applepie

Chapter 2

Without a backward glance, Arabella walked out the door to a waiting cab. There was a nervous energy about her, which she recognized as overwhelming excitement, as she instructed the driver to take her to the Orion Station. The Orion Station was the main hub for space travel in the area and it was from there that she would be departing on her journey. She turned her head to the window of the cab and proceeded to watch the passing skyline. It crossed her mind that it was going to be quite a long period of time before she returned to her home in Miami, Florida. She might as well look her fill before boarding the Ara X so that there are no lingering thoughts or regrets that she didn’t look at the city one last time before leaving. Miami had been her home for the past twelve years, ever since she left home and joined the ranks of prodigies at VegaTech.

VegaTech was the leading firm in the research and design of deep space shuttles that carried between one and six passengers. In the recent years it had become increasingly popular for small research groups and wealthy families to use such shuttlecrafts to travel for both study and pleasure. The appeal of such small craft for the science community was that it was now unnecessary to spent large sums of money on using the more traditional large deep space shuttles that often carried a few hundred people at a single time. To rent, or even purchase one of these large shuttles for scientific use made conducting any deep space research impossible because of the high costs associated with the project, but the smaller and more affordable shuttles of VegaTech had made such undertakings not only possible but common. The space crafts were also quite popular with wealthy families who could afford to pay the asking price of $500 thousand. They often used them to shuttle between off-planet work sites or to take family vacations to locations outside of the solar system.

Arabella sighed as she thought of all the things that had come from the introduction of smaller and cheaper space craft produced by VegaTech. It was her company’s craft that had carried the first scientists to the Erebus Nebula, which was so named because it seemed to be made of black mist as its namesake was in Greek mythology. It was here that they discovered a new chemical toxin that was capable of destroying cancer within humans without damaging the surrounding tissue. A single injection into the cancer site resulted in the destruction of the cancerous cells within a matter of days. New, uninhabited, planets had been discovered that could be suitable for agricultural purposes. This was especially important for the inhabitants of Earth. They had exhausted their planet’s resources long ago, and now they were dependent on sites located on other planets for food and other resources. The smaller, swifter craft made it possible for an entire fleet of scouts to be searching for planets where people can settle or which can be used for other purposes. The VegaTech craft had also revolutionized the tourist industry. Taking short vacations to off-planet destinations had started to raise with the introduction of the first Ara space craft, and it was now a booming industry. Almost anyone could afford to rent one of the Ara crafts to take a weekend vacation into space. Because of VegaTech people were going further into space, more economically, and more frequently leading to a revolution in the travel industry and a boom in scientific discoveries that was just at its leading edge.

For Arabella, VegaTech had been her life for the last decade or so. She basically lived at her office in the four story VegaTech offices in downtown Miami. Most days found her there by 6 a.m. and often she didn’t leave work until close to midnight, which was if she left work at all and didn’t catch a few hours of sleep on the plush sofa that was also in her office. She had joined the company shortly after reaching her eighteenth year. The company had been fairly unknown at the time, but they were acquiring prodigies, the best and the brightest in key fields like aeronautical engineering and astrophysics. VegaTech had a vision, to be the first company to design and perfect a small, affordable, lightweight shuttle capable of deep space travel. Arabella had been part of the first design team to create the first shuttle VegaTech released, the Vega Flier. In the subsequent years the company had quickly carved out their place in the space shuttle industry and was now the industry leader in small shuttles. The craft had changed over the years but each new shuttle still gave Arabella the same thrill as that first craft. Now, to have her own line of shuttles that she had been designing and testing for the past four years, that had been a true fulfillment of dreams. The company had always been very generous with their employees, since many of them had been with VegaTech at the start of their success, but in Arabella’s case they had given her a ten percent share in the profits from the Ara line. They had never imagined that she would be able to make the line the flagship line of the company and one of the most successful shuttlecraft lines in history.

The cab reached the Orion Station and slowed to a stop. Arabella quit with her perusal of the skyline and paid the cabby. She exited the car and entered into the station. A magnificent domed room of glass greeted her, from which she was able to see departing shuttles as they blasted into the heavens. The launch pad for VegaTech was in its own private area of the station and Arabella immediately proceeded to the dock. It was a long walk, but it was one that Arabella savored knowing that this would be her last adventure. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be her last adventure since as part of her retirement she had been promised to always have one of VegaTech’s shuttles available for her personal use, but it would be the last time that she was testing a shuttle and technology designed solely by her. It was always such a thrill to see your dream come into being and be in the thick of the events when it occurred.

“Arabella, it is good to see you. Are you ready to make history?” greeted the man at the door. This was Vern, the founder of VegaTech and the man who was more a father to her than the man who sired her. Vern was 6’5’’ with a shaved head and tattoos covering his arms making him look more like a criminal than a CEO and founder of one of the most successful companies in recent history. He looked as if he spent every day of his life in the gym, but anyone who knew him well was both aware that this wasn’t the case. He was one of the few people who just remained thin no matter what he put into his body. Most nights found both Vern and Arabella at the office eating fast food and talking of the latest project. In his mid forties Vern had no family and had devoted his life to building his company. All of his employees were hand chosen by him, and many of them were close friends as well. When she first began to work for VegaTech, Arabella had been intimidated by Vern, but she quickly learned to consider him one of her closest and most trusted friends. For Vern’s part, he had never shown anything but kindness to Arabella and he treated her more like a daughter than an employee though he wasn’t really that much older than her. The way he greeted her now, you wouldn’t know that they had just spent the previous night together having dinner and talking till the early morning. Vern always greeted Arabella like he hadn’t seen her in ages, but today it was different. She was about to leave for six months, and that was a long time to go without having late night meals in the office. It seemed like a lifetime away from Vern, the man who had filled to void left by her own father’s abandonment.

“Is it history that we are making today,” Arabella said with a broad smile and a kiss on Vern’s cheek, “I thought we were here to make money.” She was well aware that it wasn’t money that drove Vern. He had more than enough to live richly for the rest of his days. Vern was driven by the challenge, much like herself, to always go one step further and be the best. For her teasing Arabella received a small chuckle and a big bear hug.

“You know I don’t need the money imp. Let’s get this test finished so I can try to talk you into staying when you get back. I hate to let someone so talented go when they have so much left to give. Plus, who will take care of me when you are gone?” This was said with a pouting look that was completely out of place on Vern’s fierce countenance.

“Now, we’ve been through this. I’m not staying, but we will still see plenty of each other. In fact, you will likely see more of me that what you wish to.”

“Never Bellisimo, could I see too much of you,” Vern replied using the pet name he had bestowed on her years before. The familiar endearment warmed Arabella’s heart, and steadied her for the coming voyage. She knew that he would be here waiting when she returned, and it was a comfort to know that he would be here the whole time vigilant, worrying and loving her, waiting for her safe return from another adventure. She always viewed new test flights as an adventure because there was always something exciting that happened. One time she had been able to watch a supernova occur in near real-time from a neighboring solar system.

With a smile Arabella linked her arm with Vern’s, and they moved through the door and crossed the docking bay to survey the Ara X. She was about sixty feet in length and made of honeycombed titanium. The honeycomb sandwiched between two quarter inch titanium sheets made the hull of the craft one of the strongest in the market. Inside there was a small kitchen, bathing area, and berthing for up to four passengers. There was also a cockpit that contained four seats behind a reinforced glass window which allowed for a full 360 degree view. The engine in back looked much like the one you would find on a fighter jet, but there were some important differences in the design. Fighter jets needed to carry their fuel onboard, but the Ara X craft relied on fusion as its power source. The craft also used beams of radiation to create the tunnels that the craft would travel through. By agitating the particles along a stream they had discovered that it was possible to move much more quickly through them. They believed that the unnaturally high degree of agitation actually created pockets where time and space behaved differently than they would under normal circumstances. In short, the relationship between the two was altered so that one could move a greater distance in the same unit of time. This invention is what the flight was all about. Arabella was to test the jump function of the craft and determine its ranges and limitations. They believed that it would only be useful if the object is within line of site, but they had never tested the line of site theory on the scale that it would experience in space. In the lab, line of site meant only a few feet or even a mile on one of their larger scale tests. In outer space, line of site meant possibly hundreds of light years and it was uncertain how effective the invention would be over such long distances.

Vern gave Arabella one last hug as she climbed into the Ara X, “You know you can still back out on this test if you want. We can do further lab tests to check the safety of the system before such a large scale test.” Vern’s worry was evident in the lines of his face, but only to someone who knew him as well as she did. He was trying to look thrilled, but there was still some small worry that they had missed something in the design of the new system that would prove problematic in a true field test.

“Nothing we can do in the lab will ever tell us how the system behaves in space. Trust me; we’ve perfected it to the best of our abilities. All we need to do now is see how she will behave in the real environment. Don’t worry; I’ll be home before you know it. Six months of testing isn’t that long, and I’ve been on other test voyages longer than that.” With a final wave, Arabella shut the hatch to the Ara X and began to buckle into the pilot seat.