There Must Be A Mistake Ch. 27

When she didn't reply, I looked down and Teddy was sleeping peacefully, sucking on her thumb, without a care in the world.

"Captain, Fort Worth Center want you to verify the airspeed."

"James, tell them Doctor Even Luck verifies airspeed as 4000 miles per hour, and there would be no sonic boom."

"We have our clearance Captain, and I have set it into the computer. The only thing they want to know is how long it will take us to get to 60,000 feet."

"Give me a moment James. All hands proceed to the media room immediately and strap yourselves in tight. Release your seat so it lays down and swivels freely. Someone will be down to check on you momentarily. We will be climbing from 5000 feet to 60,000 feet in less than 30 seconds. Your faces will look very funny, and you can send the pictures home to mommy."

I pulled my straps over Teddy so she wouldn't go floating away as we hit those few seconds of zero gravity as we began slowing down as we reached 60,000 feet.

James said, "Captain we have green lights across the board. Everyone is secured."

"All right, tell air traffic control that we will commence our climb in less than one minute, from the vicinity of Temple, and reach 60,000 feet in less than 30 seconds."

"Captain air traffic control's reply was BULLSHIT."

"Ask the respondent how much money he wants to lose."

"The controller is taking a poll around the center to see how much money he can raise."

"Bring the nuclear engine up to eight percent Gordon."

"Nuclear Engine to Eight Percent Captain.

"Magnetic grid to 6500 megawatts Delicious."

"At 6500 dad, you will shoot us 220,000 feet in 30 seconds."

"Delicious, do you trust me?"

"Always dad, I always trust you."

"Then trust me this time, because I know what I'm doing."

"James, at 50,000 feet program the computer to start a turn to proceed on a course and execute our flight plan."

Delicious said, "I always knew you were a cheater."

"How am I cheating? I have a clearance that says I am cleared to climb in the vicinity of Temple, isn't that what I'm doing?"

"Yes, but you're also preventing the ship from going above 60,000 feet, without slowing us down."

"Is that what I'm doing? I never thought of that."

"You are a lying sack of shit dad."

"Am I going to have to ask a priest to come along with us? It seems you are in need of confession quite regularly because of your use of bed language."

"I'm trying dad, but you are even more trying than I am."

"If you didn't have a husband that did it for me, I would spank you for that remark."

"No spank mommy."

I looked down, and the tiny terror was not even awake.

I whispered, "Okay, I no spank mommy."

Teddy rubbed her face against my chest, and continued sleeping. The child was amazing in more ways than one. You couldn't help but marvel at her abilities, and love her for who she was."

James called out, "Captain, air traffic control requests the bet to be $25,200."

"Tell them to make the check out to the Saint Jude Medical Center, and we will verify that it gets there. Tell them we are putting them on speaker, and when we are ready we will let them count down to Zero and to Thirty. They have the capability to see what altitude we are on their scopes. Ask them when they're ready."

"Traffic control is ready Captain."

"Put them on speaker James."

"This Is Doctor Even Luck aboard the spaceship 'The Best Luck' on a shakedown mission. Whom do I have pleasure of speaking to at the Fort Worth Center?"

"This is chief controller Barney Fife speaking. Good evening Doctor, I'm going to hate taking your money."

"I don't even carry a wallet anymore because of people like you. I can't remember the last time I paid for dinner. Shall we get started?"

"Yes we have you on radar. On my mark, 15, 14,...3,2,1,0. Go.

I said one word to my crew, "EXECUTE," and 'The Best Luck' answered the call. Everything was computer-controlled, no one had to touch a button or dial. We raced skyward and all we heard were the comments from the air traffic controllers saying things like, "It's not possible. No human could stand those G forces. It's 15 seconds in there passing 40,000 feet."

I was just holding on to Teddy, because I knew our turn was going to begin shortly. It was against the rotation of the earth, and this was not the ordinary way to go. We would experience some buffeting, but it wouldn't last long as we leveled out at 60,000 feet.

I felt the turn begin and said to Delicious, "How do you like my plan now?"

"You cheated, you always cheat. I never catch you before you do it, but you always cheat and I always lose."

"Do you lose to your husband also?"

"No, because he's not as sneaky as you are."

"I give sneaky lessons on Sundays Gray."

"I'll be there Even."

"The only way you'll be there, is if I have your balls in my hand."

"Mommy, bad mommy."

"Are you sure she's sleeping dad?"

"You can come and take a look, we are level at 60,000 feet, and clipping along at 4000 miles per hour."

James interrupted, "Captain, Fort Worth Ctr. said the check would be sent out next Wednesday, and they are changing our frequency."

"Very good James, great work."

"Thank you Captain. Would you help our passengers get out of their seats now please. Take special care of Jeff, I'm hoping he survived."

"I'll do that Captain. He's a great teacher, but I always go home with bruises all over me."

"When you play with the best, that's what happens."

"I know, but does it have to hurt so much?"

"Ask Gordon, a spin with Montgomarie for 14 years. I don't believe there is a spot on his body that hasn't been black and blue."

"James does Jeff put you into an ice bath afterwards?"

"An ice bath, why would he do that to me?"

"At first it's to torment you, and later, when they really beat the shit out of you it's to keep the bruising down."

"I think I'll stick to Jeff. Montgomarie sounds evil."

"I was up at her ranch, and I made the mistake of asking her how old she is. Remember I'm only 16 years old, and I have a lot to learn about women and their sensitivities. I woke up four hours later not knowing what hit me. I will never do that again to any woman."

"That sounds like sage advice."

I had one more problem when I woke up, I didn't know where she hit me. My head didn't hurt, my kidneys didn't hurt, nothing hurt more than any other part of my body. I just hurt all over, and when she came out early in the morning she was angry I was up. I told her I'd go back to where she knocked me out, but she said I are ready ruined her day by being awake.

She got even with me later that afternoon. She killed an old buffalo the day before, because she knew would not make it through the winter. She brought it into the barn and hung it up. She handed me a huge knife, and told me where to cut it. I prayed to the God of the buffaloes and told her how sorry I was for doing this. I stuck the knife in, and sawed my way from anus to gullet, and then from leg to leg.

Monty yelled, "Pull it apart."

"I was in enough trouble with Monty, and I didn't want to get in any deeper, before we went home. I reached up just above the center and pulled the hide apart. The viscera fell out, hitting and knocking me to the floor. Monty and Liz stood off to the side, laughing their asses off. I wanted to kill both of them, and stuff them inside that poor buffalo. Unfortunately, it would not have brought that poor beast back to life.

Thankfully, they gave me a full leather apron to put on that covered everything from my shoulders to my shoes. The blood and guts from the buffalo landed on it, instead of me. I was amazed that the only part of the buffalo that wasn't used was the hoofs, and the head. Everything else was useful. They showed me how to cut the meat off the bones to make steaks, roasts, and hamburger. They put the liver into some sort of mixture to take out the toxins to make it edible. Whatever was useful was put into the grinders and made into feed for the cattle, chicken, and hogs they had on the ranch. Her place is basically self-sustaining and I found it amazing that she would ever leave it. She has 250,000 acres up there that was bought by her grandfather, and great-grandfather. She has everything a person could want in life, and then I accidentally find out that she has a birthday on the same day as mine. Do you have any idea what to buy your best friend, and the person who has protected you nearly all your life for her birthday?"

"Is she going with us into space?"

"She wants to desperately, but my father has not made up his mind yet."

"What's keeping him, if she's on our security team, her background is flawless."

"I don't know James, and he won't tell me. Liz told me to stay away from that area of her life if I wanted to continue living. I promised Monty I would never mention it again."

"However, here you are talking about it to me."

"I never promised I would talk about it to anyone, just to her."

"Oh, you're getting as sneaky as your father."

"Thank you James, I like complements like that."

"You should, because the more complements you get like that, the smarter you are."

The Exascale computer announced, "Right turn over the San Jacinto Mountains 120 miles east of San Diego, in one minute."

James said, "Isn't it nice not being needed?"

"When we are flying at six times the speed of light, and we have 60 billion miles to go, you will be very happy you don't have to sit there and watch where we're going."

"Yes, there are always those small benefits to be had."

"Hang on, here goes that turn."

The exascale said, "New heading 347.5326 degrees, San Gabriel Mountains in 30 seconds, 160 miles east of Los Angeles."

"New heading 355.215 degrees, Santa Cruz Mountains, 65 miles east of San Francisco."

We were all happy for the information, and the exactness of the headings and position reports, but we were passing major cities in seconds rather than minutes or hours, and we would have to get used to this once we were in space. The longest distance in the contiguous United States would be from northern Washington State to Key West Florida, and if we turned 'The Best Luck' loose on full power, we could do it in a split second. It was almost mind-boggling.

We turned just east of Seattle, and timed our run to Boston. Exascale said it would be 27.187 minutes, because the winds were with us. It was right on the money.

We made our turn over Boston and headed for Jacksonville. As we passed Cape Hatteras all hell broke loose. Apparently, Washington Center failed to notify the military that we were going to be flying through the Air Defense Identification Zones along the eastern seaboard. By the time they got it straightened out we had already turned west over Jacksonville, and were heading home to Temple.

When we touched down Fort Worth Center advised us that are total elapsed time was 1:32:00.

James advise them they were incorrect. "Our computer discounted the 5000 feet we were flying at as part of the total flying time. Our complete time, and mileage from ground to ground is 6790 miles, in 1.hr. 34.0461 minutes."

I said to the controllers at Fort Worth, "One day we would like to set 'The Best Luck' loose on full power, and fly from the Northwestern tip of the United States to Key West Florida. It should take us less than a minute to do it. It should scare the powers that be into rethinking what they are doing with our tax dollars, and space travel."

The End(and I do not care what you think should be here!)

Chapter 27

There Must Be A Mistake

By

Prolonged_Debut10

Note: I bet you're wondering why I am back early. As I asked you above, "Can you find a way to fuck up good news? I did, and now I'll tell you how I did it.

My lead Doctor, and a resident came over to me with smiles on their faces and told me they had good news. My treatments were working. My white count was down substantially, the tumors were shrinking, and everything was looking good. To say I was thrilled would be the understatement of this century and the last.

He said I had a long way to go, and this five-week program was going to be tough on my body and my head.

I told him I didn't care as long as the protocol was working. He assured me it was, as he took my hand in both of his and smiled at me. I had the best night sleep that night I had in months. Two days later I had an extremely mild heart attack. They had to stop the protocol. They put me into CICU for two days, and found nothing wrong with my heart. They decided it was not a heart attack, but either a premature ventricular contraction, or some unknown incident. This could only happen to me. The cardiologists and the oncologists got together and decided to send me home to rest. The only person that disagreed was me. I wanted to continue my treatment because they were working. Now I have to wait until there is an opening to fit me into. I want to cry. Bob/ Prolonged_Debut10