Cold War
by Warringer
Interlude One
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3. May 1958
Colonel James Corvin looked up at the large construct in front of him. Large flood lights were bathing it in bright white light.
"So that is the real Enterprise," he noticed, while Werner von Braun smiled smugly next to him.
"Yes, she is," von Braun said," Much better than the thing we build in Cape Canaveral, isn't it?"
Corvin noted the sheer size of the large space ship that would bring the first men to the moon and land next to the Visitor at the Great Trench.
"Much better," he said.
The lift cage started to move and pulled up the side of the large underground hall in the Mojave Dessert. Corvin couldn't help but shake his head. He couldn't really believe that von Braun and Goddard had managed to design such a large space ship. It was different to the sleek rocket ships from the things in movies and comics. The fake at Cape Canaveral was closer to those rocket ships.
The real Enterprise on the other side...
A large spheric object with four large muzzles of fusion engines a fourth of the diameter above the ground, with a number of hangars in the lower decks. This was only possible due to anti gravity allowing to lift such a mass into space and to the moon.
"How large is she?"
Von Braun shrugged.
"About one hundred fifty meters in diameter."
Corvin stared back at the large sphere as the lift cage stopped at a bridge that let people go into the ship itself and von Braun opened the door of the cage.
"Are you coming, Colonel?"
Corvin had to shake his head free before he could follow von Braun.
"You Germans aren't letting things only be half done, do you?"
Von Braun chuckled.
"Maybe," he answered," But this is the only thing that stands between the Visitor and Stalin."
Corvin shook his head again.
"To think that we have to bring weapons into space..."
Von Braun sighed.
"It's not possible to save the being in stasis in another way. Who knows what Stalin would do to them."
Corvin shuddered. He had heard stories from the USSR. Those stories reminded him of the book he had read some time ago, 1984.
"And what will we have to stand against Stalin?"
Von Braun smiled a bit evilly.
"Some specially designed Shermans and King Tigers. And of cause about two hundred men infantry. And internal weapons of the Enterprise. Well, mostly heavy artillery and missiles. It should be enough to give hell to the Soviets."
Corvin nodded a few times.
"And how long do we have to train?"
"About two month. Rommel and Eisenhower want to be on the moon before the end of the year. Not to mention that Korolew will start the Soviet ship in October."