Free Brown, Dale - Independent 01 by Silver Tower (v1.1)

skyscraper, surrounded by
open-skeleton towers on two sides and also illuminated by large banks of
super-powered spotlights. She was looking at the ultimate, the rebuilt space
shuttle Enterprise . And the skyscraper-like building to
the right of it—the one she had first seen when she had come over the rise—was
the new Vandenburg Vehicle Assembly Building .
There was movement of the men near the front gate and the concrete guard shack
but it didn’t register in her mind. Her attention was all on the ungainly,
squat machine sitting on top of a tall concrete pedestal in the distance.
                From a
distance it looked so small. She had seen many shuttles, of course. She had
been in Enterprise numerous times on dry-run rehearsals, emergency egress training, orientation walkarounds. From up close at the shuttle’s base
or on the access tower the thing looked huge. She had never felt confined or
claustrophobic around the shuttle—until now. From this vantage point it looked
like a toy model.
                And she was
going to strap herself in that toy and let someone ignite four million pounds
of propellants and rocket fuel under her, blasting her at twenty-five times the
speed of sound hundreds of miles into the sky. Was she crazy?
                Even
crazier was that she had had to work to get aboard that thing. She had to apply, be interviewed, beg, plead, cajole
just to be considered. After that there had been months of waiting, then six
months of training, study, simulators, tests, exercises, presentations—all so
she could live hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface, breathing
recirculated air, eating irradiated food, drinking chemically produced water
and coping with microgravity.
                She was so
caught up in conflicting emotions that she didn’t notice the air force security
police jeep drive up alongside her. It was the heavy breathing of a huge
Doberman pinscher that pulled her back.
                “This is a
restricted area,” one patrolman said as he approached, shining a flashlight
into Ann’s face, his M-16 automatic rifle at port arms. “Identification. Now.”
                She
absently reached into a right thigh flight-suit pocket to retrieve her ID card.
It wasn’t until she had unzipped that the guard recognized her.
                “Dr. Page?”
He took the ID card from her, scanned it, handed it back. “Saw your picture in
the paper. You’re going on this morning’s
flight           ”
                “Yes,
right,” she said, hoping she sounded more official than she felt.
                The guard
handed the dog to an airman beside him, looped the rifle back onto his right
shoulder. “You shouldn’t be out here alone....” He stopped and looked at her.
“Everything okay?”
                “Yes. I was
just a little impatient to get to the pad so I decided to walk....”
                “From the
main base?”
                “I... I
ended up jogging. It felt good, peaceful....”
                “Yeah, I
guess it would,” he said. “I’d probably do something like that if I was going
to ride that candle.... I’d want to take one last look at ol’ Mother Earth
before leavin’.... Well, I’ll have to take you to the Shuttle Flight Center ,
Dr. Page. You can’t be walking around out here by yourself. I’m surprised
someone didn’t pick you up when you left the main base.”
                She
scarcely heard him, had withdrawn into her thoughts again. What was it that was
bothering her? Was it fear of death? She had never confronted death before.
Even in shuttle training, even through all the briefings and classes, she had
never thought about dying. Besides, that was a no-no, everybody knew that.
                She let
herself be led to the jeep, rode with the security guard commander, nodding
absently at his