Bright Horizons (2 page)

Chapter 3

08 April 2042

Kyle stepped out of his
car and stood looking at the huge machine rumble along just a few hundred yards
from where he stood. Over twenty feet tall and weighing close to 3,000 tons,
these machines dwarfed even the mobile artillery pieces that he was so familiar
with.

He shook
his head in amazement. If the shuttle movers were this impressive to him now,
what had people thought of them sixty years ago when they were first used?

Kyle
looked towards the shuttle hangers and saw four movers coming to the launch
area and three heading back to the hangers. Tomorrow would be a busy day at the
center; four launches in twelve hours.

He pulled
his duffel out of the back seat and crossed the parking lot to his new home for
a few weeks.

An airman
at the desk welcomed him with a smile and voice that reflected the sunny,
bright Florida day.

“Welcome
Colonel, what’s your assignment code?”

“CO of
Tango 37 group.”

“Your
team is in the East Building, sir, just past the pool. We have assigned the
entire second floor for you, and that includes a secure briefing room. I will
call General Thibodeaux and let him know you have arrived. Here is your passkey
and your room is 204.”

“Thank
you, Airman,” Kyle said as he took the guest brochure and passkey that the
airman offered. He pulled his duffel back up to his shoulder and strode off to
check out his quarters.

Several
people were lying out at the pool, and a blonde woman was swimming laps. A
quick scan told Kyle that none of his team was out there. Out of the corner of
his eye he caught some motion and was able to see a curtain at a second floor
window quickly come to a rest.

A slight
smile crossed his lips. He was so proud of his team; they weren’t going to be
taken by surprise.

As he
entered the stairwell, he heard movement up and down the hallway. Major Diane
Kitch greeted him at the top of the stairs.

“Good
Afternoon Colonel, I hope your trip went well.”

“Thanks
Major, it went fine. I always enjoy the drive down.” Kyle started walking down
the hallway. “The whole team here?”

“Dolsen
should be getting here this evening, she hit a connection issue in Chicago, but
everyone else is here,” said Diane as she kept pace with him.

“Great,
let me throw my gear in my room and I’ll meet you in the briefing room. Which
one is mine?”

“Next
door on the right, sir. The briefing room is two down from there.”

Kyle used
the passkey to open the door and look in. Bed, two chairs, a table, a sliding
glass door that he knew opened onto a small balcony. Closet and bathroom doors.
TV and dataports.

The room
had a distinctly un-military feel to it; like looking at a cheap, but nice,
motel room.

Kyle
dropped his bags on the bed and went back into the hallway.

“Everything
ok, sir?”

“Yeah,
seems fine. How is the food here?”

“The
terminal has a decent snack bar if you want some junk, but stay away from the
officers club. I don’t know what they think is acceptable “steak”, but that’s
not it. Four pizza joints deliver and two Chinese places. Since we are restricted
to camp, don’t know any local restaurants. Oh, and of course there’s a couple
of fast food places.”

Kyle
smiled and grunted. She knew he hated fast food.

Diane
turned and opened the door to the briefing room. Inside were the other 10
people he had been expecting. A few doughnuts had survived the wait, and the
smell of decent coffee wafted through the room.

“Good
afternoon everyone, I trust your trips down here were good.”

A chorus
of greetings and “Yes sirs” met him as he strode to the front. He took out the
data chip from his front shirt pocket and touched the dataport on the wall. A
second later, a small beep told him all the data was downloaded. He walked to
the front as he began to speak.

“As you
all know, this is a mission that is unique in the history of the Corps and in
fact in the history of mankind. We are a diplo escort to the most important
meeting that we will ever have. Now I know that a diplo escort is not what you
would expect to be a big mission, but this one is. We have no idea how the
members of the other party will react to us. When I was gathering this team, I
had to take many things into account. I needed people who were experts in
linguistics. I needed people who were experts in engineering and had heavy
science backgrounds. I needed both men and women. I needed people I could trust
to behave as told with no hesitation, but who could adapt to changing
situations quickly. I needed people I could trust. And above all I needed the
best Marines I could find.”

Kyle took
a deep breath.

“And I
needed to do it with the restrictions that were placed upon me. You all have a
security clearance of SC-07. This means that you not only meet every
qualification for every security clearance you have ever even thought existed,
you also are all single, have no minor children, and over 25. These are very
important details as we are quite possibly on a suicide mission. If we don’t
make it back, the Pentagon decided that they would rather be in a situation
where they don’t have to lie to spouses, young children or parents about what
happened. Grown children, siblings and elderly parents, of course they can lie
to with no guilt.”

Kyle
smiled as he listened to the sardonic chuckles from everyone there.

“So let’s
go over what we are going to do while we are here. First, we are going to learn
what to do so we don’t mess up the interior of the Shuttle with our vomit.
Second, we are going to break up into a couple of teams. Major Kitch, Captain
Jennings and I will learn how to fly the shuttle and how to operate the various
systems. Sergeant Major Williams, Sergeant Hollis, Sergeant Dolsen and Corporal
Ranke will be given a complete run through of the electrical and mechanical
workings of the shuttle. Gunnery Sergeant Ramirez, Sergeant Kiskaliski, and
Sergeant Greene will be given training in zero G combat. Major Anderson and
Captain Boone will be briefed by our Ambassador on protocol and etiquette for
this run. They will in turn brief us as to what is and is not appropriate to
say, do, eat and look at while on our host’s ship.” Kyle walked to the front of
the table looking over his selection of Marines. “Now that we have that taken
care of, are there any questions?”

“Sir,”
said Sergeant Hollis. “I’ve read all my background, but there is no description
of what the Hedali look like.”

A knock
at the door interrupted Kyle before he could answer. A second later, two men
entered and shut the door behind them.

“Colonel
Martin, I hope I’m not interrupting at a bad time.” The tall thin man was
wearing an Air Force uniform and had a friendly smile on his face. He also wore
3 stars on his shoulder marking him as Lieutenant General Thibodeaux.

“Of
course not, General. Please have a seat. And you must be Ambassador Thomas,”
Kyle said to the shorter, middle aged man who seemed so out of place.

Ambassador
Jim Thomas was dressed in a polo style shirt with casual slacks and tennis
shoes. His short beard and slight pudge of a stomach stood out in sharp
contrast to the physically fit and clean shaven look of all the other men in
the room.

“Thank
you Colonel Martin. I look forward to working with you.”

Kyle
waited as the men sat, and then looked back over to Hollis. “The question, I
believe, was what do the Hedali look like? The answer is, we don’t know. Mister
Ambassador, would you like to fill us in on any new information?”

“Absolutely
Colonel. As you are aware, we have been in contact with the Hedali for the last
six months. For months the communication was slow and laborious due to the
language barrier. We were finally able to figure out some of the structure and
etymology of several of their key words and started working toward
communicating more questions.”

“Up until
that point, they were essentially just giving us basic information on their
technology and the ability of their ships. I personally think we stunned them a
bit as we learned their language quicker than they learned ours.”

“It was
at that point that they asked if we would be interested in joining them in a,
well, partnership is the closest understanding of it. Think of it like a
galactic Big Brother program. They teach us about the galaxy and help us
discover some of their technology for ourselves.”

“For the
last month or so, we have been able to get a little more information from them
that will help this mission in particular. The Hedali are bipedal, between 5’6’
to 6’0” tall in general. They have two sexes, male and female as close as we
can tell. Their ships atmosphere would normally be a bit light in oxygen
content, so we will be taking oxygen masks to wear, but they seem to indicate
that they can boost it enough to allow us to breathe easy without causing any
problems for themselves.”

“It will
be hot though. They have indicated that if they lower the temperature in the
areas where we will be during the treaty signing to a comfortable level for us,
it will be rather chilly for them. They have agreed to 112º Fahrenheit to allow
us both to be uncomfortable without either being too uncomfortable.”

Several
of the Marines sat back in surprise and a couple even whistled low at this
news.

“Excuse
me Mister Ambassador.”

“Yes,
Sergeant…?”

“Sergeant
Major Williams. At what temperature do they normally keep their ship?”

“They
indicated that their optimum temperature is around 180º Fahrenheit.”

“Will we
have enough cool packs to protect us if something happens?” Sergeant Greene
asked with a little panic in his voice.

“We will
deal with equipment concerns later,” Kyle quickly interjected. “Please continue
Mister Ambassador.”

“Thank
you Colonel. We will stay on board the Shuttle until an hour or so before the
signing. There will be three NASA personnel, you thirteen Marines, and my team
which includes myself, my aide Amanda Stuart, and a documentarian from the
Smithsonian, Drew Carter. Major Anderson and Captain Boone will be part of my
team in civilian dress. My team will be given a brief tour of the facilities
and we have asked that two of the uniformed Marines be along. They seemed to
think that was appropriate as an honor guard.”

“If I may
ask, then sir,” Williams said with his firm no-nonsense style. “Are the rest of
us just supposed to rest on our tailbones for an hour while this is going on?”

Ambassador
Thomas smiled a bit and tilted his head in a reassuring way. Kyle could see how
this man got the job; his command of body language and his ability to express
his emotions non-verbally was impressive. He just hoped the Hedali thought so
as well.

“Ideally,
Sergeant Major, that is exactly what will happen.” The Ambassador stood up and
walked over to Kyle. “I know that you are all highly skilled and highly prized
Marines in your specific fields. I also know that you are all very good at the
skills that every Marine must have, that is, combat. We don’t anticipate any
problems, and I pray to God that we don’t run into any. But if there is a problem,
the Pentagon wanted the absolute best of the best to be there. Because, quite
honestly, if you can’t handle the situation, it will tell us a lot about what
we are getting ourselves into.”

An eerie
silence filled the room.

Ramirez
finally spoke up. “Mister Ambassador, what I guess you are saying is that this
will either be a cake walk or a suicide mission. Is that correct?”

“No, I
don’t think that’s a fair assessment. I think it will be either a cake walk or
suicide mission, or something in between. I have faith that you are the best of
the best. And while the idea of facing danger on an alien ship orbiting Jupiter
may not be something you could see surviving, I have to say that if anyone can,
it will be the men sitting in this room.”

Kyle
looked at each Marine sitting there. He saw steely resolve and that glimmer in
the eye that all professional warriors get when they are ordered into the heat
of action.

“Thank
you Ambassador Thomas, I think that will wrap up this meeting. We will, I’m
sure, have more questions in the next few weeks, so why don’t we set up
meetings daily at 1500?”

“That
sounds good Colonel. Gentlemen, thank you for your time,” said General
Thibodeaux.

The
General and the Ambassador left the briefing room as the Marines sat staring at
their hands, the table or a point on the wall.

“We’re
boned,” said Williams. He was always the master of the understatement.

12 May 2042

The first
two weeks of training went quickly. The Marines were divided up into teams of
five or six to experience “The Vomit Comet”, as the Sub-orbital Training
Transport was commonly known.  There were no real bad experiences on the STT,
but one Marine did get a little sick on their first trip up.