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Post by elizar on Jan 16, 2009 21:35:34 GMT -5
Miles Verant walked towards one of the bigger hangars at the KSC. Him and the rest of the humans at the airport had orange vests on to make them more noticeable to any traffic.
"I can never stop feeling stupid in these things." Helen said as tugging at it. "It's early morning and no one is even out yet. Why are we wearing these things anyway?" Her complaints were though half-hearted, as she was more mad at the fact that there was no vacation to be had. She knew that Miles had worked hard on it, but no avail.
"I worked at a warehouse during Christmas once." Gates, a man in his thirties pushing forties said. "I felt it was stupid as well, until I had to call 911. No cellphone reception either."
"What happened?" Miles asked, just to pass the time and perhaps pass some lesson over to the others about safety.
"We worked at one end of the warehouse while the lounge was at the other end." Gates said. "My 'guide' got clipped by a forklift." He said, as a forklift passed them. "Two broken ribs, but not covered by insurance because he was too cool to wear a silly orange vest thing, so he was too cool to get someone to pay for his hospital bills."
"Alright, I get your point." Helen said.
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 17, 2009 2:40:48 GMT -5
Pilar Ayerza broke into a run to catch up with Miles, Helen and Gates as they crossed the apron. "Hola!" She was still halfway through putting her vest on. "Lionel said he'd meet us at the hangar." Even after a number of years in the english-speaking parts of the CV, Pilar still had a slight Rioplatense Spanish accent which asserted itself in times of stress, and occasionally swore in southern Argentinian street dialect when it suited her. That was one habit that four years at the Epsom Girls' Grammar School and another few in CV-based facilities had as yet failed to break her out of.
She had been just another street urchin in Ushuaia, in the extreme south of human-world Argentina, when the religious mission who had taken over the education of the poor and orphaned recognized that she had more than just street smarts in her. As Argentina's own educational infrastructure had not recovered from the bad years following the blowup, they had encouraged her to try for a scholarship at a New Zealand school. That led her to the girls' school at Epsom, which had become one of the pipelines for students seeking higher education in the Carsverse through the auspices of the Ash Mountain community.
Now, she was a newly-minted INCO (Instrumentation and Communications Officer) in the burgeoning space program there. Her days were filled with training routines, freefall flights and simulations in anticipation of a mission, with the odd stolen hour to swim at the beach or ride across the sand on one of the several horses that the human contingent had brought here and stabled at their own compound along with the milk goats, pigs and chickens. The delay of vacation time didn't bother her so much; no close family members had survived the bad years. But she could see the look of Miles' back, and knew he wouldn't be happy to be kept from visiting his parents again. She waved to Amara and Terell as they passed in the distance, and they blinked back.
I wonder how Picard's dealing with this?
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Post by elizar on Jan 17, 2009 14:38:07 GMT -5
A Corvette ZR-1 entered the hangar once all the humans, Picard, Christine and few others were inside and ready. He usually was the last one to enter. Eric Quest looked at the group.
Miles looked around and saw that the team assembled was not part of any training team. It was deployment team. Christine was on the list due to complications. There was just one human crew, but the rooster was made with the thought of that there were teams on rotation, and there were more than one space shuttle. A leftover from humanverse.
"I see Miles playing attention." Eric said. "Another satellite broke down last night."
"I guess the bigwigs are mighty happy about themselves for denying my request for vacation time." Miles grumbled.
"Excuse me." Gates raised his hand for attention. "What do they think went wrong? Just so we can eliminate that possibility."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 17, 2009 16:10:59 GMT -5
Picard shrugged. After this meeting, his next destination would be the Vehicle Assembly Building where he would be married up with the fuel tanks and from there take a long, slow journey to the launch pad on a tracked platform; that would take up much of the next 24 hours. After that, the exhaustive checklist, and then the opening of the window for a safe launch, weather permitting. He had been through it all before.
"This is almost getting too much to be coincidence." Picard remarked, half to himself, half to others. "At the risk of sounding like I've put on a tinfoil hat, the pattern and points of failure suggest that there's some deliberate action behind this."
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Post by elizar on Jan 17, 2009 16:25:18 GMT -5
"You are not the only one." Eric said to Picard. "But due to your own repair reports, the chance of someone doing this on purpose is reduced. They break down in so different ways, that half of it would be enough."
"And we still haven't figured out what's going on at all, if it is global." Miles said. "Many are blaming on that the satellites are already old enough, need to be replaced."
"They aren't." Gates said. "I have taken a good look at them. Carverse built them to last. We put ours in the sky knowing something could be done, though it wasn't usually worth the fuel to do it. The only thing wrong with them was the breaking factor, everything else, top notch."
"Anyway, today and tomorrow morning will be the days you get to prepare for launch." Eric said. "You all know the routine by now. I've uploaded your datapads with the information needed."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 17, 2009 17:10:59 GMT -5
<<< Going out for a few hours >>>
Lionel Steeves joined them, with a long printout in his hand. He was a man of fiftyish years. "If it was sabotage, they were mightly slick about it."
Picard found himself nodding. "It must be my copious imagination running off with me again."
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Post by elizar on Jan 17, 2009 18:13:54 GMT -5
"I feel inclined to don on my tinfoil hat with you there Picard." Gates said. "We haven't been able to fix them all, and I've heard that with few more going offline, some area may lose their coverage. No satellite TV, internet, or phones."
"Or all this could be a conspiracy to kill us." Helen said. "I want everyone for a checkup before we leave." She looked at Eric.
"You can have some time for that." He said. "Just don't take too much time, we need to keep a schedule."
"Too bad those satellites don't follow it." Miles said. "What do you have there Lion?" He asked Lionel.
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 17, 2009 22:11:45 GMT -5
"The last diagnostic printouts for Picard." Lionel replied, "Healthy as a horse, like always."
"If you mean like that roan mare they shipped us over from the other side, that scares me." Pilar laughed. "Why the hell did they send us a horse with navicular?"
"I dunno, must be their revenge for our own 'verse sending them our misfits, screwballs and outmodes for recruits." Picard laughed.
Lionel cleared his throat, getting back to the subject. "Everything looks shipshape though. I don't see us getting any major delays once T-time starts."
"Knock on wood." Pilar sighed. She reached up and gave Picard's wing a light pat. "Or something just as good."
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Post by elizar on Jan 18, 2009 6:18:38 GMT -5
"One last thing." Eric said. "If you can't fix it, don't put it back or in deteriorating orbit." He said.
"You can't mean - " Gates said, but got cut off.
"Yes, you're going to bring it back." Eric said. "It seems that the bigwigs are listening to you. But the official reason is that they want this particular satellite up in the air again, in tiptop shape. Most of those that you have fixed have broken down again. They want to prevent that."
"Is this something that they will continue to ask us to do?" Gates said.
"They haven't told me yet." Eric said.
"Well then call them!" Gates growled.
"Hey, calm down Gates!" Miles said and bounded to him. "What's your problem?"
"My problem is how to get that satellite down. Out current modules can restrain near weightless bulky satellite." He said. "But when throwing gravity in the mix, things are going to get nasty." He stood up. "I better get on this now. And Helen, I will not be able to take a physical, this thing is going to take me all day."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 18, 2009 15:29:27 GMT -5
Pilar and Picard exchanged concerned glances as they watched Gates vent. The former had only met Gates recently and hadn't had the experience of actually being in orbit with him, but she had gotten the impression of a man who had discovered that being stuck in a small space with a vacuum all around him was in the larger part... boring. She hoped that he would keep it together for another mission. Pilar's eyes went to Miles, and she pursed her lips.
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Post by elizar on Jan 18, 2009 15:47:55 GMT -5
Miles caught the pursed lips and it made him think a moment before standing up. "Alright. Gates, you're not going to do this alone, even if you're the one in space." He said. "The Spacehab crew will assist you." He looked at a Panda nearby once Gates was out of the hangar. "Sylar, make sure that he takes one hour lunch and half hour afternoon break."
"I got it Verant." He said and went out with half dozen others.
"You were right Verant." Eric said. "You do need a vacation."
"Well, hindsight's twenty/twenty." He said.
"Everyone, proceed with pre-launch procedures."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 18, 2009 16:07:12 GMT -5
"Looks like my "babysitters" are here." Picard noted with a sardonic laugh as a couple of MP cars showed up to escort him to the VAB. "See you later."
"Everything's set up on my end." Pilar noted. It would soon be time to return to their own prep area. "How about everyone else?"
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Post by elizar on Jan 18, 2009 16:31:28 GMT -5
"We all got work to do." Miles said. "I'll take the physical first." He, Pilar, Steeves and Picard were usually together in one group during this time of preparations, going over what needed to be done, flight path and how much time they had for each task.
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 18, 2009 18:10:25 GMT -5
Another MP came through the doors, and behind him a large, delta-winged interceptor-type jet thrust her nose through. Her golden eyes were intimately familiar to most of the crew. "Hello the house."
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Post by elizar on Jan 18, 2009 18:15:58 GMT -5
Miles quickly looked at his pendant. It was of Saturn with it's rings. The planet itself was of rose gold while the rings were of silver. Two of the outer rings were glowing faintly. "Hey Zoe." Miles said. "Heard the news yet?"
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