CHAPTER 21

It was very different from the old days. Jack’s first trip into space was in one of the original models of the space shuttle. It was an upright launch. You were basically tied to a few hundred thousand pounds of a highly combustible material that someone was about to intentionally detonate, all the while, your only safety was dependent on a machine that had millions of little moving parts, and was built by the lowest bidder. You took the force of the launch very quickly, almost instantly. It felt like your body was made of lead all the way into orbit.

Putting a Venturestar into space was very different. There were still ground crewman around that meticulously checked every last detail. The prep for the orbiter was still a lengthy process. There was still the sights and feels of NASA when getting ready to take off. That was where the similarities ended. The aircraft took off like any other fixed wing aircraft. A commercial airline pilot could walk out onto a Venturestar ready line and still be in a familiar environment.

The first destination after take off was with an Air Force KC-135 tanker. The spacecraft topped off it’s fuel cells at that point and then lined up for it’s ascent. It had been decided that the disposable rockets, strapped beneath each wing, were going to be used for all of the Hermes construction missions. The shuttle bays were packed to the maximum payload capacities. It was thought that the spacecraft could still achieve orbit, despite the weight, but no one wanted to leave anything to chance.

Jack got the green light, from mission control, for a burn of his extra rockets. Before he flipped the switch, he checked the small monitors to his left. They showed live video feeds of the cargo bay and passenger compartments. His inanimate payload was doing just fine. His people were another matter. Gina Fujitsu was as pale as a sheet. Saiid’s eyes were even more bugged out than was normal. Pam was trying to pretend she wasn’t breathing heavy.

It almost made Jack want to laugh. Compared to getting blasted into space, the old fashioned way, this was nothing. The build up of gee forces they were experiencing was coming so gradually that it was barely noticeable to an old hat like Jack. He remembered feeling something on his first trip to orbit in one of these birds. It wasn’t really a conscious sensation that you could put your finger on. Your body just ‘knew’ something was not quite right. That was the last time he remembered thinking about it though.

Larry Barlow’s body certainly had figured it out. If his safety harness would have allowed it then Larry would be doubled over. Larry’s skin tone was radiating several shades of green. He had a barf bag in his hand but fortunately, for his fellow passengers, he had yet to use it. Jack felt sorry for the guy.

Larry really didn’t want to be here but, what choice did they have? There was no time to make the modifications to all three Venturestars. If that did not happen then they would never be able to land when they reached Alpha Centauri. That made the work both critical and impossible to take care of while still on Earth.

Larry could do the work easy enough, and probably quick enough, but Larry wasn’t the problem. His proposed modifications to the undercarriages required parts that did not exist. They could be manufactured but tooling up machines to make the machines took time. As it was, Jack felt lucky that they were getting the parts at all.

So the plan changed, one more time, and the Starship Hermes added one more crewman, bringing the total up to forty-seven. Hopefully Larry would be the last hitchhiker. Jack could handle things like being blasted into orbit. That was easy, straight forward, and he knew the nature of the forces he was dealing with right down to the decimal point. He could put it all on a graph and see it. What Jack was not so sure of was dealing with the personnel problems like those he had encountered with Julia and Larry.

The incident with Julia had been bad enough. ‘Baffling’ would even be a good word. Jack could not understand anyone turning down a trip like this! Thankfully, Larry never did that, at least, not outright he didn‘t. Jack could see the guy squirming as he thought the invitation over. Jack never really understood exactly what Larry’s reservations were. He was a recent widower with no real ties to leave behind so that was not the problem. What was it he thought he was leaving behind? At least with Julia it was obvious.

“Hang on guys,” Jack said over the intercom.

Saiid looked up at the camera and his eyes practically filled the monitor screen that Jack was looking at, “we’re not crashing are we?”

Jack looked over to Harry Wu who was taking up space in the crew chief’s seat. Jack winked and Harry laughed. Jack replied calmly over the intercom to Saiid, “yeah we are.” Jack flipped the switch and the rockets fired.

The sudden thrust pushed Jack back into his seat. As heavy as he felt, now, it was still nothing compared to the feeling of taking a blast off from one of those old rocket boosters. He could still turn his head from side to side without much difficulty. In this case he did not have too. The Venturestar had a heads up display for the pilot. He could monitor everything he needed too without having to turn his head. It was ironic that HUD’s had been standard on aircraft for years but had taken a while to make it’s way into spacecraft. They sure could have used one on the old space shuttle.

By the time the burn was complete, and the metal clanking sound of the boosters, falling away, could be heard, the invisible hand that was pushing down on everyone began to ease. Not long after that there was no more weight pushing anyone back into their seat at all. Their clothing began to rise up off their skin, hair began to rise off their scalps, and anything loose in their pockets became a problem. Larry’s stomach contents, unfortunately, had nothing holding them back either.

Pam called out on the intercom, “Jack is it ok to move around?”

His reply seemed to indicate that he was not watching his monitors. Apparently, Jack had no idea that Larry had just lost his lunch. His reply to the doctor was very playful and light sounding, “yeah. Want to come up and look?”

“In a minute,” Pam released her harness and pushed herself over to Larry.

All the while Saiid was still hanging on for dear life. His eyes were shut tight and he was almost hyperventilating, “are we dead yet?”

Gina easily undid her strap. She knew she was just as scared as Saiid. Gina just had the advantage of knowing how to hide it. She floated up into the cabin and quickly did a flip in mid air. “I love it! Colonel can I come up?”

As Gina reached the cockpit she heard Colonel Kelly discussing, with his Air Force co-pilot, whatever it was that astronauts discussed. For her part she understood none of it. Why did they have to use such big words? She soon forgot all about them when she looked out one of the crew windows and saw a vast darkness that actually glowed! Gina was in awe but that was not what she was looking for. Suddenly Gina almost felt a panic when she asked “where’s the Earth? We didn’t get lost did we?”

Harry Wu snorted in laughter. He pointed up to a couple of small windows in the top of the cabin, “we’ve already rolled over.”

They were upside down? Gina wondered why she didn’t feel it? Then she looked out the window. Out there was a blue vibrant world that was covered in swirling clouds and brown green masses of land. Her jaw dropped as her eyes locked in on a sight that they refused to let go of. Gina mumbled, “holy shit.”

Jack was chuckling as he looked back to his airman, “well congratulations Gina. You just doubled the number of words our professional spin doctor has managed to get out.”

When Gina looked away she was completely confused. Harry explained, “Red just keeps saying ‘wow’ all the time.”

Jack held up a hand for chatter to cease. He put a finger on the speaker in his ear and concentrated, “roger that Hermes. We have you on radar.”

The co-pilot pointed forward to a small dot on the horizon, “make that a mark one, sir.”

Jack relayed, “we have a visual Pete. How’s the pattern looking?”

As the two pilots began earning their pay, Gina edged closer to them and looked out the forward windows. She saw nothing out there but stars and there were so many of them! How did these guys see it? Then a thought struck her. Wasn’t the Hermes supposed to be big? The Earth sure looked bigger than it did on TV. Why did the spaceship, that she was going to be flying to another world in, look so small? Gina had been through all the training classes but now she was starting to see, first hand, how little all of that book stuff really meant.

She tested what she had learned, “how fast are we going?”

Jack took a second and pointed to the HUD. He translated the data into layman’s terms, “just a tad over 50,000 miles an hour. Hope we don’t run into any cops.”

If Gina got the joke she didn’t laugh, “why does it look like we’re not even moving?”

It was Harry that had to ask the obvious, “Gina were you sleeping through every class I gave?”

“Cut her some slack Harry,” Jack responded, “or I’ll tell her what happened on your first hop.”

Whatever exchange that went on after that, between Jack and Harry, was completely tuned out by Gina. Her eyes fixed on a growing dot on the horizon. It was captivating in the way it just kept getting bigger. It did not actually look like they were moving towards it at all. It was like it was growing! It was sort of like a balloon filling with air right in front of your face.

“That’s it,” said the co-pilot. “The hottest amateur astronomy ticket that’s going right now. I hear tell the Hermes is even beating out Mars. Everybody wants a peak.”

Now that Gina could actually make out details of the ship, that would be her home for a long time to come, she had to wonder why anyone would want to look at it. Compared to the sights that she had just beheld, it was kind of ugly and small. The ship looked like someone had taken a collection of hot water heaters, tied them up in a tangled mess of cables, hoses, and wires, just before strapping on some huge solar panels. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it. The ship was not streamlined in anyway. It was just a jumbled mess of used parts someone had found in a junkyard!

Jack had said something about that in one of the classes he recently gave. Gina had not realized how ugly he was talking. She remembered the basics of the class but, once again, seeing was believing. Jack had told them point blank, “there’s no wind resistance in space. We can make this ship as bulky as we want it to be.” He wasn’t kidding.

Right now all he told Gina was, “go strap yourself in kiddo. We’re about to start lining up our approach.”