“Major Richards,” General Robert Herres replied. He nodded from the other side of the desk with that same confident look that Ellis remembered from their few earlier meetings after the pullout from Saigon. His dark, brown hair was close-cropped yet wavy, and his face sported a perpetual five o’clock shadow. But there were still those creases to the edge of the mouth, giving the hard-faced visage a welcoming look of calm.
“Sir, it’s been…”
“Since ’75 and Saigon,” Anderholt said, finishing the thought for Ellis, and nodding with him, “too long, yet…”
“Not long enough,” Ellis finished.
The two men stared at one another, across the miles and across the years and experiences of lifetimes, and didn’t need to say a word. They’d had their differences, come to blows once or twice over them in fact, but they did their jobs, still did… always would.
“Betty, can you get us some coffee and also fetch Carl, will you?” Ellis said, still not taking his eyes from Anderholt.
His secretary had seen that look just once before, the one that was reserved for someone she thought of as ‘in-the-know,’ something she hoped she would never have to be — she knew too much already as far as she was concerned.
She was gone and a moment later Ellis broke off his gaze, pulled up one of the spare chairs in the room, and motioned for General Anderholt to take the other.
“We’re going to take it back,” Anderholt said as he sat down, smoothing his pants after placing his small, leather travel bag by his side.
“It’s been four years, sir… why now?”
“Why not every six months for those past four years?” Anderholt said with a gruff laugh. “That’s how often we’ve tried, on average.”
Ellis frowned and bit his cheek. He knew full-well how many missions had been tried and how many had failed — he’d planned and overseen several of the first, and had been ‘reassigned,’ although that was just a fancy way to say ‘saved’ from quitting when the frustration of losing team after team proved too much.
“We feel that now’s a good time,” Anderholt said, leaning forward to put his hand on Ellis’ knee, something no other man alive would dare do, but Brigadier General Harry Anderholt wasn’t an ordinary man, “and we want you to lead the men, not just from the command station, but from the cockpit.”
“Cockpit — hell!” Ellis said, sitting back and laughing. “I haven’t flown a crop duster in years, let alone a high-powered test vehicle of some sort.”
“Ellis, we want you—”
Anderholt broke-off as Betty came back into view down the hallway, another man close on her heels. Within moments they were in the office, and Ellis rose.
“Carl,” he said, grasping onto the man’s shoulder and turning him to face Anderholt, “Carl Heinze here chairs the NASA Working Group for the Spacelab Wide-Angle Telescope and also serves as the chairman of the International Astronomical Union Working Group for Space Schmidt Surveys, which as you might well remember, put up the all-reflecting Schmidt telescope earlier this year.”
“The one that carries out the deep full-sky surveys using far-ultraviolet wavelengths?” Anderholt said while taking out a pen to chew on thoughtfully.
“Just the one,” Carl answered with a smile and a nod. He was a tall man, his brown hair beginning to go gray, but after fifty years, what could you expect? He more than made up for it with that confident look coming from brown eyes that’d seen it all, and then some, eyes that’d most likely be going into space soon aboard NASA’s early shuttle test flights.
“That gave us some good information on that mothership that’s been around Mercury since 1789,” Anderholt pointed out.
Carl nodded again. “Just wait until we get the specs up and running properly and direct them past Proxima Centauri — that’s when we’ll really get something to talk about.”
“Betty, that coffee,” Ellis said, and his fazed-secretary scampered off down the hallway once again, this time with the aim of being gone a mighty-long time.
“Carl’s the man to put a team together,” Ellis said when she was gone, “a flight team, that is.”
“That’s all I’m asking for,” Anderholt said, “a team that knows what we’re up against… and that can explain it to the men I gather together for you.”
“How many this time?”
Anderholt gave Ellis a firm look. “Thirty, including me.”
Ellis looked to Carl, and both men swallowed. They’d been on failed missions before, but never been on one. Now it seemed even their superior was.
“We’re serious this time, boys,” Anderholt said as he rose from his chair, “and so am I.” He gave them each a firm look. “I’ll be back on Monday morning with my men — you better have yours here too.”
“Yes, Sir,” Ellis said as Anderholt brushed past them and headed down the hall.
The two aged-Air Force commanders stared at one another, all frowns. This was not how they envisioned spending their last years before retirement.
6 — Commanders
“Right this way,” the Dutchman said as he held his arm up for Brigadier General Harry Anderholt.
The general nodded and headed into the large room, and Ellis hit the light as he came in after, illuminating the conference room with the large mahogany table and the men seated around it. He walked forward, Carl Heinze close on his heels, though General Anderholt held back.
“Ahem,” Carl coughed into his hand, and Ellis turned about, halfway to the table. Seeing the general holding back like that, and the look of doubt on his face, quickly made Ellis reconsider his strategy.
“Let’s just skip the pleasantries and get right into it, alright, sir?”
Anderholt nodded and Ellis began.
“Yes, well…” Ellis said, trailing-off a bit before coming back around with a shake of his head. He pointed at the first person at the table, Eddie Okamata.
“Eddie Shoji Okamata,” Eddie himself said, taking up some of the slack for Ellis. He smiled and waved at the others gathered, and immediately everyone was set at ease by his presence.
“Japanese?” General Anderholt asked, but Eddie shook his head.
“Hawaiian, born and bred.”
“Eddie came up through the University of Colorado at Boulder before getting into the Air Force in ’70 and then into the NASA astronaut flight program just last year,” Ellis said, and it was apparent looking at the man’s thin, black hair, narrow eyes, and smiling face that Eddie had spoken true.
“Air Force, huh?” the general said, giving the younger pilot a gruff once-over, “doin’ what… spit-shinin’ windows?”
“No,” Eddie said with a straight face as he looked off in thought, “just the F-84, F-100, F-105, F-111, EC-121T, T-33, T-39, T-28, and the A-1.”
“And the A-7, A-37, T-38, F-4, T-33, and NKC-135,” Ellis added before quickly raising his hand to block Eddie’s protests. “It’s alright — classified has a whole new meaning here, Eddie.” He smiled and then looked at the others. “With more than 1,700 test flight hours under his belt, I think he’ll do just fine.”
General Anderholt harrumphed.
Ellis turned and threw his arm up, showcasing the next man up. “And this is Ronnie McNair, yet another of the just thirty-five men out of 10,000 that NASA chose for their astronaut flight program last year.”
“Damn young, ain’t he?” General Anderholt said from the corner of the room.
“Just twenty-eight,” Ronnie said with a smile that showed off his bright white teeth, a stark contrast to his dark, black skin. He had long mutton-chop sideburns down his face and a mustache that likely killed the ladies, when and if he was ever out of the lab.