In last week’s episode, David was pushed beyond the limits of his endurance, only to be saved (temporarily) by a divine act of compassion. In this week’s episode, David helps deploy a Malloy Hoverbike…
Captain Pruitt was worried about damage to his ship. He’d kept the engines running full throttle until the warmer air of the high-pressure system they were entering melted away the bulk of the ice on her hull.
“The controls aren’t right, Jim,” he said quietly. “They’re sluggish.”
“We hit something back there,” Foote was rapidly flipping switches and typing commands into his console, performing a series of diagnostics tests to get more specific information.
“We’re going to have to do an external inspection for damage,” Pruitt turned to Singh, “LT, are you up for a remote?”
“Roger, Sir.”
After a few moments, Captain Pruitt described the situation, and the flight crew nodded with understanding. What Pruitt was asking for was a simple enough task. “Do you need any help back there, Doc?” Pruitt asked.
Ranell replied, “I can handle it. I’ll get Mr. Wilson to assist me with launch and recovery.”
David was startled by the sound of Ranell making his way back towards the galley. The quartermaster called aft, “Mr. Wilson, did they issue you a helmet and safety harness?”
Gasping with a momentary panic, he realized he would have to explain what he’d been doing back here if Ranell found him like this. He ran cold water over the wound on his palm. He grimaced. It stings. He quickly wiped stray drops of his blood from the sink, rinsed off the kitchen knife and returned it to its holder.
David answered Ranell’s call, “Yes.” The single word came out shakily. How could he forget the way the Rattle had cinched him into the safety harness right before his first mission brief.
When Ranell entered the galley, he eyed David with concern, “Are you OK? We had a pretty rough ride back there...”
David closed the hasp that secured the santoku blade. “Yeah, that was rough.” You’ll never know how rough. David tried to make a show of bravado, but it was unconvincing, “But I’m good.”
“You’ve got blood on your collar!” Ranell’s hands flew up to inspect the smudge on David’s survival suit. “Are you injured?”
David nonchalantly brushed away the quartermaster’s ministrations. “It’s nothing, Doc. I accidently sliced my hand a little bit, see?” David showed his palm, “It’s nothing, just a scratch.”
“We need to get some antiseptic on that, and a bandage.” Ranell reached for the first aid kit that hung on the wall.
David objected, but Ranell insisted. A few minutes later, the wound was dressed.
“I wonder how that knife came loose?” Ranell queried as he finished up.
“I must have forgotten to lock the hasp,” David lied. “We’ve never really had any rough weather since I’ve been aboard. Certainly nothing like that wild ride.” David was unable to suppress a shudder, and he was pretty sure Ranell noticed.
“You’ve got to be more careful, Mr. Wilson.” The quartermaster addressed David with his hands on his hips. “That was an extremely dangerous situation. We’re all shaken up. How’re you holding up?”
David could sense the concern behind the gentle blue eyes that peered into his own with an uncomfortable intensity.
“I’m fine Doc. Seriously, I’m good-to-go.”
Ranell nodded slowly, “Well... good. If you’re feeling up to it, I’ve got something I think you’ll enjoy.”
“Yeah, I’m good Doc.” David repeated as he inhaled and let out a sharp breath. I’ve got to focus on whatever task is at hand, or I won’t make it. “What do you got form me?”
“All right.” Ranell slapped David lightly on the shoulder. “Go get your helmet and put your safety harness on. We’re going to open the cargo hatch.”
Wondering what this was all about, David did as he was asked and secured his helmet and safety harness from his room. The harness was initially fitted for his flight suit, but with his bright orange survival suit on, it needed to be adjusted significantly. “Do you want me to put it over this?” David asked, “Or do I take the survival suit off?”
“Keep it on,” Ranell answered, “We may be out of the storm, but it’s still plenty cold outside. I’ll help you adjust it.”
Once the two men were properly equipped, they stepped out of the galley’s back door into the cavernous hold of the St. Paul. They walked along a narrow path between the BATT fuel tank and the cargo bay wall, and then past the rows of aluminum rollers that lined the floor until they came to the cargo bay door at the tail of the ship. “What are we doing, Doc?”
“Check this out.” Ranell worked a control lever. As he did, a large rack of machinery David hadn’t noticed before began to fold down to the cargo bay floor on pneumatic pistons. Grabbing one end of a strange assemblage of what looked like a stack of propellers and tangled equipment, Ranell said, “Help me slide this out onto to floor.”
The device was extraordinarily light, and David surmised that it was made with some sort of carbon-fiber structure. It slid along the floor quite easily, and Ranell gave it a ninety-degree turn so that the skids pointed straight back toward the cargo bay door.
“What is this thing?”
“This, my young friend,” said Ranell with flair “is a Malloy Hoverbike.”
Hétóng Rén spent a considerable amount of time on the secure satellite phone in the cabin of Minister Ping’s private jet. He was tempted to sample some of the offerings from the fully stocked bar, but he was working now, and his sense of duty prevented him from imbibing anything that might detract from successful mission accomplishment.
His network was extensive. Hétóng Rén had contacts all over the world, and if he didn’t personally know a sinister operative at his destination, he certainly knew someone who did. He called in favors, offered bribes, and occasionally even threatened violence against his European contacts in Spain, and his African contacts in Morocco, until he was finally connected with a low-level operative who was part of the Canary Island’s Independence Movement. For a price, the operative was willing to take the direct action Hétóng Rén required in a manner that left no evidence linking it back to his employer.
Ranell showed David how to release the latches that held the hoverbike in its storage configuration. Together they unfolded the strange machine to reveal a single-seat quadcopter with two propellers in front and two propellers in the rear, allowing for a wide area on either side where a rider could access the main frame. Each propeller was enclosed in a circular ring; “These are the nacelles,” Ranell explained, “See how they overlap?”
David saw how the weight of the aircraft was kept to an absolute minimum. Instead of attaching each propeller to a separate boom extending out from the frame, a vertically-mounted engine was attached to the edge of each nacelle. The effect was a rather lopsided looking affair. Still, it had what amounted to a motorcycle seat and low mounted handlebars that caused David to gasp, “Are you going to ride that thing …outside?”
Ranell chuckled, “No, not today, but I could.” He reached over and clipped the safety line from his harness to a steel cable running high along the side of the cargo bay, “Put your helmet on and secure your tether.”
David did as he was instructed. Once the helmet was on, he adjusted the radio volume. Soon he was able to hear routine traffic from the cockpit as well as Ranell’s electronically rendered voice in his ear.
“This is the cargo hold,” Ranell reported in short, clipped phrases, “Mike-hotel-bravo-one is staged and ready. Handlers are tied off and secure. You can open her up, Captain.”
“Roger, Doc.” There was a sound of hydraulics engaging, and the cargo bay of the St. Paul opened to the afternoon sky, clear except for the angry line of storm clouds behind them to the west.
David heard the slight static in his headset as Pruitt asked, “LT, are your systems up? Do you have telemetry?”
“Roger, Sir.” Singh replied crisply.
Ranell made a waving motion to David to step back as Pruitt ordered, “Ok, take her out.”
The four battery-powered propellers of the hoverbike burst into life with a startling, buzzing whine. Lights blinked on the unmanned control panel as Singh operated the craft from his remote station in the cockpit. The initial thrust of the rotor wash bobbled the hoverbike momentarily until internal gyroscopes compensated, and it rose into a steady hover six inches above the cargo bay floor.
“I’ve got visual from the camera feed LT,” said Pruitt, “Let’s begin a standard inspection. Stern to bow, beginning with the port side.”
Singh eased the controls, and the hoverbike slid out of the cargo door, dropping briefly as it lost the additional lift gained by the ground effect from the bay floor. Once it was clear of the tail, Singh swung the strange craft around so that the camera mounted in front of the windscreen was brought to bear on the St. Paul’s hull.
The initial inspection indicated no signs of damage. There was still some ice remaining on the port side where the St. Paul’s shadow prevented the sunlight from melting it off, but Pruitt didn’t indicate that it was of much significance. The de-icing system was fully operational. The inspection was slow and thorough, and there was plenty of time for crosstalk as Singh flew the hoverbike around the entire circumference of the great airship.
“What do you think, Mr. Wilson?” Pruitt asked David over his headset.
David struggled for a moment to understand how his wand microphone worked, and then replied, “This is really cool, Captain. Can a person actually ride one of those?”
“You bet,” answered Pruitt. “They have an 800 lb. lifting capacity. A little more if the batteries are fully charged.”
“These bikes are essential to our relief operations,” Ranell squawked over the headset. “We use them to conduct reconnaissance of disaster zones and to drop our ground crew into position to set up austere landing zones.”
“How many of them do we carry?” David realized that there were probably more hoverbikes along the side of the cargo bay.
“Six.” Ranell pointed the storage racks out to David.
The hoverbike was now working its way across the bow of the St. Paul. Lieutenant Singh was doing a masterful job of maneuvering the drone across the bow of the airship as she cruised through the air at 40 knots. The chatter dropped off while the navigator concentrated.
Once around to starboard, the flying was more manageable, and the chatter picked back up again. “Are they hard to fly?” David asked.
“Not at all,” Singh replied from the cockpit, “In fact, if you wanted, you could hop aboard right now. And I could fly around the ship again with you on it.”
“Knock it off, LT,” Pruitt gently reprimanded Singh for teasing the new guy. “They really are easy to learn, Mr. Wilson,” he continued, “but we teach that class on the ground, under controlled circumstances. We’ll need to get you trained up on them once we find the time.”
“Seriously?” No one could see David’s grin, but they could all hear the enthusiasm, “All right!”
“The LT is right about one thing,” this came from Foote, “you can strap anyone on a hoverbike and just hit the home button to bring it back to the St. Paul. Do you remember that guy in the Philippines with the broken leg we medevac’d?”
“Oh yeah, I remember that guy,” Ranell grunted. “We had to pry his white-knuckled hands of the steering controls. He was terrified.”
“How high do they go?” David wondered aloud.
“They’ve got an operating ceiling around 10,000 feet and a top speed just under 150 knots,” said Singh, “But we only really use them around 2,000 – 3,000 feet.”
“Unless we’re in the mountains,” Foote countered.
“Hold on a second, gentlemen,” Pruitt’s voice cut through the conversation. “LT, back it up and take a closer look at those stabilizing wires.”
Singh guided the hoverbike.
“There’s the problem,” Pruitt noted grimly. “Looks like one of the starboard side guy wires snapped. I think our lower tailfin must have clipped a wave.”
There was a long silence shared between the tiny crew of the St. Paul. Finally, First Officer Foote whispered, almost inaudibly, “That was a close one, wasn’t it, Captain?”
“As close as they get, Jim.”