Chapter 4• The invitation
Day 33 of my action drought, or maybe I should call it a hiatus.
I found myself becoming disappointedly accustomed to the feeling of being (essentially) unemployed.
However, I found ways to distract myself.
I had begun giving directions to newcomers in town. Of course, the inevitable question would arise as to why I wasn't out rescuing.
It wasn't like they were being rude. The reason I couldn't give them a real answer is because I didn't have one.
After a while, it just became too much.
The newcomers would just have to use their phones to find the nearest Auntie Anne's.
Soon thereafter, I'd found a new distraction, one that I'd never been able to just sit around and do before because I was so busy.
I went to the ground floor of the lookout, plopped down on a bean bag, and turned on the News.
I know, how ridiculously boring. But I suppose it can be useful.
The only time we ever watched the news was for local stuff; Reports on our own rescue missions, Ice on the roads, School closures, (ribbon cuttings).
At this time, nothing was going on. Sometimes Adventure Bay didn't have anything newsworthy to report, but it was a different story on the national scene.
Someone in a suit was on, speaking about some new bill in the process of being passed- boring me to tears by the minute.
Presidents, Prime Ministers- they were all just powerful strangers to us.
I watched for as long as I could, hoping I could learn something useful.
It was something related to taxes. Cuts this, budgets that.
I yawned with every ounce of my being.
I made it 20 minutes in before I decided that a nap would benefit me more, although I might be wasting a day.
Still, a red bar of text kept popping up every three minutes or so- saying something about NASA. It was too small for me to see without getting up from my beanbag haven and reading it off of the screen.
I wanted to stay awake and hear what it was, because NASA was something that I understood.
The History was what drew me in first. Not surprisingly, I found myself to be the only one interested in dissecting the histories of various significant things.
People love hearing 'fun fact' iterations of History; "Coca Cola having cocaine leaves in it back when it was first released"- type stuff. Things to share around the dinner table.
Few realize that no matter what you're into, there's a History that can enhance your appreciation for that thing.
It's not just dates, it's context- which is what I've been saying for years now.
I noticed it most, when the 5oth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission came and went. That was a generation-defining event, but most can't even name another astronaut outside of Neil Armstrong and maybe Buzz Aldrin.
Still, space exploration had been immensely re-hyped within the last decade.
The people continued to prattle on and on, but the "Breaking News" alerts at the bottom of the screen became longer and more urgent-looking.
I could only make out a few words, but the more I stared the more tired I grew.
"NASA"
"Admin"
"Relegation"
"Negligence"
"Error"
"Lost"
"Emergency"
"Contact"
"Stuck"
"Point-of-no-return"
I couldn't hang on long enough, but just as I drifted away, the NASA address began and blended with my dream.
"Words can't describe my embarrassment"- is all I could make out.
I jumped awake and looked at the clock, then out the window.
3 hours of my day- gone.
Darn it, I thought. I must have missed something important.
Someone had quietly turned off the television.
My sleep schedule was going to be destroyed for the next week, I knew it.
Skye walked past the lookout door just as I was regaining my bearings.
"Skye!", I shouted a bit louder than I intended.
She poked her head around the corner and smiled, "Well hey there sleepyhead."
"Did you turn off the T.V. while I was asleep?", I asked.
"Yeah, I did. You must have dozed off while watching the news, I can't sit through that stuff either", she said.
"Did you remember what was on television, the NASA alert?", I pressed.
"It was something about a telescope or a satellite or something, I'll be honest though, I wasn't paying 100% attention", she replied.
I nodded, "Okay, thanks."
It sounded more dismissive than I meant it.
Skye smiled and walked on.
Geez, what is up with me?, I thought.
Unsure of what to do with myself, I just fit myself underneath my vehicle and started "repairing."
It had only been 20 minutes when my pup-tag beeped to life.
Oh boy, here we go, I thought.
I brought up the rear, which saved me from the Marshall collision shenanigans.
As we lined up, we were briefed on another boat-related mishap.
Only Skye and Zuma were needed, so the rest of us played freeze tag in the lookout yard while they went.
It was fun not being the only one left out every once and a while.
Eventually, we grew tired of tag and decided to graduate to Tug-of-war.
While you may think that pulling on a rope for hours on end would get tiresome after the 50th time, we could do it forever.
Rubble and I were on one side, Marshall and Chase were on the other.
I swear, Tug-of-war could fill up an entire summer of our time and we still wouldn't be sick of it.
After a while, we'd switch up the teams and go at it again.
It was always fun to me to see which teams performed the best together when pulling a rope, compared to how they mixed during missions. In both cases, we were all willing to put our bodies and 100% of our energy on the line.
One day in particular was unforgettable, because we played Tug-of-war in one-on-one tournament style after a massive mission that took all day. Tracker and Everest were there, and Ryder set up the boundaries in the dirt.
The whole Idea of tournaments had always appealed to me for some reason. Tournament arcs were always my favorite in T.V. shows. There was just something satisfying witnessing the convergence of unique methods, physical ability, and hard work. Call me an oddball, but I did plenty of research.
This Tug-of-war tournament went well for me back then, well- kind of. I managed to get the best of Tracker in the first round, but I lost to Rubble (unsurprisingly) in the semifinals. Rubble was incredibly strong, and took down Me, Marshall, and Everest with ease to win it all.
First prize was a giant Milk bone, which he enjoyed in a humble manner. Despite him not eating it in front of us, we were still a tad hesitant to talk to him immediately after that.
Even before the team expanded, there were few things that I'd trade for that time.
Although we weren't plying tournament style this time, the nap I took must have given me something extra, because I hit an unprecedented ten-pull winning streak.
We were so enraptured by our game; we hadn't even noticed that a taxi had stopped at the end of our road. A suited man with glasses came up the drive. He had a lanyard around his neck.
I couldn't see the NASA emblem from that distance.
I was the first one to notice him, but I was certain Chase had already picked him up by smell and didn't say anything.
We all stopped and approached, following PAW Patrol stranger guidelines.
I could tell we were all thinking different things, but I wondered if he had purposely planned to come while Ryder was out.
He spoke, "The illustrious problem-solving pup brigade, it's an honor."
Rubble was covered in mud, more so than the rest of us. But he presented his best smile.
Marshall tilted his head while Chase took on his role.
"Hello, sir! Is there an emergency somewhere?", he asked.
"Actually, yes. But it isn't exactly here", he responded.
He flipped his lanyard around and my eyes went wide.
Director of Flight Crew Operations at Cape Kennedy, Darius Kingsley.
I felt like someone was playing an elaborate, insensitive trick on me.
"Apologies, it seems I've caught you all at a bad time. I'm actually here to speak to Ryder about something important", he replied.
I piped up, "Oh, he'll be back soon. Is this about that telescope or satellite thing?"
The others looked at me. This was starting to violate protocol, but I didn't care.
Mr. Kingsley only smiled and said, "It's good to see that the young one's still care about space, but I'm not really supposed to say more than I ought to."
Of course, I thought, NASA is a government organization after all.
We all thought it best if he waited outside so he could greet Ryder as soon as possible.
It pained me to see him wait, but rules were rules. It just seemed like such strange timing.
"A NASA guy, what does he need with us?", Chase pondered aloud as we watched from the lookout window.
"Maybe we all get a free trip to space!", Rubble exclaimed bobbing up and down with anticipation.
"Yuck", Marshall groaned, "have you seen the weird baby food they have to eat out of those little tubes? I couldn't do that."
I stared out the window with a knot in my stomach. For God's sake Ryder, hurry up and get back here, I thought.
Although it was unfair, Ryder had no Idea what was going on and wasn't going to rush a mission if someone needed help.
Just then, his ATV made its way up the drive with Zuma and Skye in tow.
It looked as though the mission went well.
Ryder took off his helmet and shook hands with Darius Kingsley. They spoke as Zuma and Skye parked their vehicles and joined us inside.
Of course, there was a flurry of questions among the six of us, but I remained mostly silent. I tried to glean as much as I could from their body language, their facial expressions.
Ryder had a stern but understanding look on his face. Darius, on the other hand, was calmly navigating the conversation as if everything Ryder said had an elementary counter.
And then, Ryder put his head down for a moment. He took a deep breath and pulled out his touchpad (We'd call it a pup-pad too, except he's not a pup).
He pressed a button and my tag lit up.
"Rocky, could you come out here please?", he asked me. The others looked at me.
I was speechless, but I followed his order. His tone of voice was so, different. I had heard Ryder be authoritative, angry, and genuinely afraid for our lives as well as his own.
This was different entirely.
I walked across the lawn to Mr. Kingsley, who I could tell had something important to say. He had a bundle of papers behind his back.
He spoke clearly and calmly, "Rocky, you have a great owner here. He's given me permission to ask you something of vital importance."
My heart sped up.
"I'm not sure if you've been keeping up with NASA events as of now, but we're in an odd place. Juggling between Boeing and SpaceX for commissioned spacecraft to hide our lack of funding just wasn't enough it seems", he laughed. "The Origenes space telescope, have you heard of it?"
I nodded, "Of course, it's one of the most sophisticated pieces of machinery of all time. The massive refracting telescope that you all put into Geo-synchronous orbit back in 2004- the images are beautiful."
He laughed, "That's right, although she's seen better days", I looked at Ryder who said nothing. Kingsley cleared his throat and started again.
"The telescope was behaving in all normalcy until about 3am yesterday morning, when a malfunction sent it off course. With the trajectory that we saw, the stuck thruster would have pushed it back towards Earth where it would have burned up in the atmosphere and showered debris onto whatever was unlucky enough to be below it."
I frowned, "That didn't happen, did it? I mean- I would have heard something, right?", I asked.
Ryder shook his head, "they managed to stop it….but, now they have another problem."
Kingsley laughed again, "Imagine that, getting a call at 3 in the morning that the multi-million dollar remotely controlled telescope that we're still paying for only allowed for 30 seconds of manual override before shutting its systems down. We managed to fire the thrusters in the opposite direction, but we overshot its orbit", he said.
I blinked; I was a little confused. There were no people on board, so why was I hearing about it?
"We have other telescopes and satellites with cameras that actually listen to our controls, and we can confirm that the thrusters are still firing, propelling it out of Earth's gravity- eventually", he said.
"Oh no, that means it's going to fly into open space", I said.
"Exactly what I thought, but no. You see, NASA may not be the shuttle-makers of yesteryear or the shiny symbols of Western bravery in the face of….well- everything bad that went on in the 1960s, but we do still know what we're doing", Kingsley said.
Ryder cut in, "The NASA executive who fired the counter-thrust put it on course to be caught by the moon, like a last—minute improvised Trans-lunar injection."
I knew what that was.
"But it wasn't…. perfect", said Kingsley. "In fact, by the time it reaches the moon in about two and a half days' time, its orbit will be too shallow to not decay. It will skid for sure, but it will hit the surface by what I'm calling 'Day-6' of this- crisis."
"So…...", I said, hoping someone would fill in the blanks.
"You fix things, son. You reverse damage that would stump the engineers I work with on the daily. I've talked to your owner here and he's given me nothing but shining reviews of your abilities", he said.
As Kingsley was hyping me up, Ryder looked down at me, his face gleamed with pride.
It finally clicked and my eyes went wide again. I asked for a sign, and I got a massive smack in the face. This was it- my opportunity to do something outstanding!
"Rocky, I heard from the NASA higher-ups themselves", Kingsley said, "I'm humbly asking you to come to NASA headquarters and help me fix this awful mistake. Origenes needs saving."
***End of Chapter 4***