Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") (26 page)

***

Tiona sat in the lab, trying to make sense of the different readings she’d gotten from the test disc last night. She had organized a couple of tables displaying the thrust depending on altitude and orientation, thinking that she should be able to understand the small variations in thrust that were present. She really wanted to have some way to logically explain the results before her meeting with Dr. Eisner that afternoon.

Nolan cleared his throat behind her, “Tiona?”

“Uh-huh?” she said without looking around.

“I’ve, uh, got this coupon for a big discount at that new sub shop on Franklin Street. Wanna go to lunch?”

Since she was facing the other way and Nolan couldn’t see her, Tiona frowned
. Lunch two days in a row? Does he think we’re dating?
“Um…” she said,
Oh what the hell. He was fun to have lunch with yesterday and I’m sure as hell not dating anyone else! Besides, I need to invite him for a ride in the saucer.
She turned to look at him, “That’d be fun. But, this time
I’m
buying.”

As they walked north towards Franklin Street and the sub shop, they had different thoughts. Nolan wondered how he could buy Tiona’s lunch without embarrassing her and distractedly wished that he was better at casual conversation.

Tiona, on the other hand, wondered how to invite him for a ride on the saucer. Maybe she should take Eisner up for a ride too? Finally she said, “You have any plans tonight? Say, 11 o’clock?”

A sinking feeling came over Nolan as he decided she must have gotten back together with Ronnie Winters and was inviting him to go to a show, “Um, what did you have in mind?”

She looked at him and grinned, “It’s a secret. You have to meet me out at Finley golf course… I promise that it’s something you’ve always wanted to do,” she said enigmatically.

She knows how sexy I think she is! Is she offering…?
Nolan’s heart stuttered, not at
all
sure what she had in mind. Meeting on a golf course seemed too weird to be believed, but he’d once had a friend who claimed to have had wild sex with a girl on a golf green under the stars. At that moment Nolan couldn’t imagine what else they might do there in the middle of the night—especially in view of the “something you’ve always wanted to do” promise. But it was January, too cold to make love on a golf green! “Um, s-sure,” he stuttered, hoping he didn’t sound like too much of an overeager idiot. Desperately, he tried to think of something else to talk about.

Tiona had her AI throw up an overhead view of the golf course and studied it on her HUD for a moment as they walked. “Tell you what, I’ll meet you at the soccer field that’s just west of the golf course.”

“Oh, okay, 11PM.”

Suddenly, a woman sitting on one of the benches looked at them and said, “Hey, ‘T,’ you snatch yourself a handsome college boy?” Nolan realized she was one of the homeless women!

Nolan felt embarrassed for Tiona to have been accosted on the street by a homeless woman. A woman who obviously knew her from the shelter. However, Tiona just laughed and said, “Hey Debbie, I thought you were applying for jobs?”

A big smile spread across Debbie’s face, “I got one honey. I got me a job. I start tomorrow. I talked to Shelley like you said. She got me some nice clothes to interview in. Once I got the job, she got me some more clothes to wear to work the first two weeks!”

Tiona laughed delightedly and stepped over to Debbie. The woman rose from the bench and they hugged each other for a moment, then Tiona said, “Good luck Debbie.” She pushed her back out to arm’s length, “I’ve got to go to lunch with my ‘college boy’ here, but I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

Expecting that Tiona would be embarrassed, Nolan was surprised to see an enormous smile on her face as she stepped away from the homeless woman. She was still grinning when they entered the sub shop and Nolan was still trying to figure out what to say about the encounter.
Should I ask her about it? How could she explain it other than to admit she eats at the homeless shelter herself?!
He decided to just try to pretend it didn’t happen. As they waited for their sandwiches he asked her about her thrust phenomenon research, it seemed a safe subject. Her answers seemed enigmatic, but that might just have been because of the very limited results she could have produced since yesterday.

***

Major Riker stood at the front of the room, waiting nervously. He’d never given a presentation to a general officer before and didn’t know who this General Harding was. A Brigadier, he was supposed to be some kind of hotshot troubleshooter from off to the side of the usual chain of command. Things had sure seemed to happen when Harding started giving orders. Finally the general gave him the eye and signaled for him to start. Riker began his briefing, focusing on the things they had done to try to learn something about what had happened last night. If he only told them what the team had actually
learned
so far, it would in fact be a very brief briefing.

When he finished General Harding sat tapping a finger on the desktop. “So, let me summarize what we actually
know
… RDU traffic control recorded transponder signals indicating an aircraft—that did not identify itself—going straight up. Radar at that airport as well as several other civilian radar systems also recorded a return from an object that was apparently going straight up?”

Riker nodded.

Harding continued, “NORAD also detected the object and tracked it to an altitude of 122 kilometers, well beyond the accepted hundred kilometer limit for a space launch.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Yet, two experienced air traffic controllers in the RDU control tower, who specifically look out the tower to the east, trying to see a rocket launch, see no such thing?”

“No Sir.”

“Just about the time that everyone has written it off as a glitch in the system, the aforesaid object falls back out of the sky on a trajectory to impact in a lake no more than twenty miles from where it launched, a
surprisingly
vertical ascent and descent.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Helicopters sent to the area of the lake shortly after the expected impact find no infrared evidence of heated material suggesting a crash. Subsequent analysis of the descent suggests that the object may have decelerated at a rate of 3 to 5 G’s during the last seven seconds it was coming down.”

Major Riker merely nodded again.

“Radar evidence shows the object launching from a local golf course in Raleigh, North Carolina. Helicopter, satellite, and a man on the ground examination of the golf course and its surrounds show no evidence of a launch site. Additionally there are only a few substantial buildings in the area and inspection of them does not suggest that they could be covering some sort of launch silo.”

“No Sir.”

“Door to door questioning of the people in the immediate neighborhoods surrounding the golf course finds
no one
who even
heard
anything that might suggest a rocket launch.”

“No Sir.”

The general sighed and rubbed his eyes. “So in summary, we have a silent launch of a space capable rocket carrying an
aircraft
transponder. The launch is also confirmed on radar. This UFO reaches outer space, then comes almost straight back down to a lake where it
does not
crash.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Our only saving grace is that, other than the air traffic controllers, apparently no civilians observed this event to turn it into some kind of Roswell incident.”

“No Sir, but I
am
concerned that if we continue questioning people about it, that the general public
will
become alarmed and it might become an incident on some level.”

“Okay. So, we’ll stop interviewing the locals. We
will
, however, have the NSA let us know if anyone starts talking about the incident on e-media. We’ll also maintain a high overflight surveillance of the general area with whatever type of AWACS craft is available. We’ll station attack helicopters at several locations in the nearby area and put some air superiority fighter aircraft on ready alert at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. If this thing
didn’t
crash, and it takes flight
again
, we’re going to track it down! Got that?”

***

Lisanne waited until Vaz had gotten started on his meal. “Vaz, this project you and Tiona have been working on… this isn’t something that might get the government excited is it?”

Vaz froze with his fork partly to his mouth, widened eyes focused intently on Lisanne. “Maybe. Why?”

“Some earnest young men knocked on our door this afternoon. They were dressed in civilian clothes, but I’d swear they were in the military from the way they called me ‘Ma’am’.”

Vaz’s fork hadn’t moved, “What did they want?”

“Asked a lot of questions about loud noises or bright lights. Wanted to know if we’d been outside last night. If so, had we seen or heard anything unusual?”

Vaz’s eyes narrowed, “Did they say why they were asking
us
?”

“No, I saw them go on to knock on the Johnson’s door after they left here, so I think they were just going door to door and asking everyone.”

Some of the tension left Vaz’s face and he finally moved the forkful of food into his mouth. He began chewing without saying anything.

Lisanne rolled her eyes, “So what are you and Tiona doing that might have the government excited?”

Vaz finished chewing, loaded his fork and lifted it toward his mouth. Just as Lisanne was getting irritated because she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he said, “We built a spacecraft.” He put the forkful of lasagna in his mouth and started chewing.

Startled, and with wide eyes, Lisanne said, “Based on that saucer you were riding around on down in the basement?!”

Vaz nodded.

“But surely you don’t have a battery with enough power for one of those discs to fly all the way into space?!”

Vaz swallowed, “No. We built a bigger saucer so that it would have enough thrust to lift a fusion plant.”

Lisanne tilted her head, “Wait, I thought the fusion plant was small and light?”

Vaz nodded, “But, it’s got five tons of water, boron and layered metal for shielding.”

“Oh!” Lisanne thought for a moment then frowned at Vaz as she said slowly, “Wait a minute. How big
is
this thing?”

“Do you want to look at it?” he asked somewhat eagerly. “It’s over in Johnson’s garage.”

Lisanne sighed, “As soon as we finish dinner. Does it make a lot of noise or bright lights?”

Vaz frowned, “No. They probably saw us go up on radar and decided it must’ve been a rocket launch.”

“A launch you didn’t have permission for…?”

Vaz just shook his head.

“How high did you go?” she asked suspiciously.

“122 kilometers.”

“Above 100 is considered to be in space, right?”

Vaz nodded.

Lisanne sighed again. “Let’s go see this thing…”

***

Bob Eisner stared at the young woman across the desk from him. “Wait Ms. Gettnor, you got these data… how?” he said, turning his eyes back to the table she had up on his display. The table displayed thrust numbers for a fifteen centimeter disc. And one of the columns—his eyes kept coming back to it—bore the label 122,000 meters. “Did Dr. Weitzel send your package up in a balloon like we talked about?” As soon as he said it, he realized that couldn’t be right. Balloons couldn’t possibly get to that altitude. Then he wondered whether balloons could get to 122,000
feet
.

She looked a little embarrassed as she said, “Um, no.”

Eisner was trying to imagine what kind of a mistake the young woman was about to own up to, when she said, “Um, my dad and I… we built a device using thrusters to send the experiment up that high.” She said that last in a rush, as if trying to get it off her chest.

“A device…” Eisner said, feeling confused.

“Um, yeah. Thrusters can lift things, right? Like propellers, or jets, or rockets.”

“So… you’re saying… you made a rocket that uses thrusters?”

“Kinda. I’d like to show it to you.”

“Okay,” Eisner said half expecting her to pull some kind of rocket out of her backpack.

“Um, ’cause we don’t want the whole world to know about it yet, I think the only time we can do it is at night. I told Nolan I’d show it to him tonight at eleven. Can you meet us then too?”

Eisner sat there dazed after the young woman left his office. He’d agreed to meet her at the soccer field west of Finley golf course at 11 PM. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit apprehensive about the cloak and dagger nature of the meeting. He’d tried to request more details about the device, but she’d refused, saying it would be more fun for him to see it.