It would strike the California coast with the greatest ferocity, crunching a few seaside homes which had long staved off the creep of the Pacific, “safe” upon stilts. Wrecked too were several ocean-view roads, and an older pier or two, but no one died, having been mysteriously pre-warned by NOAA and the USGS who had uncannily predicted the likelihood of a small tidal wave in the immediate future. Elsewhere, the wave would strike limply, causing no real damage. It simply spread out, distributing its energy uniformly, bouncing and rebounding off of coastlines and seamounts, passing back through the ocean over and over, becoming less and less pronounced, until its presence was indistinguishable from the normal ebb and flow of the seas.
High above, and becoming higher still, the Sword of Liberty pierced the atmosphere and left the confines of the Earth. The blue skies of the western hemisphere faded to black, and the roar of air molecules rushing by the hull faded away, leaving the ship to pass on in silence. The drive effect made no real sound when it was not burning air or water to plasma. However, if it could have been possible, an observer pressed against the hull might still have heard one thing—a singular voice crying out into the darkness.
“Yeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaa!!!”
Lying on his acceleration couch in the bridge/control room of the Sword of Liberty, Colonel Calvin Henson, USAF, NASA, winced and keyed his microphone. “Ms. Muñoz, can you please refrain from doing that?”
Her emphatic cry cut off in mid-Haaaaa and she cleared her throat. Kris smiled despite the two gravities of acceleration pushing her down in her own couch in Engineering and answered in her most demure and respectful tone. “I’m sorry, Colonel, I really don’t think I can. If I only get one ride on this tub, I plan to make the most of it. Now then, Wooooooooo Hooo—”
Her voice vanished as the new Commanding Officer of the United States’ first space destroyer cut off the intercom circuit to Engineering. He muttered to himself and tried to keep up with the massive streams of data inundating him from his displays and automated status boards. Nathan risked turning his head to look at the frustrated veteran astronaut seated next to him and tried not to smile too broadly.
Henson made some adjustments to the data he frantically monitored on his personal screen, and mirrored on the main screen. He keyed into the now silent command circuit again. “Pilot—I mean XO, standby to cut thrust. Stable orbit in five, four, three, two, one, and shutdown.”
Before the Executive Officer, Commander Daniel Torrance, USN, could touch the control to cut off the drive, the computer did it for him, having completed its programmed launch flawlessly. All sense of weight disappeared and the XO jumped slightly as he began to feel like he was falling. The former submariner stayed his hand from the superfluous shutoff command and keyed into the command circuit instead. “Captain,” he said, feeling unnatural addressing a non-Navy officer as such, “shutdown completed on schedule, stable orbit … achieved.” As he finished, another unnatural feeling began to overwhelm him.
Henson recognized the XO’s hesitation for what it was and keyed into the general announcing circuit, overriding all of the other comms circuits. “All personnel, this is your CO. We have reached orbit and are en route to rendezvous with the International Space Station. We’re finished with the scary, exciting part, so all we have to look forward to at the moment is the hard part, the actual work of space. There’s a lot to be tested and verified before we move on to the tactical phase, so I urge you to focus on your task list and try not to spend all your time doing somersaults and bouncing off the bulkheads.
“Now, for many of you, this is your first time in microgravity, so this sensation of weightlessness might be new to you. I caution you: don’t try to tough it out! If you feel the need, use the osmotic meds you’re carrying. It happens to a lot of us and it’s no reflection upon you if you need them. You can’t do your job if you’re getting sick everywhere. All right, all stations report in and commence space-worthiness checks per your checklists.”
Nathan released his harness and gave himself a short push, floating off the couch and into thin air. Despite the changes that had occurred, the setbacks they had all endured, and despite Gordon not being there, they had made it.
He looked around at the semicircle of acceleration couches and maneuvering coffins mounted to the deck, one for each bridge watchstander. The couches were each coupled with a set of flat touch screens and a communications panel, from which most operations of the ship could be controlled. Larger displays covered the padded, cable-strewn bulkheads, lighting up the bright white and navy blue bridge with information, while speakers and ducting crowded the overhead, setting up a background buzz of voices and noise that defined a ship underway.
Nathan grinned wide and foolishly as he tried to take it all in at once, unable and unwilling to put up a stoic front. He was here, in space, weightless, aboard his own ship. It almost made up for not being in command any longer. His was a jumble of emotions: excitement, anger, joy, nervousness, and even a touch of guilt.
The new commanding officer looked at him, bemused. “And how do you find it, Mr. Kelley?”
He turned to Henson. “Captain, Superfluous Civilian Consultant reporting in with nothing to do, sir!”
Colonel Henson frowned for a moment, considering, then pushed off of his own couch, directly at Nathan. He touched, grabbed hold of Nathan, and carried them over to a corner of the bridge, stopping them both much more adroitly than Nathan would have ever managed alone. Nathan briefly envied his experience, but Henson cut off his thoughts with a sharp whisper.
“Mr. Kelley, I need to know now if the two of you are going to continue to be willfully difficult for the rest of these space trials. If you are, I may be forced to have you confined to quarters until we can use the SSTOS to take you back down. Is that what you want?”
Nathan stared at the officer’s eyes, trying to gauge whether he was serious or not. What he saw failed to comfort him. “No, it’s not what I want.”
“Good. I don’t want that either, but I will do whatever is necessary to make these trials a success. Our launch is going to cause enough problems down on Earth, that I don’t need another set up here. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Henson smiled tightly, forcing himself to be somewhat more pleasant. “I really thought we had gotten past our … circumstances, Nathan. You and Kris have been nothing but helpful this past week, giving us a crash course on the Sword of Liberty.”
Nathan nodded. “We both want you guys to be successful. It’s in everyone’s best interests. I guess it’s just a little different being up here and knowing we’re not going all the way. But, that’s not your fault and we shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”
He blew out a long, slow breath. “All right, we’ll be good. I’ll have a word with Kris and we’ll stop pushing your buttons.”
“Thank you. Because while your instruction on the ground was excellent, I’ll admit that most of us are still too new to not be nervous pushing this bird’s buttons. We’re glad to have you along.”
The military skeleton crew and their two civilian consultants went to work, verifying the Sword of Liberty was safe and ready to continue with her trials. Coverall adorned crew flitted about the ship through bright white passageways festooned with handholds, cables, ducts and padding. The decks of the ship were all aligned perpendicular to the centerline running from bow to stern, set up for either weightless operations or for the pseudogravity that existed when the ship was under a standard one g of thrust, turning “forward” to “up” and aft to “down”.