Saving The Mission, page 3
part #1 of The Race to Space Series
Ed went to the fridge and took out a beer and sank into the sofa. Ed felt that days like this when he wished he’d not given up smoking. Ed wondered what he would give for that nicotine relief that you can feel relaxes your entire body. Now he had to make do with shop-bought lager and football on TV. He sat and drank his beer and put on the TV. There were the football highlights from the day, Ed started to watch them but before the first match was even done he fell asleep on the sofa.
The next morning, he woke up at around 6am and got into the shower to freshen up. He even started to feel his own enthusiasm for the space programme and his business as a whole waning. He took his time in the shower and felt the hot water running down his face. He rubbed the body wash into his body and felt his muscles, reminding himself that he really needed to work out more. After everything went to hell with the test flight he had let himself go. He vowed to go to the gym later on.
He stepped out of the shower with his towel around his waist and went to the fridge and started to make himself a smoothie, not caring if he woke Lanette up. Lanette came strolling through from the bedroom and he had to say she looked hot, in her silky nightie which showed her long model legs and with her breasts poking out of the silk nightshirt. If he hadn’t been so tired and frustrated he would have taken her on the kitchen counter but instead, he said “morning darling.”
She yawned and said, “Where were you last night, you didn’t come home?”
Ed replied, “Late business meeting, the board screwing things up again.”
She eyed him suspiciously “Was Ruth there?”
Ed rolled his eyes, he couldn’t deal with this today “Yes, she is on the board, remember? Of course, she was there. Look Lanny, I’ve never been unfaithful to you, you are the only one for me. Remember that.”
Lanette then came across and kissed him on the cheek, she had to reach on her toes to do so. She whispered “Ok Eddy I’m sorry. Do you have to go in early today or do you have time to snuggle on the sofa?”
The thought was rather pleasing to Ed who wanted to do nothing more at that moment but thought better of it. “I’ve got half an hour, put something on TV and I’ll be straight over”. Ed finished making his smoothie and watched Lanette as she strolled over to the sofa, her arse wiggling as she went. He strolled across to her and sat next to her and said “You’re looking delicious this morning Lanny” and kissed her deep and slowly. She groaned and tried to pull him towards her but he pulled away, he just didn’t have the time or energy today. He turned to the TV and laughed “if only your choice of TV was as good as your looks! What the hell are you watching anyway?”
Lanette giggled and said “It’s called ‘The Group’. Its a program where ten normal people compete in a house with a series of challenges and the winner gets a cash prize. The viewer votes for their favourite. It’s quite interesting because they usually ended up arguing and some couple usually ends up getting together and then it all kicks off.” She laughed and smiled at him. “Probably not a programme for you!”
Ed laughed, “probably not! I’m going in early this morning Lanny. I’ve got to sort something out with the board to stop the company going bust. Don’t expect me back until late.”
Lanette looked away and said “Oh, OK. Will you have a day for me and you soon Eddy? I miss you a lot when you are gone.”
Ed sighed and looked away, “the way this week is going, I will have next week. We have a week to turn things around.”
Lanette turned to look at him and her mouth comically opened in shock. “Only a week Ed? Will we be OK? Will we have to sell up?”
Ed stood up and when his gaze was away, rolled his eyes. He thought it was typical of Lanette to always be thinking of her possessions “I’m hoping not Lanny, I’ll try and sort it.” He got up of the sofa and walked away and felt like he had just left another interrogation, this time from his own wife. Ed wondered why she didn’t try and make her own way in life instead of relying on his income. Their relationship had become strained in the years since the test flight disaster, despite many public appearances to try and contradict the rumours. Ed was well aware that it probably wasn’t a coincidence that as his business was sliding, so was his relationship. He went to get changed into his black suit. Ed thought that it felt like a black suit type of day, a day of darkness and most likely misery. He shouted his goodbyes to Lanette, descended the spiral staircase and got into his chauffeur-driven Audi which was waiting to return him to the lions’ den.
5.
In the back of the Audi, Ed got out his tablet and started to think of some ideas to get his business back on track, but his mind was blank. He was sat in traffic in inner London wondering the same thought he did every time he did this commute if it would have been quicker to walk. As he looked out of the window, he saw the trudge amongst the other commuters, all going to the place where they needed to be but really didn’t want to go and thought better of it. Besides he would get recognised. In the old days that meant smiles and selfies, he definitely would take that. These days it meant shouts of abuse and echoes of “shame on you”. Ed sat quietly seething and feeling his blood pressure rising thinking about how the people who now hated him so much, didn’t realise what he had done for them. Ed thought that he would rather stay sat in the car waiting for the London traffic to move. It is bad enough that he gets abuse at work these days, let alone on the journey to work.
The slow drive did give Ed time to think about how he could get these people, who trudged through their daily lives, to be interested in space travel. Ed recalled the recent comments about Dayton Space and knew that it was the least thing on their minds. As he sat slowly progressing through the traffic, he noticed adverts for that mind-numbing programme Lanette was watching called ‘The Group’ and various other pointless adverts for perfumes endorsed by celebrities who would probably go nowhere near the product they were advertising. Not unless it involved a large payoff.
He wondered about paying a celebrity to endorse the space program. It could be an idea but getting someone on board who would be willing to do it would be a challenge. Ed made a mental note to scroll through his FriendFinder page to get some potential celebrities who could potentially endorse the programme. It was at least something for the board to consider.
They eventually pulled up outside Dayton Tower to be greeted by a huge crowd of cameras and people holding large microphones. As he stepped out he heard cries of “Only one week away from pulling the plug, Mr Dayton?”, “How much have you lost Mr Dayton?”, “Is Dayton Airways also in trouble Mr Dayton?”. He dismissed all questions and went inside fuming. He stormed to the security guard who was guarding the entrance to Dayton Tower like a prison cell, “How long have they been there?”
The Security Guard turned to Ed and straightened his back, with an air of authority. He must have been ex-military. He was wearing a company-issued black suit and tie with an earpiece in. “About an hour or so Mr Dayton”
Ed turned to look at the hoard outside his domain. He made a mental note that whoever double-crossed him was in for one hell of a lawsuit when he found out who it was. “Great. Keep them out.” The reply was so swift that Ed almost expected a salute.
“Yes, Mr Dayton.”
Ed walked towards the lift, still seeing the reflection of flashing lights as he approached. One of the major downsides of a fully glassed entranceway was there is nowhere to hide. Ed wondered which one of the board had double-crossed him? Was it Jim? Ed thought it was probably Jim or Tim who was piling the pressure on. Ed decided he didn’t care, he hated them all.
He ignored all his employees and went straight up to level twenty. In the boardroom, Ruth was already waiting. “Morning Ed, not a great start to the day is it?”
“They keep getting better,” Ed said. “Are any of the board here yet?”
Ruth replied, “One or two but they are in the canteen. You’ve got half an hour yet Ed. Have you had any ideas? If ever we are in need of one of you ingenious money making ideas it is now”
Ed looked at his tablet and the few notes he had made on his way to the office. Ed knew that he would end up making it up as he went along. “A few but not many of note. You?”
Ruth looked down at her tablet. Ed wondered if she had a screen full of similar shorthand jottings as he did. “Same, none that will save us I don’t think. Well, let's hope the others have or we are done.”
Ed looked out of the windows and even from this high up, he could still see the press circling below like crocodiles at the bottom of a bridge. “Ruth, grab yourself a coffee, I need to speak to Hans before this meeting starts.”
Ruth then gave him his new phone. “Don’t smash this one up” and winked. Ed watched her leave and close the door behind her and prepared himself to deal with Hans. He was sure he didn’t use to hate Hans, they used to get on quite well but ever since the test flight disaster he was the person who Ed blamed most.
Ed dialled Hans’s number and heard the German accent respond “Morning Mr Dayton.”. Hans Waldmann had come to Dayton Space recommended to him from the European Space Agency. He was their chief rocket scientist having worked both in Europe and for NASA on the design and development of rockets, specifically catering for human travel.
“Hans, anything to report? I’ve got a board about to pull the plug, so any news would be mighty helpful to saving your arse.”
Hans took an audible deep breath “We think we have found the potential cause of the problem.”
Ed was already frustrated. He decided he hated scientists as much as lawyers these days as neither seemed to give him a straight answer. “You either have or you haven’t Hans. Which is it?”
Hans replied, “well we think the problem was two-fold; that one of the thrusters didn’t work so that upon re-entry we couldn’t get the exact speed to make a perfect re-execution into Earth’s atmosphere. Even then that wouldn't have been enough. We also think that a piece of debris from space hit the outer shell of the shuttle near the fuel line. That extra heat upon re-entry, close to the inner workings of the fuel line, meant that it got too hot inside and the fuel line overheated causing the explosion.”
Ed had long been staring out of the window at this point and stated, “Hans, in a nutshell, what was the problem and how do we fix it?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line “Well here is the funny thing. It appears at the moment like a case of bad luck. Apart from that, we are looking at some further outer protection for the shuttle to more effectively withstand the heat but the fact that a thruster went down as well as the debris hitting the side in that exact place, is incredibly unlucky.”
Ed thought about throwing his phone at the window, then realised he’d had it only one day and decided against it. “Bad luck? That is some fucking bad luck, Hans! I can’t go to investors and say sorry guys two astronauts died because of bad luck. If we put it all on red next time it will be ok! Can you sort it, Hans?”
There was another long pause “We think so but it will take some time.”
Ed snapped “You have one day” and put the phone down. Just as he was muttering under his breath about bad luck, his board members all walked in. Ed composed himself and stood behind his chair ready for the battle ahead.
6.
Ed watched as the rest of the board took their seats and sat facing him, watching him, expecting him to pull a miracle out of the hat. Ed felt like it was now or never, he felt that if this meeting didn’t go well it would be the end of Dayton Space and could spell the collapse of Dayton Industries.
Ed took a deep breath and began. “Right, today is the day to get this sorted. I have just heard from Hans and they believe they have found the problem with Dayton Mark 1. It took some damage before re-entry near the fuel line and that caused the craft to overheat on re-entry. Hans says it was simply bad luck. The shuttle was fine.” Ed did not at this stage feel it appropriate to state that the thruster had failed, that could come later once nerves had settled. “Khalid can you get Gail to do a press release to that effect, interview Hans and focus on the bad luck angle. That should ease the initial concerns.” The board looked slightly relieved and Khalid nodded his approval. Although one of his board being Tracy Carmichael who was the Director of Space Operations did not look so relieved. “Ed that’s not quite what I’ve heard from Hans when I spoke to him yesterday. Yes, there was an element of bad luck but the outer shell does need protecting from further heat damage.”
Ed felt the ten sets of eyes glare at him uneasily “That is true Tracy but it is fixable and it was not a major problem with the shuttle which is surely the main thing.”
Tracy looked at him once more “It is fixable but it won’t be a quick fix, Ed. You cannot cut corners when it comes to the safety of the shuttle or the people who travel in it in fact.”
Ed nodded, “that is not my intention but if we know the problem, we can fix it. The most important thing is we know how to, and your fabulous team are working on it as we speak.” Ed hoped his slight sarcasm in the word fabulous came through and came across genuine. It seemed to, as the board seemed to relax once again.
Ed began again “I’m not going to ask which one of you double-crossed me last night because the paparazzi didn’t just turn up to say hello!” Ed noticed many people looked away. He tried to see if anyone had a truly bad poker face and would give themselves up but everyone looked as shifty as each other so he drew no conclusions. Even Ruth looked away, which slightly unnerved Ed. He tried to focus on the task at hand. Ed finished off by saying “OK, you all had the night to think on things. The floor is open to your suggestions.”
The board looked around at each other and waited for someone to take the lead. Ed showed his exasperation and threw his hands up in the air “Anyone with an idea of how to save your jobs? An idea to save this company from collapse?” Silence descended in the room. It was so quiet Ed could hear someone using the photocopier a few rooms away. “No one? Well, this is bloody typical. I’m not sure how your “get rid of Ruth and Ed plan” is going to work out when you all seem to be missing your tongues!”
As if provoked Jim raised his voice. When he raised his voice, you could hear the warble of his fat rumbling against his neck. “Well, what is your mystical company saving idea Mr Dayton, Sir? Do you have any idea how to solve the mess you got us all into? You dismissed my idea of scaling back to make the adventure more profitable.”
Ed snapped, “that is because it was quite frankly, shit Jim!” Ed looked around the room, every person was looking at each other or at their tablet in front of them in the awkwardness of yet another confrontation between the two men.
“Tell me Ed, what is the point in having a board, if the only person you listen to is yourself?”
Khalid then interrupted to break the growing internal power struggle between Ed and Jim by saying “what about a celebrity endorsement?”
Ed thought that Khalid must have seen the same perfume advert on the billboard as him on the way into work that morning. “That could work Khalid, I’ll look through my contacts but getting any celebrity on board at this moment in time is going to be difficult. Any other ideas?”
Ruth interjected “I was thinking about a competition to tour the hanger. See a real spaceship up close. It could be a kids competition like a colouring competition. Get the kids on side and the adults will follow.”
Ed smiled and pointed to Ruth. Ed knew he could always rely on Ruth to have a sense of entrepreneurship. “I love it! Khalid, run it and get some press for it and get Gail to earn her ridiculous wage on it too. It’s good, really good but not big enough. It will be good for promoting Dayton Space on kids TV to get them all excited. It might make a few headlines but not headline news. About fifth in the order behind all the other rubbish in the news. We need to reach the masses, not just those with kids. Something headline-grabbing. Something bold. Something to go on billboards like that stupid programme Lanette was watching. Hang on...could that work…” Ed walked around the room, stroked his chin and looked up to the ceiling. The board looked at each other in confusion.
As if a metaphorical light bulb appeared above his head, Jim said, “you are not serious Ed, you have lost your bloody mind!”
Ruth looked around the board confused. “What programme? Ed, what are you thinking?”
Katie who normally stayed quiet in this meeting while she typed the minutes as Company Secretary squealed in excitement. “Oh my God, it is brilliant. You have to do it, Ed!”
Ed walked around the table so he could view each member of his board individually and so that he stood behind them each individually. Looking down on them as he walked past. “We would need coverage, big worldwide coverage. We might need to slightly alter the specs for the new shuttle. Definitely can be done, Hans would have to put up with it. It is certainly bold, is it headline news? Yes, I think so. We could use Tim with his social media to get the publicity. Get him to do something for once…” Ed stood behind his chair once more “but what could we call it?”
“Dayton’s space race” Katie chirped in. Ed replied “Nah too cheesy. Hmmm” He looked at his tablet and started looking through Dayton Space’s web page to give him inspiration. None was forthcoming.
