Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (28 page)

“Good. What do you need?”

“I know you’ve done a lot of sketch
work on various system proposals; transit ship, MAV, tuna cans, etcetera. Is
there any chance you could render some of that in 3D? At least wire-frames?
Better yet, surfaced and shaded?”

“Sure. It may be a little crude
but, yeah, I can do it.”

“Outstanding. Chrissie, you know
anything about PowerPoint?”

“I’m not an expert but, yeah, I can
assemble presentations.”

“Alright. How about the two of you
piecing together some kind of chronological pictorial presentation of the
mission – launch, transit, landing, habs, MAV, whatever you can do – I dunno,
maybe superimposed on a surface image? Gabe, can you do that?”

“Sure. Easy.”

“Great. What I’m thinking is, it
would be a whole lot better if we could show the Senator what we’ll be doing
rather than just telling him about it.”

Gabe nodded. “Yeah, I see what
you’re driving at.” She turned to Chrissie. “We can do that.”

“Yeah,” Chrissie said.

Jeff nodded. “Okay. Don’t kill
yourselves with it. We still need to support it with details. But see what you
can come up with. Chrissie, how many laser pointers do we have?”

“Uh, two, I think.”

“Why don’t you get three or four
more? We can hand ‘em out, let everybody have a toy to play with, use them to
ask and answer questions.”

“Good idea. I’ll take care of it.”

Abby waved her hands in the air.
“By the way, announcement. Drum roll please. Our beloved boss got his pilot’s
license this morning.”

Chrissie and Gabe cheered.
“Congratulations,” Gabe said.

“Thank you. Took a bit longer than
I’d originally planned, but finally got there. How are you coming along?”

“I’m getting there. I think I’ve
finally overcome my fear of flying, now if I can just overcome my fear of
landing.”

Jeff grinned. “That is the hard
part. Hang in there, you’ll get it.”

Abby winked at her. “Hey, there’s
nothing to it. If he can do it, anybody can do it.” She grinned at Jeff and
quickly took a step backward.

Jeff smiled and wagged his finger
at her. “One of these days young lady I’m gonna smack you.”

“Oh, promise? Can I go change into
something tight, black and leather first?”

Gabe rolled her eyes. “Oh lord
woman, you’re hopeless.”

Abby gave her a smirk. “You’re just
now figuring that out?”

Jeff stepped in. “Alright, that’s
enough of that. I just had a mental image that’ll keep me occupied for the rest
of the day. Everybody else, back to work.”

Friday, October 12,
2012 (T-1257 days)

“That is spectacular!” Jeff said,
looking at the end of Gabe and Chrissie’s presentation on the theater screen.
“Well done you two.”

“Is that what you had in mind?” Gabe
asked.

“An order of magnitude better. Did
you guys get any sleep this week?”

Chrissie groaned. “Not much.”

“Okay, well I won’t keep you much
longer. I just want to go over the weekend schedule once again – make sure we
haven’t overlooked anything – then we can get some supper and turn in early.”

Abby rubbed her forehead. “That
would be a novel experience.”

“So, Chrissie, let’s take it from
the top.”

Chrissie nodded and turned back to
the first page of her itinerary. “Okay, up at 0530. Shower, dress, breakfast,
and on the road by 0630.”

“Sorry,” Jeff interrupted, “I just
wanted to compliment you on your use of military time. Finally got it, did
you?”

“Sort of.”

Abby chuckled. “Past 1000 she still
needs to take her shoes off to count.”

Chrissie stuck her tongue out at
Abby.

Jeff grinned. “What do you do when
it gets past 2000?”

“Go to bed.”

“Ah, silly me. Continue.”

“Where was I? Oh, yeah, wheels up
at 0730 for a one-hour flight to Manassas. Meet Senator Landers and his
entourage at 0900, wheels up shortly thereafter for the return flight. Arrive
Quonset, say, 1030, and back here by 1130. Introductions and PowerPoint
presentation, followed by lunch. After lunch, the Senator gets to play with the
toys and we discuss what we’re going to do while on the planet. Cocktail hour,
supper, light conversation, blah, blah, blah, and bedtime. Sunday morning
breakfast flexible, then general question and answer period. Be prepared for
anything. Lunch at noon, hit the road by 1300, wheels up by 1400 to have the
Senator back in Manassas by 1500. And that’s it.”

“Sounds simple enough. Everybody
ready?”

They all nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay, great job everyone. Please,
get some sleep tonight.”

It was a bit past midnight and Jeff
was on the patio having a cigarette when he heard the door open behind him. He
looked around to find Abby in a bathrobe. “Hi. What’s the matter? Can’t sleep?”

“No.” She dropped into a chair
beside him, “Can’t turn my brain off. Just too much to think about.”

“Yeah, I sure know how that works.”

“You have another one of those?”

Jeff smiled, reached into his
pocket and handed her the cigarette pack and a lighter. “I thought you quit.”

“I did. Then Sue left the room… and
I started again.”

Jeff laughed.

They sat quietly for a while,
enjoying the night air and the distant sound of surf breaking on the New
England shoreline.

“It’s a beautiful night,” said
Abby, staring off into the distance.

“Yes it is. A little chilly, a bit
of fall in the air, but not unpleasant.”

“So many stars. I guess you can see
a lot more from space.”

“Yeah, I imagine so. Must be quite
a view from up there.”

“What’s that bright one over
there?” she asked, pointing off to the east.

Jeff followed her finger,
“Jupiter.”

“Oh yeah, I should know that. I
don’t remember a whole lot of my celestial navigation. Guess I’m gonna need a
serious refresher course.”

Jeff laughed softly, “Yep. There’s
no GPS where we’re going. We fly a hundred million miles and if we miss our
mark by more than a few hundred yards, we either burn up in Mars’ atmosphere or
just become another piece of space junk endlessly orbiting the sun.”

“Thank you for that happy thought.”

He chuckled, “You’re welcome. Just
trying to be helpful. We’ll be fine. Apollo 13 made it back with nothing
working but the LM engine, which was never intended for that purpose.”

“They had a bit shorter trip.”

“Yeah, and they had a navigation
computer that had about one tenth the power of my desktop calculator. Hell,
they were still using slide rules back then.” He laughed softly. “And unlike
Gabe, they needed ‘em. I think we’ll have a slight technological edge. We’ve
come a long way in forty-five years.”

“Where’s Mars?”

“It already set. Right now you can
only see it for an hour or so early in the evening, low in the west.”

“Can you see Earth from Mars?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’d imagine it’s
probably like Venus from here, a morning or evening star. Probably pretty
bright.”

“That’s good. It’ll be nice to know
where home is.”

Jeff glanced over at Abby, her face
softly silhouetted by the dim glow of light from the great room, “Uh huh. You
having second thoughts?”

“No. It’s just that, well, all of
this is slowly sinking in,” she said with a sigh. “And it’s a bit
overwhelming.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Does Mars have seasons?”

“Sure.”

“What season will it be when we get
there?”

“Spring.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.”

“No, it should be nice. The days
will be getting longer. The carbon dioxide snow on the ground will be
sublimating. We’ll even start to have some nice warm days, maybe even a few
above zero.”

“Charming. And you’re gonna give up
a third of billion dollars to go there?”

“Yep, and take you with me.”

“You know something?”

“What’s that?”

“We’re both stark raving mad.”

“Yep.”

Abby crushed out her cigarette in
the ashtray, and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Then she stood, “I
think I’ll try bed again,” and she headed into the house. “Good night.”

“Good night, Abby.”

Jeff thought about it for a minute.
She was probably right. And he headed off to bed as well.

Saturday, October 13,
2012 (T-1256 days)

Jeff, Abby and Chrissie squirmed
nervously in the Dulles Aviation terminal lounge at Manassas Regional Airport.
At 0845 a black Cadillac Escalade ESV pulled into the parking lot and stopped
in the “No Parking” zone in front of the terminal door.

“He’s early,” said Abby.

“And he can’t read parking signs,”
said Chrissie.

“RHIP,” said Jeff.

“RHIP?”

“Rank Has Its Privileges.”

Half a dozen people climbed out and
stood in a tight group talking.

Jeff nodded. “That’s him, everybody
put on a happy face.”

Abby replied with, “Humph.”

Chrissie nodded at the group and
whispered, “That guy with the sunglasses looks like Secret Service.”

“Or a chauffeur,” Jeff mused. “No
matter, we’ve got room.”

Senator Landers and two others made
their way to the door where a terminal attendant ran up and held it open for
them.

Jeff walked up, held out his hand
and smiled broadly. “Good morning Senator, Jeff Grey. You honor us with your
presence, sir.”

“My pleasure, Captain. I’ve been
looking forward to this all week.”

Senator Landers was of medium
height and build, 60 years old, a distinguished looking gentleman whose
appearance didn’t quite fit with his southern drawl.

“As have we, sir. And, please, it’s
‘Jeff.’ Feel free to dispense with the formality.”

“Good. Let me introduce my staff.
This is Mark Chambliss, my Chief of Staff.”

“Mark and I have spoken on the
phone, several times.”

Mark shook Jeff’s hand. “Indeed we
have. Pleased to meet you, Jeff.”

The Senator continued, “And this is
Debra Miller, my executive assistant.”

Jeff greeted her, “My pleasure, Ms.
Miller.”

“Likewise.”

Jeff motioned to Abby, “This is
Abigail Nolan, Lieutenant Commander, USNR, our pilot.”

The Senator took Abby’s hand in a
firm grasp. “Commander, pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, sir.
And, like Jeff said, please, it’s Abby.”

“And this is Christine Mallory,
‘Chrissie,’
my
executive assistant and our head of public relations… and
just about everything else. We mostly work for her.”

 The Senator clasped her hand and
smiled. “Chrissie, my pleasure. The world is run by executive assistants.”

Chrissie grinned sheepishly, “It’s
a pleasure, Senator, but we’re overrated.”

Senator Landers looked around the
terminal. “I’ve never been here before.” He turned to Jeff. “I guess it’s
difficult for general aviation to get into Reagan and Dulles these days, isn’t
it?”

Jeff nodded. “Yes sir. Dulles is
closed entirely to GA and the restrictions at Reagan are, uh, monumental. But
this seems to do nicely. It’s our first time here too.”

“Well Jeff, this will be quite an
experience for me. I’ve never flown in a small plane.”

Jeff looked at him with surprise.
“Really. Not even a business jet on some, if you’ll pardon the word, junket?”

“No. Fact is, I’m not a pilot and
I’ve never even been in the cockpit of an airplane.”

“Well sir, it would be our pleasure
to show you one.” He glanced at Abby. “Job opportunity.” Jeff motioned to the
front of the terminal. “Sir, if you’re ready, let’s get onboard and get in the
air.”

“I’m ready.”

“Abby, let’s kick the tires and
light the fires.”

“You got it, boss.”

The CJ3 was parked right in front
of the terminal and it was a short walk.

Senator Landers looked the jet
over. “It’s not exactly a small plane. It’s bigger than I thought.”

“With aircraft, Senator, ‘small’ is
a relative term,” Jeff said. “We can get onboard while Abby does a pre-flight
check.”

Inside, the Senator glanced around
the cabin. “This is plush.”

“We like it. It’s comfortable.”

“You fly a lot, Jeff?”

“Quite a bit. One way or another,
three or four times a week.”

“Are you a pilot?”

“In a manner of speaking. I
actually just earned my private pilot’s license earlier this week. But it’s
going to be a while before Abby will let me touch the controls on this.”

Abby climbed in, pulled up the
stairs and closed the cabin door. “All set.” She turned to the Senator. “Sir,
this aircraft is FAA certified for single pilot operation and, as such, the
right seat is available for anyone. If you would like, I’d be honored to have
you join me in the cockpit for the flight up to Quonset.”

“Are you serious?” the Senator
asked with surprise.

“Certainly.”

Jeff winked at her. “Senator, Abby
is rated to fly just about everything that flies and may be the best Citation
pilot in the country. I leave you in her hands.”

“Well thank you. Yes indeed.”

Abby took the Senator into the
cockpit while Jeff found a seat in the cabin and sat down opposite the Chief of
Staff.

Mark leaned forward and smiled. “I
think you may have just made a friend for life.”

Jeff chuckled. “Well, if so, this
weekend will have gone a lot easier than I’d expected.”

Abby started up the Citation’s
engines and taxied to the end of the runway. Her voice came over the intercom,
“If y’all will please put your seatbacks and tray tables… eh, forget about
that, just buckle up, we’ll be taking off in just a minute.” As they climbed
out of the Manassas traffic pattern and turned north she made another
announcement. “We’ll be leveling off shortly at our cruise altitude of 25,000
feet and about 400 knots. The flight up to Quonset will take right about one
hour. Chrissie, they’re all yours.”