Greetings to my friends all over the world and perhaps one day, on Mars. Well here we are at another little milestone in the story (yay) and just like all the others, I thought we'd never get here.
Have fun, Marty.
Chapter 50
Parental Nightmares
"I never expected to find myself wearing one of these" Sarah noted as she was helped into her pressure suit.
"I'd always hoped to someday, but this is way sooner than I expected" Blue added.
Calla watched in fascination as a small crowd of people fitted the various sections that made up each suit.
"So you can survive in space if you're wearing one of those?" she asked.
"Not outside the ship" Blue explained "You would need something with a lot more insulation and radiation protection. In one of these you would be safe in a low pressure environment; even in a total vacuum if you were connected to life support."
As Blues helmet was fitted, he suddenly felt the reality of the situation sink in; he was about to travel into orbit... or so he thought until Peter Moke burst into the room.
"We've got a problem" he blurted out.
"Sorry Peter but I'm not in the market for any more problems" Sarah noted "I've got more than I can handle now."
"Then you're not going to like this one; the ships still too heavy."
"Then find something else to remove" Blue snapped.
"I'm open to suggestions" Peter huffed "We've removed so much, the next step would be sandblasting the paint off the hull."
Thinking Peter was serious, Calla felt disappointed when she thought of the spacecrafts new name being stripped away.
"So how much more weight do we have to lose?" Sarah asked.
"You should make it to the right orbit if we cut your legs off" Peter joked.
"Could we wait until the capsules orbit deteriorates a little?" Blue checked.
"It would be another week" Peter replied "and by then it would be too late."
"I'll go alone then" Blue stated.
"Oh no you won't" Sarah insisted "There is no way you would be able to do this on your own."
"Come on Sarah; these kind of craft used to rendezvous and dock autonomously all the time" Blue protested.
"With experienced people in constant contact from both the ground and from the ISS; we wouldn't be able to help from here and who knows if the Orion will be capable of autonomous docking any way? Not to mention the fact that the Dream Chaser we're taking was built before you were born."
"Star Runner II" Calla interjected and immediately wished she hadn't considering the gravity of the situation.
"Sorry Blue but I'm not letting you go alone" Sarah insisted.
"Wait a minute" Calla interrupted again "I could go; I may not know the ships systems as well as you Sarah but I know it well enough; and I'm smaller than you."
"Oh hell no!" Sarah declared flatly.
"She could do it" Blue tried to get Sarah to consider the possibility "I could easily take the first seat and Calla knows all the co-pilot procedures; when it comes to space training, she always follows orders without hesitation and really does know how to manoeuvre in three dimensions."
"No... no... no! And what would your mother say?"
"She wouldn't say anything" Calla admitted "She'd just explode."
"Exactly my point" Sarah nodded.
"But you were there when she said I could choose my own path: Earth or space."
"I don't think she expected you to be going so soon" Sarah sneered.
"Nobody expected this; I'm not saying we don't tell her but you're the boss Sarah and it's you who has to let me go."
"Have to?" Sarah questioned.
"Or let Blues father and sister die."
She did not like the thought of sending two such young people on such a mission, but Sarah had to admit she had run out of viable options.
"Get Ursula and Maynard down here" Sarah barked.
Calls were made and people ran about in near panic until the Linwoods were found. When Calla's parents finally arrived in the staging area, they were told about the latest developments along with their daughters offer to help; it was met with a familiar response from Ursula.
"OH HELL NO!"
"Mom we talked about this before" Calla noted.
"WE TALKED ABOUT TRAINING AND HELPING OUT HERE; NOT GOING INTO SPACE!"
"The training was all for going into space; and please don't shout" Calla insisted.
"Yes going into space eventually, but not today" Ursula continued to protest.
"If we don't go soon, two people will die" Calla continued.
"And how is your death going to help them?"
"We're not planning to die Mrs. Linwood" Blue said sincerely "We fully intend to come back alive and well."
"Calla is too young to pilot a spaceship; she's only fourteen" Ursula pointed out.
"Abigail is thirteen" Blue pointed out.
"But she grew up in space."
"No, my sister grew up on Mars and this was her first trip to Earth."
"And looked how well that turned out for her."
"That's hardly fair Mom; it wasn't travelling through space that put them in danger, another member of the crew tried to kill them to cover up a conspiracy."
"What's to stop him from killing you too?"
"He'd be on his way back to Mars by now" Sarah noted, unaware of the death sentence passed by the Mars Deep Council on Commander Sage.
"You're not going to talk me out of this Mom."
"I'm not trying to talk you out of it, I'm telling you outright; you are not going and that is final."
He did not want to admit it, but deep down inside Blue knew this would happen and so no matter how difficult it would be, he would have to try and manage on his own. He walked over to Calla, wanting to thank her for trying and tell her everything would turn out fine, but the young lady had not finished yet. She approached her mother, took her hands and spoke very softly.
"It's true what we want to do carries with it a great deal of risk but as you pointed out earlier, I am still very young and I have my whole life ahead of me. Can you please try and imagine what my life will be like if every day, I have to live with the thought that two people were dead because I didn't even try to save them? I love you Mom but I honestly don't think I could live with the shame. Even back in New Zealand, before we decided to try and find a better life elsewhere, you and Dad always made it clear to me. We have to work with others and not put our needs and our safety ahead of everyone else's; and that was why we were the forward scouts for the fleet. Please Mom… I have to do this."
It had been a long time since Ursula had felt pain like this. She didn't cry; instead she threw her arms around her daughter and sobbed uncontrollably.
"I know I haven't said much" Maynard spoke up at last "but of course I agree with your mother and I too had every intention of stopping you when I found out you what you were planning to do."
There was no sign his wife was about to let go of Calla, so he just placed his hand on the young girls head.
"As scared as I am right now, I know exactly what you mean when you talk about having to live with your decisions, good and bad, for the rest of your life. I just hope you come back safe and live a long life with no regrets."
"NO!" Ursula cried out again, unable to accept what was happening "YOU'RE NOT DOING THIS!"
Calla pushed herself away and stormed over to Blue; she grabbed his hand and dragged him back towards her mother. She then thrust her hand under Blue's chin, pushed his head back and pointed to the small scar at the top of his neck.
"You know what this is, don't you Mom!"
"Of course I know what it is but it's no reason to..."
"You've heard the stories; some of the people who built this place were murdered to keep it a secret. The others who were shut in were scared for their lives and expected heavily armed soldiers to one day find them and slaughter them all. To keep themselves safe, they could have just locked me up when I accidentally discovered them and you would never have known what had happened to me; Dad would have assumed I had died or drowned somewhere. But they didn't; did they? Professor Adisa and Doctor Spencer bent over backwards to keep me safe and return me to you; and then they did nothing but help us with no strings attached. We always had the choice to stay and help or leave, so I don't think it's right for us to just accept their help and not accept the same risks they are taking; and the only reason we are taking such a risk is because people lives are on the line. I'm sorry Mom... but I'm going... and that's final."
Hardly able to stand, Ursula fell into her husband's arms and fell silent.
"It's all your fault" she insisted as she beat her fist on Maynard's chest. "You couldn't just sail on by; you just had to investigate that damn ship."
With the new crew members participation finalised at last, the only tasks left were to fit Calla into a pressure suit, move the spacecraft to the end of the Railgun and wait for the wayward Orion capsule to be in the optimum position for a quick and easy rendezvous. The final tasks were simple in comparison to the first one though, because there was no suit small enough to fit Calla's 160 centimetre wiry frame. A workable solution was found by putting her in an old grey track suit supplied by Jeana Davy, under the smallest suit they had; but she still ended up looking a little bit like an orange snowman.
"When we finish extending the Railgun, launching people into space won't be anywhere near as difficult or dangerous" Willow explained as she fitted Calla's seat straps.
"Just don't use the word dangerous anywhere near my mother" Calla insisted.
"Considering how much time Calla has logged on the centrifuge, I don't expect her to have any trouble" Blue smiled.
"Don't count on it" Peter said as he stuck another EEG sensor on Blues forehead "The reason we had to drop the weight of the ship so much was so we could also drop the G forces you will experience from fatal, down to deadly. There's no way you'll be able to keep yourselves from passing out so if you haven't regained consciousness fifteen minutes after reaching orbit, we're going to take steps to revive you."
"What kind of steps?" Calla asked.
"Oh, just tiny insignificant miniscule little... electric shocks" Willow admitted.
"I'm sorry I asked" Calla sniffed.
"Okay I'm getting a strong reading from Blue" Doctor Quill Vieira's voice came from the flight deck comms.
"I'm almost done with Calla" Willow reported.
"Well get your butts moving" Sarah called from the control room "There's an excellent launch window opening in fifteen minutes."
"Hey Peter, if weight is so important couldn't you have left off the faring covering the External Payload Carrier?" Calla asked.
"If we did, the air vortices would tear off the solid rocket as soon as you exited the mouth of the Railgun" Peter explained.
"Ah... not good" Calla agreed "And I assume there's a similar reason for the pointy bit fitted to the front?"
"Hypersonic nosecone" Willow explained "Reduces drag and keeps you from getting overheated at low altitude where the air is thicker."
"When you've quite finished with todays lesson..." Sarah's voice echoed through the cabin.
"Hey Blue, tell her majesty we'll be right out" Willow said.
"And when you have, you can tell Princess Willow we've got an open channel here" Sarah replied.
"Whoops!" Willow grinned "Good luck you two."
The Dream Chaser itself was just over nine meters long but from solid booster to the tip of the hypersonic nose, the whole ship maxed out at just over twenty three meters. As Willow and Peter backed away from the ship, the overhead gantry crane lifted the unit to a thirty degree angle and moved it back into the Railgun Tunnel.
"Bring coils online" Sarah ordered as the spacecraft was lowered onto the track.
"We'll be sending you down in ten" she spoke into the microphone.
"Roger; all go from this end" Blue replied.
"I'm reading thirty thousand meters from point zero" Calla reported.
"Confirmed" Sid checked his screen.
Both Calla and Blue felt their stomaches lurch slightly as their ship began to travel back down the steep tunnel, in what could only be described as a controlled fall.
"Twenty nine thousand" Calla noted as their speed approached one hundred kilometres per hour.
"Open the gun barrel and all pressure release vents" Sarah ordered.
High on the top of Mount Singgalang the exit port of the Railgun slid aside as the massive steel doors on each side clanged and rumbled open, along with all the vents running down the mountain and through the forest to the beach thirty kilometres away.
"Fifteen thousand meters" Calla reported.
"Internal life support at optimum" Blue added.
"Staging area closed off" Sid reported.
"Release nitrogen gas" Sarah ordered.
"Seven thousand meters" Calla read off the computer screen as the ship began to slow.
The two first time astronauts felt themselves being pushed back in their seats in a small taste of what was soon to come.
"How are the capacitors holding up this time?" Sarah asked.
"Power flow to capacitors at 40% and all readings are clear."
"One thousand meters" Calla's voice sounded throughout the control room.
Outside the base, Maynard and Ursula stood with their son and a few others from the complex, most of whom had never seen a launch from outside before.
"Don't forget Mom; this thing makes the most incredible noise, but it doesn't mean anything is wrong" Emerson reminded her.
"One hundred and fifty meters" Calla reported as the ship slowed and eventually stopped.
"Switching to internal navigation" Blue added "Launch window is open; thirty seven seconds to optimal trajectory."
"Roger that Star Runner; counting down from thirty" Sarah reported.
"Capacitors at 102.3%" Willow noted.
"Twenty seconds."
"I've got a fault on vent 47L" Peter interrupted.
"Ignore it" Sarah insisted "Ten seconds."
"Acceleration program initiated" Sid reported.
"Five... good luck guys... two... one."
The first thing Ursula noted was the rumbling beneath her feet as the whole jungle began to vibrate. The first thing Calla noticed was her peripheral vision closing in until everything turned black; it was also the only thing she would ever remember about the launch when asked in the future.
In the plans I made for this story so long ago, this was where the first book was to end, but it was part of a daring escape from the EFA who had invaded the Complex and were shooting up the place. As you can see, a lot has changed since the first draft.