Fly Me to the Moon

Chapter 5

Samantha Harris led the men inside of the NASA building and introduced them to the team of scientists, technicians, and engineers.

"These are NASA's greatest minds and the people making it possible for going beyond the stars where no man or woman has gone before," Sam said, "this is Dr. Penelope Pines. Penelope, these are Joey Platters and Tony Reeves."

"Hello, babies," Penelope said with the smile of a grandmother and an accent of a true southerner. She was a short and skinny older woman with long blond and gray hair in a ponytail and dog brown eyes. She wore a dark pink button up shirt with a pair of pleated blue trousers with a white lab coat over it, "I can't wait to see what potential you two show."

"Nice to meet you, and I love the accent," Tony said as he shook her hand, "even Joey doesn't sound that southern."

Joey nudged him playfully.

"Nice to meet you, maim," Joey said while shaking her hand.

"Nice to meet you both," Penelope said.

"And this is Dr. John Robins," Sam said as she introduced a tall and husky man with a bald head, white and black facial hair, and chartreuse green eyes.

"Nice to meet you both," John said as he offered his hand for them to shake, "I believe the physical training will be the tall fella's strong suit. The scrawny one may do better behind the books."

"Don't underestimate Joey just yet," Tony said, "you never know that your analysis could be the invalid."

"I'm just joshing with ya," John said, "be nice to my wife. She's going to be in your class. Short Latina, can't miss her."

"There's boys and girls in the class?" Joey asked.

"It's only fair that everyone has an equal opportunity to learn as anyone else," a woman close to John said with a scowl.

"And this tough brawd is our engineer, Patrisha "Trisha" Faust," Sam said, "and my favorite person."

Trisha laughed and smiled, "That's too sweet, Miss Sammy."

Trisha was an average and curvy sized woman. Her hair was black, curly, and reached the bottom of her ears. She had dark brown eyes and was a mocha brown woman in a bright red dress with blue Mary Jane's that complimented the tool belt around her waist.

"Do you work with rockets?" Tony asked intrigued.

"And you could too," Trisha said.

That peaked Tony's interest.

"There will be more learning to come in class tomorrow," Sam said as she led them down a hallway where there were many bunkers.

The two men were settling into their shared bunker room.

"Man, to think how far we ventured to get here," Tony said as he leaned back onto his bed, "to realize that NASA recruits have better beds than army men."

Joey chuckled, "I wouldn't know. But I do know that tomorrow is gonna be life-changing for sure."

"Isn't it already life-changing," Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Indeed it is," Joey said, "but everything begins tomorrow."

Tony tossed and turned on his bed until he got just right, "We better get some shut eye."
Joey yawned and rubbed his eyes, "you're right. Goodnight, champ."