Alone in the Dark, page 6
part #3 of Lunar Age Series
“Now hang on a minute, Mark, I’ve got an investment in both of these fine kids. Are you actually going to stand there and try and poach them out from underneath me with me standing two feet away?”
I was still a bit in shock from hearing that Mr. Saner had described Nina and me so highly. I could only imagine what was going through poor Nina’s head. First the man in charge of the Space Force describes her piloting experience as great acting, Henry drops the bomb that Mr. Saner actually said something nice about us, next General McNabb is making noises about giving her an appointment to the Air Force Academy just like she wanted and finally, Henry starts pushing back on the General for trying to do exactly what Nina was hoping for.
Nina finally came around and said, “That would be wonderful, General. I—”
Henry said, “Stop right there, Nina. As your employer, I can’t stand by and let you be taken advantage of. He doesn’t know you like I do. Why, he’s just saying he might be able to get you into an Academy. A young woman with your solid academic background and accomplishments of which the CLT30 certification is just one of many and all he’s offering is he might be able to get you in. Don’t sell yourself short. I’ll commit right now to a full ride scholarship for both you and Bryce to the school of your choice. All I ask is you continue working for Denali for five years after you graduate. That’s a much better deal than he’s offering.”
The wheels were spinning in Nina’s head and she turned to General McNabb and said, “General, I—”
General McNabb said, “It’s okay, Miss Schubeler. I should have known better than to try to negotiate unprepared in front of Henry. If you promise to give me another opportunity down the road, I promise I’ll bring my A game. From what I’ve seen of you so far, I’d really like you to come to work for me.”
The rest of the day went by in a pleasant blur. I was happy for Nina, but I hadn’t missed that Henry had included me in the scholarship offer. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go to school, however working for Henry afterwards sounded pretty good. We had dinner that evening with Henry and his wife and in the morning we headed off to Minneapolis.
NOT WHAT ANYONE EXPECTED
I swear they really didn’t need any fuel for our flight into Minneapolis. Nina had awakened this morning and it had hit home that General McNabb was going to get her into the Air Force Academy. It wasn’t a done deal, yet all she had to do was let the General talk her into it. Like that wasn’t going to happen. With the excitement of the previous day finally hitting home, Nina was a dynamo full of energy. She could have powered our flight and still had plenty of energy left over. The ride in the rental car up to Saint Cloud was fun as Mom found a radio station playing oldies and started singing. Nina was in too good of a mood to resist so she and my mom were singing the oldies all the way to Saint Cloud. I spent the ride thinking about the meeting with General McNabb and Henry. All of it had been lighthearted, but when Henry objected to the General’s offer to Nina, it had been heart warming to see how Henry had come to Nina’s aid. He had her back, even if we really were only the most temporary of employees. I could see why the people who worked for Henry were so devoted to him.
Sam’s mom lived on 24th Ave up near the rail yard. We pulled up under the trees featuring a dazzling display of fall colors. It was just a modest house on the west side of the street with a steep pitched roof and light green siding. We were almost to the door when it opened and a older looking version of Sam greeted us with a big smile and said, “You must be Cheryl. It’s so good to meet you. You kids must be Nina and Bryce. It’s good to meet you too, hey. Sam is going to be so happy to see you. Please, come on in.”
As we filed into the living room, Sam’s mom turned and called, “Sam, come in here please. You have some visitors.” With that done, she turned back to us and said, “Oh, where are my manners, I’m Cathy Tanner, Sam’s mother.” As she was saying that a younger lady in a wheelchair rolled into the room. She didn’t look happy when she first came in, but when she saw us, her face broke out into a smile and a voice I recognized called out, “Cheryl, Bryce, Nina! What are you doing here?” The voice told me it was Sam, but it took me a moment to process what my eyes were seeing and turn it into Sam. Her hair was longer and a bit unkempt. Sam had always worn her hair short to make it easier to get a helmet on when she needed to wear a pressure suit. She was much heavier than I was used to seeing Sam. She looked older and more worn down than the Sam I remembered. Oh, yeah, then there was that whole being stuck in a wheel chair thing.
I blurted out, “Sam, what the heck happened to you?”
My mom turned to me and scolded, “Bryce.”
Sam just chuckled and said, “It’s okay, Cheryl. He just said what the rest of you were thinking.”
Sam faced me and said, “Still not got that whole how to talk to girls thing down pat yet, hey?”
I felt like I ought to crawl into a hole somewhere.
Sam said, “Please, go ahead and sit down. Make yourselves comfortable. It’s not a bad question. It’s one I’ve asked myself a lot lately.”
We sat down on the couch while Sam’s mom sat in a comfortable chair. Sam rolled further into the room and said, “Bryce, you were there for the start of it. I got exposed to vacuum. It wasn’t long enough to kill me because of Sandy’s quick rescue. I had some minor damage to my skin where it was exposed, but the real problem was deep inside. I had a case of the bends like divers get when they come up too quickly. I had some joint damage that they couldn’t treat at NLH so that’s why they shipped me home. Without being able to go through the complete pre-return protocol like you guys went through, I arrived and had to go into a wheelchair. The docs ran a bunch of tests and found I have dysbaric osteonecrosis affecting both my femurs and the joints in my legs. Basically, parts of my bones have died. It’s one of those things that takes a while to become noticeable. At first, I was able to get out of my wheel chair for short periods, but the longer I was here, the more painful it became. It all comes down to, I have severe arthritis and am probably stuck in this wheelchair for the rest of my life.”
We spent the rest of the morning talking with Sam. I told her about the deal that brought us to Earth. Nina told her about how I had tried to give her my spot and all the ordeals with Mr. Saner. Sam also had some good news for us in that sometimes people with dysbaric osteonecrosis saw spontaneous improvement. Sam’s doctor was cautiously optimistic that some recent improvements she had seen were signs that Sam might be getting better. All Sam had to do was rest her joints while also working out to get stronger. It didn’t seem very likely to happen. We left in the early afternoon and headed back to Minneapolis. We made sure Nina was on a plane back to Denver and then Mom and I caught a flight back to St. Louis.
Back at Grandma and Grandpa’s, I was sitting on their front porch swing that evening when Mom came out to join me. She said, “You’ve been awfully quiet since we left Sam’s.”
“I keep thinking about how I first saw her there. I didn’t even recognize her. Mom, it’s not right. She tried to save that idiot’s life and now she’s stuck in that chair.”
“I know son. I’ve been thinking about her, too.”
“She said she was on permanent disability. Does that mean she can’t work?”
“Yeah, it means physically she’s not up to the demands of working.”
“The demands here?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s not up to the demands of working here. What about working on the Moon?”
“Demarco took over her job. Even on the Moon she wouldn’t be up to doing that job.”
“Maybe not that job, but I bet there’s other’s she could do. Plus, the lunar gravity would be a lot easier on her joints. If she is getting better, maybe that would help her get better faster and if she’s not, then maybe it would mean she wouldn’t get any worse.”
Mom stared at me for a moment and then said, “When did you get so smart? Let me a make some phone calls tomorrow. We’ll see what’s possible.”
REUNION
STORMY WEATHER
Our time on Earth came to an end all too soon. We met up with the Schubeler's and launched from SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site. Henry Chang’s people had researched the cost for down and back from LEO and found that there was a cheaper launch for us if we used the Boca Chica site. The everyday workhorse Dragon 3 capsule brought us to the Denali Whirligig. Unlike the last time we were at the Whirligig, we had enough time to take a tour of the station. It was a very impressive space, and it had to be, I realized, because this space functioned as the showroom floor for CLT30 and CLT-SB sales.
We had finished touring the station when my mom said, “I just spoke with the steward. We can board the CLT30 now.”
Nina said, “Mrs. Burns, do you know which CLT we’re going to be traveling on?”
“It’s Denali One, Nina. The steward said our launch window is coming up and they’d like to get everyone boarded and squared away. There’s some VIP and their entourage that they are expecting who’s coming in at the last moment. They’re hoping this doesn’t delay our launch by too much.”
We made our way on board and found our seats. The cabin wasn’t very full and then I realized that most of these people had probably made the trip to Earth with us. Working on a suspicion, I called the steward over and asked, “Whose up on the command deck for this flight?”
“Commander Saner is the pilot and Craig Hirayama is the co-pilot this trip. Don’t worry about anything, they are two of the most experienced pilots flying the CLT30 these days.”
I thanked the steward and then closed my eyes to relax for a couple of minutes. It was good to be back for a visit, but a month wasn’t enough to fully acclimate to Earth’s gravity. Being back in zero-g felt very, very good at the moment. I’d been sitting there like that for several minutes when there were some noises from the hatch and I heard a familiar voice. I looked over, and there was Sam. She floated over by my family and said, “Hello, Burns family. Desmond, it’s good to see you again.”
Then she got a very serious look on her face and said, “Cheryl and Bryce, the oddest thing happened after you visited me. I got a call from Sandy asking if I might be interested in coming to work for him. He said he had a young fella working for him that needed watching because he doesn’t know when to mind his own business. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Bryce?”
“Uh, no ma’am.”
“Of course you don’t. I had to turn Sandy down because of my medical condition. Then, something even stranger happened when I got a call from my doctor and he told me he thought I might do better if I could get out of Earth’s gravity for a while. Can you imagine that, Cheryl?”
“Uh, no ma’am.”
There were suddenly tears in Sam’s eyes and she said, “I don’t know how you two pulled it off, but thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
Sam pulled me into a hug and then floated over and gave my mom a hug too. Sam sat down near us and we spent the next several hours catching up on things. This was the Sam I remembered. She had gotten her hair cut and with the zero-g she didn’t need crutches or a wheelchair. She still was packing a few more pounds on her frame than I remembered, however, the biggest change since we had seen her in St. Cloud was the smile that seemed to constantly grace her face.
Although I had made the trip to the Moon before, this was the first time I was doing it as a passenger on the CLT30. Nina and I hung out together and enjoyed the amazing views of the receding Earth that you could catch out the windows. This was so much better than sleeping all the way to the Moon like we did on our first voyage there. There did come a point near the middle of the trip where sleep finally caught up to me , and like the rest of the passengers, I enjoyed some shuteye for about eight hours. I woke up in time to grab one of the deluxe meal kits that Denali stocked on their CLT30’s and enjoy a quiet breakfast with my parents. I was looking forward to enjoying the view of the lunar landscape as we approached the Moon when the steward floated over to me. I said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning, sir, Commander Saner is requesting your presence on the command deck.”
“Do you know what this is about?”
“No sir, they recently received an alert of some kind and after reviewing it, Commander Saner requested you and Miss Schubeler report to him. If you’ll excuse me now, sir, I’ll inform Miss Schubeler.”
Nina joined me at the base of the trunk that led up to the command deck. When we reached there, Nina said, “Good morning, Commander Saner. You asked for me and Bryce?”
Saner looked up from the co-pilot seat and for once, the look on his face didn’t seem to be saying we were unworthy to be on his command deck. Maybe it was all in my mind due to what Henry had said during our meeting with General McNabb or maybe something else had changed. Commander Saner gestured for us to sit down in the jump seats and then said, “NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a Warning for a geomagnetic storm. I’ve routed it to the screens there and want you to read it.”
Nina and I both pulled panels around to our front and started reading the Warning. Geomagnetic storms result from variations in the solar wind flowing past the Earth. The strongest storms are produced when the Sun burps a bit of plasma from its surface in what’s called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). CME’s can take days to reach the Earth but that period can be much shorter for stronger storms. Nina was a little faster scanning through the Warning. Suddenly, she said, “Oh no, this is at least on the same strength level as a Carrington Event. The wavefront will reach us in about eight hours. What’s our ETA for landing at NLH?”
“We’ll make it. We’re about six hours out right now. Plenty of time to get the ship down safely. Just to be on the safe side, once we land, I’d like to strip the flight system control boards and bring them inside while the storm lasts. Probably overkill, but replacements might be hard to come by after the storm is over. What I’d like for you to do is to sit jump seat just in case you are needed unexpectantly. Once we’re down, I’ll need your help with shutting things down and stripping the cabinets. You’re on the clock for this. Go see the steward, he’s got your flight suits.”
Nina and I looked at each other as we floated off the command deck. Clearly, our vacation was over.
LUNAR RESCUE
Once Nina and I were dressed in our flight suits we reported back to the command deck. Commander Saner had us strap into the jump seats and then begin reviewing the long term shutdown procedures for the CLT30. As soon as we were both satisfied with those procedures, he had us start reviewing the procedures for pulling and storing the control cards that were the heart of the CLT30’s flight system. I was almost finished with the last procedure when a gentle tone announced the arrival of another high priority alert. Commander Saner reviewed the alert and then put it up on the general net so Nina and I could pull it down. The good news was the prediction for when the wavefront would hit was remaining constant. We’d be down on the ground in about three and a half hours and the wavefront would reach us about two hours later. The bad news was the estimates for how strong a storm this was continued to climb. Once we were on the ground and safely underground at NLH we’d be safe.
The problem with the storm’s strength was how much life on Earth had changed since the last time a storm so strong had struck. The Carrington Event happened back in eighteen fifty nine. It was a huge geomagnetic storm, however, other than telegraph system disruptions, the storm had little effect on human life. The biggest impact it made back then was providing some truly spectacular auroras visible far outside their normal boundaries near the poles. A lot had changed on Earth and near Earth in the one hundred and eighty years since the original event. Human bodies would still remain unaffected by the storm, but on Earth, any technology that utilized long conductors like power lines or pipe lines would be at risk, so would things near Earth like satellites, space stations, and space vehicles like the CLT30.
It was quiet on the command deck so I risked asking Commander Saner a question. I said, “Commander Saner, how bad do you think Earth will get hit?”
He gave it a couple of minutes’ consideration and said, “It’s really hard to tell. We’ve known about the possibility of a storm like this hitting for years. The government has had recommendations out to the companies that make up the power grid for a very long time. Same thing for the pipe line companies. The companies that build satellites are aware of this possibility. The problem is, none of this has been tested real world to this level of strength. Even equipment with safeguards may be overwhelmed by this storm. It’s just too hard to call. We could see major power outages or we could see no effect at all. I’m more worried about the infrastructure in orbit. That’ll take the brunt of the storm. People have tried to design in enough shielding, but we’ve never seen a storm at this intensity. I think we’ll lose a fair number of satellites and who knows what else.”
I thought about for a while and then looked over at Nina. She was staring back at me with a worried look on her face. Commander Saner said, “As long as we’re asking questions, I have one for you. How long can your mother keep us fed?”
“What do you mean?”
“If things on Earth are really bad after the storm, it may be a long time before we see things like resupply ships from Earth. We might even have to give up the Moon if we can’t get enough food. Can your mom supply us with enough calories to replace what we might not be getting from Earth?”
