Test Pilot

A Story by John H. Carroll

Gregg Johnson was a test pilot in the Skull Squadron where death was the only retirement benefit. Hugs and Kisses 13 was a spaceship that needed to be tested. As usual, it had flaws.

Test Pilot

John H. Carroll

Published by John H. Carroll at Smashwords

This story is dedicated to the emo bunnies who would like very much to ride in a spaceship.

***

Captain Gregg Johnson walked down a hallway on Moonbase City. It was a dumbass name for a city on the moon. If the bosses let him name the cities, they’d have good names like . . . Godiva Glow City, or . . . Batcave City or something cool like that. Didn’t matter to him what they named the city though, not his job. Whatever.

He grunted at a private who was saluting him, but kept walking with coffee in hand. Why the hell officers needed people to salute was beyond him. He had his job and did it. He let others do their jobs. That didn’t make him or them any better than each other. If he had his way, he’d get rid of ranks. They were unnecessary and stupid. Everyone should just do their jobs and get on with it. Whatever, that wasn’t his job either.

Gregg Johnson was a test pilot in the Skull Squadron. The symbol for their squadron was a skull, because death was usually the end result of being a member. Gregg’s job was to get in the cockpit of new spaceships and find out what they could do. Amazing spaceships were being made with numerous new advances every year and needed to be tested to ensure they didn’t randomly blow up.

Ever since The Company had secretly bypassed governments and made their own space program, technology had been expanding at an extraordinary rate. No one knew who ran The Company or how it started. It was just named “The Company”. Stupid name. If Gregg had any say . . . well, he didn’t so there was no use worrying about it. Not his job. Whatever.

Now governments, private companies and even individuals with asinine dreams were in a big race to develop new technologies and gain any advantage. Most wars had stopped because they cost too much and the equipment and trained individuals used for space exploration were too important to go around destroying in battles.

Things were changing at a furious pace. Education was being brought to third world countries so there would be more people to discover new technologies. Even if only one in ten thousand people actually discovered something new, it was worth it for the edge. Those third world countries still didn’t have a lot of food or many of the other things they needed to prosper, but they had all the education imaginable. Computers were everywhere in the world now, cheap and easily accessible, and there were online schools and colleges available to anyone. The people who did exceptionally well were grabbed by The Company or other entities to work in their programs. They were given further education and training in whatever profession they excelled in.

Numerous bases around the solar system existed where countries vied for position and power. The Company was the most powerful entity of all, but didn’t try to interfere in politics. New technologies were being developed and tested all the time and chaos ensued as a result. The mortality rates for testing those technologies were high, but any complaints about such things were shoved aside in order to meet goals and deadlines. It wasn’t only things like spaceships, equipment, and new materials being tested, but medicines, social habits, and psychology as well.

Being a test pilot didn’t just mean testing spaceships. As it stood now, the average pilot couldn’t fly a spaceship in anything but a straight line. Computers did most of the piloting and navigating. Gregg was exceptional, but even he couldn’t normally make decisions fast enough to do necessary tests. Plus, the human body wasn’t equipped to handle space; it had to be augmented in various ways. So the doctors had made certain adjustments to Gregg’s body. He agreed to it because he didn’t have any other plans for his life and he liked being more than the average human.

His skin was one of the things modified. Skin would be rapidly destroyed by various aspects of space, especially if a suit was damaged. There were suits that protected the body for a little while, but a test pilot needed more than that. Gregg didn’t understand what they had done to him as it was complicated, but somehow his skin could last outside of a spacesuit for a little over ten minutes now. Another modification was to his internal organs. They were reinforced to be able to take a certain amount of strain. His favorite change was the metal/plastic stuff the doctors weaved into his bones. He hurt like hell for months after they did it, but now he felt invincible. The bones could still break, and had, but it was harder to do.

For the most part, he looked normal. Except for his eyes; those looked freaky. The Irises were a metallic blue, and the whites were actually silver. He didn’t know what the doctors had done to those either, it was even more complicated. The Company was the only organization with human modification technology this advanced, but they didn’t have voters to please and ignored cries of outrage made by humanitarians.

Drugs and fluids were pumped in and out of his body at scheduled times. It still freaked him out when they did it, but he had gotten over it for the most part. That’s where he was coming from now. The doctors had done a fluid exchange and enhancement on Gregg, and then gave him a pill he didn’t remember ever taking before. He realized that it was new because there was another consent form to fill out, which basically said if it kills you, you agree not to hold The Company responsible. Gregg didn’t even look at them anymore, just sign and get on with it. All he knew was that his veins felt itchy again like they did whenever he underwent the fluid transfer.

***

Doctor Harry Mofou was a bit mad and extraordinarily brilliant at the same time. He made the cool s**t Gregg liked most; weapons, suits, equipment and gadgets. Gregg got to test those as well. The latest item the doctor had given him was the hand cannon, a repeating laser pistol. Most laser pistols and rifles just shot a beam that holed something nearby, whether rocks, people or metal walls. They were dangerous enough that very few people were allowed to have one. The hand cannon had eight compact firing tubes that shot out repeating beams generated by a new energy source Gregg didn’t understand; something to do with solar and gamma power recharging systems. It was complicated. Whatever. All he knew was that he wasn’t actually allowed to fire it . . . ever. But it sure did look nice sitting on his hip.

He entered a large lab with a lot of tables. Junk was spread over those tables; parts, pieces and various items. Male and female scientists worked on devices beyond Gregg’s understanding. Six testing rooms were spread around the edge of the lab, each with windows so observers could watch the tests. Workers were cleaning blood and body parts from one of the rooms where it looked like a test had gone bad.

A couple of other members of the Skull Squadron were being fitted with new equipment. One was a newbie who looked extremely nervous, glancing at the workers cleaning up body parts. Her hair was dark and straight and she had a tan, unusual to see on people stationed on the moon. The cute young woman must be very new, just from Earth. Gregg might just have to hook up with her if she survived whatever she was testing.

“Hey Doc, what’s up?” Gregg said as he approached an older bald man with rectangle glasses, crazy eyes and a pristine lab coat.

Doctor Mofou turned around from the device he was working on. “Ahh, there you are. Come along, Captain. I think you’re going to like what I have to show you.” He gestured for Gregg to follow him to another lab, which required a DNA scan of the doctor to enter. Once that was passed, they walked in to a room with well organized equipment; laser weapons, tools, suits and other items.

The good doctor led him to a suit in the middle of the room. Gregg thought it was black at first glance, but looking closer, he saw stars floating in it. He got right up next to it and stared, turning his head left and right a little bit. There were definitely stars floating in it, like looking into space. “What the hell, Doc?”

Doctor Mofou chuckled at the reaction. “Do you like it? It’s the newest technology anywhere.” He moved up next to The Captain and ran his hand along the suit. “If there is other life out there, it may even be beyond their technology. The Doctor had a mad grin on his face. Gregg reached out and touched the suit.

It wasn’t there. He didn’t know how else to explain it. His fingers ran up and down the suit, but he couldn’t feel it. There was nothing there. Doctor Mofou began cackling. Gregg knew the doctor was mad, but that laughter was scary. “How does it do that, Doc? It’s like it’s not even there.”

The cackling stopped. The doctor was staring at him intensely. “Do you really want to know, Captain?”

Gregg thought about that. “Is it complicated?”

Mofou gave a twisted grin. “Incredibly complicated,” he said.

Complicated wasn’t Gregg’s strength. “Nope, don’t want to know.” The response caused more insane cackling.

The Doctor and one of his assistants helped Gregg into the suit, which fit like a second skin. He freaked out when he looked down and saw the stars roaming through black space where his body should be. “What about the outer suit, Doc?”

That question surprised the doctor. “Outer suit? There is no outer suit with this. It is everything.” The mad cackle became louder.

Every other suit Gregg had worn had layers. A body suit went right against the skin, then a thermal suit, then the outer suit. It was inefficient, but necessary. This just felt like a thick body suit. Gregg could move without any hindrance; in fact he felt stronger and faster. Doctor Mofou watched him with wild eyes and maniacal grin, enjoying the look of amazement on the Captain’s face. “Nice, Doc. This is real nice.”

Mofou and his assistant took Gregg into an empty back hallway leading to the hanger with ships that needed to be tested. The Captain was testing a newer ship today: the XOXO 13. “I’m not so sure about this Doc. Doesn’t XOXO mean hugs and kisses?” he asked the doctor, who just continued to cackle. The assistant rolled his eyes. Greg protested, “Hey, seriously. This ship is named “hugs and kisses thirteen”. That’s not real comforting, Doc.” They needed to name ships differently; like Lightning, or Thunder Rock or something. Whatever. Not his job. “This thing had better not hug and kiss my a*s goodbye.”

Doctor Mofou cackled some more as he handed Gregg a helmet. It was different than most. Instead of just a big round bubble, it was small and thinned out to fit the shape of a person’s head. The helmet sealed to the suit when it was put on even though there was no noticeable attachment. “Can you hear the sound of my voice, Captain?” the Doctor asked.

Gregg frowned. He could hear Mofou’s voice, which shouldn’t be possible in a suit. “How come I can hear you, Doc?”

Instead of answering, Doctor Mofou gave a gleeful grin and clapped his hands. “Yay, me! I did it!” He was one freaky dude, thought Gregg. Mofou continued, “The material of the suit receives sound. You can adjust how much you hear and where you hear it from. The same material also transmits your voice and any noise you make.” He frowned and his face twisted as he explained. “I still have to figure out a way to prevent it from transmitting bodily sounds like farts, but that’s not as important.”

Mofou became very businesslike, hooking up a computer to the suit for a moment to check readings. “I have the sound and everything else set already. You could easily kill yourself with the suit if you messed with the controls. We’ll give you extensive training with it later.”

He finished looking at the readings and unplugged the computer. The connection on the suit sealed over, becoming starry again. Gregg could feel the attached backpack, which was smaller than on most suits. “How does it generate oxygen, Doc and how much time do I have if I’m out of the ship?”

Mofou’s eyes lit up and the mad twitch in his lips began to come back. “Do you really want to know?”

Gregg thought about that. “How much time I have; yes, I want to know. As far as the rest; is it complicated?”

The Doctor became serious for a moment. “The air should last for about two years, although you’ll die of thirst within three or four days, so it doesn’t matter.” Then he began to grin again. “The rest is extremely complicated.”

He figured it would be. “Never mind then, Doc. Let’s just get on with it.”

The training Gregg had gone through to simply fly a ship was extensive. The training to run them through tests was even more so. Pilots were the cream of the Skull Squadron. Not all squadron members survived long enough to pilot. Out of those who did, Gregg was the best. Sure he had crashed a couple of ships, but everyone did that. Only a few walked away from it like Gregg, who was the only person ever to walk away from four crashes. It took a lot of skill to crash in a ship and only have severe damage instead of it being completely totaled.

Some people were surprised at how nonchalant The Company was at having ships destroyed, but what those people didn’t understand was that metal was cheap now that they mined it from moons, planets and asteroids. Labor was even less costly. The most expensive thing right now was supplying food and water, but The Company was working on that and it would probably be solved in thirty or forty years.

Ships didn’t cost much really. They weren’t cheap, but not massively expensive either. Even new technologies were produced economically. Interestingly enough, Captain Johnson was considered to be more valuable than the ship that he was flying. Very few members of the Skull Squadron lived or stayed in the squadron long enough to make it to his experience level, and none were as good as he.

After entering Company Spaceship XOXO 13, Gregg went through the pre-checks, systems checks, checks and balances and a lot of other checks before it was finally ready to go.

A voice came over the com. “Captain Gregg Johnson, this is Moontower 8. You have clearance for departure in CSS XOXO 13.” The voice he heard was sultry and seductive. Regrettably, he had already hit that and she wanted nothing more to do with him. Still nice to hear her voice though.

“Oh crap. I’m in XL 36, not XOXO 13. Can I still take off, Moontower 8?”

The sultry voice became slightly panicked. “What? No! You may not . . . Gregg, you b*****d.” He chuckled while picturing her trying to compose herself. “Captain Gregg Johnson, I repeat; this is Moontower 8. You have clearance for departure in CSS XOXO 13. Please get the hell out of the hanger and try not to crash into a mountain this time.”

Gregg laughed. The two of them would probably be spoken to about that exchange but they were good at what they did and it wouldn’t be a problem. He hit the controls, initiating full thrusters.

The ship shot out of the hanger. It was what Gregg did. He flew the ships hard and fast to see what they could handle. The drugs flowing through his system helped him to take a step back from his mind and calmly focus on the glut of information in front of him.

Gregg saw thousands of bits of information and detail coming from a series of instrument panels. His hands and fingers gracefully flowed over them, guiding the ship and giving it directions. In most ships, like supply and passenger ships, there were locks, controls and default settings to limit what a pilot could do. On this one those controls were all removed. Most pilots would have crashed the ship instantly, but Gregg was trained for this. Plus, he had some groovy ingredients flowing through his body making it all possible.

A moment later, he was away from Moonbase and into uninhabited territories used for testing. The Captain looked out the window at starry space above the pale glowing moon. The Earth was at the edge of the horizon, a beautiful round mudball called home. Diagrams and data were digitally laid over that by the controls of the ship. He didn’t know how the technology worked, it was complicated and he didn’t care, but he loved that it did. Kisses and hugs thirteen was a nice ship. It was smooth, responding to his every whim.

“Let’s see what this puppy can do.” Gregg put it into a roll, the view through the window spinning round and round. It was tight, very tight. Then he leveled off upside down and began fishtailing, which progressed into flying sideways.

Flying in space was much different than flying in atmosphere. Airplanes used the atmosphere to turn and maneuver and were limited because of it. In space, maneuvers were done with different types of jets. Gregg didn’t understand the way it worked, but those jets didn’t use fuel based propulsion so he could lay on them all he wanted. The details of how they worked were complicated. Whatever.

Then things got fun. His hands moved lightly over the control panel, but they produced extraordinary effects. Kisses and Hugs, that was what he named the ship in his mind, was flying sideways, upside down, then; by a couple of gentle motions of his hands, it rolled over into a sideways flight in the other direction.

The Lunar Apennine Mountains were coming close. He would really test the ship’s maneuvering skills there. Gregg was beginning to discover its limitations, though it handled a lot better than anything else he had flown.

Then he was above the first hills and right up next to the mountains. There were two passes he would go through. Suicide Pass was the first one. It was nothing to the Captain, just a warm up. True Death Pass was the challenging one. They were stupid names, he thought in the space of a millisecond. Something like Hell Pass or Angel’s pass, as in everyone who tries it dies and becomes an angel, would be better. Whatever. Not his job.

Kisses and Hugs handled both passes easily. He darted in and out of the canyons and mountains. The ship maneuvered high speed, twisting and turning, all the while his hands danced above the control panel.

This was when he felt truly alive, more than just the average Joe. Next, Kisses and Hugs zipped through the last of the mountains and into a clear area. Coming up was the south pole of the moon. There were much more challenging mountains and canyons there.

The Captain increased altitude and accelerated, the ship jumping forward though Gregg couldn’t feel any movement. Grav-shields protected him from forces of inertia, gravity or anything like that. He didn’t know why they were called grav-shields; that was stupid. They didn’t really shield him from anything. They should have been called inertia barriers or no movement thingies or something. Whatever. Not his job.

He dove into the canyon. It was tight. Even the smallest mistake would result in a terrible crash . . . and then it happened; that smallest mistake.

It wasn’t anything that Gregg had done as tests would later show. These ships had more sensors than anything else. Every aspect of the flight and the pilot was monitored including sensors in his body.

Something went wrong with one of the engines. It just cut out for a fraction of a second, but that was all it took. Gregg compensated quickly and put as much power into the necessary maneuvers as possible. There was absolutely no panic as he was prepared for death, it being part of the job. The only thing important now was to continue trying to fly the ship as well as possible.

Gregg knew the ship was going to have a lot more problems after it scraped the side of the canyon. It took all his effort to pull Kisses and Hugs out, but he managed.

Regrettably a big mountain was outside of that first canyon and Gregg was headed right for it. Damage to the hull was pretty bad, but he thought he might be able to recover and land. The ship was spinning and looping slowly all at once.

Captain Gregg Johnson calmly hit different engines and managed to almost miss the mountain, but not quite. Kisses and Hugs was getting affectionate with the sides of mountains and canyons and that wasn’t what it was built for. Gregg did all he could to aim away from the ground he was heading toward. He got the nose up and activated rear thrusters which helped some, but the ground was inevitable and there was little that he could do . . . unless he pushed the button. Gregg had two seconds to think about it and he knew he shouldn’t. If he didn’t push it, he would hit the ground no matter what. There was a good chance he might not die in the crash, but Gregg had always wanted to push the button anyway.

***

It was called Theoretical Light Drive. Every time a ship equipped with it had been tested, the ship disappeared. Even manned ships had disappeared with no trace. The button Captain Gregg Johnson pushed activated that drive instantly. He thought Theoretical Light Drive was a good name for it even though no one had asked him. Whatever.

His body didn’t itch anymore; now it was inside out. That was the only thought he had time for before he pulled right back out of light speed. Gregg didn’t know where he was and all the instruments were suddenly out of whack. He had traveled faster than light and didn’t know how far he had gone even though he had turned it off within one second. The problem was that the scientist and engineers who built it didn’t know how much faster than light it went.

The feeling of being inside out ceased. He looked at the controls. The instruments were all completely wrong, none of them working properly. He tried to do the standard fixes, but they just didn’t work right.

At times Gregg would look out the window. The ship was moving and looping a bit, but he didn’t recognize why. The only option was to shut everything down and do a complete reboot. He saved the all of the recorded settings and information to files separate from the rest of the system to be studied if he got back.

It took an hour for everything to shut down because there were so many safeguards to prevent accidental shutdowns and half of those were malfunctioning. Once he was done, he let the ship systems stay off for five minutes. Luckily his suit, separate from the ship, hadn’t been affected and it still kept him alive. He watched the universe floating past the window and enjoyed the peace.

Gregg didn’t think he was in his solar system anymore. It was too quiet out here; not physically, but spiritually quiet. He could feel the existence of people even in space. A person just kind of knew they were there. But out here he couldn’t feel anyone.

A moment of panic hit him. Death was okay. Death alone was not okay. Calming himself down, Gregg relaxed and simply enjoyed the peace and beauty of what he believed was true space. Then he pushed the reboot button.

The operating system was stored in three different ways in case of a rare reboot. Gregg didn’t know which file the system pulled from or how as everything started working again and he didn’t really care, it was complicated. Whatever, it wasn’t his job to care, only to use it if need be. It worked beautifully. There were still numerous mechanical failures, but not the critical kind.

After about another hour, Gregg had the ship stabilized. He was outside of the solar system. Not far out, luckily, but far enough. Fortunately the ship had plenty of supplies for one individual. Briefly, he considered hitting the light speed button again. The chances of hitting something important or having another critical failure were too high and he decided against it.

***

Three months later, Gregg was entering a command ship. It was good to be with people again. After various debriefings, he was given vacation on Earth. Then he went back to testing ships.

The fact that he had been the first one to successfully fly at light speed was unknown by the general population for over two hundred years as his very existence was confidential. The Company officially classified everything the Skull Squadron did.

He was later told that his little trip had exposed more than one massive flaw with the ship’s system. Fixes made with that knowledge led to the eventual success of faster than light travel. When they asked him if he wanted to know what those flaws were, he asked if it was complicated. And when they said yes; he responded, “Nope. Not my job,” before walking off with a smile.

###

About the Author

John H. Carroll was the youngest of seven children and was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1970 where he was kept in a dresser drawer with the clean socks. Luckily he wasn’t kept with the dirty socks or else he might have grown up to become slightly warped.

As a child, John spent most of his time wandering through the Mojave Desert in an attempt to avoid people. He would stare at the sky, imagining what it would be like to explore different worlds. One of his favorite memories is watching his dad build the fuselage of Evil Kneivel’s skycycle in their garage. One of his least favorite moments was watching that skycycle fall into the Snake River. (Not his dad’s fault and he has documentation to prove it, so nyah)

As a teenager, John spent most of his time driving wherever he could in an attempt to avoid people. He would stare at the road, imagining what it would be like to explore different worlds. He was the captain of the chess team and lettered in golf and band while in high school and wasn’t beaten up anywhere near as much as one might imagine.

As an adult, John spent most of his time staring at a computer screen in an attempt to avoid people. He stares at the monitor for hours, imagining what it would be like to explore different worlds. He has been married to his wonderful wife for 14 years and they have three obnoxio . . . wonderful children who always behave . . . when they’re asleep.

The Willden Trilogy is his first endeavor into the field of writing. Other series and standalone works will be forthcoming. In addition, John has written a number of short stories that publishes for free, just because he likes you so much. (And it’s good marketing. Shh) He writes in the evenings and weekends whenever possible. Regrettably, the family mentioned in the previous paragraph desires food and shelter, requiring the author to possess a full time job until such time as his writing makes him rich.

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