Chapter 26
Border between Ukraine and Turkey, Black Sea
Sunday
12:00 p.m. Turkey Economic Exclusive Time
3:00 a.m. Eastern Time
“You mean we could have just stolen the gauntlets?” Michael was frustrated with the launch segment part of the plan. Over the past six years there had been one delay after another. The chief engineer, Georgia Stinson, had made delivery promises again and again that had been delayed, reimagined, and completely thrown out the window. Michael wasn’t a rocket scientist but he got that it was difficult. But it made planning operations damned difficult when there was a major key component to the plan that kept shifting about ambiguously. He and Vladimir had managed to keep the plan fluid enough to be malleable based on the evolving situations. But the changes never seemed to stop.
Just like with the suits. Stinson had promised better, more modern and maneuverable space suits several years back. Then at almost the last minute, they were told the suits wouldn’t be ready. So, Vladimir and Michael solved that problem by taking the risk of going back into Russia and stealing suits and committing arson along the way. Then, at the very last last minute there was a change. Now Stinson was telling them that the new suits from Dorman’s suit-building effort could be mated to the gloves from the Orlan space suits they had stolen from Schwab’s place near Moscow. That would have been some very useful information a few hours prior.
“I’m sorry, Michael, but my suit design and test team didn’t think of this earlier until they actually started conditioning the suits you brought from Russia. We just simply didn’t know that they would fit to the Dorman suits with a simple CNC adaptor ring,” Georgia said.
“Can we trust the integration?” Vladimir asked. “If so, the Dorman suits are far more maneuverable. I would prefer them to the Orlan.”
“Yes. They were a simple alteration and integration. Had we bought Orlan suits to reverse engineer rather than starting from scratch, I think we’d have ended on this design anyway. It actually will be a better design. The Orlan gauntlets are well tested and very functional.” Georgia turned from the large window overlooking the cleanroom where the suits were being prepped.
Behind her were four engineers or scientists or technicians—Michael wasn’t certain—feverishly assembling the new Dorman suits. The suits had a hard torso with compression sleeves and pants that led to more boot-looking foot coverings than the Orlan space suit’s boots. Michael knew that, from design, the torso would also function as Level IV body armor, meaning that it would stop most modern rifle rounds below sniper caliber. There were multiple cables plugged into the suit leading to a computer panel displaying all sorts of data and graphs that were changing with each adjustment the team made. It was clear that this was indeed a very high-tech operation. Michael did understand and respect that.
“And you’re certain these will be ready in time?” Michael asked.
“Oh, they will be ready within the next eighteen hours or so.” She looked at the two men with a very sincere frown on her face. “I am sorry that you went to the trouble of bringing all the suits here. I realize they are cumbersome and heavy. And that you put yourselves at risk to accomplish this. But now, we have spares.”
“The plan doesn’t require spares,” Michael said gruffly.
“Maybe not. But it doesn’t hurt to have them,” Georgia said.
“Michael, it doesn’t matter.” Vladimir put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him even though Michael shrugged the hand off, annoyed. “Let her get back to work. She has lots to do and very little time. Besides, Sing could probably use some extra muscle. We’re all on the clock.”
Vladimir tapped at his glasses to make the point. Michael currently had several clocks running in his virtual view. One of them was getting very close compared to what it had been over the past few years. They were all getting a bit anxious as to what was about to come to pass for them. They were nervous about what they were going to bring to pass for the world. It was going to happen soon. And it was going to change the world in ways Michael was not even sure he believed. It was going to happen. It was going to happen very damned soon.
“Okay, then. I get it. You didn’t know. I guess you couldn’t know. Georgia, keep me posted if there are any more, um, unforeseen hiccups.” Michael placed a hand on Vladimir’s shoulder, tugging him toward the exit letting him know that he was ready to go. Then over his shoulder he added, “And update the clocks as often as you can.”
“Certainly, Michael,” Georgia Stinson replied, unfazed by his gruffness.
* * *
“Most certainly, Michael,” Sing said. He looked completely exhausted. Michael understood that. They all were exhausted. But they had to get everything across the finish line in time for him and Vladimir to get another full sleep cycle in before the countdown clock in his virtual view hit T-minus zero. “We’re ready to integrate the first one into the capsule. This will be a great time to go over the modifications we had to make from the training setup.”
“Modifications? I hope they were minor?” Vladimir asked the physicist. “Do we have time to learn a complicated new procedure?”
“No, you don’t. And yes, it is simple. But you’ll need to learn a new checklist. I’ve sent them to your secure emails.” Sing tapped his glasses knowingly. “Come on.”
Sing looked over his shoulder at the crew of techs prepping the other five warhead glide bodies and boosters. Michael could tell they had things under control for the moment and he surmised that was Sing’s impression as well. “Once they are completely ready, at the last moment, before you board, we’ll fuel the thrusters on the reentry vehicles. The fuel is nasty stuff.”
“Hydrazine?” Vladimir asked.
“Yes. Will kill you if you get too much exposure.” Sing grinned. “And by too much, I mean any.”
“What will it do?” Michael asked.
“Well, besides being, uh, rocket fuel and highly combustible? Let me see…” Sing ticked off on his fingers with each deadly effect the chemical had. “One, it is extremely toxic. Two, it causes cancer.”
“That’s probably only in the state of California,” Michael joked. Sing ignored it and kept ticking off the list of deadly things.
“Three, it’s caustic, and just coming into contact with it will burn the living shit out of you. That means it’ll burn your eyes out, your nose, mouth, skin, lungs, esophagus. All those things the human body needs to not die. Oh, and four, the stuff is a neurotoxin to boot. So, it will kill your brain or make you so fucked up that you won’t understand that the exposure is killing you.”
“Um, and we’re putting this shit in the capsule with us?” Michael asked rhetorically. He knew that had been the plan all along.
“Fortune favors the bold, comrade!” Vladimir slapped him on the back and laughed.
“You’ve been waiting for, like…” Michael tried to remember how long it had been since they had had that conversation. It had been in the truck on the pipeline road, he thought, but wasn’t certain. “Like days for the right time to say that, haven’t you?”
Vladimir only grinned back at him.
“I would recommend that you keep your faceplates down and only breathe suit oxygen once these things are fueled.” Sing said it nonchalantly, like it was no big deal.
“Important safety tip. Thanks, Sing,” Michael said dryly.
“This way. The capsule was assembled in the hangar container nearest the western crane.” Sing led them through a metal hatch with a large wheel latch. He turned the metal wheel in the middle of the door a couple of spins and the hatch hissed loose from the overpressure in the corridor. “Come with me. We keep this area at a constant overpressure to the exhaust scrubbers on the aft side of the deck in case there is a leak during the fueling process. Georgia’s design. She really is a very good engineer.”
They followed Sing down two corridors and out onto the main level platform in the open for a few meters and then into another larger container or makeshift hangar area. Sing continued to explain about the overpressure and the exhaust scrubbers and how safe it was, or wasn’t, but Michael was only half listening to the scientist. He was tired. He had a million things on his mind. And he was, at the moment, contemplating climbing into a rocket with six nuclear warheads loaded with a chemical rocket fuel that would vaporize his lungs and kill his brain if he breathed it. Fortune truly did favor the bold. Michael almost laughed out loud when that thought crossed his mind.
The hangar container had been built up from several single units with the ceiling and floors removed to make a double-stacked-container high bay. There were several raw oxidized steel I-beams welded up the side walls and across the top of the high ceiling supporting the structure. There was a roll-off door at the end of the high bay opposite of them. Michael approximated the room to be forty meters deep, over thirty meters wide, and at least eight meters high. And there it was.
There was their means to an end, or beginning as Dorman continued to remind them. In the middle of the room sat a white and shiny new space capsule that looked almost identical to the Bezos New Shepard space capsule but not quite as cosmetically appealing. There were several windows about the circumference of the capsule about, Michael was guessing, one meter by one meter on a side, about waist high up the capsule. He’d been in the virtual capsule to practice and become familiar with the systems, but that was nothing like seeing the real thing. Michael paused and stood in awe. Vladimir was doing the same. He could tell by the look on his Russian friend’s face that the man was immediately in love. Michael could tell that he was particularly fond of the fact that over the entry hatch was painted a word in Russian.
“Very nice, Comrade Sing,” Vladimir said overdoing his Russian a bit. Then he read the word aloud. “Vyrezka?”
“V, does that mean what I think it means?” Michael asked. His Russian wasn’t perfect. And, like English, there were many Russian words that had multiple meanings based on their context of use.
“It means ‘cut ditch’ or ‘groove’ or ‘slot,’ perhaps,” Vladimir said. “Or maybe ‘notch.’”
“Sing, did Dorman order that?” Michael asked.
“Yes, Michael. And he specifically wanted it spelled as a proper noun.”
“Of course, he did.” Michael shook his head and almost laughed, but he was too tired for that at the moment. “It means Notch, then.”
“Why notch?” Vladimir asked.
“It’s a proper noun, not just a groove. It’s a name. Notch is the video game programmer who created the world of Minecraft, then sold it to Bill Gates for billions. Dorman sees this as creating a new world and himself being Notch. I don’t know who he thinks we’re gonna sell it to.” Michael shrugged. “You know Dorman.”
“My friend, Marcus has his reasons and goals. I don’t care if he calls it Shit if it gets us where we need to go,” Vladimir said. “I have my own personal reasons and goals. Besides, I like it!”
“Agreed.” Michael nodded. “It’s a nice-looking spaceship.”
“Whatever it means, there’s a lot to do in the next twenty-four hours to get it ready,” Sing said pessimistically. “That’s how much time we have before Georgia needs to start stacking the rocket. I’m sure the two of you can see that on the countdown clock and schedule.”
“Yeah, sure we can, Sing. I get it. Vladimir gets it. Not much time and we have to get to work. So, V and I can follow your email instructions. We’ll figure the changes out. You get back to work.”
“Yes, but first, I want to show you this.” Sing led them to the entry hatch and into the capsule.
The interior looked very similar to the interior of the Blue Origin New Shepard crew capsule and Michael was familiar with the interior from the virtual training. There was a central cylindrical console in the middle with flight couches dispersed about it circumferentially. There were the six large windows evenly spaced around the capsule at just the right height to enable viewing from the couches. Unlike the Bezos capsule, however, there was a panel at seat number three that looked more like a gunner’s station than something that belonged in a space capsule for tourists. Michael noted that was his seat. He briefly eyed the console through the window as they rounded to the boarding ramp and ducked in.
“I have a surprise for you.” There were several technicians working inside the capsule and there was a man they all recognized sitting in the pilot’s seat. “Jeb got here just before you two did.”
“Michael, Vlad.” Jebidiah Reynolds nodded at them as they entered. “She’s looking good.”
“Jeb!” Vladimir shook his copilot’s hand and then grunted at him in Russian something only the two of them understood. They both laughed. “My friend, I suspect that is my seat you are in.”
“Right you are. Even if I have more hours in space than you.” Jebidiah raised from the flight couch and offered it to Vladimir. “All yours, Colonel. Or should I say, Captain?”
“So, you made the flight, then?” Vladimir asked. “We have been busy and have paid no attention to things.”
“Yes. Flawlessly. We made it to just under ten kilometers apogee.”
“Very good! Impressive little plane. I’d love to fly it again, but in space next time.”
“Yes, great plane,” Jeb agreed.
“Michael.” Jeb shook his hand. “Good to see you. I heard about the debacle with the suits.”
“Taken care of. Sing. What do you need to show us?”
“Ah, yes, sorry. Here it is.” Sing stepped behind the central panel and pointed to the space where the Bezos ship contained three other flight couches. In their places were six mating rings for mounting the glide bodies. “Here at the bottom of the mating rings. Georgia’s new booster design for Munition Number One will not fit the standard ring we’d originally designed. We are building the adaptors as we speak. The first one is complete and the training glide-body shell is outside. You should practice mating the munition with the adapter.”
“I see,” Vladimir said. “Good thing you are here to practice with us Jeb.”
“How long do we have, Sing?” Michael asked.
“We need to start integrating the actual munitions in the next five or six hours from now,” Sing said. “So, you need to get started.”
“Which is it, Sing? Five or six hours?” Michael opened up another counter in his virtual view. “I’m going to start a clock.”
“Say five and a half, then,” Sing answered.
“Starting now,” Michael told him. “I’ll send you the link.”
“Jeb, let’s go get the munition surrogate,” Vlad said.
“Let’s get to work, gentlemen,” Michael said.
“We should practice in the suits,” Jeb noted.
“Not sure Georgia has them ready yet.” Michael said. “But in a perfect world…”