CHAPTER 19

The pace was actually slacking up. Jack found that he only had a hundred things to do at any given moment and not a thousand. Was it a good omen? The way Jack had it figured, his luck was not that good, so, just maybe, it was a sign of things to come. He found himself knocking on wood every time he was around a piece of it. Maybe his luck would hold but, at the moment, Jack was not taking any chances.

The first bit of good news on this day had been his stop by the hangar that was serving as their computer workshop. Several months ago, Saiid, not long after he had arrived at Vandenberg, had decided that the ships software ‘sucked.’ When Jack had asked him why, the computer expert replied, “because it blows.” Not being any more computer savvy than your average electronics store shopper, Jack figured they were computer terms and left it at that.

Unfortunately, Saiid had not been content enough to leave it alone. He took it upon himself to write an entirely new operating system after he erased the old one completely. Jack only found out after it was too late to reverse the damage and no amount of threats, along the nature of how Jack was going to put the kid in orbit without a rocket, seemed to impress Saiid. Jack could not make the kid understand how pressed for time they were.

The way Jack had it figured, there was no way in hell that any one person could single handedly write an entirely original computer operating system in the time allotted. Yet when Jack checked in with his official hacker that seemed to be exactly what Saiid had done. He wasn’t quite finished with it yet but he did have it running the computers that were destined for the ship. The most shocking part, to Jack at least, was that Saiid’s system was already doing a better job than the stock programs they had.

Jack had to ask, “all right. I give Saiid. How in the hell did you do this?”

The kid was grinning from ear to ear, “trade secrets Jack.”

After thinking about it a minute Jack replied, “in other words you cut back on your video game breaks?”

Saiid got back to work as he replied with a very superior tone, “life is a video game.”

Jack realized that this was not a denial on the part of Saiid.

Not long after that, Jack ran into Red Darby. The guy had just come down from his third orbital hop. The reporter was still in his flight suit when Jack found him. There was this huge grin on Red’s face and Jack could not help but notice how animated the guy was. He was acting like a kid on Christmas morning and made no secret that he was ready to board the next Venturestar bound for orbit.

“Red,” Jack said with an edge of disbelief, “have you gotten any sleep in the last couple of days?”

“Hell no,” Red said with a laugh. “I’m going to fly on them birds every chance I get, Jack!”

“Glad somebody’s having fun around here,” Jack said with a mixed chuckle and sigh. He then looked to Jim Morton who had piloted the mission that Red was on. Jack had to ask, “so what did he say the first time he got out of the atmosphere? Is he any more poetic than we are?”

Over the past few months Red had been sticking it to the astronauts with complaints about their articulations of space flight. He was constantly pulling quotes out of his rear end that were less than flattering to those who coined them. Red’s basic premise was that it was about time they put someone into space who could adequately describe it.

Apparently, the world would still have to wait for that day. According to Jim, the only word that had escaped Red’s lips were, “wow!”

That turned out to be the last laugh of the day. The rest of the crew was due in from Houston and Jack was not looking forward to it. It had nothing to do with getting his people all here. Jack was glad to see them. They were going to start training on the actual modules they would be living in and repairing for the next couple of decades. That was very important and Jack was glad it was happening sooner as opposed to later.

One of the conditions that Jack had imposed on Rockmont was that Jack alone, or his designee, controlled training. Chuck had gotten rather huffy over it because he had been using the training schedule for things that were not really training related. Rockmont’s bureaucratic side could not help but manipulate their schedules to suit his agenda which, was primarily public relations. Such actions could not only kill training but morale right along with it.

What Jack was not looking forward too was something of a similar nature. It was a lot more complicated than the training issue but full of all the usual bureaucratic crap even so. Jack had made up his mind what he was going to do about it from the moment that Pete had briefed him on the matter. It was still the course Jack wanted to pursue but, in the time since he learned of it, he had really had too much time to consider the complications.

Those issues were only driven home when Carl Lubowski called. The fact that it was Carl, who phoned, angered Jack from the start. They had been friends, and fellow pilots, going back a long way. Jack considered it rather low that Rockmont would get the man to do his dirty work here. It was a well calculated move for a lot of reasons. The worst of which was that, even if they were on a first name basis, the fact was that Carl was still a lieutenant general and Jack was just a colonel. Jack could not blow the man off.

Their respective ranks did not keep a heated argument from breaking out. It was after the growling had gone on for a while that Jack realized his old buddy Carl was not just parroting for Rockmont. Carl believed in the points he was making. That aggravated Jack for more than one reason. The main one was that Jack realized the general, and by extension Rockmont, had a valid point.

Carl was never actually going to order Jack to go against his better judgment or at least not on a matter like this. Rank only counted for so much and respecting someone’s command prerogatives ultimately counted for more. If Carl did try and stoop that low however, Jack was ready for it. Jack had been prepared to demand that he get the order in writing, at which point, he was going to write up a protest. No one was about to put something like that in writing. If it ever got out then careers would be destroyed and Jack had a reporter in his command.

Fortunately, General Lubowski didn’t cross that line. Jack was almost hoping he would. It would have at least decided the matter to the point that the burden was no longer Jack’s.

All of it left Jack on a hangar catwalk when the buses arrived. He squirmed as he watched his assorted crewmates disembarking. He had dreaded this moment but, he knew it was coming. It was definitely time to get it over with.

Jack was not the only one apprehensive at the moment. Pete was too and had been just as vigilant in watching out for the buses. Pete joined him on the catwalk and had Joey tagging along right behind him. The boy was never far from Pete these days. Jack thought, that just maybe, that was a good thing. Then again, Jack just had a sinking feeling that it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Joey seemed to be oblivious to all of this but, that was only on the surface. Every time Jack looked into Joey’s eyes he saw a fire burning. There was a spark behind those eyes. That kid was smart and Jack had noticed that boy didn’t miss much. Joey had to have figured out that something was going on with his mother’s situation.

Jack kept it light but asked anyway, “Joey? What do you think of all this? You know? With your Mom being here and all.”

“I like it Colonel Jack,” and his enthusiasm was apparent. It was not really surprising. Jack would have probably been excited into a heart attack if something like this had happened to him back when he was ten. What boy wouldn’t?

For just a second, Jack saw that smile fade. There was doubt and fear in his face. It was only there briefly but, very real. Jack told the kid as much. Joey took a moment to reply. He was not exactly sad when he did. It was more like a deep concern, “I just don’t know who I’m going to stay with while Mom’s gone?”

Jack winked and rubbed the boys head. Joey resisted returning the favor. Jack laughed and nodded for his two companions to follow him down to the buses. He assured Joey as he went, “don’t you worry boy. That’s the last thing that’s going to happen now.”

The first man that Jack located was the Sergeant Major. He normally got the job of babysitting. Jack went looking for the boy’s mother next and Pete was still tagging along. Jack almost wondered if he could get McCandles to baby sit colonels too.

That was mainly because, with Joey out of earshot, Pete went right back into his spiel, “I told you that I’d do this Jack.”

“Goes with the job Pete,” Jack said just as he spied Julia Rice coming out of a hangar bathroom with Pam Short in tow. He snorted and put his hands on his hips as he watched her. This was the moment he had been dreading. He barely knew this woman. He had probably spoken a grand total of three words to her since they met!

That was the only reason that Jack had agreed to let Pete in on this. Pete knew her well. Sometimes Jack was starting to wonder if Pete knew her too well. When Julia spotted Pete, and ran to him, she gave the Marine a great big, enthusiastic, hug around the neck. That seemed to confirm everything Jack had been suspecting. He felt guilty when he began wondering if he could use it.

“Julia,” Jack said as she still had her arms locked around Pete. “We need to have a little chat, in my office.”

Julia immediately let go of Pete and looked at Jack with a bewildered gaze. Then she suddenly acted as if she had fully expected him to say it. She excused herself to Pam and then seemed quite eager as she walked off with Jack.

Pete was about to follow but Pam tugged on his sleeve before he could. Pam could see that Pete was just as eager, as Julia was, to follow Jack . For that reason she forced herself to keep it short, “are they going to let her go home?”

Pete reeled back in surprise, “how did you… ?”

“She told me,” Pam replied with the same concerned tone. “I’m worried about her and Joey. That’s all.”

Pete became flustered, “who else knows?”

“Hey don’t get your panties in a wad, Pete,” Pam bit back, “if Julia didn’t tell anybody else I sure didn’t. I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

That drew a condemning look of disbelief from the Marine. Pam sighed, fidgeted, and then admitted, “ok, I know how to keep my mouth shut when it’s important.”

Pete left it at that and caught back up with Jack and Julia just as the Marine was busy tossing Harry Wu out of his office. Harry was protesting about some news being important. Jack was of the mind that no matter what it was it was going to have to wait. Harry protested even more till Pete physically shoved him out the door and then closed it in his face.

The door slamming rocked Jack’s guts. It was almost like the first shot in a war being fired with the irony being that, in truth, it was really one of the last, or so Jack hoped. He sat down on the front edge of his desk and invited Julia to sit. She preferred to remain standing and quickly commenced to babbling away at a thousand miles an hour. Jack didn’t understand all of it but he got the gist. She really believed they were going to release her. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Julia saw the looks she was getting from both Marines. That told her the news before they said a word. She deflated but remained calm, “they can’t do this, can they?” A tear started to form as she said, “what’s going to happen to my son?”

“Julia,” Jack only said her name to buy time. He really had a hard time trying to get the words out. “They want him to come with us.”

Surprisingly, Julia barked out a quick laugh, “Be serious Colonel.”

Pete was still standing by the door with his head hung low, “we are Julia.”

She took a minute to digest it and then was almost pleading, “but he’s just a little boy. They can’t honestly think…”

Jack had a hard time looking the woman in the eye, “honestly Julia. After they saw how much the press ate Joey up, back in Florida, some alleged geniuses decided he’d be a valuable asset.”

Now Julia sat. Her knees wobbled and she kept babbling to herself, “this can’t be happening.” She then went weak at the knees but her spine stiffened at the same time. Julia jumped back to her feet and in a rage she stated in no uncertain terms, “my son is not going to be used like this!”

Jack shrugged and sighed, “I agree. I like your son Julia. I like him a lot. Everybody does. Nobody on the Hermes crew wants to see that kid harmed.”

Julia snarled, “and that’s supposed to make this all right?”

Pete finally raised his head and stepped towards her in a sympathetic way, “Julia. To be fair to Jack, he’s really stuck his neck on the chopping block fo…”

Julia bit his head off, “to hell with you Pete! To hell with all of you! Is all that supposed to make me feel better? I got some news for you. It doesn’t!”

“I don’t blame you,” Jack said. Jack stood up and walked over to his office window. He looked down at the hangar floor and let the silence build. Then when he decided what to say he looked back to Julia, “I’ll level with you Julia. If you quit the program it makes a lot of things iffy. As you might have noticed at the gate, we’re catching hell before we even get off the ground. That’s not counting the fact that we’re too late in the game to replace you. You’re a pretty rare creature at that. I’m not sure there is anybody else with your qualifications.”

“Colonel Kelly,” Julia said with an iron resolution, “I don’t care. All I want to do, right now, is go down there, get my son, and go home.”

Jack looked out the window and crossed his arms. He told her in a matter of fact kind of way, “and you’re free to do that if you want.”

She didn’t believe him and didn’t hide it either, “just like that?”

Jack looked over his shoulder and nodded to her, “just like that.”

Suddenly Julia staggered and then was back to her pleading, “I… I don’t understand? I mean if…”

“Julia,” Jack replied as he turned around to face her, “I’m going to do what’s right by you and that boy. You’re right, to hell with the rest of it.”

Pete had backed off when she rejected his offer of sympathy. He had kept a respectable distance after that. He had also remained uncharacteristically silent. Now when he did speak, he was quiet and remorseful, “we’d rather have you though.”

Julia took a moment, and a long hard look at Pete. When she finished she asked Jack, “what about my job? If I dropped out I’m not sure Aggie would take me back.”

Jack only shrugged again, “I can go to bat for you Julia but, I can’t promise you anything. Considering the fact that they know I won’t even be in the same star system, I doubt very seriously they’ll listen to me.”

Julia’s shoulders slumped. Another tear welled up in her eyes. She bowed her head and sighed, “I’ve condemned my son too.”

Pete’s head snapped up and he was in shock, “does that mean you’re going?”

She was fuming, crying, and very bitter, but not so much as a few minutes ago. “I don’t have a choice now do I?”

“Julia,” Pete tried to play the sympathetic friend but did a lousy job of it.

Cutting him off first, Julia then reached out and grabbed Pete’s hand. She looked him in the eye and said, “I want you to be with me when I tell Joey. I think he’ll like that.”

When they left the office Jack discovered that Harry was still there. He was in the exact same spot that he had been when the door slammed in his face. He was not all to happy about it either, “what is this? Beat the crap out of Harry day?”

Jack was not in the mood. He groaned and then snapped, “what Harry?!”

With a great deal of frustration Harry blurted out, “Jack! Dee called while you were down on the floor. Then Houston called! Then the freaking Pentagon! The Japs launched about an hour ago!”

Jack thought about the news for a moment and quickly decided what he was going to do about it. He slammed his office door in Harry’s face.