Bright Horizons

Chapter 4

15 May 2042

The low murmur slowly faded to almost quiet as Kyle walked through the door. The rest of the Marines, the Ambassador and the rest of his team were there and the NASA personnel were following close behind him.

Kyle nodded and the Marines went back to their idle chatter.

“Colonel, looks like all personnel are here,” Lieutenant Colonel Howard “Cowboy” Jackson said as he looked over the room.

“Is everyone suited up?” Cowboy asked in his booming voice.

Greeted with a round of “Yes, sir," he nodded and went over to the walkway hatch.

“Good. Now we need to board and be ready for takeoff in ten minutes. I’ll check you on and make sure we are secure. Any questions? Let’s board ladies and gentlemen,” Cowboy said as he motioned to the walkway.

Eight minutes later they were all secure in their seats and Cowboy was securing himself into the pilot’s seat.

“Kennedy, this is STS Fletcher, all personnel are secure and the ship is ready for go. Over,” Cowboy said to the control tower.

“Fletcher, all is secure. Begin prelaunch.”

Kyle took a deep breath and tried to keep focus. All of his time in fighter jets, all of his time on the STT, had still not prepared him for space travel. He couldn’t help but think of Cindy and what she had told him of her first space flight. He had been excited to hear about it, but that was based on the fact that he knew he would never have to chance to go. 

Now he was nervous and a little overwhelmed by the feeling of riding what was essentially a giant roman candle out of the safety of the atmosphere.

He was thinking about Cindy a lot today. It had been almost a year since the Endeavour was lost. For fifteen years Cindy had been the Martin that everyone in the family looked up to. Bill was an investment banker, and Kyle was a Marine, but Cindy was an astronaut!

She had such a sense of normalcy about her job, but she worked in the last frontier. That’s how Kyle saw his sister; a pioneer, striving to understand and tame a new environment. And now she was gone and it was his turn to make history in this dark and foreboding arena.

He took a deep breath and focused back on the discussion going on between Cowboy and the tower.

“Life-hib system check a-ok, looks like we are go for launch Kennedy.”

“Roger Fletcher, countdown commencing. Launch in nine minutes.”

Kyle looked around, as best as he could, and saw Jennings doing the same. The two Marines were with Cowboy and Major Nestor, his co-pilot, in the cockpit. The rest of the mission’s crew were in the passenger compartments below.

Cindy always told him that it was a thrill to be in the cockpit because you could watch space coming right at you. The engines kicked in and he felt, more than heard, the rumble of the boosters as they lit up. He sat back and recited the itinerary from launch to contact again.

“T-minus thirty seconds.”

Broken from his thoughts, Kyle instinctively checked his buckles to make sure they were firm. He felt the hum of the main engines whine to full speed.

“T-minus ten seconds.”

“Crew of the Fletcher, we are past the terminal launch point. God speed to us all,” Cowboy said over the intercom system.

Kyle found himself mouthing the countdown, just as all kids have since the 1960’s and space launches were shown on television.

“Liftoff Fletcher, Good luck gentlemen.”