plaque with a smirk. “My wife’s idea of a joke,” smiled the CO. “It’s the burden we shoulder for working here. Even my teenage son doesn’t believe we’re just a flight test facility. He asked me the other day if it was true the Air Force had a Blue Beret downed UFO rapid recovery team.”
“I saw that episode,” grinned the Colonel, “I thought it was rather good.”
“You’ll have to cope with a lot of crap outside,” confessed the CO. “I’m sure you’ll manage. Truth is, we’ll be keeping you so busy you’ll be spending most of your time on the base. What did you make of the Illuminate ?” Chester gave him a blank look.
“The board in Washington,” he continued. “A spooky bunch but very, very powerful…and they pay well…we see them quite a lot here. Still, they never cause any problems and they ask very intelligent questions and our budgets are passed without a murmur. God knows how they do the accounting but it gives us unrestricted opportunity to play with some pretty exotic stuff.”
Within a few weeks Chester had found out that the CO’s take on the word exotic took on a whole new definition of the word. Strapped into the cockpit of the sleek and massive beast that was project Aurora he’d initially gazed warily at the multiplicity of sensors and probes that ran from the high-tech cockpit to various parts of his body. The flight operating manual was a document the like of which he had never seen. Numerous references were made to systems and avionics that were as yet still totally foreign to him. He’d never heard of a bio sat interface or indeed a cranial transponder and the section on the pulse wave detonation engine had made his head hurt. Nonetheless, as time went by, his intelligence and engineering background ensured that he began to form an operating picture of the mind-blowingly advanced machine that surrounded him. Two years later he knew the needle nosed monster better than he knew his own body.
He gazed lazily out of the cockpit canopy at the clouds many miles beneath him as he chased the sun across the roof of the world. Here at the very edge of space, the lack of air made for an almost totally silent ride. His bio implants tingled, gently letting him know that he’d just entered the next satellite footprint and that his telemetry was being received on the uplink. He mentally recognised this fact and the onboard systems, acknowledging this thought, cut the physical stimulus. A soft chime sounded inside his helmet indicating a non-scheduled radar contact many miles below. He glanced at the radar screen and the intelligent glass on his visor interpreted his two-blink instruction and prompted the computer. Three seconds later an automated voice resonated inside his helmet.
“Target is an F22 out of Edwards Air Force Base, seconded to NASA, undergoing high altitude trials. Threat level zero.”
Chester grinned. The engineers had given the system a woman’s voice. She always sounded, well, so unflappable. This was just as well as he’d not always felt that way himself as he’d come to grips with the highly-strung aircraft. Project Aurora was the first and only trans-atmospheric aircraft in existence. Constructed of composites of a complexity that were way beyond his understanding, the craft could withstand the brutal physics that accompanied mach ten speeds and the mind-bending temperature variances that resulted. With its revolutionary propulsion system, the machine could achieve sub-orbital altitudes for a short while and a normal cruising altitude that made him undetectable from the ground. Not that that made a difference to any potential threat. His speed alone rendered him uncatchable.
It was a perfect reconnaissance platform, except for the fact that the powers that be had also fitted a weapons system. The logic being, he had been told by the suited faceless civilians, that should the enemy ever develop a similar aircraft then it was vital to have offensive
“I saw that episode,” grinned the Colonel, “I thought it was rather good.”
“You’ll have to cope with a lot of crap outside,” confessed the CO. “I’m sure you’ll manage. Truth is, we’ll be keeping you so busy you’ll be spending most of your time on the base. What did you make of the Illuminate ?” Chester gave him a blank look.
“The board in Washington,” he continued. “A spooky bunch but very, very powerful…and they pay well…we see them quite a lot here. Still, they never cause any problems and they ask very intelligent questions and our budgets are passed without a murmur. God knows how they do the accounting but it gives us unrestricted opportunity to play with some pretty exotic stuff.”
Within a few weeks Chester had found out that the CO’s take on the word exotic took on a whole new definition of the word. Strapped into the cockpit of the sleek and massive beast that was project Aurora he’d initially gazed warily at the multiplicity of sensors and probes that ran from the high-tech cockpit to various parts of his body. The flight operating manual was a document the like of which he had never seen. Numerous references were made to systems and avionics that were as yet still totally foreign to him. He’d never heard of a bio sat interface or indeed a cranial transponder and the section on the pulse wave detonation engine had made his head hurt. Nonetheless, as time went by, his intelligence and engineering background ensured that he began to form an operating picture of the mind-blowingly advanced machine that surrounded him. Two years later he knew the needle nosed monster better than he knew his own body.
He gazed lazily out of the cockpit canopy at the clouds many miles beneath him as he chased the sun across the roof of the world. Here at the very edge of space, the lack of air made for an almost totally silent ride. His bio implants tingled, gently letting him know that he’d just entered the next satellite footprint and that his telemetry was being received on the uplink. He mentally recognised this fact and the onboard systems, acknowledging this thought, cut the physical stimulus. A soft chime sounded inside his helmet indicating a non-scheduled radar contact many miles below. He glanced at the radar screen and the intelligent glass on his visor interpreted his two-blink instruction and prompted the computer. Three seconds later an automated voice resonated inside his helmet.
“Target is an F22 out of Edwards Air Force Base, seconded to NASA, undergoing high altitude trials. Threat level zero.”
Chester grinned. The engineers had given the system a woman’s voice. She always sounded, well, so unflappable. This was just as well as he’d not always felt that way himself as he’d come to grips with the highly-strung aircraft. Project Aurora was the first and only trans-atmospheric aircraft in existence. Constructed of composites of a complexity that were way beyond his understanding, the craft could withstand the brutal physics that accompanied mach ten speeds and the mind-bending temperature variances that resulted. With its revolutionary propulsion system, the machine could achieve sub-orbital altitudes for a short while and a normal cruising altitude that made him undetectable from the ground. Not that that made a difference to any potential threat. His speed alone rendered him uncatchable.
It was a perfect reconnaissance platform, except for the fact that the powers that be had also fitted a weapons system. The logic being, he had been told by the suited faceless civilians, that should the enemy ever develop a similar aircraft then it was vital to have offensive
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