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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 06/14/2009 : 06:43:32
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(Part 1 of this story can be found here.)
Returning home
As I drove the X-15 back to the ISS (space station), I realized that I'd left my key ring on the ISS (starship). This bothered me considerably until I finally used my CB radio to call Earth, and arranged to have all my locks changed.
I was looking forward to my return, especially anticipating the smiles on the faces of my relatives when they saw the souvenirs I'd purchased at the starship's little knick-knack store. So I floored the accelerator. In no time at all (it seemed in my dream) I was screaming into the Solar System in a hyperbolic cometary orbit.
I figured I'd best radio in again and ask some NASA rocket scientists about how to get into an orbit alongside the International Space Station. It was touch and go for a while, but I'd definitely picked up some rocket-driving skills during my rendezvous mission. Soon I had docked and was kicking back in my recliner in the very center of the ISS (station). I had an immense feeling of satisfaction for having sorted out the technical and personnel problems on the ISS (starship) which even the experts and crew had missed.
Soon, however, new problems presented themselves, in the person of some astronomer who told me that the latest data from space telescopes proved that Alpha Centauri A, the star the starship was headed toward, had no earth-like planets in its habitable zone. Instead, a very diffuse asteroid belt covering the that zone had been detected.
The ISS (the starship) would have to detour to Alpha Centauri B, instead. The astronomy guy said he didn't have good data yet on Alpha Centauri B, but it certainly looked like a better bet than a system which was definitely known to have no earth-like planets. I began to worry that the new destination would also turn out to be a wash-out, but then it occurred to me that there were plenty more letters in the alphabet after A and B. About two dozen, in fact.
I decided it would be too impersonal for me to simply radio the course change orders to the expedition, so I had the X-15 fueled up again, loaded more supplies, including baby bottles, formula and bassinets for the multiplying crew, two orphan babies for the same-sex couple that wanted to adopt, and almost a metric ton of ice cream (I hadn't brought enough Rocky Road last time).
I arrived at the starship unannounced, as I wanted to surprise the crew and thus add a little enrichment to their lives.
As I was greeted at the airlock by an officer, I noticed the smell of stale diapers mixed with farmyard aromas. I also seemed to notice some mysterious activities. At a distance, I thought I recognized the woman whom I'd promoted from stable hand to Captain. She was now dressed in dung-soiled farm overalls. She ducked out of my line of sight. I glimpsed a fellow looked like he might be the former Captain I'd demoted to stable hand, but who was now dressed in a senior officer's uniform, as he slipped through a hatch into a crew compartment. I saw several crew members who seemed to be hastily moving possessions from one crew compartment to another. I shrugged and dismissed these observations.
The man at the airlock kept me there for a few minutes, asking questions about the standings among NBA teams. Then the Captain, now dressed in an ill-fitting NASA officer's uniform, arrived and greeted me.
"First, please have someone unload the ice cream before it melts. And get those orphans out of the X-15's trunk, too."
After those pressing tasks had been swiftly and efficiently attended to, I told her, "Captain, new orders." I handed her the napkin on which I'd written the new mission instructions:
Turn right a tad
from Alpha Centauri A
and instead proceed
to Alpha Centauri B.
The rest of the mission
remains the same.
Before I returned, we packed three mining pony foals into the X-15's trunk. The ponies had been breeding a bit too successfully. We also loaded a bag of the crew's outgoing mail.
(One more episode from my dream will be coming soon. After that, I will be fresh out of dream-supplied plot. Only if people express an interest, I may continue the story the hard way, making up a pack of regular fiction lies while awake.)
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 06/23/2009 01:45:39
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How I Launched the First Interstellar Mission (2)
