Don't Mess With Earth (12 page)

“Yes, sir, this should be
interesting.”

On their way to see the
alien, Carpenter saw a sleek looking, black in color aircraft, much
different in design than any other aircraft he had seen before. He
asked about it, and Yeager replied, “That is our newest supersonic
aircraft, the Lockheed SR-71
Blackbird
. It can go faster than mach
three according to our preliminary tests and the new type of skin
is radar absorbing, so it can’t be detected by normal means.
Lockheed’s Skunk Works built it for us, we gave them the
recommendations for the engines and how to construct the skin, and
they came up with the design themselves. Their engineers have no
idea how fast it can go and the bird itself will probably stay
classified as long as we have the Soviet Union to deal with. We’re
probably twenty or thirty years more advanced than we ought to be
thanks to our friend.”

A few minutes later, they
entered a small building near the runway. Carpenter was thinking
this was far too small for an alien and its spacecraft, until
Yeager and the two men in black walked into an elevator, Carpenter
followed them in. The elevator went down for five minutes and came
to a stop, so Carpenter realized there was more to Area 51 than
meets the eye. As he walked out of the elevator, he saw a massive
cavern carved out of the bedrock two miles beneath the surface, and
a hive of activity going on. Yeager said, “This was built below the
surface because we wanted to make sure none of this was destroyed
by a nuclear war, and we have three shifts a day on the twenty four
hour cycle, so there will always be people down here. In case of a
nuclear war, we have enough supplies down here to last for twenty
years, along with a hydroponics bay in the process of being built,
which should keep us fed for a very long time. Not only that, but
our employees’ families live in nearby Rachel, which appears to
everyone on the outside to be inhabited by a bunch of UFO nuts, but
that’s not the case; it’s our attempt to misdirect and misinform
the media and general public. If the country is invaded and nuked,
the families can be down here in less than thirty minutes. This is
all just a small part of the underground installation and its inner
workings you’re looking at, Carpenter.”

“Impressive.” Carpenter managed to
say, awed by what he was seeing.

Yeager led Carpenter to the
room holding the alien, who apparently was watching a movie.
Carpenter wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but a tall, gangly
bluish looking creature from beyond the stars wasn’t it. The alien
heard them, turned around, and said, “Greetings General
Yeager.
I’ve been watching a somewhat fascinating movie made
by your primitive movie studios; it’s called
The Day the Earth
Stood Still
. I must discuss it with you sometime, when you
aren’t busy. Who is the visitor?”

“This is Scott Carpenter, a test pilot and
occasional astronaut. Scott, this is Ostoro, Ostoro, meet Scott. We
just sent him up in
Zeus
, where he used the sensors and
discovered a spaceship leaving Mars. I’d say he’s sort of shocked
to discover all of this, including an alien in our midst. Would you
say that about covers it, Carpenter?”

“To say I’m shocked would be a bit of
understatement, sir. I have heard rumors about aliens, but I
thought they were small, gray, and big eyed, not big, blue, and
small eyed. Next you’ll tell me they don’t fly in flying
saucers,”

“Actually, they don’t. Ostoros’ ship was just
a scout, not the full sized spacecraft he keeps telling us about.
In Earths’ atmosphere, his ship appeared to be a flying saucer due
to the cloaking technology of the Ragnor. As for the rumored
appearance, you can thank our friends at the CIA for coming up with
what we call Grays. Ostoro has helped us immensely over the last
fifteen years, and once this all comes to light, he will be justly
rewarded,” remarked Yeager.

“As my human friends like to say, I’ll
believe that when I see it. I still say your species is much too
primitive to understand anything beyond your planet, but I’m sure
all of you will disagree. You and the Soviets will probably end up
with nuclear war and wipe out humanity before you have a chance at
my people, which would be a most pleasant ending in my
opinion.”

“Before we get into another philosophical
discussion about this, I think that we should show Carpenter some
more advanced technology. Come with me, Carpenter.” said Yeager, as
he directed the astronaut away from Ostoro.

Yeager and Carpenter walked
over to a workstation that had some sort of screen and all sorts of
small electronic devices laid out near it in sort of board pattern.
Yeager walked over and flipped a switch on the electronic device,
it powered up, and a bunch of icons showed up on the screen. Yeager
said to Carpenter, “This is the one of the next newest
technological marvel that all of mankind will be using in the next
decade or so. It’s a desktop computer with an advanced operating
system, but currently we’re working out the bugs for military use.
Sometimes, we get this
green colored error
and have to re-install the software, and it usually happens when
we’re working on something important,”

“A personal computer that is small
and sits on top of a desk, nobody’s going to believe it. What’s
going to happen to the room sized computers when these hit the mass
market?”

“Those computers will probably be
thrown out and a computer with these small electronic parts and a
small hard drive could speed up how things are done. Who knows
though, this is just an experiment at the moment anyway. If we do
decide to let the public know about personal computers, we’ll have
to make a couple of computer geeks really rich and famous. Next, I
want to show you how we have managed to come up with all of this.”
remarked Yeager.

Both men approached a huge steel
door with a keypad installed next to it. Yeager typed in a few
numbers, the door slowly lifted, and the two men went inside. As
with everything else, Carpenter saw a hive of activity going on,
and as he approached the area that Yeager was taking him to, he
found out what it was. The alien spaceship was being worked on;
parts were being taken out, parts were being put in, but, the ship
was much smaller than Carpenter expected. He guessed it was because
the ship was a scout like he was told earlier. Carpenter walked
around the ship and came away impressed, and then said, “Wow. This
is pretty cool. Have you guys managed to figure out the technology
behind how this ship works?”

“Not all of it, but the more we
learn, the more we figure out what makes the Ragnor technology
work. Our alien friend helped immensely when he wrote an English
language version program for his computer, which has helped expand
our knowledge of how his ship works and of the universe. Einstein
would probably be overwhelmed by everything we’ve learned so far,
but he was informed of the alien crashing back in ’47, but he
wasn’t in good enough health to take part in the initial set-up of
Area 51 as a secret base for this kind of research. Anyway,
whatever happens in the near future, this spacecraft isn’t going to
be used for our initial forays to the outer planets, we’re going to
build prototypes first. But, before we do that, we’re going to send
out probes to the outer planets and beyond, see what’s out there
before we actually venture beyond the inner solar system.”

Carpenter asked about how the
United States was progressing in technology and then asked about
test piloting the SR-71
Blackbird
, which Yeager agreed to let
Carpenter do. Carpenter got into the SR-71 and put the aircraft
through a series of tests, even maxing out the speed of the plane,
going slightly above mach 3, and climbing as high in altitude as he
could without actually going into orbit. Carpenter came away
impressed with the new aircraft and joined the ranks of Area 51
test pilots, with faster and more agile fighter jets coming through
the pipeline, along with the next spacecraft in NASA’s inventory,
the space shuttle.

“
This is Walter Cronkite,
live on
CBS here at Cape Canaveral on
November 9, 1967, covering the launch of the unmanned
Apollo 4
on top
of the Saturn V rocket, which is the largest launch vehicle ever
constructed and its first flight. My temporary newsroom is located
four miles from the actual launch site, so as not to be affected by
the shockwave of the rocket being launched. We’re waiting now for
the command to launch the
Apollo
4
, officially marking the start of the
missions to the moon that President Kennedy declared we would do
back in 1961. CBS News would also like to take the time to honor
the men who died in January in the now officially named
Apollo 1
capsule. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in a
cabin fire while going through a simulated launch test. The pure
oxygen that was being used along with high pressure in the cabin
caused a massive problem for the three men, resulting in a
catastrophic fire, and they were not able to get out of the capsule
due to the escape hatch not working. We at CBS dedicate this launch
to them. We now join the countdown for the launch of
Apollo 4
,”

The Saturn V rocket gleamed
in the early morning sun on Launch Complex 39A, since the launch
was scheduled for seven in the morning Eastern Time. The whole
rocket was steaming from the near frozen liquid hydrogen-oxygen
used as the fuel. The countdown was nearing the end, “10… 9… 8… 7…
6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
Apollo
4
is now a go for launch.”

The rocket engines fired,
billows of fire and smoke went through the launch site and the
Saturn V lifted off. A bigger than expected shockwave from the
rocket thrust pulsated away from the launch and pounded the
makeshift CBS studio, along with everything else in its path.
Cronkite, who was still talking and pontificating about the launch,
found himself dodging pieces of his studio, while still trying to
talk on live television. The cameras switched to the rear view of
the rocket a few minutes later. It showed a magnificent view of a
marble blue Earth, and then showed the interstage between the first
and second stages falling away back to Earth. The cameras on the
rocket also were jettisoned and those parachuted back to Earth,
landing in the ocean to be retrieved, and used again later.
The
Apollo 4
achieved orbit and stayed there for a little over eight and a
half hours before re-entering the atmosphere and making a splash
landing in the ocean. The first time testing of the Saturn V rocket
and its components was part of the all-up doctrine that had been
decided upon in 1963 to test everything together instead of
separately in order to achieve a moon landing by the end of the
decade, but that meant that everything had to work the first time,
since multiple testing would have hampered the goals of landing on
the moon on time.

Meanwhile, a group in the
Soviet space program, led by Kerim Kerimov, was building a secret
launch vehicle of their own to attempt a moon landing before the
Americans. Even though the rockets that were officially being
tested were complete and utter failures, this group, who was
similar in nature to the mission of Area 51, had tested a version
of their own rocket as far from prying government eyes in Moscow as
was possible and still be inside of Russia. They decided this would
be a one shot deal, since it was unlikely this could be a secret
for very long if the men chosen for this mission managed to land on
the moon, but it was a risk these loyal Russians were willing to
take. This one launch was a mirror of the Zond moon program,
including using the Soyuz 7K-11 spacecraft, and the modified
combination of the N1 and Proton rockets for traveling and landing
on the moon.

Kerimov was also wondering who he
could recruit for this glorious mission for the motherland, when he
thought of Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin was currently the deputy training
director of Star City, but was also trying to re-qualify as a
fighter pilot, so Kerimov approached the first man in orbit with
his proposal. Gagarin was flying a MiG-15 when Kerimov came to Star
City, so Kerimov waited near the tarmac for Gagarin to land.
Gagarin landed thirty minutes later and pulled up to the hangar
where the aircraft would be stationed, and got out of the aircraft.
Kerimov greeted him, “Colonel Gagarin, it is good to see you again.
I have a mission that I’d like for you to go on, if you’re
interested,”

“Comrade Kerimov, anything you’re
involved in, I would be most interested. What would you like me to
do?”

“Perhaps we should take a walk,
prying ears and all,” Gagarin agreed and the two men walked to the
edge of the woods near Star City, where Kerimov began again, “Some
engineers, scientists, and I have been secretly building a launch
facility to get us to the moon before the Americans. Our government
knows nothing of this and we wish to keep it a secret from
everyone, until a landing has been made. I want you to be the pilot
of the spacecraft and also be the first person from Earth to walk
on the moon. What do you think, Comrade?”

“I think this could get us a bullet
to the head is what I think. However, I would love to go back into
space, and even get a chance to land on the moon. What do I have to
do?”

“
Come with me to our launch
facility and have a look, and then you can decide what you want to
do. You’re co-pilot will be
Vladimir Komarov, who is already
there, waiting for us to return.”