“It should be any second unless they had some kind of hold. You know what they’re launching?” Charlotte said as she searched the skyline for any sign of a rocket launch.
“Well, Mom just said it was classified. But I don’t get why she could bring us to see a launch if it’s classified.”
“Dingbat!” Charlotte said with a chuckle. “How they gonna hide from all the local people that a big, bright, and noisy rocket just fired off? My dad said it was classified and that I couldn’t ask him any questions about what is on it. But the fact that there’s going to be a launch isn’t classified.”
“You think it’ll be that bright in the day — look!” Tina stopped midsentence and pointed north-northeast.
“Oh wow! It’s really bright! And check out that smoke trail!” Charlotte was giddy and pointing at the modified Boeing rocket as it pulled upward from Earth’s gravity well. Both girls had seen smaller launches their parents had attended, but this one was different. The rocket’s rumble was a solid body blow, as heavy even as the shuttle launches. Others along the beach turned toward the sky to watch the massive rocket — one of the largest to launch from the Cape since the legendary Saturns. One of the surfers wiped out, but the girls failed to notice. None of them had any idea what was onboard, where it was going, or why. But, they were fascinated by the rocket, its bright glare and rumble going on and on…
“Congratulations, John.” Roger shook Dr. Fisher’s hand and patted him on the back. “Doin’ good, right?”
“That’s right.” John slumped in his chair in the VIP support room. “The launch vehicle functioned flawlessly and the telemetry reports so far tell us that the modified rocket system has pushed Percival into an Earth escape trajectory. Control tells me that the first stage combination of three kick motors fired and completed its burn, then separated. The second kick motor repeated the process from ignition to burnout with no problems. The third kick motor functioned likewise. The telemetry data downloaded from the star trackers to the main bus guidance and navigation computer tells that the software activated the algorithm to optimize the final thrust vectoring for the optimal burn vector to enter into the Mars incident trajectory. So, boss, my job is done. The spacecraft is on its way to Mars.” John grinned and loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. “I’m gonna go find me an umbrella out there on the beach somewhere and sleep under it for about two days.”
“Good job, John. That sounds like a really good idea.” Roger wished he could join him but there were payload checks that had to be run. But, all things considered, there was not really a lot to do over the next four and half months while Percival coasted toward Mars. Maybe the beach was a good idea.
It would be a little less than five months before Percival would fly-by less than a hundred kilometers from the strangely changing planet, but in the meantime the instruments and science suite began to come online for checkouts and operational status. What should we do now? Waiting sucks. Roger thought.
Chapter 7
“Waiting sucks,” Major Gries muttered under his breath while he flipped through an unclassified white paper about synthetic gecko skin. This small five-employee company in New Mexico had decided that they had a new invention that would allow infantrymen to walk up walls, trees, windows, you name it. But Gries was having a hard time getting in to see the scientist who was supposed to be there to meet him. Apparently, as Carolyn Breese, the secretary of Gecko-Man, Inc. explained to him, Dr. Forrester had forgotten that today was Wednesday and that he was supposed to be there for a meeting.
“Major Gries,” the secretary told him. “I just contacted Carl, uh, Dr. Forrester, again and he was in his car on the way here. He apologizes for his confusion and says you should make yourself at home. Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, ma’am, that would be nice,” Shane said.
“Normally, one of the other engineers could show you around, but everybody is at a preliminary design review in Clarendon this week. Sorry.” Carolyn Breese finished filling a Styrofoam cup with hot black coffee. “Sugar or cream?”
“Black is fine, ma’am. Thanks.” Gries sat back down into the folding chair against the wall across from the secretary a bit annoyed now that he realized there was going to be a considerable amount of time killed in small talk with Mrs. Breese. That was not a real bad thing and Shane was not the type who was too stuck up or important to spend time talking to a little old lady. In fact, she kind of reminded him of his mother. But he had a lot of work to get done and he had a three PM flight from Albuquerque to LAX that he had to make. He had hoped he would have time to get lunch from some place other than the airport; that didn’t look promising now. Airport food was killing him and making him soft. Shane hoped that he could get in a ten kilometer run sometime tonight but most likely he would end up on a hotel treadmill, which got old fast.
After about forty-five minutes, Forrester finally arrived. Shane guessed he was about five foot nine and weighed in at about two hundred and thirty pounds, not much of it muscle. His hair, although short in length, was extremely unruly and did not appear to have been touched by a comb in years. The most stereotypical part about the scientist’s appearance was that he was wearing slacks, a shirt and tie, but at the same time was wearing running shoes. Running shoes, Gries laughed to himself. This guy hasn’t run anywhere but to the fridge and back in his life. Shane smiled and offered his hand.
“Hello, Major. Sorry I’m late. It simply slipped my mind about our meeting today. I’m Carl Forrester.” He shook Shane’s hand, smiling happily in return.
“Hi, nice to meet you, Dr. Forrester.” The humor in the man’s appearance was enough for Shane to forget about being angry that he had been kept waiting.
“Come, come with me,” Dr. Forrester told him, leading him down the hallway. The little laboratory was located in an old strip mall that had gone belly-up. The walls had holes and raw unsanded white spackle and sheetrock mud splattered at random, as if someone had made a piss poor attempt at fixing them. There were filing cabinets, one Moesler safe with little green magnets on each drawer saying closed, books, and spiral-bound reports stacked all along the floor and on top of the cabinets.
“Here we are.” Dr. Forrester pecked in some keys on a cipher-locked door, then swung the door open to a makeshift laboratory that was filled with workbenches, a Snap-on toolbox, a few computers with wires running from them into aluminum boxes, and rolls and rolls of what looked like orange sandwich wrap — Shane had already been to several composite armor companies and recognized it as Kapton, the polyimide material that was used in most of the next generation armor labs.
“This is a sputtering chamber where we grow our synthetic gecko skin.” Forrester pointed at a large enclosed chamber with a computer control panel on the front of it. There were several manipulators, spinning tables, and stylus arms inside the large enclosed device.
“Why don’t you give me a little background before we get into the show? I’m not certain I understand how this stuff is supposed to work,” Gries requested.
“Ah, great, great.” Forrester motioned to a workbench stool with a stack of papers on it. “Yes, yes, have a seat.”
Shane looked at the bench, then around the cluttered laboratory for a place to set the papers. He carefully picked them up and set them on the floor. Forrester had already turned away from him and was erasing a whiteboard across the room. Shane chuckled to himself again and sat down.