings."

"Sounds good, sir, thanks."

"Oh - and Mr. Cooper, your equipment is almost ready. Waiting on one last package. Tell you what. Just take in what you've got so far on the tarmac, I'll have Captain Watkins bring the last package when she arrives. Her flight time will be about an hour after she arrives at Miramar."

"Thank you, General."

"You're welcome, Mr. Cooper. There's also some hot food on the tarmac outside, you mentioned you were hungry earlier, you might want to bring it inside soon."

We said goodbyes to the General and Captain Watkins.

"Pat, bring the bins with our stuff in the cargo bay, please, and then have what's in them brought up to one of the rooms on this floor? Careful, if there's hot food, it might spill."

"Noted. ETA 10 minutes."

"Pat, send everyone who's supposed to be ready tomorrow a text message of, quote, looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. We now have a Marine Corps pilot to help out. A bit more organized, unquote. That's it, send it."

We went into the hallway outside the bridge and saw bunches of items floating in a line up the stairwell and into the room, filling up the floor of an otherwise empty 20 ft. x 20 ft room (7 meters). As soon as Pat told me that was it, we went in and found the 'hot food' was a shrink-wrapped set of 10 pizza boxes, full and warm, a bunch of soda, and what would have been two pallets of boxes marked "MRE - 20cnt"

Mads and I had some 'za, and, sated, we started going through the stuff, sorting and piling up boxes into clothing and other stuff like tents and sleeping bags.

I had no idea when I'd need a tent, but, then again, why not.

Finally, I got to a duffel bag - cylindrical and over a meter long - with 'Cooper' written neatly on the side, and another one marked, "Charles", Maddie's last name.

Maddie and I took those off to the side and opened them up. Inside we had shrink-wrapped underwear, socks, combat / hiking boots, belt, t-shirts, ACU "blouse" and pants, etc. I quickly changed into it since somehow my clothes felt more dirty on me than they should have. I'd only worn them one day, but we had done some working out, bouncing those balls around the Moon surface, made us both sweat some.

We looked pretty smart in the uniforms.

Mads asked, "When do you think Jan will get here?"

"Pat, when will Jan get here? And, if Mads asks an ETA question, feel free to answer."

Pat said, "Mads, Jan will arrive in 14 minutes."

"That fast?"

"Her aircraft is flying near to its maximum sustained cruise speed."

I laughed, and Mads looked at me funny.

I said, imagining the scene vividly, "So. You're a marine pilot, on Ready standby. Orders come in from WAY up, Get This Person to Frisco, Fast. Said person is also a USMC pilot. So, speed is unlimited. You normally don't get to fly supersonic anywhere over the continental US, so this can get Fun. Do you travel slowly? No fuckin' way!" The implications of what that meant to the pilot was funny to contemplate.

Mads laughed too, and asked, "Really? They're supersonic?"

I shrugged, "Does it matter?"

"Pat, where are they now?"

"Jan's plane is over Pescadero and slowing for approach. The plane will require several minutes of taxiing to get to the Bison."

This was the first time I'd heard the ship refer to itself as the Bison.

I remembered we had one more call to make for the night. "Pat, find the law firm called Danzinger, a 'white shoe' firm in the DC area?"

Mads and I walked back to the bridge where we had a table.

Pat answered, "I have contact info for the senior partners."

"Who would you advise I call there?"

"I have no basis for that choice."

"Can you figure out if any of the listed partners are still awake?"

"Alvin Harrison, a senior partner, is awake, based on his movement patterns. It is 3 am there. It is likely he is using the restroom."

Mads and I laughed.

"Send him a text. Quote, "Sir. My name is Kevin Cooper. You've seen me in the news. I would like to discuss hiring your firm for legal work. Apologies for the late hour. Please call me sometime after 10 am pacific tomorrow, unquote. Pat, tell me how he responds to this, can you tell?"

Inside my head, I heard Pat say, "Please be advised, finding out more might invade his privacy, as a matter of national law. There is no clear safety justification for this type of wiretap. Do you still wish to listen in on his conversations?"

Pat being aware of the ethics on this was amusing to me, and enlightening.

Out loud, I said, "On second thought, strike that. I don't need to know."

Mads heard the request and I think she was interested in Pat's ability to spy on people.

The on-screen situational display showed a plane marked with a tail number and 'Type: Gulfstream 550' landing on the runway next to us. So, not a supersonic aircraft, alas. We watched as it braked fast, took the first turn, and taxied up to us. Several people got out, and the people there saluted the one that was a lady in a darker blue-green uniform.

She walked towards us, a big hiking backpack over her shoulder, and pulling a large wheeled second bag.

I wondered what kinds of things they had in that bag.

"Pat, please scan those items and report on anything out of the ordinary."

"Captain Watkins has two bags. Odd items in the backpack include a Marine-survival life-raft, self-inflating. Putting it in the water deploys it and activates an emergency beacon. The second bag has a set of ten GPS devices, hand-held, with emergency beacons. The second bag also contains Captain Watkins' standard-issue USMC sidearm, a 9mm Sig Sauer M18, holstered, with a trigger lock attached. It is not loaded, but she has 3 loaded clips in a separate locked case."

"Very good. Open the door for her." Thinking for a moment, I added, "Advise me immediately if she ever unlocks those, or attempts to use them."

"Noted."

We went down the stairs to be there.

She came in the open door and walked up to us, dropping her bags with a giant smile and an obvious sense of relief. "Permission to come aboard, sir?"

"Permission granted?" That felt grown-up to say out loud and I kind of smiled. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"I take it you're paying me, so, yeah, but frankly, just getting to be aboard this is amazing."

"Pat, close the garage door."

We watched it close.

"Jan, drop your pack, wanna show you something."

She did, and I said out loud, "Pat, float the bag behind us?"

The bag rose in a spherical force-field, and Jan watched it, confused.

"Fun stuff. Let's go upstairs."

We walked up, Jan behind me, Mads taking up the rear.

Breaking the tension about the floating bag, I asked, "So, did you eat en-route?"

"No, sir."

"Pizza first, then."

We went to the storage room first (it was on the way), and I pointed at having some stuff so far, but there was still a lot of open space.

Jan was mostly quiet, just looking around and taking it all in, munching on pizza but with a brain moving a mile a minute, I was sure.

We moved to the bridge and I motioned for us to sit at the table.

We chatted for a while, until I noticed it was after 1 am. I was tired. Mads wanted some sleep, too.

Pat spoke silently into my ear and said, "One additional mattress has been placed in the first room past the bridge."

We did our bathroom visits, and I told Jan she could get some sleep, we'd wake up at 7 am and shower, we needed to be in Modesto at 8.

She nodded like this was expected, and we all bedded down for the night.

I got naked and in bed with Mads (happily with some covers added) but honestly I was so tired I didn't worry about having sex, mostly I just wanted to sleep. As I lay down, I said, "Mads, some part of me is freaking out that we Could Have SEX, but what I really want is sleep, and it's very very odd. Sorry to disappoint you, but... I gotta crash so we don't crash."

She laughed.

This decision amazed me and yet made perfect sense.

== ==

Waking up to the sound of a chime (in my head only? The room? I couldn't tell) and increasing room lights, I looked over at Mads, who was just waking up, too, mostly from my moving.

"Time to get up, Mads."

"Mrrrmmm... Okay?" She sat up, her boobs shaking delightfully.

I bent over quickly and kissed the top of one (not the nipple) and said, "Mmm. A touch of soft beauty."

"Urnmmm...." She was waking up, too. "Thank you?"

My happy mood extended as we crawled out of bed. I looked around and remembered what we were going to be doing soon - picking up people, lots of complicated maneuvers. The question was, should I get dressed first?

I definitely had morning wood, but I had an overpowering need to stretch, arms overhead, groaning in the process in a way that my dad had always done, once upon a time.

Mads waited for me to finish, and kissed my cheek, just in time to see Jan walk in the open bridge door.

Her eyes definitely passed over my hard-on but she kept on walking, ignoring it, but chuckling. She greeted me with a businesslike, "Good Morning, Mr. Cooper."

"Good morning."

I grabbed my clothes from the floor and headed to the bathroom for a shower, Mads behind me. We finished pretty quickly, though I didn't have any shave gel, that was probably in one of the bags we'd gotten last night and I hadn't worried about yet. The ship had made a great replica bathroom, complete with soap and shampoo, and toothbrushes and toothpaste, but no shave gel, for some reason.

Ug.

We dressed and went back in, to find Jan sitting at our table reading a manual labeled, "NASA / INTSO / International Space Operations / Verbal Communications Standards"

It could have been written decades ago - the cover had a space shuttle on it, but what the heck.

There were several boxes by the side of the table, including some pizza boxes. I opened one and got a slice of deep dish everything. "What's up?"

She said, "Just reading up. I hope you don't expect me to fly this thing this morning."

"Dunno if I can, or want that, right away. I'm the pilot, I need a comms officer first."

Her face brightened, "Sounds great! Happy to be here. At the risk of working myself out of a job, I'll explain anything you want and hope you'll find more work for me to do."

I laughed, "Sounds fine. Sorry about the nudity earlier."

"Marine corps, sir. Not a problem. Happenstance. Now, if you had wanted to 'get busy', well, then, it better be consensual or we're gonna have a problem."

I laughed, "No worries there - the opposite, actually - you might have to break up a fight. My girlfriend Alice is coming aboard, with several other girls, and I've been, well, busy, with Mads, here. Most of yesterday. I'm not going to make a secret of it. Secrets kill things. If I learned anything from harem anime, it's that."

She nodded like that was a normal thing to say and we all munched away on our 'za.

After a pause, I asked out loud, "Pat? Can you put up a potential flight plan for us, to Alice's house? Tell Jan everything she needs to know for navigation and comms."

A satellite photo of the area appeared on the wall/screen with dots for Moffet and Modesto.

Jan asked, "Almost. I need a standard commercial aeronautical chart from the ocean to east of Modesto 20 km, north to Oakland and south past San Jose Airport."

Exactly what she asked for appeared on the wall, based on her appreciation of it. I hadn't seen so many special symbols before, it was kind of cool to look at.

She said, "Shall we go? It's about a half-hour flight time over there, if you're going to respect speed constraints."

I got in the pilot chair and felt myself sink into the gripping cushions. Jan watched me, fascinated, and I could even see Mads (who had seen this several times before) continue to be fascinated by the process.

Jan called out, "I need a radio control like... heck, an MGL Razor? Can you do that?"

Pat replied out loud, "Yes," and put a picture on the front wall that looked like the front of an aircraft radio, I guessed at least, but it had to be way larger than normal.

"Great!! Wow - I could get used to this! Do I ... push the wall? Twist?"

Pat replied, "Touch the knob in two places to turn it. Push the button-images to talk."

"Excellent." She turned to a frequency she found on the chart and said, "Moffett Tower, this is ..."

I filled in for her, "Bison-1-experimental."

"...Bison-1-experimental, requesting departure clearance, ready at runway 14L."

"Bison-1, you have not filed a flight plan, please advise. Moffett."

"Moffett, VFR eastbound over the central valley, sightseeing. Request takeoff vector, Bison-1."

"Bison1, depart 3-2-0, climb 5 degree bubble, ascend flight level 0-2-5. At 5 miles, bear right 0-9-0, ascend maintain angels six over terrain. Recommend airspeeds below 2-5-0 knots. Cleared for takeoff. Moffett."

She repeated it back and thanked him. To me she asked if I got what she was talking about. I did, so we took off. There was a huge crowd gathered on the freeway near us, still, and the remote video feed window picked up car horns honking.

Our ship was a building that went up like a brick doesn't.

Adding some speed, we went out over the bay, turned right, went over the mountains, and could see it all. Pat (at the request of Jan), turned the walls into displays of what was on all sides of us, like we were in a glass-walled room.

I totally should have done that all the time we were flying around, the Earth is freakishly beautiful.

== CHAPTER: Cruisin' Fer Chicks ==

Slowing down so we'd arrive at Alice's exactly at 8 am, I noticed quite a few helicopters in the air around us.

Jan said, "Pat, simulcast on all these frequencies..." She picked several from a list on the wall.