Turtle Power
September 29, 2010 7:41pm
“Last of the water tanks are full. We can now lift off at your discretion,” Shodan reported.
I just nodded. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to say. After almost two years of work, and who knows how much money, we were finally finished. Ready for launch. I almost couldn’t believe it.
“Are we launching tonight?” Jareth asked.
I shook my head, and turned to my friends... my crew. “No, we should take some time to say goodbye. To any friends we are leaving behind. To family. And most of all, we should say goodbye to the Earth. We won’t be seeing her again for some time, if ever. We likely will never be seeing North America again.”
“We'll end up on America’s most wanted.” Micah laughed. Which wasn’t too unlikely. Waving over ten acres of Tennessee hills was crazy. And expensive. Which is why if this failed, we are going to be spending a long time behind bars. After all, credit fraud and identity theft were surprisingly easy for a ‘wavium AI. I had no idea how much money we ended up borrowing with no intent on paying back, but I did know one important thing. They can’t arrest you in space.
“Okay, launch date is October 3rd. Shell goes up at 10, and lift off is 10:30 am. Let everyone who isn’t here know, if they aren’t under the dome when it goes up, we are leaving them to explain everything to the government.”
“We're launching on your birthday?” Micah asked.
Grinning, I replied, “Sure. Makes sense that I leave the Earth same day I entered it. Once we’re in the Black we can have a joint celebration for both successfully pulling this off, and my birthday.”
It was the day before launch, and I was walking the grounds. Mostly just taking stock of the changes for that small group of ambitious geeks and freaks have made to the land I grew up on. The largest differences were of course, the extra houses. In addition to the two story red brick house I was raised in, there were three newer structures. The most normal which was a small single story wooden home. It was one of the first things we built, due to the realization that we needed a lot more the 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. Of course as our crew expanded, so did our housing needs. This led to the two more unusual buildings.
Jareth, being at core, a steam-fantasy type, built himself a tall, three story tower out of stone. And with the subterranean excavation we were doing, we had more then enough stone. The interior of the whole thing was a mixture of steam-punk brass gadgetry and high fantasy mystical crystals. While, Kalen went with something more unusual. Waving the largest oak tree on the property for a foundation, she went and build herself a fully outfitted tree house. A round tree house. There isn’t a right angle or straight line in the place.
Well, after that everyone was clamoring to for their own dream home. I had to put my foot down. Between the limited space, and the chance of attracting the wrong attention, I had to forbid any more surface structures.
Besides, as I had to tell people, we have plenty of space below ground. And that is the truth. Shodan had mining drones burrow deep below the topsoil and excavated huge series of tunnels and caverns. This is where most of our supplies were stored. Along with the beginnings of our hydroponics. And we had water tanks. Lots of water tanks. Big water tanks. I had told Shodan I wanted a years supply of water, but that was before we found that our engine took water for fuel. Currently number are basically educated guesses, but Shodan and Jareth both claim we should have at least a month of running the engines full burn before the water becomes scarce.
I had no intention of ever putting that much strain on the engines, and even if I did, there is water in space, right?
Launch Day
“Shell goes up in five, people. Is everyone ready for this?” I asked, despite already knowing the answer. We were all ready. Well, as ready as you can ever be to pull off something this hair brained. Or maybe blue hair brained, to use a term from the Fen we were about to join.
There were just five of us here and we were in the Command Center, which was pretty much our bridge. The ‘wave had apparently taken to the name, turning the walls black, with the star like lights shining through. I had blamed Jareth and Chris, them being the Power Ranger fen that they were. Jareth just offered to built a giant holotube for Shodan to appear in. I turned him down, deciding the risk we ended up with Zordon would be to high.
Like I said, there were just five of us here. Expect for Jareth, watching over the engine, it was the whole first group. Those first five friends I approach and offered the stars, too. Micah, Kalen, Grin, Christa, and of course, myself having started off this crazy idea.
Instead of a viewing globe, we had a large row of monitors, showing all kinds on data. The only ones I was currently worried about where the ones showing Jareth in the Engine room, and the one showing the status of the dome mechanism. Everything was ready to begin.
I took a deep breath, and gave the order that would bring us out into the open. “Raise the dome.”
All around the border, a large wall began raising. Up and up it went, until it had reached the top of the tree line. From here, large curving rods, began telescoping out. Then rods began to extend from other rods. The whole process took over 15 minutes, after which there was a pattern of rods in the sky that vaguely resembled the pattern of of turtle shell.
“Framework extended. No alignment issues to report.” Shodan informed us. I heard someone breathe a sigh of relief.
“Okay. Start growing the shell. We need it complete and stable as soon as possible. I’m sure we’re attracting attention already.”
At the order, a mechanism in the framework began stretching a clear film across all the gaps. This was a substance Grin had come up with. Some kind of high surface tension liquid made of ‘waved diamond or something. All I really could tell you was that once solid, the stuff seemed unbreakable, and that Shodan had to do a lot of creative computer work to get our hands on enough of the expensive chemicals required to make it.
As each gap was covered in film, a large electric current was passed through, lighting the whole sheet up with glowing sparks. This was the catalyst needed to solidify the shell.
As this happened time after time, over what would be the dozens of plates, I began wishing I was up on the surface to witness it first hand. I’m sure it was an amazing show. But it had be suggested by the more safety conscious among us that everyone stays underground during shell growth and liftoff. I had to reluctantly agree.
When Shodan announced that everything was ready, I turned to window showing Jareth.
“Okay, Birdie, get you ass in gear here. Take us up.”
He gave me a face splitting grin, did something a console I couldn’t see, and shouted out, “To infinity! And beyond!”
I couldn’t help but smile myself. As the engines were brought online, I could feel a strong vibration. I had be expecting some kind of lurch as we broke free from the ground, but we started rising smoothly. And faster then I expected.
I kept expecting Shodan to report fighters incoming, but that never happened. Granted we were moving much faster then I had expected us to in atmosphere. And before I realized it Shodan was announcing that we’ve hit Orbit.
