Starfire (12 page)

About fifteen minutes later, with Kai Raydon, Jessica Faulkner, and Trevor Shale standing beside him, the world got to watch the most amazing sight most of them had ever seen: the image of the president of the United States in space. “Good morning, my fellow Americans and ladies and gentlemen watching this broadcast around the world. I am broadcasting this press conference from Armstrong Space Station, orbiting two hundred miles above Earth.”

A small window on the monitor showed the White House press room . . . and the place exploded into near bedlam. Several reporters shot to their feet in absolute surprise, dropping tablets and cameras; several women and even a few men gasped in horror, holding their heads in disbelief or biting knuckles inserted into their mouths to stifle their outcries. Finally a staffer stepped before the reporters and waved them back to their seats so the president could continue.

“I flew here just a few minutes ago aboard a Midnight spaceplane, a spacecraft much smaller than the space shuttle but able to take off and land like an airplane and then blast itself into orbit and dock with Armstrong or the International Space Station,” the president went on. “Needless to say, it was an amazing voyage. It has been said that planet Earth is nothing more than a spacecraft itself, with all the resources it has always had and will ever have already loaded on board by God, and seeing our planet from space against the backdrop of billions of stars really makes you realize how important our commitment to protect our spaceship called Earth really is.

“I am grateful to the personnel aboard Armstrong and to the folks at Sky Masters Aerospace for making my trip successful, safe, and awe-inspiring,” the president said. “With me are the station director, retired Air Force general and space veteran Kai Raydon; the station's manager and veteran shuttle mission commander, Trevor Shale; and the chief of flight operations and the copilot aboard the spaceplane, retired Marine Corps colonel Jessica Faulkner. The spaceplane pilot, Dr. Hunter Noble, is busy planning our return, but I thank him for allowing me some unique and wondrous views as well as plenty of opportunities to experience the challenges of flying and working in space. You will not find a more professional and dedicated group of men and women anywhere in the world than the ones who man this facility. It's been almost thirty years since this station became operational, but although it's starting to look its age and is in need of some upgrades, it is still in orbit, still operational, still making a contribution to our nation's defense, and still caring for its crew.

“I must admit that my staff and I purposely misled the White House press corps over the past several days: I did want to conduct a press conference, but I didn't say where it was going to be,” the president said with a slight smile. “I know the rumors were that I was going to secretly go to Guam to meet with residents and military members and inspect the repairs ongoing to Andersen Air Force Base following the attack by the People's Republic of China last year. But I had this opportunity to take this remarkable voyage, and after consulting with my wife, Alexa, and my children, as well as Vice President Page—who as you know is an experienced astronaut herself—my staff and cabinet, congressional leaders, and my doctors, I decided to accept the risks and do it. I will be returning to Washington in just a few hours aboard Midnight. I thank the ones I consulted for their advice and prayers, and for keeping my trip a secret.

“The purpose of this trip is simple: I want America to return to space,” the president went on. “Our work on the International Space Station and Armstrong has been outstanding over the years, but I want to expand it. Mr. Shale compared outposts in space to forts built on the American frontier to help and support settlers moving west, and I think that is an excellent comparison. The future of America is in space, just as westward military expansion across North America was key to America's future in the eighteenth century, and I want that future to begin right now. I am here, talking to you from space, to prove that an average person with a little courage and heart, as well as a fairly trim waistline and good genetics,
can
travel into space.

“Armstrong Space Station is a military outpost, and it is in need of replacement, but I want our return to space to be much more than just the military—I want ours to include more scientific research and industrialization as well,” President Phoenix went on. “I have been briefed and have seen plans for amazing systems and industries permanently operating in Earth orbit and beyond, and I will challenge the Congress and the federal government to support and assist private industry to deploy and advance these incredible innovations.

“For example, as you may know, debris in space is a big problem for satellites, spacecraft, and astronauts—a hit by even a tiny particle traveling over seventeen thousand miles an hour can cripple a ship or kill a spacewalker. I have seen patented plans by American companies to venture into debris fields and use robots to retrieve large damage-causing pieces. I have even seen plans for a space recycling program: spent or malfunctioning satellites and jettisoned boosters can be retrieved, the unused propellant captured, the solar panels and electronics salvaged and repaired, and the batteries recharged and reused. They are even talking about having a space-based facility in orbit that can rebuild and repair spacecraft and place them back into service—no need to waste the time, energy, manpower, and dollars to bring the satellite all the way back to Earth when there's a crew on a space station ready to do the work.

“Those are only two of the many projects I have seen, and I have to tell you: after the briefings, and especially after coming up here and traveling in space, I feel as if I'm standing at the starting line of the great westward land rush, the reins in my hand and my family, friends, and neighbors beside me, ready to start a new life and take on the future. I know there will be dangers, setbacks, disappointments, loss, injury, and death. It's going to cost a lot of money, private as well as public money, and I'm going to cancel, postpone, or downsize a lot of other programs to make resources available for systems that I feel will take us well into the twenty-second century. But after coming up here, seeing what is being done and learning what can be done, I know it's imperative—no, it's
vital
—that we get started immediately.

“Now, my ride back to Washington leaves in a couple hours. I want to check on Special Agent Spellman to see how he's doing, have a meal with the dedicated personnel aboard this facility, tour around a little more so I can work on my zero-G free-fall movement technique, and then catch a ride back to Earth, but I'd be happy to take a few questions from the White House press corps back in the press briefing room in the White House in Washington.” He looked at the monitor before him, at the slack-jawed, stupefied expressions of the correspondents, and he had to stifle a smile. “Jeffrey Connors of ABC, why don't you start us off?” The correspondent rose shakily to his feet. He looked at his notes and realized he hadn't written anything else down except the questions about Guam that he assumed he would be asking. “Jeff?”

“Uh . . . Mr. . . . Mr. President . . . how . . . how do you feel?” the reporter finally stammered. “Any . . . any adverse effects of the launch and weightlessness?”

“I've been asked that question about a hundred times in the past couple hours,” the president replied. “Every now and then I get a little shot of vertigo, as if I was in a tall building and glanced out the window and suddenly felt as if I was falling, but it passes quickly. I feel good. I guess other first-timers in free fall—weightlessness—don't do as well. My Secret Service detail, Special Agent Spellman, is in sick bay.”

“Excuse me, sir?” Connors asked. The shocked, bewildered expressions of the other correspondents instantly vanished—they smelled fresh news blood in the water. “You have a Secret Service agent
up there with you
?”

“Yes,” the president acknowledged. “It's required, of course, and Earth orbit is no different. Special Agent Charles Spellman volunteered to accompany me on this trip. That was way, way beyond the call of duty.”

“But he's not well?”

“If I may, Mr. President?” Kai Raydon interjected. The president nodded and motioned to the camera. “I'm retired brigadier general Kai Raydon, formerly of the U.S. Space Defense Force and now an employee of Sky Masters Aerospace and the station director. The stresses of space flight affect persons differently. Some people, like the president, tolerate the G-forces and weightlessness very well; others don't. Special Agent Spellman is in top physical condition, on a par with anyone who has ever traveled up to Armstrong, but his body was temporarily intolerant to the forces and sensations he experienced. As the president said, he's recovering very well.”

“Is he going to be able to take the stress of returning to Earth?” another reporter asked.

“I'd have to refer to our medical director, Dr. Miriam Roth,” Kai said, “but Special Agent Spellman is looking good to me. I think he'll do fine on the return after some rest and antisickness medication.”

“He'll be
medicated
?” another correspondent retorted. “How is he going to perform his duties if he's medicated?”

“It's a standard drug used by almost all station personnel experiencing symptoms of space sickness,” Kai said. It was clear he was not comfortable being the target of all these rapid-fire, rather accusatory questions. “Persons using Phenergan can continue all their normal duties in a very short time.”

Now the correspondents were tapping quickly on their tablets or scribbling quickly on their notepads. President Phoenix could see the rising irritation in Kai's face and quickly stepped in. “Thank you, General Raydon. How about Margaret Hastings from NBC?” the president asked.

The well-known and longtime White House chief correspondent got to her feet, her eyes narrowed in a way that millions of American viewers recognized as the veteran reporter preparing to dig in her claws. “Mr. President, I must say, I am still in a state of absolute shock,” she said with a distinctive Boston accent that she never lost despite her years in New York and Washington. “I simply cannot fathom the extraordinarily extreme level of risk to the nation you took by traveling up to the space station. I am simply at a complete loss for words.”

“Miss Hastings, life has risks,” the president said. “As I mentioned to Vice President Page, I'm sure a lot of people felt that a sitting president should not have taken the first ride on a motor vessel, locomotive, automobile, or airplane—that it was simply too risky and the technology so new that it wasn't worth placing the president's life needlessly in jeopardy. Yet now all that is routine. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to fly in an airplane, and that was less than ten years after Kitty Hawk. Americans have been flying in space for almost sixty years now.”

“But this is completely different, Mr. President!” Hastings exclaimed. “Space is infinitely more dangerous than flying in an airplane . . . !”

“You can say that now, Miss Hastings, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when airplanes have been around for over a hundred years,” the president interjected. “But at the beginning of the twentieth century, I'm sure many realized that flying was infinitely more dangerous than riding in a carriage or on horseback, and certainly too dangerous to risk the president's life when he could just as easily take a carriage, train, or ship. But I know that space travel has advanced to the point where we need to exploit it to help our country and mankind to grow, and the way I chose to do it is to take this trip.”

“But that is not your job, Mr. President,” Hastings said indignantly, as if she was lecturing a young boy. “Your job is to run the executive branch of the government of the United States of America and be the leader of the free world. The location of that very important job is in Washington, D.C., sir, not in outer space!”

“Miss Hastings, I've watched you on television for years,” the president responded. “I've seen you report from chaotic, shattered urban battlefields, from blood-soaked crime scenes, from disaster areas with looters running through the streets threatening you and your crew. Are you telling me that reporting from the eye of a hurricane was necessary for your job? You went out into one-hundred-twenty-mile-an-hour winds or put on a flak vest and helmet and stepped out into the middle of firefights for a reason, and I think that reason is to drive home the message you wanted to give to your audience.

“Well, I'm doing the very same thing by coming up here,” Phoenix went on. “I believe that America's future is space, and I wanted to drive home that point by accepting the invitation to fly up here and do it. I wanted to experience what's it's like to suit up, fly in space, feel the G-forces, see Earth from two hundred miles up, do a spacewalk, look at this magnificent . . .”

The shock and bedlam in the White House press room erupted once again, and the members of the press corps who were seated shot to their feet as if pulled by a puppeteer with strings.
“Do a spacewalk?”
they all exclaimed as if in unison.
“
You did a
spacewalk . . .
?”

“It lasted two, maybe two and a half minutes,” the president said. “I stepped out of the spaceplane's cockpit, was hoisted up atop—”

“You were in the spaceplane's cockpit?”
Hastings shouted.

“I had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit during docking, and I took it,” the president said. He decided right then not to tell them that it was
he
who did the docking. “I had been told by Vice President Page that the way they first had to transfer to the station from the early models of the spaceplane was via a spacewalk. We were prepared for it, and there was no more danger in it than any other astronaut experiences.”