On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) by Jim Melanson Page B

suicide, another incident of little note took place involving Brenda Finney, an acquaintance of Mr. Portland and a high level civilian clerk at Vandenberg Air Force Base. She was a sweet middle aged woman, single with no children, winsome in appearance as my grand-mother would have said. She had a passion for retro 50’s clothing, and bought far more than she could afford, even though she had the ample pay grade of a high level clerk in the requisitioning office. Her passion caused her to have a significant debt load and financial problems that she kept hidden from everyone. The shame of her compulsive behaviour was too much to share. Shortly after Mr. Portland’s as yet undiscovered demise, she answered the phone ringing on her desk, and was summoned to the main gate. She was told there were a couple of men there to see her. Not expecting anyone, curiosity eating at her, she arrived at the gate minutes later to find two large men in black suits and black fedoras, perfectly trimmed crew cut hair, very square jaws, wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses. They had offered the Duty Officer the ID of another government agency, but the D.O. didn’t say which agency, when he led her to them. When questioned later he said he hadn’t slept well the night before, was kind of bleary-eyed that morning, and didn’t really remember what agency they were from. That was his story, and he was sticking to it. All he remembered was that Brenda had spoken briefly with the two men, and then appearing to be fighting back tears, she accompanied them to the nondescript black sedan that they had arrived in. Brenda Finney was never seen again. By anyone. Ever.
    Of course, I didn’t know any of that had transpired while I was waiting, a bit impatiently, in my rocket ship. I didn’t find out until years later.
    As the time for trajectory burn was closing in on me, I fastened myself in the flight couch, pulled the restraints really tight, and did a final COM and video check with Flight Control. The Flight Control centre with the imported German Flight Director and my friend, Hans Gohs, was in the Falcon-X facility in Texas, although we had launched the rockets from facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral in Florida. After the final trajectory burn, control would be handed off to the Mission Control centre set up at the Corporation’s offices in Sweden. Hans would then board a private jet to return there. Florida, California, and Texas were far beyond the reach of the Swedish or Chinese governments so they could not stop the launch. The Americans were not too keen on someone stealing their space-race thunder, particularly the Mars-race thunder; but they got more joy out of screwing over the Chinese, whom everyone thought (wrongly) was behind the Swedish government’s announcement to us twenty weeks ago. They also had certain requirements, that I have alluded to, for permitting the launch to be hosted on U.S. soil, but again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
    While I was gritting my teeth through the boredom of the last hour, the Corporation was holding a news conference. They were announcing to the world that less than a day ago I had been launched into space, and in the next few minutes I was going to be propelled towards Mars. We waited until this moment for the announcement, because once that last candle lit up, there really would be no stopping it.
    Not soon enough, Flight Control took me through the final local checklist, and then I was ready to rock and roll. Hans came over my headphones, “Flight Control to Pathfinder, we’re ready to begin transmitting live to the world.” I gave the camera two thumbs up. My own video feed from Flight Control flipped over to a stage at the Corporation’s auditorium in Sweden. It was 9:00 A.M. (GMT) in Sweden. Jayden and the brain trust of the company were on the stage. My son and his wife were there, and my BFF Mary as well. I could see in my own video monitor that the large