Part 11

Bless 'em all! Bless 'em all!
The long and the short and the tall!
Bless the instructors who teach us to dive,
Bless all our stars that we still are alive,
For if ever the engine should stall,
We're in for one hell of a fall;
No champagne or vi'lets for dead fighter pilots
So cheer up, my lads, Bless 'em all!
-- unknown, 1940s

Barbara sat in her leather seat, staring at the magazine in front of her without seeing it. The butterflies in her stomach had nothing to do with the slight turbulence the airplane was experiencing. Fortunately, for the sake of her nerves, Dick was back in Houston after having been at the Heinlein station on a training detachment. He had told her that except for a simulator duel he was competing in Friday evening, they would be able to spend the entire weekend together. She tried to collect her thoughts, but she kept going back to the conversation in Dr. Leslie Thompkins' office yesterday morning.

"You're definitely pregnant, Barbara! Congratulations! Although I am a little curious ... I thought I gave you a prescription for birth-control pills?"

"You did," she replied, her face reddening slightly in embarrassment. "But while Dick was on the Texas, I got out of the habit of taking them -- it just seemed silly under the circumstances. Then when he came back so unexpectedly, I just ... forgot about them altogether. Until this problem came up."

"Barbara," Dr. Leslie asked in some surprise, "you do want this baby, don't you?"

Barbara sat facing her friend. The shock was wearing off, and the amazing new reality was beginning to sink in. "Yes. Yes, I do want this baby," she decided. "It's just ... what's Dick going to think?" she asked plaintively.

"Dick is going to be over-the-moon about this, young lady! At least, until he starts going into overprotective-expectant-father-mode -- then he's going to drive you crazy."

Barbara smiled, feeling a little calmer. Yes, she was confident Dick would be happy to learn they were expecting a child. The problem was how to tell him.

~~~~~~~~~~

Barbara looked around the busy terminal at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, trying to spot something resembling a taxi stand. Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking man in a khaki uniform jogging and dodging through the concourse to meet her. She soon found herself lifted into a pair of strong arms as her husband tried to show her just how much he had missed her. Of course, she then felt obliged to reciprocate, to their mutual delight. Finally, they came up for air.

"Oh, Babs! I am so glad to see you!"

"I missed you so much! I didn't think you were going to be able to pick me up, though."

"The captain took pity on me and took over the end of my class." Dick tenderly put her back in her wheelchair. Pointing at the duffel bag next to it, he asked, "Do you have any more luggage, or is this it?"

"That's it."

Dick picked it up and helped "break trail" for her as they negotiated their way through the busy airport. He led her to the vehicle he was leasing while he was in Houston, a black, full-size Chevy pickup with an extended cab. Barbara laughed when she saw it.

"A pickup truck, Dick?!"

"Hey! I figured as long as I was in Texas, I might as well drive the same thing the natives do!" He lifted her up onto the seat, and then stashed her chair in the back of the cab. They left the airport and started the drive down to the Johnson Space Center. Since it was an early Friday afternoon, even though Dick took the tollway that looped around the city, it still took quite a while to get from the airport in north Houston to their destination in far south Houston because of the traffic.

Since Dick was currently living in very spartan quarters at nearby Ellington Field, he had suggested that they stay in the Hilton that was right across from NASA. He quickly got them checked in at the hotel, and soon they were getting settled into their room. He certainly didn't let her spend much time looking around though -- after changing into his flight suit, Dick quickly hustled Barbara back down to the pickup. She knew the competition didn't begin for another two hours, but when she asked where they were going, he grinned at her.

"It's a surprise, Red."

"Dick ..." she said, warningly.

"You liked my last surprise, didn't you?"

She knew he meant the dune buggy, but she realized it could also apply to the results of her pregnancy test. Yes, she did like his surprises. Thinking of her little surprise inspired her to taunt him just a bit.

"Y'know, Grayson, you're not the only one who can surprise people." She gave him a mysterious little smile of her own but refused to answer any of his questions.

He had to stop his interrogation when they entered the grounds of the Space Center, so he could get a visitor's pass for Barbara. Once he got back in the truck, he apparently decided not to let her secret interfere with his secret because he didn't resume the questioning. Instead, he pointed out several of the sights as they slowly drove through the installation. After a few minutes, they pulled into a parking lot near a tall, blocky-looking building.

Dick transferred Barbara back into her chair and led her into the building. There was a pair of armed guards with metal detectors in the atrium, but Dick must have been known to them since they greeted him by name and let him pass. After a short ride on the elevator to the third floor, Barbara followed Dick down an ordinary-looking hallway until he stopped in front of a large open door. He managed to position himself so that he was standing in front of the room's sign.

"Here we are!" He gestured for her to go ahead of him into the room.

As soon as she entered, she knew where she was -- she'd certainly seen it often enough on the news and in the movies. "D..Dick?" she stuttered. "Is this really ...?"

"Yep! You are in the original Mission Control room. This is where they heard, 'The Eagle has landed' and 'Houston, we've had a problem,'" Dick was grinning broadly now. "I figured this room -- and the people who worked here -- might be called the 'ancestor' of a certain Oracle I know."

Barbara rolled around the room in a bit of a daze. She and Dick had entered on the lowest level. As she looked up, she saw the stair-stepped rows of flight-controller consoles and the glass-enclosed visitor areas. The room didn't feel abandoned, though; it seemed almost ... asleep, somehow. There were institutional-gray metal shelves against one wall that still contained manuals and clutter. It was as if everyone had only just left, and at any moment, the room would come alive again with people and the sound of voices from thousands of miles away in space. As she sat there, she could almost feel the adrenaline from the launches and splashdowns and crises this room had witnessed.

Without speaking, Dick gave her wheelchair a boost up the first step so that she could look at the actual consoles. Here, the true state of the room became more evident as the old CRT monitors had been removed as had most of the electronic "guts." It was still fascinating to see the cryptically-labeled buttons and the rotary-style phone dials at each station. She was slightly baffled, though, by the pneumatic tube canisters that she saw scattered about. She pointed to one as she looked at Dick with her eyebrows raised.

"As I understand it, those were for sending papers back and forth between the data rooms and here." He smiled. "One of the guys also told me that they were sometimes used to send sandwiches and stuff as well, since these guys were on duty for twelve hours at a stretch."

They explored the room some more, and Dick told her stories he had heard from the old Mission Control hands who still worked at JSC. He took her over to the shelves where he pointed out mission logs still there from the Apollo era. Eventually though, he told her they needed to be going, or he would be late.

As they left the room, Barbara grabbed his hand and pulled him around to her side. Giving him a kiss, she said, "Thank you, Dick! You were right, I do like your surprises!"

Dick next drove them over to a large, warehouse-sized building. This was where most of the fighter training went on. It had been built soon after war had been declared, as had similar facilities at other NASA centers. While regular military bases were adequate for basic training, the military and the space agency agreed that NASA, especially the Johnson Space Center, was the logical choice for training the new forces for space. As they walked inside the cavernous space, Dick smiled as a tall, thin man with salt-and-pepper hair came walking toward them. Dick stiffened to attention as the older man stopped in front of them. The flight-suited man shook his head in amused exasperation.

"As you were, Grayson!"

"Aye, sir," Dick grinned. "As you've probably assumed, this is my wife, Barbara. Sweetheart, this is my CO, Captain Wanderman."

Barbara held out her hand to the captain, who clasped it gently, but firmly.

"Welcome to Houston and JSC, Mrs. Grayson! It's a pleasure to meet the woman brave enough to take on this yahoo," he said, jerking his thumb at Dick.

"Thank you for letting me watch the competition, Captain," she replied as they made their way to the simulators. "Richard's told me about them, but I never thought I'd be able to watch!"

Soon after Dick had arrived in Houston, he and several of the other instructors had decided they needed to keep their skills up (i.e. they were bored), so in the evenings, they used the simulators to engage in mock duels against each other. When the captain had heard about it, he gave them his official blessing. After a couple of weeks, he started "encouraging" the other instructors to take part as well as "suggesting" that the trainees watch. In return, the instructors asked him to act as referee and "mission planner," and the informal duels became a tournament of sorts, with sessions once a week or so, as their schedules permitted.

Dick led Barbara past the simulators themselves and into the small auditorium that was connected to the simulator area. It was a small room that didn't look as if it would hold more than sixty people, and it was already filling up. Dick looked around for a few seconds and then led Barbara near one of the clusters of pilots.

"Hibson! I need to speak with you!"

A blonde, slightly-built young woman, presumably Hibson, nodded and walked over to Dick and Barbara. Dick introduced the two women.

"Babs, this is Lt. Susan Hibson, one of my trainees. Suze, this is my wife, Barbara." The two women shook hands and murmured greetings. Dick continued, "I've got to go get ready. Babs, if you need anything, just ask Susan. Lieutenant, if you can possibly keep Timmons and Bergren from either bothering Barbara or embarrassing themselves more than usual, I will be in your debt." He grinned at her reluctant nod and turned to Barbara. He gave her a quick, thorough kiss and then walked out of the room.

"Timmons and Bergren?" Barbara asked with a grin.

Hibson sighed. "'God's Gift to Women' -- in their own minds, anyway. Oh, they're nice enough guys, I guess. And at least they do take 'No' for an answer ... eventually. But they can be rather obnoxious, especially when they're together."

"Ah," Babs replied, understanding. "I've generally found that most guys are more obnoxious in a group than individually," she said, thinking of a number of choice Dick/Tim exchanges.

Susan smiled and led Barbara to what she claimed was the "best spot in the house" for watching the simulator battles and then sat down next to her. She explained that once the duels started, a holographic projector would show them a representation of what the instructors were doing. By this time they had been joined by four other pilots, and Susan introduced each one to Barbara as they were also trainees of Dick. None of them were the notorious Timmons or Bergren, though.

A few minutes before the session was scheduled to begin, Barbara heard two men enter the room laughing and talking loudly. From the resigned expression on Susan's face, these must be the two problem children. Barbara's red hair proved to be a veritable magnet, as she soon found herself being rather blatantly stared at by two average-looking brown-haired young men.

Before they could say anything to Barbara, Susan began the introductions, "Ma'am, this is Lt. Timmons and Lt. Bergren. Guys, this is Commander Grayson's wife."

As she must have hoped, Hibson's firmly-delivered introduction short-circuited whatever comments they had originally intended to say, and the two men stammered out a general greeting. Flustered, they then slunk off to sit at the other end of the row. Susan heaved a small sigh of relief. Barbara managed not to burst out laughing.

The lights in the room dimmed, and the holo projector displayed two sets of star fields. Captain Wanderman's voice came through the speakers, explaining that the first contest would be a two-on-two battle. The holo projector showed the four teams: Blue versus Yellow, and Red versus Green; Dick was Blue 1. Wanderman informed the instructors and the audience that each pilot who succeeded in taking out another pilot would receive one point. The pilot who was taken out and his wingman (if he still had one) would each lose a point.

After a lot of jockeying for position, Barbara was happy to see that Dick's team won, and Dick and his teammate earned one point apiece. After a short break, the teams were switched, and the sorties began again. This time, Dick's wingman made a misjudgment and was eliminated by Red 1. Dick, though, was able to "kill" both Red 2 and then Red 1, so he ended up with one point for the match.

Wanderman explained the rules for the final sortie. "Now we'll go one-on-one -- Blue against Green, Yellow against Red, odds against odds, evens against evens. This one's going to be a little different, though. Blues and Yellows, you'll be the Defenders; Greens and Reds are the Aggressors." The holo projector now shifted to four separate star fields. A small purple sphere, about the same size as the Barracuda icons, appeared in the center of each field. "This is what you're defending; we'll call it Alpha. Here're the rules: Aggressors must take out Alpha; it doesn't matter whether you eliminate the Defender first or not. Defenders, you must eliminate the Aggressors. This is a zero-sum game, people -- winners get one point; losers lose one point. Also, to make things a little more realistic, you are all starting out with fifty percent power and oxygen."

Barbara watched as Dick's small blue icon faced off with the little Green 1 icon. After several minutes of jockeying went by, she suddenly realized why the scene looked so familiar to her. Dick was using a strategy she had often seen him use as Nightwing -- staying close to the opponent but using the opponent's aggressiveness to lead him away from the vulnerable Alpha. Every maneuver Dick made took them slightly farther from the sphere in the center of the field. Unfortunately, he was also starting to get dangerously low on power. As his power levels got closer and closer to zero, Dick set up what Barbara recognized would be his final maneuver -- he left himself wide open, knowing Green 1 wouldn't be able to resist taking the shot. He used that moment to fire off a shot of his own, and because the two ships were so close together, Green 1 was not able to evade the shot. Both ships "exploded." The holo projector then put a little flashing "Winner" banner next to Dick's name.

"Well, that's certainly a comfort!" Barbara muttered darkly to herself. She knew that Dick had done everything he could to win the battle and stay alive. She wasn't an expert, but she guessed if he'd had his normal levels of power and oxygen, he might have succeeded. In the end, though, Dick won the only way he could. She just wished he could have won and not given her more fuel for her nightmares.

** End Part 11 **