Chapter 8: The Team is Ready

Sunday:

Sushi woke us all. It was 0900. Oh it felt so good to sleep in. Sally and Waush Shaua were given permission to hunt. Sushi and I rode to my folk's home.

Mom took one look at me and started to cry. She asked, "How long do we have?"

"Mom we have a lifetime. We leave for Bangalore on Friday. It's my plan to be back in September. Besides we are cats, and you know we have nine lives."

She boxed my ears for that.

Sushi stole the show and asked, "Do you want to listen to your grandkids?"

Mom ran over and put her ear to Sushi's tummy. Of course she could not hear anything. She did check Sushi's WE. Sushi had four healthy embryos according to the WE. There were two female and two male embryos. The expected delivery date was mid-November. That otherwise involved the females.

Dad took me aside. We had one of those father-son talks. He asked that we send a message back as soon as it was safe. He and Squeaker were having an empty nest problem. He promised to take care of Hunter and Lake when they closed Manzanita Lake this fall. He had been in touch with Joanne and Terry and had invited them for the holidays.

He took me into his library. He had all of the initial construction and survey data on the Hospital at Bangalore. He even had the environmental studies of the first three expeditions. The information explained why the site was chosen.

The Island was in the moon's North Temperate Zone. The moon had more water than earth and overall was warmer. The equatorial region was all ocean. This generated some gnarly typhoons twice a year. The moon had been barren until man had appeared. No indigenous life forms were found. The flora and fauna around the hospital had all been imported from Earth. At least we didn't have to repair or coexist with pre-Karg life forms. Since the environment was controlled, the fir trees that had been planted had no competition or diseases. The forests were well developed in twenty years. The three other northern hemisphere land masses were starting to develop their own forests and Earth-based fauna.

I spent the rest of the afternoon going over the maps and reports. Dad had a copy of all of the documents added to our ship's electronic library. He also gave me a personal laptop with the same information on it.

I added an overlay of the hospital and grounds. I included the control towers on a separate overlay.

We all had dinner, then Sushi and I returned to our home with James Savage. I called the team on WE Net and asked that we meet in the great room for lunch tomorrow. After lunch we would go over the maps and reports available. I would have laptops like mine so each set would have the same information.

Sally and Waush Shaua came in with six field mice. That reminded me to have Tom pack three months of cat food on the ship.

We headed for bed. We were not exhausted but were ready for sleep.

Monday:

Sushi and I were up early. It was 0500. We went to the kitchen. Maria was up and had a cup of coffee for each of us. She had to leave in half an hour. Teddy's called her. She asked, "Did we want her to fix us breakfast?"

"Thanks for the offer." I told Maria, "Sushi and I would follow her to Teddy's in half an hour. We need to feed Sally and Waush Shaua."

Maria went to the refrigerator and pulled out a piece of leftover steak.

I thanked Maria and took the steak and cut it up into bite sized pieces for Sally and Waush Shaua.

Sushi took it to our room. She gave the cats their orders for the day. "You are to have a great time hunting and sunning. We will see you at dinner."

Sushi returned and sat in my lap.

We snuggled as we sat and had our morning cup of coffee.

I said, "We need to delegate the packing and preparation. We have four natural teams based on the family sets. We also have groups from each set that have special function. We need to get those functions together. Let's go to breakfast. Bring your notebook and we can talk over how we will set up the functional groups. We left for Teddy's.

It was great to ride our bikes early in the morning in Graton. As we started, the birds were just waking looking for their morning worm or bug. The sun still had not broken the horizon. It was a great day.

When we got to Teddy's, Joe, Nancy, Toni and Wendy had just arrived and it was hug central with all the Teddy's employees.

Missy escorted Sushi and I to our table.

While waiting for our meal, Sushi and I created a list of functional groups. They are:

Medical

Tag

Marsha

Gayle

Sushi

Helen

Beth

Engineering

James

Joe

Nancy

Housekeeping/Carpenter

Paul

Anne

Sofie

Leah

Sahara

Astronaut/Pilot

Anu

Shari

Wendy

Agriculture

Toni

I was going to have our lunch tables with name tags. It was important to have the functional groups working before we left Earth.

Maria made me my favorite pecan waffle. Sushi had a cherry pie waffle.

Sushi and I rode into Sebastopol after breakfast. We did some shopping for lunch. I had decided on a sandwich buffet with two salads and ice cream for desert. We rode back to Graton with our booty.

When we got to the house we met James and his set. I had James and his set arrange four tables. Sushi gave them a copy of the list and Marsha made name tags for each place. Sushi and I worked on the salads. Helen and Beth set up the meat and cheese platters. We were ready it was 1100.

We put the perishable food in the refrigerator and all went for a deserved swim.

Everyone started to arrive at 1145. We all went into the great room. I let everyone get their lunch.

I stood and addressed the group. "You may have noticed the different seating at this meal. For the rest of the month you need to be connected to the people at your table. These people will be your team on Bangalore. They are functional teams.

"Marsha, the people at your table are all medical people. You need to go to our ship and confirm that all of the medical supplies are safely packed and are in good condition."

"Anu, Shari and Wendy, You need to go with Tom Savage and learn the bridge of the Endeavor. We will be counting on you to transport us to Bangalore safely. Tom has a simulator setup for training. Please use it."

"James, Joe and Nancy, you are our engineers and programmers. Hopefully your talents won't be in demand until after we land. James, you, I, Sushi and Marsha are also the first wave. We need to practice precision bombing today."

"Paul, you and your table will be used once we pacify the hospital. You need to inventory your supplies and check their storage."

"If everything gets done, and this in no small task, we'll have a going away party Wednesday night. You all have things to do so do them."

I asked James, Marsha and Tom to join Sushi and me at the Sonoma County Airport. I wanted to go over the four fighter/bombers we would be taking to Bangalore. We all got in the Savage van and were off.

We were met at the airport by Nowell. He had further modified the F-16's by adding heat shielding to the fuselage and the wings. The bomb load would be stowed in a hatch in the wing. He had some new air to ground laser guided rockets. They would hit a postage stamp sized target three miles from launch. He had a target boat in the Pacific 100 miles off Jenner beach.

We suited up and got in our fighters. We were off to try the new arms. The heat shielding made the planes a little sluggish, but the deep space capability was needed. We would not be in any dog fights. Performance would not be critical to the mission. We needed a stable reliable platform and the F-16 worked.

We headed for the coast. The rockets worked as advertised. We all batted 1000 on our poor target ship. We would be able to knock out those control transmitters. We returned to Sonoma County Airport subsonic. Landing was a little tricky. I suggested that we do touch and goes for the balance of the afternoon. All that heat shielding had its cost.

We took the F-16s to the Endeavor. East side of the Sonoma County Airport was a small Space port. There were three other space freighters in port while we were there. Endeavor was actually a similar freighter. Nowell had reconfigured the cargo hold so we could space launch the F-16s. After Bangalore was secure we would land the Endeavor. We had Nowell fuel and prepare the F-16s before we launched. They would be ready to fly as soon as we got to Bangalore space. There was an airport near the hospital. In fact, the four other spaceships were parked at the airport. Our aircraft were ready.