The Orbiter we were flying on was a space plane that carried twenty passengers. The main cabin had ten seats on each side of the central aisle so everyone got a window seat. The Paradise class Orbiter was similar but larger than the earlier VSS Unity space plane. The Paradise orbiter carried a crew of three and twenty paying customers compared to the older space plane that only carried a crew of two and six passengers. Nina sudden said, “Check it out! The booms are moving up.” The twin booms on either side of the cabin had rotated into their high position which caused additional drag and helped slow the space plane down from orbital speed to something more reasonable for traveling through the Earth’s dense atmosphere. As neat as seeing the booms move into position was, after so long of just seeing the muted colors of the lunar landscape, the rich variety of colors present on the Earth below was just an astounding sight.

  The pilots of the orbiter got us into position and slowed us enough that the orbiter started encountering the upper edges of the atmosphere. We felt some light buffeting as the high drag position of the booms slowed us further and we were pulled deeper into the atmosphere. All the while, we were enjoying the amazing views out the windows. Eventually, the drag had slowed us enough that we had fallen to an altitude of around twenty kilometers, where the twin booms moved back to their normal horizontal position and the orbiter flew like a normal plane on into a landing at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The pilot came on to announce that it was 6:35 PM local time and that we would be at the terminal shortly. It was great to be back on Earth, but I felt like I weighed a ton.

  VISITS

  I awoke the next day in a bed at a hotel in Albuquerque. We had caught a shuttle flight out of Spaceport America to Albuquerque, where Denali had arranged hotel rooms for our group. I felt like I must be sick because I was so weak, but then I realized that the past three months of exercises the doctors had us all doing was the only thing that prevented Earth’s gravity from confining me to a wheel chair. I was hoping that we all recovered our strength quickly or it was going to be a long month on Earth.

  I joined Mom and Dad down at breakfast. They were eating with Nina’s Mom. Nina had insisted on at least going out for a brisk walk so her father had accompanied her. Both families had flights out soon so I quickly grabbed some breakfast. They had breakfast grits served with milk gravy and real, not 3D printed sausage patties. I was just finishing up scarfing the breakfast down when Mr. Hirayama stopped by to wish us well on his way to the airport. Mr. Saner had taken an early flight out so we didn’t have to say goodbye to him. A little later, we all piled in a shuttle and went off to catch our flights. As the families split up, we all got hugs and I told Nina I’d see her soon.

  The flight into Lambert seemed to take forever. We pulled up to the C Concourse and the walk from the end of that felt like it was a million miles. By mutual consent, my parents and I must have taken four breaks before we reached the main terminal where Grandma and Grandpa and my aunt Annabel were waiting for us. After we had finally reached their car and piled in. Grandma asked Mom, how our flight in was. Mom said with a laugh, “It was okay other than we had to wait when we got off because of some big shot celebrity.” Grandma asked who it was and Mom just pointed at me. I said, “Grandma, it wasn’t a big deal. The pilot thought she recognized me when we came aboard. She had the flight steward confirm it was really me and then she invited me to stop for a tour of the cockpit after we landed.” I sat back and listened to my parents and grandparents talk. The incident at the airport bothered me. I had enough of sticking out like a sore thumb last year. I didn’t want to be rude, but I really just wanted to be plain old Bryce and not some fantasy or horror other people thought I was.

  The next day at lunch, Mom got to talking about her efforts to contact Sabrina’s parents. Sabrina Fellows was a girl suffering from ALS who had joined our class remotely as a wish granted by the Make-A-Wish foundation. Sabrina had passed away near the end of our school year. Miss Gayle had suggested it would be a kind gesture to reach out to Sabrina’s parents while Nina and I were on Earth and my Mom agreed to arrange things with us possibly even making a trip to see Sabrina’s parents. Mom had contacted the Make-A-Wish Foundation to get the information to connect with the Fellows, but had struck out. For some reason, Make-A-Wish couldn’t give out the contact information. Mom was persistent and tried a number of different approaches at getting the information, yet each one failed to deliver the phone number.

  The doorbell rang and I tried jumping up to get the door. I was getting better, however, my muscles reminded me that we were back on Earth where everything, including my body, weighted six times what it did at NLH. I eased my way to the front door and opened it. I was greeted by two guys in suits. The older looking of the two gave me the once over and said, “Are you Bryce Burns?”

  “Yes, I am. What can I do for you?”

  “Is your mother home? We’d like to speak to her.”

  Out on the street was parked a dark Chevy Suburban. It had the look of an official car.

  I turned around and loudly called, “Mom, there are some gentlemen here to see you.”

  I was dying of curiosity so I stuck around as my mom came to the door.

  Mom took a look at the guys and said, “I’m Cheryl Burns, how can I help you?”

  With that, the older guy said, “I’m FBI Special Agent Greg Atco and this is Agent Paul Apollo.”

  He pulled out his ID badge and handed it to my mother as he said, “You have been trying to contact Rodger and Mary Fellows. We’d like to talk to you about that. May we come in?”

  Mom ushered them into Grandma and Grandpa’s living room and introduced them to my grandparents and my Dad who had come to investigate what the commotion was about. Grandma asked them if they’d like anything to drink and then Mom said, “Agents, I don’t understand what this is about. Sabrina Fellows remotely attended class with my son this Spring before she passed away. My son’s teacher thought it would be a kind gesture if my son and his classmate could contact Sabrina’s parents and share some memories with them while we are visiting Earth. Sabrina was well liked by the class and will be missed.”

  Agent Atco said, “Yes, ma’am, from what I know of her, Sabrina Fellows was a kind and gentle soul. I’m here to talk to you about her parents.”

  Mom said, “I don’t understand—”

  “No, ma’am, you wouldn’t. Miss Fellows parents are suspected of having perpetrated a fraud. They took in hundreds of thousands of dollars from multiple charities. The money was intended for Sabrina’s care, but they ended up using a lot of it on other things.”

  I said, “Sabrina wouldn’t do anything like that. There’s got to be some mistake.”

  “Miss Fellows isn’t guilty of anything, but being sick. Her parents possibly took advantage of the situation. Mrs. Burns, we know you’ve been trying to contact the Fellows. Our investigation is at a critical stage and your attempts to contact the Fellows could trigger them to flee before the investigation is complete. Right now, the Fellows are unaware of the investigation and—”

  I suddenly realized what the agent was implying and said, “Wait, are you saying Sabrina’s parents held back money that could have been used to treat her? That she might have lived if more could have been done?”

  Special Agent Atco paused what he was saying, swung around to look directly at me, and said, “This is an ongoing investigation and I can’t release any details to you. I’d like to think that the girl’s parents did everything they could to save her life, but I can’t tell you that.”

  He looked back at my mom and said, “Mrs. Burns, we don’t need you to do anything for the investigation other than to cease trying to contact the Fellows. Could we please have your co-operation with that?”

  The agents left soon after with Mom’s agreement to quit trying to contact the Fellows. The whole thing left me feeling sick to my stomach that Sabrina’s parents had possibly been greedy enough to let their own daughter die just so they could have a little more money. I went to sleep that night praying the FBI nailed their butts to the door.

  BECAUSE SHE SAID PLEASE.

  Agent Apollo slid behind the steering wheel as Special Agent Atco settled into the passenger seat. He started up the Suburban and sat there for a moment letting the vehicle cool down. It was late September but the summer heat hadn’t broken yet. Apollo looked over at Atco and said, “Nice family.”

  “Yep.”

  “So tell me again, why did we have to lie to them?”

  “Because that nice lady from the DOD came in with that ID that was way above our pay grade and asked the boss nicely. Then she said the magic words.”

  “Please and Thank you?”

  “No, she said National Security. Well, she also said please, but it was a threat to National Security that got the boss’s attention.”

  “We don’t even know what this is about. Is that good enough to lie to people?”

  Atco looked over at the younger agent and remembered when he had been that young, idealistic, and curious. He said, “Listen up, the answer is yes. Maybe you don’t like lying to people, but someone up above thinks it was necessary. They said National Security. When they say that, it means they are asking you to do a small thing to help protect our country. You do it, you shut up about it, you forget it ever happened. Trust me, Paul. You don’t want to go sticking your nose in this.”

  With that, he looked out the passenger window. He could tell the younger man was unhappy, but he’d be unhappier still if he started prying into things. He remembered when he was that age and had gotten curious. He was certain that if Paul tried to check on the mysterious Agent Roselle it would go the same way. Officially, he’d be rebuffed by Roselle if he tried to contact her directly. Using less obvious approaches would end up with friends and contacts refusing to return his phone calls. If he didn’t take the hint, the boss would call Apollo in for a career counseling session. Better that he stomp on the kid now than the boss stomp on him harder later.

  IT SEEMED SO LONG

  A month sounds like a long time, especially when you’re sixteen and you get a whole month off school. The reality was the time was just flying by. The good part of it was as time passed, our muscles recovered more and we could do more. The bad part was, the more we could do, the more it seemed like we had to do. We got some attention from the local press. The TV stations all did quick interviews with us. I tried to stay in the background as much as possible, but it was an interview with the local Post Dispatch newspaper that showed me that being a celebrity, even a minor one, did have some advantages. The reporter had done her homework and knew that I was a baseball Cardinals fan. She asked if we were going to take in any of the games while we were visiting and I told her that we had wanted to, but with the Cardinals firmly in the race for post-season play all of the few remaining home games were sold out. After the interview was published, we got a call from the Cardinals home office inviting us to attend the last home game of the season as guests of the Cardinals. That attention wasn’t so bad at all.

  I got to spend a lot of time with my friend, Marty. Eventually, he talked me into spending the day at school with him just to see what it would have been like if we hadn’t left Earth. He was a Junior at Saint Charles High School. High would have been the school I would have attended. The principal ended up extending the invitation to me. He wanted to make a big deal of it and have a school assembly on my behalf and in general make entirely too big a fuss about it. Mom talked to him and got him to scale things back. I agreed to answer questions about life on the Moon in each of the classes I would attend if the teacher was interested in me doing that. I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to that. In every class, we spent most of the time with the kids and teachers asking me questions.

  At the beginning of our third week on Earth, my mom got a phone call right after Grandma had made us another great breakfast. Dad asked Mom who had called and she said, “That was Dave Evans, Henry Chang’s executive assistant. Henry is inviting us out to Denali’s headquarters in Salt Lake City to view the premier of the CLT30 commercial and take a tour of the facilities if we’re interested.”

  Dad said, “If it’s this week, I’m tied up, but that might work out well with your other trip.”

  I said, “Going to see Denali would be cool. What other trip?”

  Mom sat down and said, “Well, I wanted it to be a surprise, but I thought you might like to go visit Sam while we’re here. We could fly out to Salt Lake City to visit with Henry, stay the night, and then hit Saint Cloud where Sam’s mom lives the next day. Let me call Callie and see what the Schubeler’s schedule looks like.”

  I really liked the idea of visiting Sam. She had been NLH’s chief of security until the disaster with Buddy happened. Sam had tried to talk Buddy into surrendering and then nearly died when Buddy had killed himself by exposing them both to the lunar vacuum. Only Sandy’s quick thinking had saved Sam, however, she had still been exposed to vacuum for almost a minute. It was a staple of bad science fiction movies that people will explode when exposed to vacuum. In real life, Sam didn’t explode, but she did experience a severe case of the bends and eventually was shipped back to Earth for further treatment. It had been six months since we had seen Sam and it would be really good to see her again.

  Mom came back in the room after ten minutes and said, “We’re all set. We’ll fly into Denver Wednesday morning and meet up with Nina. Callie said she and Nolan had other plans and would trust us with Nina. From Denver, the three of us will fly into Salt Lake City. Dave Evans will have someone meet us and bring us to the Denali Headquarters. After our visit, Dave is insisting we stay the night in their transient housing unit. Thursday morning, we’ll take their shuttle to the airport and fly into Minneapolis. I’ll rent a car and we’ll drive up to Saint Cloud to see Sam. Sam is staying with her mother. I talked to her mom and she decided to let our visit be a surprise.”

  Mom and I left early Wednesday morning. We got into the Denver terminal and were met by Nina. She led us to the gate for our flight to Salt Lake and we caught up on things during the wait for that flight. Mr. Evans was as good as his word and had a car and driver waiting to whisk us off to Denali AeroSpace headquarters when we got to Salt Lake City. We were ushered up to the reception area for Henry Chang’s office where Mr. Evans greeted us. He said, “Henry has another guest this morning that he’s just finishing up with. I’ll let him know you arrived and I’m sure he’ll be out shortly. In the mean time, please make yourself comfortable.”

  We sat down on the fancy couch and it was just a minute before the door to the office opened and Henry Chang stepped out. With him was a gentleman dressed in a military uniform. From the four stars on his shoulder, I figured he was probably some kind of general, however I wasn’t sure what branch of the service he was part of. The general and Henry came over and said, “Mrs. Burns, Nina, and Bryce, welcome to Salt Lake and it’s good to see you again. Please let me introduce another friend of mine, this is General Mark McNabb of the US Space Force.”

  The general politely chatted with us and my mom insisted that he call her Cheryl. I got the feeling he was a bit bemused by Henry introducing us, yet was letting things play out so he could see what Henry was up to. Henry didn’t disappoint when he said, “Mark, these fine people are here to see a commercial my folks just finished. If you have the time in your schedule, I think you might find it interesting.”

  The general decided to join us and Mr. Evans escorted us down the hallway to a plush viewing room. I watched the commercial with mixed feelings. It was a really exciting commercial and Nina and I looked especially good dressed up in the Denali flight suits and sitting at the controls. That was good. But it was also a double edge sword in that it brought more notoriety to me and I didn’t feel like that was such a good thing.

  Henry said, “So what did you think?”

  Mom, Nina, and I all said what a great commercial it was. General McNabb said, “Very interesting, Henry. I might have you send that to several congressmen on the appropriations committee. Nina and Bryce, that was a fine acting job. I almost believed you were piloting that ship. I can see why Henry hired you for this. Are you going to be appearing in anything else I might see soon?”

  The smile on Nina’s face instantly vanished. General McNabb was the guy Nina really wanted to work for eventually and he had just told Nina she was really good at faking it. If Nina hadn’t been my friend and if I didn’t know how serious she was about her goal I would have been laughing out loud. Henry had a handle on things and said, “Sorry, Nina and Bryce, sorry Mark, I guess I should have done a better job introducing you. Let me try again, General Mark McNabb, allow me the pleasure of introducing you to Nina Schubeler and Bryce Burns, Denali AeroSpace’s youngest CLT30 qualified pilots. For that matter, the world’s youngest CLT30 qualified pilots.”

  General McNabb recovered quickly and said, “My apologies, Nina and Bryce. With Henry involved, I should have known better. Where did you get your training?”

  Henry stepped in before either of us could answer and said, “Bryce received his original training a year ago from Makena Davies. He re-certified and Nina certified under Wyatt Saner. By the time Wyatt was done with them, he said the only thing keeping them for being the best pilots in the fleet was experience.”

  General McNabb gave us both an appraising gaze and then said, “That’s high praise from Wyatt Saner. My guys said Wyatt was a grumpy old man who got an inordinate amount of pleasure from killing them in the simulator every chance he got. Tell me more about you two, where are you planning on going to college? I think I might be able to swing a full ride through one of the service academies if you don’t mind coming to work for me afterwards.“

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23