Space Chronicles The Beginning

Chapter 6A

All is not lost; the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.

-John Milton- 

When Marty and Angie entered the Area 51 Air Force Aeronautical Engineering briefing room, they were greeted by enthusiastic clapping and cheering. The claps and cheers came from their crew: Uma, George, Lia and Ferris as well as Clarence, Arthur and General Wilson.

Uma ran to Angie and hugged and kissed her. She repeated the greeting with Marty. Angie was embarrassed. Marty was not. He liked it.

"We love you. You are our heroes," Uma said, bubbling over. "Thank you." She turned to the others and gave them a thumbs-up. "We are going to the stars, people!"

The others cheered.

"Thank you," Marty said, waving like a politician at a state caucus.

Angie fought back tears. "I'm so happy to see all of you."

"Believe me," George said. "We are very glad to see you.” He looked at Marty. “How was it?"

"Not bad at all. Just a bit unnerving, that's all."

General Wilson stepped forward. "You both are a credit to the US Air Force. I can think of no one else to entrust this great craft and these new missions to deep space." He saluted, eliciting salutes from both.

Clarence took the podium. ”From this moment on you will be the only people who know the full story of the X-2001. Your training will continue with the goal of a launch in May."

"Where are we going?" George asked.

"Your first mission will be to the Centaurus system. Then you will be sent to more distant stars that are likely candidates to have planets with life, stars much like our own."

"Will we be making contact?" Ferris asked

Clarence cracked a brief smile. "This is all new to us. We have no idea if you’ll find life let alone sentient life. What we are looking for is knowledge of what is in our section of the Milky Way. Are there Earthlike planets around stars like ours? And, if there are, do they contain life?"

"What are the criteria for these nearby stars?" George asked.

Arthur came forward. "I believe they chose main sequence stars of spectral type K1 to G6 that are old enough and stable enough to support Earthlike planets. They also used data from the Kepler Mission. All of these stars supposedly have Earth-sized planets."

Clarence held his hand up. "There will be ample opportunity to discuss the technical aspects of these missions." He smiled. "We'll leave you to your celebration. Thank you."

Wilson pointed at Marty and Angie. "You two are scheduled for a briefing at 0700."

"Yes, sir," Angie said.

Clarence, Arthur and Wilson left.

"Okay," George said. "Give us the real story. What was it really like?"

Marty grinned. "It felt like pins and needles and it looked as if the entire ship had been stretched through a meat grinder."

"It didn't last that long, maybe a few minutes," Angie said. "We have no lasting effects, at least not yet."

Marty frowned. "Yeah, they ran us through every medical test known to man. That was worse than going through the worm hole."

George flashes a momentary grin. "That was it? You felt like pins and needles while you were being squashed through a wormhole? It sounds too easy."