CH 40
The first cargo run was from Boston to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, there were a containers waiting for Duncan to take them to Midway Island.
School was out, Jerry passed with good grades, so did Patricia. Patricia 'came to work' and brought a camera with her. JJ had called Jackie, they would be here late afternoon and meet them in Boston.
With the van packed up, Duncan drove them down to the airport, Picking up three of Jackie's boat crew on th way. The Captain stayed with the boat. There they loaded up their plane with their things. Jackie reminded Jerry and Patricia 'separate rooms'. Before they took off, they stayed for lunch. Once they ate and took bathroom breaks, they boarded the plane and took off for Boston.
The cargo they got in Boston was only a couple pallets worth of parts. It didn't take long to load the pallets on and tie them down. Duncan got the check for the delivery fee. They then waited another two hours for JJ's flight to come in.
Jackie met JJ, Kaede and Sophie at the gate when they came in. "Hey guys!" she called with a wave.
JJ waved back. "Hi Jackie, heard you got a pilot's license now?"
"Big change from being afraid to get on another plane," Kaede noted.
"Who's this?" Jackie asked, looking at Sophie.
Sophie beamed, "I'm Sophie, Johnny's other Wife!"
Jackie cast a crooked look at JJ. "Horn dog, are ya?"
"It's not like that," JJ quickly said. "Sophie … needs us."
Jackie raised a hand up, "That's OK, I understand. Not going to try and beat Bob's harem are you?" she said and giggled.
Kaede cast her a frown. "Our choice," she stated.
"To each, his own," Jackie replied then said, "Come on get your luggage, plane's this way."
JJ knew Duncan and Jackie got a cargo plane. He'd been thinking it was a monster like Joan's was. Coming down to the hangers, he was surprised to see the tri-motor.
"It's got an engine right in the nose," JJ said.
Jackie grinned, "Yeah, that's what a tri-motor is. We load in the back."
Getting on the plane, JJ noted they did have rooms above the cargo area, but they weren't very big. He and Kaede could fit on the bed, but there was no room for Sophie. Seeing the cargo net above the bed, Sophie assured him she could sleep there. She didn't want her own room. She'd rather be uncomfortable than be separated from them. JJ winced, then decided he'd use the cargo net so Sophie could be comfortable.
Not seeing anyone with horns and pink hair before, Patricia was fascinated by Kaede. Sophie with the pure white hair and bright blue eyes was also something new to her. In the tiny dining room Patricia talked to Sophie and found out she was from another planet. Listening closely, she absorbed Sophie's story of their long space flight and why they had to leave.
The engines winding up announced they were getting ready to take off. Never have flown before, Patricia wanted to watch them leave. There were two empty seats behind the pilot and copilot, so Jerry and Patricia got them. Kaede and Sophi watched from the table by the kitchen. JJ and the terminators were in the cargo bay to ensure the pallets didn't move.
Even with people and a load of cargo on board, the C-125 didn't use quite half the runway to take off. It seemed right after they were moving down the runway, they were flying over it. Duncan looked back at his passengers. "We're due in LA in eleven hours, so make yourselves comfortable."
"We got that much gas?" Patricia asked.
Jackie grinned and stated, "We got no gas! This plane is nuclear powered. We're stopping in LA to drop the cargo off and pick up more to take to Midway island in the Pacific."
"Mrs. Weaver's power cells?" Jerry asked.
"Yup! They last a long time too," Jackie agreed.
At first, it was exciting flying in a plane. After the sun as going down ahead of them, it was getting boring. Kaede and Sophie made dinner for everyone. Duncan let Jackie take control and went back to eat and get some rest so he could take the late night and morning shift as pilot.
After they ate, Jerry and Patricia went down in the cargo hold to look out the side windows at the terrain going by below them. Jerry noted they were below the clouds. Holding Patricia from behind, he said, "If anyone was to tell me I'd be taking a cargo plane ride all the way to Australia, I'd think they were nuts."
Patricia laughed. "Yeah, so would I. This is kind wild, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is," he agreed. On impulse he kissed the base of her neck. "Especially having you here with me."
She giggled, then in a soft voice she said, "Jerry, you and your family have changed my life." Taking his hand, she moved it off her belly and slipped it up under her shirt to plant it on a breast. "I get to keep these now, and I'm getting to go places I never through possible. To meet people I never knew existed. Did you know Sophie is an alien from outer space?"
"Yeah." he said as he gently fondled her soft globe. "You want to meet strange people, come to Driftwood with me some time. There, being normal is strange." He kissed her neck again.
Grinning, she said, "They can't be THAT strange."
With a chuckle, Jerry said, "Wanna bet? You think Kaede looks odd? Wait till you see the Sheriff's Secretary. Or Eddie shows you his Symbiote. THAT is strange."
"A Symbiote? Like there's a creature living in him?"
"Yeah, they're inseparable," Jerry told her as he slipped his hand under her bra.
"You want to make out, hmmm?" she asked in a musical tone.
"Oh yeah," he agreed. In her ear he asked, "Every hear of the mile high club?"
She raised an eyebrow. "On a cargo plane?"
"Why not?"
Letting out a sigh, she told him, "Jerry, we promised not to sleep together."
Jerry let out a sigh. "We did."
Leaning back she turned her head to kiss him. "I do want you, but I also really want our first time to be in a comfortable bed and to stay together all night, cuddled up."
"Me too," he admitted.
A muffled female voice cried, "Oooh YEEES!"
Jerry tipped his head. "Someone's getting some," he noted.
"Sounded like Sophie," Patricia said with a smirk. She pressed his hand into her breast, "I kinda wish that as us." Turning in his grasp to face him she kissed him again and laid her hands on his face. "It will be. Don't give up on me," she said firmly.
"Never," he replied. They kissed again and made out some.
.
At nine in the morning, Duncan called into LAX to get into the landing pattern. He got his instructions from the traffic controller and circled the airport until his turn to land came up. Jackie came out to take the copilot's seat.
"Kaede's making breakfast if you want some," she said.
"After we land, We're in the pattern now. We should be on the ground in about 15 minutes." he told her. "Everyone up?"
"They are, even the terminators have come out of standby. We don't have the seats to have everyone buckle in."
"Then let's make it a smooth landing," Duncan replied.
Jackie yelled, "Everyone! We're landing in fifteen minutes, so sit your butts down and hold on!"
"To what?" JJ called back.
"I got you, don't worry," Kaede replied.
Sophie poked her head in the cockpit. "Can I watch?"
"Yeah, me too?" Patricia added.
"The seats behind us, have a seat," Jackie told them.
Duncan got the word to land. He came in smooth and touched down lightly with a chirp of the tires. Going to the hanger they were directed to, he saw a very tall woman and a man, both with luggage beside the ground crew.
"All right, Sonya's here!" Jackie cried happily.
Patricia gaped at the giant red head as Duncan and Jackie waved. "How tall is she?"
Duncan got the plane stopped and killed the engines. Jackie quickly jumped out of her seat and ran to open the back.
"Unloading time!" Duncan announced.
Upon the rear ramp coming down, Jackie went out to hug Sonya. JJ wasn't far behind. After their reunion, JJ, Jerry, Patricia and Kaede helped untie the cargo. Kaede lifted one pallet and brought it out to the pallet truck. A terminator and Jackie on the corners of the second pallet carried it out to another one.
Patricia stood in awe at the Giant Sonya as she scrubbed Jerry on the head with a big hand.
"Hey Jerry, heard you got a girlfriend?" Sonya asked, beaming him a smile.
"Yeah, that's Patricia!" Jerry beamed.
Patricia stood immobile as the huge women came up to her. Sonya patted her on the head. "Hey, Patty, you're a cute little girl!"
Patricia wanted to say she wasn't little. Looking up at this big woman, she did suddenly feel like she was five again. "Hi," she forced out.
"Sonya, you coming with us?" JJ asked.
"Me and Bruce," Sonya told him. "Our time is LA is over. Besides, I am getting rather homesick. I miss my family."
"We miss you too," Kaede assured her.
One of the workmen said, "We got three containers for Midway, sure they'll fit?"
"They will," Duncan assured him. "They'll fill the cargo area, but they'll fit. Bring'em."
The containers were plane style cargo containers, shaped to fit in the rounded bottom of jet liners. There wasn't quite enough room to sit them side by side. Duncan had the first one carried in by Jackie and Kaede and set it more to the left. They put the second one in again more to the left, then the last one in more to the right, leaving room to get in between the second and the third. Sonya was barely able to squeeze past the second and third containers.
Strapping the containers in place, Sonya lifted Patricia up on top to tie the straps in place on the ceiling. Soon, they had the cargo tied down.
Right away, Sonya saw there was no way she was going to fit onto one of these rooms on the plane. In the hallway she had to walk bent over. She got out the air mattress she brought and decided her and Bruce's room would be by the container near the exit ramp. As least there, she had the headroom she needed.
Duncan offered everyone the chance to stay the night so they could be on the ground for a while. No one wanted to, they wanted to get back on their way, so Duncan called the tower and got his place in the take off line. They boarded up and soon they were on the entrance ramp, waiting to take off again.
.
Pete Jennings, the Commander of the NASA team of astronauts assigned to STX-01 was in awe of what he was learning, and not in a good way. Unlike any other NASA mission he'd been on. There was no flight path until they made one. What hw was getting from Joan was they'd been 'seat of their pants' type flying through the stars. They had a very detailed star map and used that to plot their course by dead reckoning. Trying to decipher their true speeds they flew, he took 'light speed' as slow, what Joan called 'Impossible' speed, he tried had to figure out how fast 'Ridiculous' speed was. He found it was truly ridiculously fast at a light year every ten minutes. 'Ludicrous' speed was indeed unimaginably fast, on the order of 5 light years per minute ship time. Of course, the faster they went, the larger time displacement was. The time they experienced shrunk compared to the rest of the galaxy. He equated what they were doing as flying a jet at supersonic speed while deaf and with their eyes closed. Their sole navigation aide was the sensors that could see through the bubble. That made the sensor operator position critical.
Due to the bubble around the ship when they were moving, communication with anyone was impossible. No voice coms, telemetry or tracking to help keep them on course. He learned about the feedback units that had to be watched due to them failing during flight, and this was the first space craft he'd ever heard of having a galley, laundry and real bedrooms to sleep in.
This was also the first time Pete had been exposed to the white haired Atlantians and the Androids called Terminators. He found both very human-like, but neither were human.
Pete agreed with John Connor that John was the Captain, he had a good handle on shooting blindly through space and getting back home again over fast distances.
.
The first flight they made was a mission to go pick up an asteroid that was found to be mostly metals. NASA has it's location. Their pilots were Greg Pearson, one of his men, and a Terminator that had flown with Joan Connor piloting the ship. Greg had control with the terminator guiding him.
Having a detailed map of their solar system up showing the mass of asteroids circling the sun, the one they were after showed green while all the others showed white.
Sitting on the runway, John announced, "The ship is ready for take off. Pilot, use antigrav only until we get to 10,000 feet, then add thrusters up to 100,000 feet. Sensor operator, plot a course to that steroid. Pilot, activate the bubble at 100,000 and head for that asteroid SLOW, use only engines two and four at minimal thrust."
The pilot said, "Captain, that steroid is out beyond Mars."
John replied, "Yes, it is, but we want to stay in the solar system, not be on our way out to see Alpha Centauri."
The instant anti-gravity was turned on, the ship rose up off the ground. John explained, "The Earth is turning, and since it no longer has a gravitational effect on us, we're being thrown off the earth by it's spin. You'll also note the ground below us is moving."
The sensor operators, Cameron and a NASA man watched the ship lift up and away. "Why can we feel normal gravity?" the man asked.
"The ship is generating our own internal gravity," Cameron explained.
"This is wild," the man said with a grin.
Cameron chuckled. "You ain't seen nothing yet."
Drifting higher as the Earth moved below them, Cameron marked 10,000 feet. The pilot added thrusters. They shot up faster.
Everyone watching their distance from the ground, John announced, "Coming up on a hundred thousand. Engage the bubble."
"Engaged," the terminator pilot said. "Course?"
Cameron showed the NASA sensor operator the green asteroid and told him, "We see where that asteroid was fifteen minutes ago. Aim us a degree ahead of it and watch where it is. We are operating on relative locations and directions now."
He nodded then called, "Pilot, 26 degrees up, fifty two degrees left."
The pilot repeated the instructions and reached to grab all six handles. The terminator stopped him.
"Only two and four, minimum thrust," the terminator said.
Greg winced. "OK." He bumped the two throttles up. He then saw the moon flash by on his screen. "Holy shit this thing is fast! We're on our way."
"Hope we didn't bounce a satellite out of orbit," Pete noted.
"Once the bubble is engaged, we're no longer in the universe," John told him. "We can't hit anything."
Cameron showed the NASA man by her how to figure flight time, then said, "ETA to target, fifty six point three minutes if we cut thrust now."
"Pilot, cut thrust," John called.
"Engines off," the pilot replied.
Over the intercom, John announced, "Off duty terminators, prepare to mine an asteroid, use bay two."
"We could get there faster," Pete noted.
"We could," John agreed. "We also have to slow down and match the asteroid's orbit and not bump it, or any others. Remember, all objects out here are smaller and easily moved and we don't want any unstable objects that might end up heading for Earth. We get close and we sneak up on that asteroid slow."
"Won't changing it's mass change it's orbit?" Pete asked.
"It will, that's why we either bring the whole thing on, or leave it alone and look for another one," John explained.
Cameron had the NASA man with her call course corrections with small thrusts to keep them on target. Passing the orbit of MARS, she had the pilot slow down in short bumps of the forward thrusters.
Soon, the asteroid was in sight. John had the bubble dropped and the ship slowly approach the big dark rock.
"John that asteroid is 694 feet in diameter," Cameron said. "We can't take it on using all four bays, we'll be leaving bits behind."
John nodded. "Pilot, ease right up next to it." He then keyed the intercom and said, "Terminator mining team, open bay two. On the asteroid next to us, cut large enough squares out of it to fill the other bays, then fill bay two leaving room for you to get back in. After taking all that asteroid possible, atomize the rest of it."
Seeing Pete look at him, John added, "Atomizing what we can't take in will prevent it from becoming a hazard."
They waited, watching the terminators drifted close by and cut out large squares of asteroid with their plasma canons. As the big chunks were cut, Terminator pairs took them to fill up the empty bays.
The intercom spoke. "John, bay two is open. After the other bays are full, we can use bay two to bring chunks inside the ship to fill vacant rooms We are detecting large amounts of metals and gold. I suspect we want as much of these materials as we can get."
John grinned, "You suspect correctly. Delilah, help them with that?"
"Yes, John. On my way."
.
The mining operation took longer that getting here. Cameron also went back to help bring large chunks of asteroid onto the ship once the other bays were full. She and Delilah moved the big chunks into rooms once bay two was re-pressurized. They managed to empty the bay, so the terminators could refill it. That bay will filled again, then the terminators used their plasma cannons to blast the remaining asteroid into bits.
Once they were back on board, John had the pilot take them home.
Not sure how all the excess weight on the ship was going to affect their re-entry, John had the pilot go slow and stay focused on the antigravs, using enough only to let them settle down easy into the atmosphere. He had the bubble disengaged at 100,000 again and thrusters used to drive them back to Nevada. By now, the pilot was getting used to the controls and guided them down near the hanger they left from.
Getting all the space rock off the ship was much harder than putting in on zero gravity.
Catherine Weaver brought flat bed trucks and a dump truck to transfer the tons of rock from the bays, right onto the trucks. Even the terminators had to push and struggle to get the large squarish blocks of rock they had cut to fit nearly perfectly into the bays, out.
Weaver was very pleased with the haul. All the rock had to be smelted to separate the various metals and precious metals contained in the rock, but analyzing what they had collected, there was very little useless rock they had collected and tons valuable materials.
Although there was no measured value what they brought back yet, the estimated value of what STX-01 brought back was at least ten billion dollars. It was a good haul.
.
The tri motor C-125 plodded across the Pacific ocean at 220 knots. Day two of their journey Jackie was piloting while Duncan got some sleep from having the night watch. Interested in flying, Jerry sat in the co-pilot's seat listening to Jackie explain the controls to him. On autopilot, she showed him how the GPS monitor kept them up to date on their position and the weather monitor tracked storms. Behind them, Patricia leaned closer in her seat listening in.
Kaede came into the cockpit and plopped down in spare seat. "Can't you make this thing go any faster?" she grumbled.
Jackie told her, "Sorry. We're at the top of the cruise limit. Hey another … three and a half hours and we'll be at Midway. We're scheduled for a water landing to park at a dock. There's only a couple destroyers in port, so we should have a clear bay to land in."
Jerry perked up, seeing the propeller in front of him fly ahead of them. "Ahh, Mom, that's not good."
"What the HELL!" Jackie spat and turned the front motor off as the propeller spun away and dropped out of sight. Checking the gauges, she took the plane off auto pilot and watched their speed drop. "Well, this sucks. Jerry, go get your Dad up."
He shot up out of his chair and ran back to their room.
"Are we crashing?" Patricia asked, looking worried.
"Just slowing down some," Jackie replied, studying her gauges. "We still got two good engines."
Behind them they heard Jerry pound on a door yell, "DAD! We got a big problem out here! A prop flew away by itself!"
Shortly, Duncan rushed into the cockpit. "What do we got?" he asked
Jackie quickly replied, "We lost the front propeller, speed's down to 175, we're still at altitude, three hours out from Midway. As long as we don't lose another one, we should be OK."
Duncan sat in the co-pilot's seat and let out a huff. "As least it wasn't one of the wing props. That would be big trouble."
"WHO inspected this plane?" Jackie asked in a grumble.
Kaede gave a dark chuckle. "As long as we can land on water, we can paddle our way there."
"NOT funny," Jackie grumbled.
"But true."
Duncan called on the radio and got Midway flight control and told them what happened. He didn't declare an emergency, they were still flying at altitude, only slower. They changed the flight plan, instead of a water landing, they would be landing on a runway, and the Airport Inspector there wanted to see their plane upon landing.
"They are going to want to check why that prop flew off and inspect the other two engines. That will take a while," Duncan said with a sigh.
"So this won't be just a cargo drop off stop," Jackie concluded.
"No, we'll probably be there a few days," Duncan told her. "Longer if they won't let us take off with only two of the three engines working."
"We'll be stuck there?" Kaede asked.
"If they don't have a three bladed propeller and the workings for it, that's a good chance of happening."
"Wonderful," Kaede grumbled.
.
Their landing at Midway civilian airport was smooth. Jackie parked at the assigned hanger and shut down. Once the cargo and passengers with their baggage were all off, the ground crew towed the plane into the hanger.
Duncan had Jerry and Patricia go get them hotel rooms with the others. He and Jackie stayed to get on a high lifter with mechanic and the inspector to look at the front motor.
The inspector took pictures, the mechanic studied the shaft coming out of the motor. "This was a variable pitch prop that was on here?" he asked.
"They all are," Duncan replied. "Can you tell why that prop came off?"
Pointing, the mechanic said, "These wires hanging down tell me it was an electric driven variable prop. See the scrapes here along the prop shaft? There is also no hole through the shaft for a bolt to ensure the whole assembly stays in place. We'll look at the other engines, but from what I'm seeing, it was a lock collar holding the propeller assembly on. Those only grip the shaft. What happened here is the lock collar loosened up and let the prop pull itself right off the shaft."
"Great, So the other motors are like that too?" Duncan asked.
"Most likely. That has to be fixed before this plane can fly again," the inspector intoned.
Duncan rubbed his forehead. "How long?"
The mechanic shrugged. "Depends on what we find. A new prop from the States is going to be at least a week to get here. Once I look at the other engines, I can give you a better estimate on how long the whole job will take."
"This plane is a museum piece," the mechanic said. "Maybe you should just get a new one. Might be cheaper in the end."
"We just got it," Jackie said sadly. "At least it didn't crash."
The mechanic shrugged. "These were made to take off on short runways. As long as you had a single engine running, you wouldn't fall out of the air. You'd be able to land someplace. Might not be smooth, but you'd make the ground OK."
"That's a relief." Jackie said with a sigh.
The mechanic lowered the lift and handed Duncan his card. "By tomorrow, I'll know how bad it is and what it's going to cost to fix the problem. I'll search for a new prop for you later today. These motors and props aren't original equipment. Do you know who put them in?"
"Catherine Weaver put the motors and props in," Duncan stated.
"Then I'll contact her about the price of that new prop. It's her people who caused it to fly off," the mechanic stated.
"Thank you," Duncan said. He and Jackie left to go find their rooms.