Chapter 6: We Can Eat

“Blaze, can we open up Crew Quarters on Blazing Star yet?” asked Simon.

“Not yet captain, I have dispatched Maintenance Droids to open up the Officers Quarters. Food Services is still offline pending data acquisition.” replied Blaze.

“Oh, you need to know what foods we eat?” asked Simon.

“Yes Captain” replied Blaze.

“Okay, work with Nate and Tonya to access the Internet through our ‘link’ and acquire whatever recipes necessary. How much time do you need to get something coming out of the food processors for us to eat?” asked Simon.

“Food Services is coming online now. Diagnostics running. Repairs are required and are now underway. New recipes will be added as acquired.” replied Blaze.

“Grant, as soon as you are finished in Medical, Bill will shuttle you back to the cabin. You and your team may use that cabin as a new ‘base of operations’ until we get all your team through Medical. I am sure they will appreciate the use of the facilities. Refill the diesel tanks from the barrels Bill brought on his last run in. See if you can schedule your team a few at a time for a visit here so we can get them all checked out. You don’t anticipate any problems explaining any of this to them I hope?” said Simon.

“No I don’t, other than the obvious questions I’ll get until they actually visit here. There are a couple of issues we should discuss about security, however. This is a very big area. So far it looks like no one is aware of anything ‘suspicious’ going on out here. That cannot last, I am assuming. We need a lot more equipment to provide coverage over this area. We were on site quite a while before our first check-in, did some early explorations and found some weak spots in the perimeter we need to watch.” replied Grant.

“I monitored you and your team exiting out of the canyon when you first arrived here. I have been able to watch your team moving around as they performed their duties.” said Blaze.

“If you have equipment that sensitive, we need to get it deployed over a much larger area.” said Grant.

Blaze replied, “Captain, since power levels continue to rise, I can expand the passive scan radius.” Simon replied “Good. Since those reactors are now online, we will need a much larger scan radius for incoming aircraft as well as ground forces. We don’t know if the reactors are sending out any kind of a ‘signature’. See what we can provide our security team as power becomes available.”

“Understood Captain.” replied Blaze. “Bringing communications online. Setting scan mode to passive and extending. Captain, detecting 153 aircraft and 14 satellites. Their flight paths do not show them over-flying this site.”

“Monitor and report anything alarming!” said Simon.

“Understood, Captain.” replied Blaze.

“James, have you and Bill checked out the flight simulators for the fighters yet?” asked Simon.

“Yes, we are both now fully rated to fly the Stingers.” replied James. “Shall I take one out and see how it shakes down?”

“Blaze, prep a Stinger for James. Let’s see what they can do.” said Simon.

“Prepping Stinger (SF-1) for James.” said Blaze.

“All right!” said James, getting just a bit more nervous than usual with a new aircraft.

He had practiced on the simulators till he felt he knew pretty well how to control them. They utilized a helmet control that directly interfaced the plane to the pilot’s brain. As SF-1 rolled out to the middle of the hangar, James donned his flight suit. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the state of the art Canadian Air Force issue in appearance, but that was the end of the similarity. The suit had sensors everywhere. It was also made of a material that was fully space flight capable as was the Stinger. It was also virtually bullet-proof. The Stinger, however looked like nothing any air force on earth had. It was roughly shaped like a capital ‘A’. The single pilot sat in the absolute middle. In the two seat version the pilots sat side by side. The two lower parts of the craft housed the dual engines and all the armaments. A couple of stabilizing fins for atmospheric use rounded out the appearance. Rather unusual. It’s performance was something else.

Enabling full cloak, James guided the craft out the hangar door. It was perfectly quiet, utilizing a similar slow speed drive system as the shuttles. James slowly accelerated to about 400 MPH, climbing to 2000 feet and leveling off. He cleared the property boundary heading North. His NAV screens displayed all aerial activity and his on-board computer calculated possible complications, letting him know with a soft beep and verbal messages. Monitoring local air traffic control frequencies, he noted with satisfaction that the local radar installations in Calgary and Edmonton did not appear to have detected him in the air. This was a good thing.

“James to Simon”, he spoke into his communications mike.

“Simon here, go ahead.” responded Simon.

“Cloak appears to be 100% effective. I think a closer look at CFB Cold Lake will confirm. I’ll be careful.” said James.

“Roger that James”, replied Simon.

James kicked in the main engines and approached Mach 1. Shortly he neared Cold Lake, the site of the Western Canada military airfield. It looked quiet. He observed two CF-18 Hornets taking off heading westerly and decided to shadow them at a respectable distance. They appeared to be on a training run, so he edged in a little closer. He was able to get close enough to recognize the names on the side of the planes. James chuckled as he switched his communications to a different frequency and listened.

“It feels good, a lot smoother now. Good thing we had that checked out!” said one pilot.

“Ya, the ailerons can really mess you up if they don’t work smoothly.” replied the other pilot.

James recognized the pair. It was Andy Patrick and Mark Welsh. It was good to see them again. Even better, seeing them without them seeing him. It occurred to James that these two guys may be available soon to recruit. He should set up a dinner or something soon and feel them out! Everything was going so well that he decided that he may as well check out the Stinger for space, so set pure vertical climb and accelerated. With the combination of the silent drive and the main engines, he was into space in less than two minutes. The Stinger had built-in systems to transition to an airless flight and smoothly achieved an ‘on station’ position. Wow, was all he could think of! In space, finally. He’d have to come up here with Bill next time. It had always been his dream as well.

“Sensors detecting object on near collision course!” said his console.

“Arm weapons!” said James.

He noted with satisfaction that green lights appeared on his weapons console. A blinking blue light was tracking the object approaching his location. James adjusted his course to parallel that of the object and eased closer. As it came into visual, James noted it was a piece of a satellite that had probably been ripped off in a collision with another satellite or similar event.

“Space debris.” he thought. “I may as well check out the weapons while I am here and get rid of this piece of trash.”

He activated laser tracking and fired. A pulse of blue-red light emanated from the right side laser. With a satisfying flash of light, the space trash ceased to exist, having been instantly converted into so much gas.

“Wow, that was impressive!” thought James.

On a large computer screen at NASA in the USA, a single blip labeled CS-1093 on the screen, flashed red. The operator observing noted the time, filled out a brief report with the debris designation number and forwarded it off to his supervisor, then cleared the flashing blip from his screen.

“Better head back home!” James said to himself as he looked around. “Beautiful sight up here!” he thought as he pointed his Stinger home.

Arriving silently back in the hangar, James got out of SF-1 and watched as it was gently parked back in its ready position. SF-2 was also in a ready position. The two shuttles were still using up the last of the diesel fuel to add a bit more power to the on-board grid.

He got a broad grin on his face as he thought “Man, I’m going to love flying those things!”

James headed to Command. Simon and Bill were in Command talking about the power levels when he arrived.

“Well, James”, said Bill. “How was the flight?”

“Awesome!” he replied. “The inertia dampeners made it seem so smooth, even when I kicked it into near space. Bill you have got to come up with me next time. Oh Captain, I sort of ‘bumped’ into a couple of ‘old buddies’ while I was up there. You remember Andy Patrick and Mark Welsh don’t you Bill?”

“Oh yes! Those guys are real pros. Aren’t they nearing the end of their stint?” asked Bill.

“Exactly what I was thinking. We could use a few more like them. I was thinking I could take a little excursion up to Cold Lake and meet them for lunch or dinner, then talk over old times and see what they are up to.” said James.

“Hmm ... excellent idea. Should Bill go with you or do you want Blaze to tag along. She can be of some help in determining their loyalty.” said Simon.

Bill thought about it a second or two and said “I probably am going to have to stick around here for a bit more since we are nearing a stage where we need some massive repair work and I think I should spend my time getting to know the systems here. Blaze may be more of a positive distraction, however, you would have a devil of a time getting her on and off the base. That is assuming you were going to meet on base.”

“Good points!” said James.

Just then Grant walked into Command with his two shadows.

“How are you feeling Grant?” asked Simon.

“Never felt better!” replied Grant.

“That process even solved some old war wounds and I feel stronger and more alert than ever before. I will have to get back to some combat training with my people to see just how effective the improvements are.”

The two shadows nodded and agreed.

“Since we are almost all here, let’s get Nate and Tonya for a quick briefing and see where we are with repairs and go over a couple of new ideas.” said Simon.

Simon spoke into his wristband “Nate, Tonya, can you both come to Command?”

“On my way.” replied Nate.

“Me too.” answered Tonya.

“Blaze?” called Simon as she appeared behind him.

“Yes Captain?” she said.

“When everyone is here, we will use the conference room off of Command for a briefing. Is it prepared” he asked.

“It is fully functional” replied Blaze.

“Thank you.” replied Simon.

Nate and Tonya arrived and they all moved into the Command Conference Room and seated themselves at various consoles. The conference room was arranged so that everyone could see everyone else and was roughly oval in shape. The consoles were low so as not to impede visual sight lines. The seats were plush and very comfortable. Simon, being the Captain, assumed a position at the ‘top’ of the oval, and nearest the door to Command. Blaze assumed her position, standing behind Simon and slightly to his right. There were two other doors, one leading to the hallway outside of Command and the other to the private Captains Quarters. Simon had yet to see his own quarters.

“Okay.” said Simon. “We have made great progress, but we have a lot more work to do and we still need to solve some significant issues. I would like you to keep suggesting anything you think may be helpful. You are all very good at what you do and collectively, we have an incredible group of people here with some great talents and ideas. We will start by asking Blaze to give us a complete status report of Blazing Star. Blaze?”

Blaze opened a holographic projection of Blazing Star above the conference table and replied, pointing out the areas of interest in red as she mentioned them “Shields offline. Short Range sensors online and on passive scan. Long Range sensors offline. Weapons Systems offline. Core Reactors one and three online and fully functional. Core Reactors two and four offline, damaged and under repair. Repair Subsystems online and partially functional. Maintenance Systems online and fully functional. Engineering, Crew Quarters, Research and Food Services Levels online and fully functional. Sub-light Engines offline, unable to initialize. Shift Engines offline, unable to initialize. Command, Medical and Life Support on full power. Central Core Power now at 32% and rising. Two Stinger Fighters at 100% and two Transport Shuttles at 100%. We are still approximately 20 Meters underground and now have a crew complement of twenty, including the Captain and Security!”

“I make the count twenty-one.” Simon glanced at Blaze and continued, noting a slight blush in her cheeks. “You need to include yourself in the crew. You are as much a part of the crew as anyone here.”

“Thank you Captain!” replied Blaze.

Simon began, “We are still sitting ducks here if we are detected. We are going to need to defend ourselves very soon. We need to get ourselves up into space simply so that we will not be attacked here on Earth. Fortunately being 20 Meters underground gives us some measure of concealment, but once power comes up, we may find ourselves detectable and vulnerable. We need to give some thought to how we dig ourselves out from underground. Blaze, why are the repair systems only partially functional?”

Blaze replied, “The repair systems require elements and compounds that are no longer present in the storage bays. They have been depleted making necessary repairs to this point.”

“What type of elements and compounds are we missing,” asked Simon.

Blaze replied, “We are short of most metals and require 8 different rare earth minerals. In addition we are totally depleted in petroleum based chemicals, although the petroleum based chemicals are not critical at this time. We also have a work around.”

“Can the Repair Droids either mine the resources or salvage them from other areas?” asked Simon.