I figured it was about time I showed some of what I have been working on. In case this is the first post you’ve read, I’m working on a 50s inspired space opera. Think Tom Corbett for grown-ups, especially for those grown-ups whose fevered, childhood dreams of space have cooled. Outside the Space Shuttle is being mothballed, but inside we have rockets of riveted plate steel flying across a starry backdrop on bright tongues of fire.
I’ll post a few more bits and pieces over time. It isn’t meant to be a serial or anything.
The Isaac II, ship of space, mighty iron rocket from the red dust yards of Woomera, dropped out of the Venusian sky on fat spears of fire that blasted the cratered field of the space port, softening the pitted glass as it decelerated to a pause, hanging in the air as the puddle of molten rock under its engines expanded into a broad pool. Only then did it touch down, the three tail fins, knives the height of towers, sinking deep into the molten earth. The engines cut off and immediately a skin of glass appeared across the cooling surface of the landing site, locking the rocket in position until take-off when the engines would once again turned the solid ground to liquid.
At his post in front of the engine desk in the command room of the Isaac, Power Sergeant Wilkes moved the engine switch to neutral, then into the sealed position. He placed the guard bolt over the control and locked it with the key that hung around his wrist. Down in the engine room the reactor crew followed his signals, powering down the Isaac’s engines and closing the exhaust ports.
“Atomic engines at neutral. Ports closed and sealed, Cap’n.”
“Good work, Wilkes. Pilot Butler, landing report.”
“Sir, she sits three degrees out from local vertical, fins stable at eight metres and landing target under prime port, sir.”
“Prime port! Excellent. Comms?”
Radio Sergeant Anders sat like a safecracker at the communications console, jamming his earpiece hard against his ear, his head cocked as he listened carefully for a signal while adjusting the tuning coils. The leather muzzle of his microphone dangled below his cheek. The blue line being traced on the cathode tube began to jiggle and dance as he homed in on the space port’s ground station.
“Locked in, Cap’n!”
“Let them know we’re secure and will start unloading in 30 standard minutes.”
Anders held the muzzle over his mouth to send the message silently to the space port.
Captain Nestor unclipped his landing harness, stood up and rolled his shoulders. Another tight landing. The crew could tell he was pleased, but they would not know that he was proud. It was the work of several years to collect them, crush them, and rebuild them into the professional, efficient team they had become. Beating plowboys into swords. And about time. He was getting a bit old to be a blacksmith. These men would be his best team, his prime team. That is how it went. Years of learning about men and their leading, then a brief moment when it all comes together.
If you are lucky that is the same moment when one of the capricious, short-lived windows to glory opens in front of you and you get to pass through it. If you make it back your name will be remembered. Your men, the ones that return with you, will move on and up. And you know you can’t hold them back, because everything you taught them, everything they needed so you could make it through your window, was everything they needed to make it on their own, to find their own window, their own glory.
Glory or no glory, at some point you start to become just another old man, left weak and pale by the launches and landings. There’s no way you can return to ground. Not after all those years in space, years of leading good men through tight spot after tight spot. You stay captain, but you soften. You carry cargo on milk runs, travel in convoy if you venture out to Mars, and you stay away from the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Your ship is tight, but the young men they put under your command you guide, you teach, you prepare them for someone else’s glory. They will know their business, but you will let someone else find their limits. You are the Old Man Captain sitting in your cabin, going over your old logs, reading the occasional transmission from your old mates and old crew who have ships of their own. On stations and planets you frequent last year’s watering holes, quieter now, the wood a little darker, the steel a little softer, meeting up with other Old Man Captains, swapping stories, telling lies about looking forward to fishing, or starting a farm on a planet you have spent more time orbiting around than you ever spent living on. Neither you or any of the Old Man Captains want to make that transition, take that demotion, the big step down.
In your hearts each of you want to set out in that last small ship of your own, a crew of one, buried in space in a storage container, a regulation blanket for a shroud, your medals, if any, pinned to the outside over your still heart. And if your crew really likes you, respects you, they will draw straws and strip the atomic booster from the short man’s space suit and bolt it to the foot of your makeshift coffin. Set to minimum power it will push you for a thousand years, out of the system and towards the stars that no mortal man can reach.
Nestor unhooked the ship’s horn from the captain’s console.
“Landing is complete!” he barked down the tube and his voice travelled through the ship, to every corner, to every berth, cabin, galley, hold and engine room. The men in their landing couches climbed out of their harnesses, Technical staff started on the business of checking all systems survived the landing intact, while the rest of the crew headed for the holds and the unloading of cargo.
He clipped the horn back on the console and waved a commanding hand at Butler.
“Unshield the viewports, Pilot. Let’s take a look at our neighbors.”
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