mirevolver

Thank you Angel. Here, I'll post the rest of the Prologue. In the future I'll post segments of the stories. But I do want to keep some of it secret in case the books get published.

___________

“What do you want?” Moss asked as he closed the door to his office.

“What do you mean?” Manna asked with slight confusion.

Moss walked behind his desk, took his seat and gestured to the two chairs sitting on the other side of the desk. “Please have a seat Dr.”

Dr. Manna selected the seat to the right and sat down keeping her back straight and crossing her legs.

Dr. Moss began again. “You must want something, or you wouldn’t have interrupted my breakfast.”

“Oh, well first I want to see the spacecraft. Second, I want to join the team.”

“You can see the spacecraft, but I would like to know your qualifications before signing you on.”

“How does a PhD in Astrophysics sound to you? I have a resume, and a list of references if you’d like to verify it.”

Moss mulled it over, then said, “Welcome to the team, would you like to see the spacecraft?”

“Now?”

“Is there a better time?”

“Well I,” Manna said with some hesitation, “I guess now is a good a time as any.”

“Alright. If you could just give your resume to my assistant on the way out, so I can have your references verified.”

As the two walked out of Moss’s office, Dr. Manna pulled out a pocket computer from her purse and transmitted her resume to the computer on Moss’s assistant’s desk.

“Sam, I’ll be giving Dr. Manna a tour of the facility. Could you please run a check on her resume?”

“Sure, Dr. Moss. I’ll have it ready when you return.” Sam replied.

Dr. Moss turned to face Dr. Manna, “Would you like the tour to start or end with the hangers?”

“Let’s start with the hangers.” Manna said beaming.

The two walked out of the office building and onto the tarmac. They got into a cart and drove toward the hangers at the far side of the tarmac.

A few minutes later, Moss parked the cart at the side door of one of the hangers. The two got out and approached the door. Dr. Moss held the door open, “After you.”

Dr. Manna stepped through the door and her eyes lit up. Sitting in the middle of the hanger was the twelve-meter long spacecraft she had photographed the previous night. It sat on four, square platforms attached to the bottom. The front end was sloped back to create an aerodynamic form and along each side there was a six-meter long rocket tube, which started at the middle of the spacecraft and ended at the rear of the craft. The rocket tubes were open on both ends with valves to close each end and sat about a meter from the top of the three-meter tall craft.

“My God, its magnificent.” Gasped Manna, barley containing her excitement, “How fast can it go?”

“We’ve clocked it at point one times the speed of light, but simulations show that it could reach one third light.” Moss calmly answered.

Manna began to circle the twelve-meter long spacecraft, analyzing every detail of it. Then she walked up to it and put her hand on a panel. “There’s so much I want to know about this spacecraft, like what does it run on?”

“Proton-antiproton reaction runs the propulsion system.” Moss answered, “It’s also is used to start a fusion reaction that powers her electrical systems.”

“How many times has it been flown?”

“This one just did its maiden flight last night.”

“There’s a second one?”

“And a third. Would you like to step inside?”

“Absolutely!”

Moss walked up to the spacecraft, reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote, then announced, “Open sesame,” as he pressed a button on it. Immediately afterward a panel on the right side of the spacecraft slid out a few inches before sliding toward the front of the spacecraft. After the panel stopped, Moss turned to look at Manna and smiled, “Ladies first.”

Manna excitedly rushed into the spacecraft followed by Moss who closed the door behind him. They went up to the cockpit and Dr. Moss sat in the pilot’s seat, while Dr. Manna sat in the copilot’s seat and looked over the blank cockpit. Moss entered the unlock code on a keypad and the cockpit panels lit up. Manna beamed with excitement when the instruments lit up in front of her.

“These look like standard aircraft instruments.” Manna commented.

“Well we are in an atmosphere,” Moss commented, “when the spacecraft enters space the panel changes instruments in order to become more useful for space travel. However we’re a little new at this, so we need an astrophysicist to help us with designing new and better instrument systems.”

“So in a way fate brought me here.”

“I don’t believe in fate Dr., but I suppose that you could put it that way.”

“I’d love to help. But what I’m wondering is will I have the opportunity to go into space?”

“If you sign on today or tomorrow, I could get you on the roster for the maiden voyage of XAC-03.”

“XAC-03?”

“Experimental antimatter craft three, that’s the third spacecraft, which is scheduled to make its maiden flight next week.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful.”




“How are you doing?” Moss asked as he entered Manna’s office.

“Good, no wait. I’m doing great, this past week has been just amazing, it has always been my dream to go into space.”

“And now your dream will come true. The spacecraft is being prepped for launch, the liftoff is scheduled for one thirty tomorrow morning.”

“Why the odd time?”

“Helps to create the illusion of a UFO. When we determine that we can release the information of these spacecraft to the public, we will be doing launches at more decent hours. Besides you were an astronomer in you last job I’d figure that you were used to these hours.”

“I was hoping to shed that with the job.”

“You will eventually.” Moss said as he looked at his watch. “It’s now ten o’clock, we begin mission briefing in one hour at the conference room in hanger three.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”




“Ladies and gentleman” Moss said oratorically in the front of the conference room, “Before I begin I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our team, Dr. Jane Manna.” Moss stretched out his arm in the direction of Dr. Manna.

Dr. Manna stood up and received a round of applause, then sat back down.

“Now on with the mission, as you already know, the plan of our first five missions is to set up a communications system that will allow us to maintain contact with our spacecraft while on the far side of the moon. In order to do that we will need to be able to land on the moon, that’s the goal of this mission.

“Landing on the moon will require use of the spacecraft’s VTOL feature unless any of you know of a landing strip on the moon. So what is needed is for maintenance to make sure that the spacecraft has enough fuel to vertically land and take off on the moon and safely return.

“Mission Control, I have uploaded the flight plan to your computers. The plan involves lifting off from earth, going into an orbital path and then breaking that orbital path to head for the moon. Once at the moon the spacecraft will circle around the moon and then land at the specified point on the edge of Mare Crisium.

“Ground crews, see to it that the runway and taxiway lights are working, we don’t want to be taking off or landing blindly. And last but most defiantly not least, the flight crew will consist of the pilot, me. The copilot, Nikita Dmitriv, and the person in the third seat will be Dr. Jane Manna. Dr. Manna will be on the flight to look over our instruments and come up with ideas to improve them. Any questions?” Moss gave a pause, “No, ok then. Scheduled launch time is one thirty, lets do this.”

With that, everybody in the room got up to do their preflight tasks.




“Are you two ready?” Moss asked.

“Absolutely.” Dmitriv answered.

“I think so.” Manna responded while fidgeting with her flight suit.

“Then its time to go land on the moon.” Moss said with a smile.
Starting with Moss, the three of them turned toward a door in the room and began to walk toward it. As they approached, the door slid open and the three astronauts stepped through to the other side where the XAC-03 spacecraft was sitting in its hanger. Ground crews were buzzing all around the spacecraft making sure that nothing was overlooked in the preparation before the spaceflight. On the right side of the spacecraft the access door just behind the cockpit was open and the ground crew members inside were moving out. Moss, Manna and Dmitriv approached as the last person inside the spacecraft was stepping out.

“Is she ready?” Moss asked the man stepping out.

“Yes, ready as she’ll ever be.”

“Good,” Moss said as he turned toward Manna and Dmitriv, “After you.”

Manna and Dmitriv stepped inside and went straight to the cockpit while Moss closed the access door. When Moss entered the cockpit Dmitriv had already powered up the instrument panel and was running through the preflight checklist. Moss sat down and activated the radio controls.

“Alpha charlie three to control, alpha charlie three to control. Come in control.” Moss spoke out as soon as he knew that the radio was online.

“This is control, we read you alpha charlie three. Can you please give your current status?”
Moss quickly looked over the instruments then responded, “Antimatter reactor is online. All systems are go, standing by for clearance to power the antigravity pads.”

“Roger that alpha charlie three, you are clear to power up the antigravity pads and begin taxi to runway two seven.”

Moss ran his fingers over the panel in front of him to activate the antigravity pads on the bottom of the spacecraft. A whirring sound came from underneath the cockpit and the spacecraft began to lift up. Once the spacecraft was about a meter off of the ground it stopped rising and levitated. Moss then put his hand on the throttle controls and moved them forward slightly causing the spacecraft to lurch forward slowly as it headed for the open hanger doors.

Sluggishly, the spacecraft moved out of the hanger and into the darkness of night, and just as it became completely enveloped by the darkness Moss switched on the external lights and the spacecraft majestically lit up as the navigation lights on the sides lit up followed by the beacon lights on the top and bottom began to flash. The last set of lights was the taxi headlights that shot beams straight out in front of the spacecraft like searchlights.

The spacecraft picked up some speed as it taxied toward the end of the runway. As it approached the turn to the runway some small thruster engines on the front of the spacecraft fired to slow it down.

Moss calmly turned the spacecraft onto the five-thousand-meter runway as though he had done it a hundred times. "Alpha charlie three to control, we are in position and awaiting clearance for liftoff."

"This is control to alpha charlie three, we read you loud and clear. You have the go-ahead for liftoff. Be sure to take some good pictures of the moon."

"We will. Alpha charlie three out." Moss said as he placed his hand on the throttle controls. "Nikita, check engines."

"Both engines are good to go. Front and rear valves are open."

"Close the front valves on my mark." Moss began to move the throttle forward, immediately following was a low rumble. As the throttle controls approached the maximum thrust position the noise from the rumble grew louder. Once the controls reached maximum, Moss shouted with a hint of excitement, "Close forward valves!"

Dmitriv's hands flew across the panel in front of him as he punched two buttons, "Valves closing."

The spacecraft jerked forward and then began to accelerate at a breakneck pace. After the first thousand meters, the spacecraft was shooting down the runway at an incredible speed.

"Firing rotation thrusters!" Moss shouted, partly to be heard over the engines, but mostly from excitement. His hand pressed a set of buttons on his panel, and in response, the nose of the spacecraft began to lift up. The force from the main engines began to propel the spacecraft upward. The spacecraft continued to rotate until it was in a vertical position at which point the sheer force of the main engines caused the spacecraft to rocket up to the stars.

__________________
Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions.