Hunter Goforth
Tempered Steel
Chapter 1
The air in the space was thick and smelled like an old locker room filled with sweaty clothes. Two bulbs glowed dimly on the ceiling giving scarce light to the inhabitants inside the eight by twenty foot room. Consoles lined one wall, sprinkled with gages and multicolored lights. There was a dim orange-red light from the back of the consoles where vacuum tubes glowed brightly. Heat radiated from each tube adding to the intense stuffiness in the room. The hot electronics added their own distinct odor to the mix of heat and smell.
A small duct ran along the ceiling. The room was supposed to be air conditioned, but as usual it didn’t work. The engineers designed the system to be operated with a return vent through the door to allow for circulation. But the political officer declared the mission was too secret. As a result, the vent had been plated over and barely a breath of warm air came out of the blowers.
For what seemed like the hundredth time a young technician wiped his face with a small towel. The cloth was already saturated as he laid it down on the side of his console. The man’s white shirt was plastered to his body and sweat poured from his forehead down his face, yet his eyes remained glued to his instruments checking the readings to make sure he missed nothing. His supervisor and the political officer had berated him savagely a few days before when he was caught looking away. The gauges and readouts indicated voltages, tank pressures, gyro settings, computer readiness, fluid levels, operating systems readiness and all other settings necessary to launch a rocket. In this case, he was monitoring five of them.
Showing an early talent for math and science, the technician was singled out while in his teens to attend special schools and get specialized degrees from the university. During the two years after graduation he went through even more specialized training for the rocket forces. The state had been an insistent taskmaster. He and the others learned the physics, the chemistry, mechanics and even the electronics so each could run the programs and solve problems in their sleep. They knew the systems thoroughly. In return, the state promised a life of ease. At the end of this mission each would get an apartment of their own, higher pay, access to the special stores only the elite in the party could use — all the things a young man would desire. Even better, they would continue to work in the nation’s rocket program making it bigger and more powerful.
Only one week after completing the final phase of their training each young man had been mated up with mechanics to service the rockets. They learned how to put them together and take them apart so that if there was a problem, either could easily fix it. Now they were putting all they had learned into action. In the two months leading to this day the men checked and double-checked each rocket. They ran launch drills and simulated breakdowns. Training was conducted every day.
There were twelve men assigned to this mission. Six of them were in the confined space watching their consoles while their supervisor and the political officer watched their actions. Just four hours before, the order came to prepare for launch. The men immediately busied themselves in preparing the missiles and removing the covers from the launchers. Once done, the technicians entered the control room and the countdown began.
The supervisor kept one eye on a clock hanging on the wall in front of him. Each of the six technicians began relaying status until all thirty missiles were pronounced ready for launch. There would be a timed sequence to the launch. They would not all go at once. Instead, one would be launched every fifteen seconds until they were all gone. As the second hand on the clock swept to twelve, the supervisor announced, “One minute.”
The young technician could hear one of his colleagues breathe heavily. He too felt the strain of what they were doing. In just a few minutes it would all be over and they could return home as heroes. He could almost envision himself in a fine apartment relaxing without a care in the world.
“Thirty seconds.”
The announcement shocked the technician back to the present. He checked the readings one last time. His would be the last five to fire. The pressures were good and the readings were normal. He wondered if there would be any nice looking girls around his new home.
Unlike launches in most places, there was no countdown here. The supervisor simply ordered, “Begin launch.”
The technician on the first console selected the first missile and depressed the firing key. From somewhere outside the room the men heard a rocket motor ignite with a deafening roar and then slowly get quieter as it lifted skyward. When the rocket left the cradle the technician announced, “One away. Launching two.” Watching his own counter, he selected the second rocket and depressed the key exactly fifteen seconds after the first.
The political officer was smiling broadly. This was the start of a new day for his country. Nothing would stand in the way of this signature event. He and the supervisor walked down to the consoles and watched as each rocket was fired. As the first technician completed his task, the political officer moved to the next technician’s console, soon followed by the supervisor working their way down the line.
The young technician listened for the report that the 25th rocket had been launched. Once done, he watched his clock so that he depressed his firing key for the first time exactly fifteen seconds after it. It took just one minute before his last rocket lifted off. The young man felt the elation of knowing he had performed his task flawlessly. He turned his head looking up with a wide grin to see the barrel of a silenced pistol pointed at him. The last thought through his mind before it fired was, “Why?”
The supervisor looked sadly down at the line of dead young men. The pistol was still smoking in his hand and it felt heavy as lead. He did not want to do this task, but the state demanded it. All those years and all that work was now over. After a long sigh he turned to the political officer. “Let’s go. We have much to do,” he said in a tired voice. He handed him the gun and turned toward the door.
The political officer nodded and followed him. As the supervisor stepped through the door the political officer shot him once in the back of the head. The supervisor toppled forward and out of the way of the door. Placing the gun into a pocket of his trousers, the political officer reached in, shut off the lights to the room, closed the door, and walked quickly away.
Roger Hammond sat alone in a greasy spoon not far from his home. He stared vacantly at the plate just placed before him. It looked like the same old plate of brown meatloaf and mashed potatoes he’d eaten the night before. The only colors in the plate were the red splotch of catsup someone had obviously taken great care to glop onto the top, and a small bowl of pale green peas and orange carrots sitting in a semi-liquid. The contents of the plate seemed to sit in a runny, greasy gravy produced from a mix. There were even lumps in the gravy to accurately demonstrate the care put into its preparation. Hammond stared at the mixture with tired, sad eyes. This is pathetic, he thought to himself. It was 11 p.m. on a warm Friday night in March, and instead of being home relaxing, he was in this dive gagging down mystery meat. Almost in a daze, he worked his fork through the potatoes and stirred them around.
It was exactly 12 months since he retired from the Navy to enter civilian life and the corporate world. Hammond loved the navy, but it was wrecking his marriage. His wife had grown to criticize every aspect of their lives and gave him the ultimatum of the Navy or her. Roger loved his wife dearly, so to try and save what they had, he left the Navy even though he had been selected for the rank of Captain. He found a very good job with a very good electronics firm making twice what he was paid in the service.