Hi there.

Story continues here, then a big rambling rant about stuff at the end.

Thanks for coming back for more, I really appreciate it.

Chapter 90

If Only We Had Some Marshmallows

"Isn't that where we're going?" Calla asked as she glanced out the window and saw the Indonesian coast.

"Yup, and on the next orbit we'll be far enough to the southwest for us to drop out of orbit and glide straight into West Sumatra" Blue answered.

"Oh I see" Calla nodded as she continued to watch the surface of the Earth roll by.

Blue and Abigail continued on with the re-entry checklist, bringing each required system online in the correct order, and as needed. Having done the same thing many times on the simulator back in the Railgun complex, Calla knew it was a task that commanded great concentration, so she was loathed to interrupt anymore; but she soon felt it was important for her to do so.

"Should we be worried about that?" she pointed at the distant light moving up and arcing towards them.

Blue just stared at the strange sight for a few seconds and thought exactly the same way as Calla; was it something he needed to be worried about? The answer came in a frantic message from Jarred Kinderman.

"Star Runner we've picked up a bogie on our screen and it appears to be headed in your direction. It is urgent that you take immediate action to avoid a collision."

"There is no way in hell that this is a coincidence" Blue scowled "Whatever that thing is, we are being targeted."

"What do we do?" Calla gasped as Abigail and Blue started turning off safety systems and arming the manoeuvring jets.

"We get out of the way... fast" Abigail answered.

"Make sure your belts are tight" Blue warned "De-orbit burn procedure in three, two, one!"

Three of the small nozzles on the front of the ship fired, slowing the vehicle and dropping the nose. The ship turned about and was soon flying backwards, enabling Blue to fire the rear boosters to slow it even more.

"I think you over did it" Abigail noted "We're dropping a bit too fast."

"I'd rather take the risk of coming in hot, than get blown to bits" Blue replied.

"Agreed!" Calla nodded.

"Bogie has altered trajectory and is still on a collision course" Jarred's voice came over the comms.

"Time to go for broke" Blue decided.

He used the manoeuvring jets to turn the ship back towards the Earth at a rough forty five degree angle. He then fired the rear boosters for a second time, pushing the ship down at a much higher velocity. The offending missile had already risen up in front of the Star Runner but now had to re-correct its course to bring itself down on top of the rapidly descending ship.

"M-mother would not approve of t-this" Calla declared as everything started to shake violently.

The saying 'Coming in hot' usually refers to the practice of landing a plane at a higher than desirable speed, but in this case, the rapid drop from orbit did succeed in cooking the underside of the Dream Chaser's nose quite considerably.

"You'll have to l-lift the nose... or we'll burn up" Abigail said as the ship began to glow.

"C-couldn't ag-gree m-more" Blue replied.

As the ship was pulled back, exposing its black heat shield to the thickening atmosphere, a large ball of superheated plasma surrounded the vessel, making it an even bigger target. But as the missile closed to within five kilometres, the outside of the plasma envelope appeared to its proximity sensors to be the hull of the ship; and so less than a second later, the missile exploded barely twelve hundred meters above the Star Runner.

If the missile had succeeded in closing from the front, the explosion would have torn the ship apart but thanks to the Doppler effect of being behind a fast moving object, the pressure wave was compressed just enough to allow the shuttle to survive.

"WHOA; DID YOU SEE THAT?" Calla shouted over the loud vibrations.

It was then she noticed the disturbing looking crack in the overhead window.

"Err... Blue; we've got a problem."

"Where?" he asked.

"Above you" Calla responded.

While trying to keep the ship on course, Blue and Abigail took a few quick glances at the jagged lightning shaped crack.

"It's a multi layered panel so it should hold together" Abigail noted.

"Please baby; hold together" Blue begged the ship.

Over on what was now being called the Star Cruiser, everyone on board held their collective breaths as they impatiently waited for some word from the small shuttle. Frightened tears flowed down Saffron's face as she held on tightly her mother's arm.

"As soon as you get the chance, try and find out where we are" Blue asked his sister.

Abigail quickly pressed the touch screen to redirect the navigation map.

"You should have the tracker now Calla; what do ya see?" she asked.

"We're currently over Ecuador heading north northeast" Calla informed them. "We should re-enter somewhere over Haiti."

"That's no good" Blue noted "We'll end up touching down in the North Atlantic, way too far offshore to swim to Canada."

Much to his sister's surprise, Blue twisted the control yoke to port, bringing the shuttle around in a wide arc.

"Are you nuts?" she stated "The side of the ship can't handle these kinds of temperatures."

"We have to find somewhere to land" was Blue's only answer.

The small ship continued to shake and twist as it slammed into the atmosphere, while everyone up in orbit watched and waited during the seemingly endless communications blackout.

"How much longer?" April asked impatiently.

"Should be about another one minute and fifty seconds" Luis replied as he continued to monitor the comms system.

With glacial slowness, the chronograph continued to count down the seconds until the Star Runner had passed through the upper atmosphere. Once the ionized gas surrounding the ship had dissipated, they would be able to make radio contact with the small shuttle once again.

"Did they survived the explosion?" Saffron asked, seeking reassurance.

"I'm sure they did honey" April tried to smile "Jarred says he could still see their ship on radar and it looked intact."

She did not want to admit to herself that the only thing Jarred had been able to confirm, was that the radar image appeared to have a similar mass to what the ship had before the missile explosion. The small group continued to wait, not wanting to talk just in case they missed a call from the Star Runner II. Meanwhile inside the Railgun Complex, all they could do was listen in and hope for the best. No one could understand how or why somebody on Earth would feel the need to shoot at a returning spacecraft.

"Sumatra calling MTV; is there any news?" Sarah asked.

"Negative; standby" Jarred replied.

While Jarred continued to monitor for the small spaceship electronically, Luis stuck with the old fashion method of using his eyes. He followed the track of the glowing ship closely as it plunged deeper and deeper into Earths thick atmosphere. Eventually the glow dissipated so Luis could at last see the shape of the intact ship through the telephoto lens.

"THEY MADE IT!" he cried out "They've even made a course correction... and should be landing in the southwest United States."

The Star Cruiser tried to initiate contact with the missing shuttle by sending out a call every thirty seconds for the next fifteen minutes, but with each transmission went inexplicably unanswered.

"I can't believe this has happened" Sarah said to Doctor Quill Vieira.

The Railguns medical head placed his hand on Sarah's shoulder and spoke softly in her ear.

"At least we know they're okay; if the shuttle has altered its direction, then it must be under manual control. Now with your permission, I'll recall the medical team waiting at the runway."

Sarah Spencer tried to smile as she took a deep breath and nodded in agreement.

"Call if you need me" Quill said as he turned and left.

As attempts at communication continued for the next hour, down on the western edge of a dry lake bed in Kern County Southern California, Abigail Dias closely examined the small shark fin style antenna on the upper hull of the Star Runner II.

"There's no doubt about it now" she called to Blue and Calla as they watched from the ground "The communication transceiver antenna is totally cooked. Still... how great is this? Standing outside in the bright sun without a pressure suit; WAHOO this is fantastic!"

"I'm glad you like it, but I am sorry for burning out the coms system with that sharp turn during re-entry" Blue said to the girls "I didn't mean to cut us off from everyone."

"Well all things considered, although I wish I could let my family know I'm okay, being here with no radio is better than better than sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean" Calla nodded. "By the way... where is here?"

"Edwards Air Force Base in California" Blue told her "This is one of the places they used to land the old Space Shuttle around the turn of the last century."

"I suppose the real question is where do we go from here?"

Before Blue could even consider an answer to Calla enquiry, they were both interrupted by a cry of panic from the top of the Star Runner II.

"WAH... AAH... NO... SOMETHING'S ATTACKING ME!" Abigail cried out.

Blue turned around with his heart racing, expecting to see his poor sister being torn limb from limb by a pack of wild dogs, but all he saw was a young girl waving her arms about while trying to protect her face. Abigail dropped down onto her rear and slid down the outside of the shuttle before rolling off the leading edge of the wing. Blue and Calla didn't quite catch her, but they did manage to break her fall and they all ended up on the ground.

"What is it?" Abigail cried as her attacker continued its assault "Why won't it leave me alone?"

"It's a fly" Calla told her friend "and this is what they do."

"Ugh... how do I get rid of it?"

"Just relax and wave your hand at it when it bothers you" Blue said "It'll go away eventually."

"Oh this is horrible" Abigail gasped "How many of those foul beasts are there on Earth."

"Billions" Calla said.

"Billions of billions" Blue corrected.

"Oh yuk... how do you live with them?"

"Don't worry Abigail; they don't eat much" Calla smiled.

"Well I suggest we grab everything we need from the Star Runner and head over to the old Air Base" Blue changed the subject "We may find some people there but if not, there's bound to be a place to spend the night."

"Don't you think we should stay with the ship?" Abigail asked.

"No Blue is right" Calla nodded "It may be warm now but it can get pretty cold in places like this at night, so we'll want to find shelter and hopefully build a fire."

"Okay... I suppose you know what you're doing."

"Don't worry Abby" Blue put his hand reassuringly on his sister's shoulder "Calla has a lot of experience in the great outdoors."

"Yeah you have two choices" Calla insisted "Listen to me, or die the death of a thousand flies."

"You are joking... aren't you?" Abigail asked as Blue handed out the gear sacks.

Calla lead the way as they commenced the long walk to the north side of the old airbase, but Abigail was more concerned by the lack of an answer to her last question.

"Please tell me you are joking!"

In the past I have always used the same writing method, which is this; Keep going until you get to the end, and then stop. By doing this, the story would stay quite fluid and little bits of character development, humour or romance could be melded in along the way. But after my health scare last year, I went in a different direction by writing out the rest of the story in paragraphs of five to ten words and then building up each chapter while already knowing what would happen at the end of each one.

I can now see working that way meant the story lost a bit of its flare and for that I am sorry, but I wanted to finish it just in case something else happened, medically speaking. The good news is once the story was finished, I had quite a few chapters still un-posted so I went back to this one and re-wrote the last five chapters several times to try and get the old mojo back.

Hopefully it worked.