Time is starting to get away from me and I am down to writing one chapter per week. Fortunately there are another 19 already done so I should be able to put out 2 per week till the end (cross fingers in hope). The hardest part about coming back here for re-writes and polishing, is realising what you don't know yet in the story and not being able to say anything about it; like Blues real name for example (he he he).

28 First Flight

The lure of the strange machine proved to be too much for Emerson, but Calla was having no such trouble resisting it at all.

"Come on Sis; this looks cool" Emerson declared as he sprinted after Blue.

Calla was quite worried about what was going to happen when they entered the hatch, but she did not want Emerson telling their father she had been too scared to go with them; so under the influence of the Gannet of Peer Group Pressure, she followed her brother up the steps.

"Err... what is this thing exactly?" she asked as they entered the open hatch.

"It's a simulator" Blue informed them both.

"What does it stimulate?" Emerson enquired; he ran his fingers along the inner wall as if he expected to find that it was nothing more than an illusion.

"Simulator not stimulator" Blue grinned.

Emerson rushed to take the second front seat while Calla sat directly behind her brother. In the front of the cramped machine were the frames of several glassless windows but the trio could not see outside the pod because the widows looked out to the inside of the curved nose. If anyone had reached forward they could have easily touched the inner wall. It took the Linwoods almost three minutes to sort out the five point harness belts but Blue insisted that they must be fitted properly.

"Okay we're all strapped in; now what?" Calla tried to sound nonchalant, but she was beginning to feel quite apprehensive.

"And now" Blue flicked a few switches "this."

The main lights extinguished and the cockpit panels lit up. Through the front windows an image appeared of a wetland with a beach beyond. On their left was a huge metal structure that towered high above them and as Calla craned her neck to look out the side window, the curved screen enabled her to see the concrete apron of Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre far below her.

"Wow; this is good" she admitted.

"And it gets even better." Blue smiled excitedly "Moving into launch position."

The young man moved a twin toggle switch and the rear of the simulator dropped down till the machine was almost completely vertical. Calla squealed as the image on the screen rotated in perfect unison, giving the illusion that they were indeed sitting atop a rocket in its pre-launch position. A tall gantry could be seen from the port windows as several voices spoke over the top of one another from a speaker in the lower centre of the panel between the front two seats. The only voice that Calla could keep track of was the one that recited numbers in a descending order while the others only seemed to relay information.

"Retract vent arm... Crew members close and lock their visors" the voices declared.

Blue continued to press buttons and adjust switches as the voices droned on.

"Capsule transferred to internal power."

"Ground launch sequencer is go for auto sequence start."

"Activate launch pad sound suppression system."

"Main engine hydrogen burn off system activated."

Calla and Emerson looked at each other as the entire machine began to gently vibrate.

"T minus six, main engine start."

The vibrations were no longer gentle as the entire capsule began to shake so hard, it felt like the whole machine was about to fly apart into tiny pieces.

"Four, three, two..."

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Calla cried out over the noise.

"Booster ignition and lift off of the first crewed mission to Mars bringing in the dawn of a new era of human habitation on the red planet" the voice from the speaker continued relentlessly.

"ISN'T THIS GREAT?" Blue shouted over the vibrations.

After a minute had passed, the machine started to level out into a more horizontal position. The artificial view began to darken as the simulated launch vehicle left the simulated pad far behind and entered the simulated void of simulated space, but the shacking and rattling continued for another thirty seconds until another loud bang made Calla jump again.

"Solid Rocket Booster separation confirmed" the disembodied voice declared as the vibrations began to subside.

The view now consisted of a panoramic star field with the curvature of the Earth visible below just them as the shaking disappeared completely and was replaced by a low electrical hum.

"Welcome to space; I am Blue, your captain for this capture and docking mission. We will be orbiting at an apogee of..."

"Wait a minute; capture and docking?" Emerson was confused "Didn't the radio guy just say we were going to Mars?"

"Well yeah" Blue answered "but it's just a recorded voice and you could never go to Mars in a little ship like this; you need to have a vehicle capable of interplanetary flight. In this simulation, all the other components and sections of the ship are already in orbit and you have to chase them down and assemble them; fun huh?"

"How do we do that from inside a space ship?" Calla asked; she and her brother had never heard of anything quite like this before.

"Take a look behind you and above your head" Blue smirked.

Calla gasped as she looked up and saw there was a hexagonal dome above her and through the windows of the dome she could see the Earth slowly turning beneath the ship. She slipped out of the straps holding her firmly in her seat and moved underneath the dome. Blue told her to hold on to one of the grab bars on the inside rim and when she had done so, he started to turn a dial causing a two metre circle of floor under her to slowly rise up.

"In micro gravity you would simply float up, but down here on Earth you need something under your feet" Blue noted.

"You gotta see this Emerson" Calla declared "the view is amazing."

Emerson had expected the body of the ship to look just like the huge egg they had seen outside of the simulator. But as he joined his sister and gazed at the panorama that met his eyes, he saw the top of a very plain looking metallic tube with only a few manoeuvring thrusters and a long multi-jointed arm protruding from the sleek lines of the ship. He had to stare quite intently at the Earth before he could make out the inside surface of the simulator only an arms length away; it was in fact the most incredible artificial display Emerson had ever seen.

"If you follow the line of the ship, you should see the first component up ahead and slightly to the right" Blue informed his first time crew.

The siblings looked forward and soon saw what Blue was brining to their attention. It was an odd looking piece and Emerson would not have recognised as part of a space ship if it were not floating in space. The component looked like a geometry teachers dream come true as so many shapes could be pointed out on it. Firstly it was a cylinder at least three times as long as ship the artificial adventurers' were flying in, but it was encased inside a metal box frame with angled braces running along each side like triangles. There were a total of eighteen circular airlocks on the truss covered unit, with one on each end and four lined up evenly along each side. As they drew closer, Blue turned the ship into a sideways parallel course and manoeuvred the rear hatch to within fifty metres of the single front airlock.

"Now comes the fun part" Blue smiled as he pressed three red buttons on the flight deck and typed some code into the computer.

Emerson and Calla had not noticed what surrounded them at chest height. There were many kinds of controls, key pads and small screens that suddenly sprang into life and demanded attention.

"The manipulator control for the arm is at six-o-clock on the cupola" Blue thought he was helping but he wasn't.

"And a cupola is..." Emerson fished for information.

"And I can't see a clock anywhere here so I don't know what the time is" Calla added as she scanned the controls.

"Yeah sorry" Blue realised he needed to explain himself better "What your standing in is a cupola and by six-o-clock, I mean the back of the ship. The nose is twelve-o-clock, the right is three and the left is nine; get it?"

"Got it" Emerson nodded.

"Why don't you just say fore, aft, port and starboard?" Calla huffed.

"Well we do but we also..." Blue began.

"Oh leave him alone Sis" Emerson sneered "there are probably all kinds of jargon they use in space that we have to learn."

"Oh really?" she sneered "So we moronic surface dwellers have to bow down to our great and powerful underground scientific Overlords and beg them to impart their glorious wisdom upon us do we?"

"Yeah sounds about right, but he'll have to talk slowly and use small words for you Cal" her brother smirked.

Emerson hated it when Calla acted aloof and he probably should not have reacted like a typical big brother by pushing her even further, but sometimes he just couldn't help himself; Blues giggling didn't help either.

"Do you want a fat lip too?" she threatened quite seriously.

"I'm sorry" Blue smirked "I don't think you're stupid, it's just the way your brother put it; I'm not used to hearing sarcastic put down humour and he does it so well."

"And if you don't stop laughing at me, we'll find out how well you do at bruising" Calla snorted.

"Okay, you win, don't hit me. I'll put the first docking manoeuvre on automatic so you can see how it's done, then you can try the second one on manual if you like" Blue offered as he adjusted the computer settings.

"Here we go again" Calla huffed "You think I can't handle it eh?"

"Nobody can do it the first time" Blue responded "It took me..."

"I don't care how long it took you. I've been sailing all my life so I think I know how to bring two vessels into contact smoothly and without damaging them and besides, this isn't even real."

"Are you sure about this Calla" Emerson frowned "or is your ego running on overdrive again?"

"And the movements in space are three dimensional whereas a boat only moves in two dimensions" Blue added.

"Just stick it on manual control and let's get on with this" Calla was beginning to feel like the boys were ganging up on her.

"Okay but I'm putting it on the most basic settings; movement will be slow and no matter how hard you push on the control, the thrusters will only fire in half second bursts."

"Put it on the same setting you would use" she ordered.

Blue started to protest but thought better of it when he saw the fire of anger in Calla's eyes.

"You can get a general idea of your position and where the target is by looking out the cupola windows..." Blue began.

"Well duh!" Calla sighed.

"...but when you need to line up the docking ports, use the crosshairs on the monitor screen. The controls should be instinctive with your left hand joystick controlling movement forward, aft, port and starboard while the right joystick controls pitch, yaw and roll. If you want to stop all movement, just press the red button on the top of the right joystick and the computer will temporarily take over."

"This computer sounds amazing" Emerson whispered to his sister, who ignored him.

"So whenever you're ready play around with it and get yourself accustomed to the feel of the controls."

Calla gripped the controls as if she were trying to hold a bull back from stampeding and pushed the left stick forward. The last time the simulator had moved, she had been strapped in her seat but this time, the sudden lurch caused her to fall backwards. Keeping a firm grip on both joysticks, the new control movement threw everyone forward while pitching capsules nose up. Falling slightly to the right caused Calla to push and roll the simulator to starboard.

For Blue it was like a serious case of déjà vu except this time, both the Linwoods fell onto him.

The first draft of this chapter had Calla running scared after the simulated launch and the start of an all out war between she and Blue. But a few chapters later the whole story was becoming cruel and confrontational so I came back here to tone it down a little. Now as I write chapter 47, I'm glad the story didn't go off of that path.