Destiny Among The Stars - Chapter 5
July 25, 1992, Helios Aerospace's Constellation Project Lab, TX
The TV flickered to life as I caught my own voice coming from it, I ground my teeth together even as I leaned back into my chair, crossing my arms. I was in my office, listening to the tenth time Global News used the recording, for some reason they were like hounds following a scent when it came down to my pet project.
"… my work at Helios Aerospace should hopefully be not only rewarding for the citizens of our fair country but also for the world."
Lois Lane looked directly into the camera, her smile sharp as the audio recording ended. She sat behind a sleek, modern news desk in the high-tech Global News studio, with a large screen behind her displaying the Helios Aerospace logo. The studio was bathed in soft blue lighting, giving it a 'space' feel. "This statement came from Dr. Adam Hilliard, son of Richard Hilliard, co-founder of Helios Aerospace, and the head of what a leaked internal memo calls 'Project Constellation.' Dr. Hilliard addressed allegations that the laser technology he is developing could be used to further the government's ambitions in the Cold War."
"Indeed, Lois," her co-host, Seth Spencer, chimed in, nodding thoughtfully as he adjusted his glasses. Seated beside Lois, Bran had a calm demeanour, his salt-and-pepper beard giving him a distinguished look compared to Lois' firebrand. The studio's backdrop showed a live feed of Earth from space, a constant reminder of the news network's owning a direct feed from Skylab. "Premier Gorbachev has declared that American aggression in space will not be tolerated and has called upon the international community to halt the proliferation of weapons in space. In response, President Hart emphasized that while the research at Helios Aerospace is not government-funded, it is known to the administration and is not related to espionage as the Soviets have claimed. President Hart added that if the Soviets genuinely wish to keep space peaceful, they should address North Korea's repeated rocket tests, which are increasing space debris and have caused the Polaris disaster."
"Meanwhile, Presidential Candidate Wilson has advocated for communication as the first step towards reconciliation. She urges that we approach this project with optimism and not condemn it before it is even unveiled," Lois continued.
"This has been Global News, with your hosts Lois Lane and Seth Spencer. We'll be back after a short commercial break!"
I muted the ads with the remote. The Polaris Hotel had recently been destroyed, and I knew from my knowledge of the timeline that Dev Ayesa would buy Madam Baldwin's company and ship to repurpose it for his Mars ambitions, meaning we did not have much time left. I heard footsteps and looked up to see Bill entering my office, carrying Korean food.
"So, how are our satellites? Have you been able to fix the inter-constellation issues?" I asked, as he put down my share of the food.
Putting down the food, I handed him a twenty-dollar bill, which he pocketed. "Well, it is a rather delicate problem. Every line we rewrite in the code creates another problem; it's a bit like Jenga, you know? In the game, you have to carefully remove—"
"Bill." I stopped him, taking another bite of my Korean fried chicken. I swallowed. "The point."
"Well, not yet," he admitted flatly, opening his significantly larger portion of chicken.
"Do I really have to call Sam to help you guys? She isn't even employed here. She has better things to do at NASA than to swing by and solve problems at the drop of a hat."
That had become a rather recurrent joke amongst my team—that every time Sam visited, it was like an angel handing out revelations like they were candies. We had been having problems with the laser device not rotating correctly. Something about a line of code reversing the direction it should be turning had been bugging us for weeks. It took Sam two hours to fix it.
Never mind the fact that Sam was currently in the training course to become a NASA astronaut. Honestly, it felt very below what she could accomplish, but I knew her mind was made up. She had confided in me very early on that she had dreamt of becoming an astronaut since the moment she saw her father's downtrodden look when they lost the Moon race. She vowed to make him proud.
"It would go faster if we had her help," admitted Bill, shaking me out of my thoughts. I threw him a look that made him raise his hands in surrender. "Look, boss, your fiancée is something else, but I am sure we—"
He was interrupted by a recent addition to our team, an engineer by the name of Harriet Hewstone. She was a twenty-five-year-old graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle with a degree in computer engineering and a doctorate in physics.
"We've got it," Harriet announced, a hint of excitement in her voice. "The change in the cooling system of the satellites with the infrared radiation was interacting weirdly with the thruster system because of some scrap codes that weren't removed. Now, our satellites will be able to automatically alert others in the constellation about debris and recalibrate their trajectories."
She paused, giving me a helpless look. "Though with North Korea's rockets…"
My eyes caught movement from the side, and looking at the television, I saw what she meant. The news broadcast was back on, and they were talking once again about the Polaris Hotel that had been destroyed by debris from North Korea. It had been the only thing the news had talked about for weeks after the incident. Well, that and me. I hated reporters with all my soul.
"NASA has reported that most debris has already left orbit," I stated, calmer than I felt about the possibility that our launch would be ruined by debris of all things. I stood up and went into the larger shared space of the laboratory, clapping my hands and attracting everyone's attention. I basked in it before releasing my narcissistic thoughts into the ether.
"Everyone! Sorry to distract you during our lunch break, but I feel like I needed to say this to you guys: Good job! We have been working on Iris for the better part of two years. It hasn't been easy. All I had were some ideas; it was you guys that made it a reality. For that, I will never not be thankful to every one of you. But now we are almost at the finishing line. All I ask is for your utmost professionalism to carry us there. In two weeks, we will launch and go public with our work. You guys don't want the game developers below us to complain about the lack of infrastructure if we fail, right?"
They grumbled and chuckled at that.
"No way in hell it will fail!"
"John was only able to finish the laser encryption early because he had the boss and Miss Carter's help anyway!"
"What is he working on now?"
"Some weird driving game. He keeps calling to snub me with demos of it, telling me that if I can't finish the decryption rates, it's going to mess with his project."
"That was all," I concluded, bowing my head slightly to them. "Thank you once again. Finish your meal and go back to work. After the launch, the tab shall be on me!"
That's right. I had overqualified engineers and scientists working on games to equip our computers with. They had been working on Iris at first, but when the hurdle they had been employed for had been surpassed because of their high competency, instead of just throwing them back into the bureaucracy of the company, I had asked my father to keep them so they could be used more efficiently.
Sure, there had been some raised eyebrows about my insistence that we needed our own computers, designed and produced by us, but Dev Ayesa was rather easy to convince, as was my father. The real problem had been with games. Though my appeal that communication without real weight would fall into irrelevance had worked, so now we had poets, musicians, and engineers alongside writers in one room making rudimentary online games and other nifty apps.
Anyway, this approach had nurtured friendly rivalries between the active and 'resting' teams. When you finished your main project on Iris' Constellation, you were sent to the latter. And so, those who finished early could work on either the big MMORPG that we had in the works or their own creation. Quite a few of the resting team would go and ask if the others would be finished in time. The former would then jokingly call the gaming teams lazy bums who had left the hard work to them.
Returning to my own room, I nodded at Bill and Harriet. "This also goes to both of you. Thanks for your work. I know I have been rather demanding, and I am thankful that you guys were here to make my vision a reality."
Bill blushed, stammering. "Don't sweat it, boss. The pay was more than worth it."
"I wouldn't put it as crudely as Bill," Harriet said, before nodding in agreement. "But the pay is very sweet."
I huffed. "I am sure the bonus will be just as good if it works."
"Upside is if it doesn't, the severance pay will be good too."
A comfortable silence settled after that. Harriet left, returning to her own meal, while I started browsing on my computer. This was one of the new models we had designed. The monitor was significantly slimmer than you would expect for the time—another boon of the space race. But where our computers, currently nicknamed Athena, truly shone was in the increased computing power for a decreased chassis size, not to mention the streamlined operating system.
All these advances would be largely useless for civilians without the games, applications, and websites we had designed in advance to accompany the computers. For now, they were unconnected from the Iris System since it wasn't launched yet, but I still had access to the good old intranet and its staggering one use of d-mails.
Looking through them, I noticed I had received a response to my inquiries in Egypt. A dig at Gaza had unearthed several interesting artefacts, but the ship carrying them had sunk before the start of WWII in the Mediterranean Sea. It still sat near Malta, though local authorities reported that any artefacts in the ship's haul had been recovered by Spanish ships two decades ago.
Asking about it from the Spanish revealed they had been sold to the French. And the French? They had no idea what I was talking about. It always came down to the French.
Shaking my head ruefully, I appeased myself by taking another bite of chicken. With my efforts stonewalled, it meant I needed to find the other, original gate in Antarctica, perhaps even make my Stargate Command Base there too. It would be hard logistically, but it would open the possibility of accessing the Ancient Outpost, and being in such a neutral area would ruffle fewer feathers when revealed publicly.
Not to mention how useful it would be to deter any possible invasion. Sure, you could escape the base, but then good luck escaping when you're surrounded by ice and snow. From what I remembered, the gate and outpost weren't too far from McMurdo's base, which still existed in this timeline, though was used less frequently since the Air Force was sending most of its men into space nowadays.
"Huh," I let out a surprised grunt, looking at some of the d-mails I had received from my inquiries to the National Science Foundation. Apparently, they were open to selling the base, though only if it remained a science base. I shrugged—exploring other worlds was science enough. Though the price they asked was quite exorbitant, not even mention the hassle it would be to gain approval from the government. "Still, it's possible."
What would I need? Ten times the money I personally owned and a solid backstory. Perhaps research into building more compact and useful habitats for Mars? That would help with Dev Ayesa, though he would want to know more. Perhaps make it double as the centre of command of the Iris system too? Could work.
"Anything interesting, boss?" Bill asked.
"For the moment?" I mused, looking at another rejection from the Soviets to the export of Athena computers to them. "Not much, but our future?"
I cackled at that. "The future looks interesting."
Bill shivered. "We are going to get overworked again, aren't we?"
"We?" I said innocently. Too innocently. "Oh, no. Only you guys. I have a wedding to plan."
Bill laughed in my face at that. "You are right, boss. There is no 'we' there. Good luck coming back."
Well, that was ominous.
Author's note: Well, this chapter fought me a lot, anyway here we have some more exposition of what is happening. Adam and his team are almost done with the Iris system, they only need to send it into orbit and kickstart it.
Now to make it worthwhile for civilians Adam had to sell the idea that they needed to create the demand, so computers, specifically, the Athena Computer. Designed and produced by them which have connections to the Iris system and games also produced by them. Now, most of them are personal projects of the people who have finished their own work on Iris early, but the big "communal project" is a sort of MMORPG that is akin to Habbo on steroids.
They have also made a few websites and incorporated modules for people to make their own though needing approval before domains are attributed fully.
Something else, Adam has been looking for the gate and discovered that the Gaza gate sunk with the Achilles ship around the start of WW2, if the gate was on board then it got taken by the Spanish and sold to the French who didn't have any idea where it is, or do but don't care to answer to some random American d-mail. You guys saw through me that Adam is directly going to go to the Antarctica gate, which is basically much more hidden there, but also the Ancient outpost there which will allow for a lot of possible advancement with the crystal tech and more.
Also, Sam and Adam are officially marrying, I have no idea if I am going to make it a chapter or just skip it, depends on what you guys feel.
Guest: I have plans for Seth, but let's just say that right now, he is in the USSR. As for Hathor, I had completely forgotten that she was in the sarcophagus in Central America, probably going to have her surface at some point, though as you stated its going to be difficult for Osiris considering Egyp's political leaning.
amerikhan786: Saving Egeria would be a great boon, but its going to be super hard to find her since Adam doesn't have the Abydos cartouche, but we will see how it goes.
War Sage: A big change here is that Sam's mother never died from the taxi incident, so the relationship between Jacob and his children never really turned cold, so Sam never really felt the need to conform to a soldier/general relationship to stay close with her father, meaning she kept her original dream of being an astronaut, except its stronger here considering the social impetus of the space race.
Yeah, I made a mistake in my last author's note, I meant WW2 not WW1, and indeed, Cameron Mitchell doesn't exist in this timeline.
JustAnotherFan217: Right now, his goal is to stay as a civilian entity and try to get the Heliopolis gate which should be easy considering they randomly put number until it worked, get some basic tech to boost his company even further and then reach for the president to set up a joint-affair, possibly an Atlantis-like scenario with other allies also joining in.
Chloe: This chapter should have answered you, but as for Apophis ship coming, for that they would have to kill Ra first so it might not happen, but if alien ships do come to the Solar system you are correct that the current technology of Earth will quite easily spot them. Well, unless they are cloaked or Asgard.
Guest: Adventure will come quite soon, this is the setup to not make it feel completely unrealistic.
Thank y'all for your feedback and compliments, see you guys soon for next chapter!