Chapter Ten
The BFFL stood up, staring at the person who had just come in.
"SHALE?" they chorused.
The troll woman was in her mid-twenties, wearing a powder-blue coverall and boots. There was a Troll Nation flag on her left shoulder and a name tag with "Trollson" engraved on it over her left breast. On her right shoulder was the logo patch for the Shuttle Pegasus.
She had dark skin, medium blue eyes and navy blue hair. A spell bead bracelet was on her left wrist. She had a clipboard with a thick stack of paper on it in her left hand.
"That's me!" she said, grinning, "Been a while, huh?"
The five troll-girls clustered around her, very surprised, but happy.
"Well, this is a surprise," said Ruby, "Haven't seen you since you graduated."
"Well, I have been keeping busy," she answered, "I always wanted to be a space shuttle pilot, and I worked hard to make that dream come true."
"You're going to be our pilot?" asked Amethyst.
"Yep. When I heard about the mission and who was going up, I jumped at the chance," Shale explained, "Besides, considering what's planned for the mission, they wanted the best pilot available, and that's me."
"Really?" asked Onyx, raising a black eyebrow.
"Really," nodded Shale. "I was a pretty good driver and skoot racer back in high school, and that skill transferred easily."
"Speaking of skoot racing, how is Mica?" asked Ruby, "You two still together, married, what?"
The smile vanished, and Shale closed her eyes, letting her head drop. "Mica's dead."
"DEAD!" said Amethyst, utterly shocked.
Sapphire was speechless.
"Sorry to hear that," said Onyx, thinking of the race she and Mica had back in high school, and how they were arrested for illegal skoot racing.
"Oh, no!" said Topaz, "What happened?"
"I'm so sorry! I didn't know!" said Ruby.
"It's okay," said Shale, "Been five years now. Right out of high school he joined the pro skoot racing circuit. Three laps into his first race he lost control and crashed. Died instantly, I was told."
"Oh, that's awful!" said Topaz, tears running.
"Well, he DID get to meet T-Rex before it happened," said Shale, and a ghost of a smile returned to her lips.
Sapphire stood, blushing. She and Mica had been an item, briefly. But it turned out he wanted her for her engineering skills, nothing else. Tears started running, and she pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
"Sapphire?" said Shale, reaching over and pulling her into a hug. "It'll be okay. It took a long time, but I got over it. You will too."
"Thanks, Shale," said Sapphire, returning the hug. "I had no idea."
"I understand," said the other, letting go. "But we're still friends, and since we all knew him, I hope we will be closer now."
"Count on it," said Amethyst.
"What about your girl friend, what was her name?" asked Topaz, "The one who always wore teal."
This time Shale did smile. "Nikki? We're still friends. She's a stay-at-home mom now. She married another pilot, and they live in the town."
"Nice to know," nodded the blond.
Shale looked at her clipboard. "We need to go. There's a briefing in a few minutes, and you don't need to be late."
They followed Shale down the corridor to a conference room and took seats. A few minutes later the head of the Space Exploration Group came in and stood behind the lectern at the front. To the left was a projection screen. He was in his fifties, with gray predominating his purple hair, which stood out from his head like a candle flame. He was wearing a regular business suit.
"Good morning, ladies," he said, "I'm Dr. Trollstone. So, you are the new Ancients, and the ones who will save the world."
"We're going to do our best, sir," nodded Sapphire.
"I hope so," he replied, "And that's why we're sending you with Ms. Trollson. She's the best pilot we've got."
"We've known Shale since high school, and we trust her," said Amethyst.
Shale blushed, barely visible on her dark skin, and smiled.
"Very good," nodded Trollstone, "Let's get started." He tapped a button on the lectern and the room darkened. The screen came to life with a picture of an ungainly craft moored off the single space station troll civilization had built. It appeared to be a tangle of pipes and cylinders and cubes that had been squashed together by a giant child, rather than a spacecraft.
"This is the Phoenix," he said, "An experimental craft that uses hover physics to travel instead of rockets. It's currently the only thing we have with even a remote chance of getting you to the comet before it's too late."
"Excuse me sir," interrupted Sapphire, "Did you say it uses hover physics?"
"That's right," the older troll nodded.
"How is that possible? At a couple hundred miles altitude the hover effect is too weak to be noticeable," she said. She noticed her friends were looking at her blankly. "The closer to the ground, the better the repulsion," she added for their benefit.
"Theoretical physicists stumbled across a way around that," the scientist answered. "You can get details from them. There will be ample opportunity to do so over the next few weeks.
Anyway, the Phoenix is being outfitted for the mission. That shuttle launch you might have seen when you got here was the habitation module being taken up.
"Is that thing safe?" asked Topaz, looking worried. "It looks like... well, nothing I can think of."
"We need to meet the comet as far away as possible," said Ruby, "As long as it gets us there and back in one piece, I'm happy and don't care what it looks like."
"It was built in space and will never land," said Shale, "So it doesn't have to be streamlined. I've taken it for a few test runs, and it works."
"Okay..." said Topaz, staring at the picture.
"Anyway, you'll spend the next several days training in space suits and emergency procedures before going up to the station. The beads will go with you," said Trollstone.
He changed the slide. "Once everything is ready, you'll embark on the Phoenix and spend five days traveling to the comet. Also aboard is a robot the station uses to put satellites into orbit, or bring them back. It will carry the bead to the comet, where you'll activate it.
Once the danger is over, the trip back will take another five days."
Sapphire raised her hand. "Sir, what about food and water and air?"
"There will be more than plenty of all aboard, thanks to using magically-enhanced containers," he answered. "But there is a down side to using the Phoenix."
The next slide was pulled up. It showed a cutaway drawing of the Phoenix.
"There wasn't time or room to build a luxury edition of the habitation module. The ship's controls are in it, as are chairs and supplies, but... I'm afraid you'll have to live in your space suits the entire time."
"But... that means I can't take my outfits!" protested Topaz.
"That's right," nodded Amethyst.
"There is a weight limit, too," added Trollstone.
Topaz sat back in a huff. "That stinks."
"We will too, unfortunately," said Sapphire.
The other four BFFL looked at her. Shale had a knowing smile on her lips.
"Didn't you hear what Dr. Trollstone said?" she clarified, "We'll have to live in space suits for the entire trip. That means no bathing."
"EWWWWW!" all five women said.
The sixth snickered. "Been there, done that."
"Sorry about that, but like I said, we don't have time to develop a more comfortable life-support module," said Trollstone.
"Well, this is going to be an... interesting trip," said Amethyst.
"Yeah," put in Onyx, "It's a test. This will show us just how close we really are."
"That's the preliminaries," said Trollstone, "Any questions?"
There was silence for a few moments. They hadn't really heard the question because they were thinking of not being able to bathe for two weeks.
"All right, then. Ms. Trollson, take charge and get them oriented. Training starts tomorrow morning."