Message-ID: <59225asstr$1248099005@assm.asstr.org>
From: Leopolt <leopolt2002@yahoo.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Solo Flight {See intro for story codes}
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Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:10:05 -0400
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<1st attachment, "SoloFlight.txt" begin>



   Solo Flight

   by Leopolt

   "Are you awake, Ann?"

   I wasn't, but now I could hear the insistent, tinny little panel alarm.
I pushed the square in the interactive screen to silence it.

   "Yes, awake." I rubbed me eyes.  "How long was that?"

   "Six hours.  You are almost on a normal sleep schedule now.  We have you
scheduled for one hour of exercise at oh-nine-hundred, and we are adding
another later in your day.  See if that helps you get back to seven to
eight hours."

   "Why don't I just take a handful of Seconal, and you wake me up when we
get there?"

   "Now, now, Ann.  Don't start that.  Get some breakfast when you feel
like it, but be sure you leave at least thirty minutes between your meal
and the first exercise period."

   "Sure, of course - trust me, I don't to throw up in here anymore than
you want me to."

   "I'm turning you over to the MPO.  Flight medical signing out."

   I did not even have time to get out of my sleep bag before the Mission
Planning Officer came over the intercom.  "Good morning, Ann.  I want to go
over a couple of modifications in the mission plan for today."

   "Why do you say that?"

   "Say what, Ann?"

   "Why do you say 'Good Morning' like that?  It isn't morning there.  What
time is it?"

   "Ann, you have been over this with medical before.  We have to keep to
your time.  The biometrics people think it helps you adjust and it helps us
to only have a single time reference for the flight."

   I laughed.  "Do you mean you are not going to look at your watch and
tell me what time it is?  Jesus, this isn't the military, lighten up a
little.  You know I could just look it up on the computer in, like, 5
seconds."

   "It is 6:45 pm Central Daylight Savings Time in beautiful Bay Town,
Texas.  I get off shift in an hour and fifteen minutes, so if we could get
back to the mission profile..."

   I listened to him drone on about corrections in anticipation of orbital
injections (still weeks away), electrical system tests, radiometric
measurements.  I made notes in the flight log as instructed.  It was all
things that the on-board computers could do, they just wanted me to do them
to keep me occupied, to give me things to record and report back to Mission
Control.  Which was kind of silly, since the main reason they picked me for
this flight was because I liked to be left alone.  Every morning, it was
the same song and dance.  They wanted to talk to me, and I wanted them to
leave me the fuck alone.

   It was the reason I was originally rejected for the astronaut corps.  I
applied, after graduate school and a postdoc at the Johns Hopkins Applied
Physics Lab.  APL had a lot of NASA contracts, so I figured if I spent five
years helping to design and test the new crew compartment for the Mars
mission, I should at least have a shot of trying it out.  I had the
credentials, my eyesight is perfect, I am not a fat slob.  In fact I am
probably too skinny, but I drank a lot of protein shakes before the
interviews and examinations.  I think I would have gotten in the first time
except for the psychological tests.  They weren't the first I have ever
had, and the doctors knew it - they knew all about my past, all of my
medical records.  They knew I had been diagnosed as borderline autistic,
one the "sufferers" of Asperger's syndrome, which really meant I was better
at them at concentrating and learning a subject that interests me.  They
said it made me anti-social, those childhood psychologists and college
counselors and NASA psych testers.  I say, what's so great about society?

   No, they stamped my folder with a big red "UNFIT" and sent me on my way.
But then, two years later, when the mission crew was being picked, they
called me again.  Seems NASA had decided on a single person crew for the
first manned mission to Mars.  Suddenly those qualities they say I have -
inability to pick up on body language, discomfort in crowds, a desire to
retreat in my own mental environment - all those cute little quirks that
made me unwelcome on the ISS or the Moon station, they would put me in the
running to go to Mars.

   I was expecting a big freak show when I arrived at JSC-Houston for the
crew selection round.  A dozen high genius Aspies looking at their shoes
and picking their noses.  I dreaded it.  I almost backed out the morning
they picked me up at the Sheraton, the NASA goons practically had to carry
me to the car, but in the end it was not so bad.  They had a couple of
people who were probably counselors and knew how to treat us, they didn't
single anybody out or make us get up in front of everybody and recite our
life history.  I figured out that not everyone was like me.  they had also
picked some people who had experience with prolonged isolation, wilderness
survival types.  They were mostly gone after the first couple of weeks.  It
was a pity too, because one of them was gorgeous.  He was tall, had red
hair and a beard.  He climbed mountains for fun, and had trekked solo
across Antarctica.  Every day that he was there I wanted to go over to him
and tell him to fuck me.  I wanted to unzip his stupid NASA jumpsuit and
take out his cock and suck it until he was ready to come, then get on all
fours and have him fuck me right there in the flight simulation lab.

   Oh, did I mention to you that I am nasty?

   They narrowed the choices down to four of us, two women and two men. 
The other woman, Grace, was a biolgist.  God, what is it with women and
biology?  Every woman scientist I knew is either a biologist or a medical
researcher or at best a biomedical engineer.  Why don't they have the balls
to go into a real science?  (That was a joke.  They say Aspies don't make
jokes, but we do.  The rest of you just don't get them.) I majored in
Mathematics and Physics, because I wanted to know more than everybody else.
I went to graduate school at the University of Minnesota and studied
Astronomy for a while, until my advisor turned out to be an asshole.  I
switched to Space Physics, and my new advisor was a woman who said she
would take me under her wing and mentor me.  Really she spent more time
sucking up to the department head and the tenure committee than she ever
did mentoring me.  Or maybe that was it, that was what she was saying:
"These are the facts of life for a woman in academia, Ann - get down on
your knees and pucker up real big!"

   Every woman I have worked with has either viewed me as a competitor or a
threat.  They are either competitive little bitches or Queen Bees who fear
someone challenging their throne.  I hate them!

   Men I have worked with have been OK.  I have never had a guy I was
working with, or working for, ever make a pass at me, even when I wanted
them to.  Maybe they are all afraid of lawsuits now, or maybe they all
think I am too weird to fuck.  I had a boss at APL, not my real boss but
one of the project scientists, and I really wanted him to fuck me.  The
problem was I did not want to talk to him, I didn't want to go out on dates
or have to interact with him, I just wanted him to throw me across his desk
and shove his cock in me.  Turns out they don't have Valentines cards for
that.

   But I was telling you about the crew selection.  There were two guys
left at the end, too.  I think they were both a little strange like me,
although officially no one ever came out and said, "OK, all of your freaks
with Aspergers, line up over here!" That would have been funny, but they
didn't do it.  One of the guys was named Michael, and he was a physicist
too so I guess we were competing.  The other was a former Navy pilot which
is weird because I did not think they let Aspies fly planes.  Maybe he was
just normal but weird, because he was always talking to himself, even when
there were other people around.

   Rather than have a shootout to see who would go, the decision was to
train all of us.  They would make sure everyone was capable of making the
trip, had all the training, then pick one pilot and one backup a few weeks
before the liftoff.  So we started training, months of physical fitness and
learning the flight profile and training on the simulators in order to
learn every stupid button and relay.  Then suddenly, a few weeks into
training, the two guys were gone.  And then it was official - I was going
to Mars, with sweet little Grace as my backup.  The first man on Mars was
going to be a woman!

   "Ann, you blanked out on there for a second.  Are there any problems
with the communication equipment?  There is nothing indicated down here."

   "No, it's alright.  I was just thinking about something.  What did you
say?"

   "We want to flush out the potable water system, which means shutting off
the main recycler tank and using the backup tank to flush the system.  Then
we want you to visually inspect the recycler for ice.  Check?"

   "Don't you have sensors that tell you if there is any ice buildup?  Why
do I have to do a visual inspection?"

   "The flight plan calls for visual inspection every 48 hours.  Air and
water are your two most important systems.  And that reminds me - medical
wants to know if you have eaten anything yet."

   "Not hungry."

   "Well, eat a cereal bar anyway.  You have exercise in less than
forty-five minutes."

   I ate their stupid cereal bar, because if I didn't they would keep
annoying me about it.  What were they worrying about?  If I was skinny, it
meant I would use less fuel on final descent.  They should be happy I could
stand up straight, with my legs straight up and down, and have my thighs
not touch.  I had a boyfriend who loved that.  He used to make me stand
naked like that, and he would look through the top of my thighs.  He called
it my "gap" and it really turned him on.  He would usually play with my
pussy, pulling on my labia until they hung down.  It was nasty, and he
would do nasty things to me after that...

   "Ann, you're doing it again.  We need you to stay with the program here.
Did you get that last change to the flight plan?"

   "Yeah, I got it."

   "Want to read it back to me?"

   "No."

   "Ann, this is very important.  At fifteen-thirty-seven hours, we have to
burn main rockets for fifteen seconds.  Before that there will be a 1.7
degree pitch and 45 degree roll.  We want you to time synchronize at
fifteen-hundred and engage the flight corrections by hand."

   "Let the computer do it."

   "The computer will do it, but we want you to engage.  There is too much
of a time delay now, and the burn has to be precise."

   "We send probes into deep space all the time.  The computer already
knows the flight correction is coming up."

   "Ann, we sent a manned...we sent a crewed flight for a reason.  Now
write down the changes and get down to the exercise pod."

   "Why?"

   "Why exercise?  So your bones don't break during descent.  You know what
happens in zero-g after..."

   "No, why the pitch and roll?  Why the burn?  This is a big change - 1.7
degrees this far out and we miss Mars altogether.  Why the unplanned course
correction?"

   There was silence from the intercom.  I waited a long time, or it felt
that way, like maybe it was a minute or more.  Then a new voice came on. 
Larry Wick, Flight Controller.

   "Ann, we did not want you to be overly concerned, but solar observations
have indicted a coronal mass ejection.  Looks like a big one, and if we
don't course correct it will hit you broadside.  Even with the correction,
you may see some elevated radiations levels in about fourteen hours, give
or take a little.  We will retro-correct for Mars trajectory in twenty-six
hours.  This is a minimal correction, well within what we have budgeted for
just such an event."

   I knew all about CME's, I was the one with the PhD in space physics
after all.  Every so often the Sun just pukes up a big chunk of the corona,
the hot gassy outermost layer of the Sun made up of charged particles. 
CME's could cause geomagnetic storms when they hit Earth, even knocking out
satellites and disturbing radio and television broadcasts.  There was
little chance of me getting a lethal dose of radiation in my capsule, but I
knew a big CME could double or triple my risk of developing cancer in ten
years.  What was worst, or maybe just more immediate, is that it could
knock out electrical systems, and would disrupt communications with Mission
Control.

   "Ann, like I said, nothing to worry about." It was Larry who was
worried, he thought I was going to freak out or something.

   "I'm cool Larry.  No problems."

   "Good to hear it.  Ready for some exercise?"

   I spent an hour in their stupid exercise pod, pulling on springs with
arms and legs, riding a fake bicycle with an internal torque to provide
resistance.  They tried to make it fun by showing scenery on the monitor
that I was supposed to be riding through on my "bike", or scenes from a gym
when I was doing resistance training with the springs, complete with stupid
workout music.  During the training they asked us all for a list of our
favorite music, so they could load it in the computer.  I told them I only
listened artists that started with the letter M - Mahler, Metallica,
Mozart, Mobey.  So now, every morning I have to listen to stupid old
Madonna for an hour, because the tempo matches my optimal training rep
rate, or something stupid like that.

   After exercise and cool down, I did the water system flush like they
told me to.  I did the first set of radiometric readings, and drew a blood
sample as a baseline for comparison after the CME passed.  Soon it was time
for lunch.  I floated in the galley, sipping from a tube of soup, and I
talked to Grace at Mission Control.

   "How you holding up, kid" she asked.

   "Wouldn't you like to know?" It had been a tradition at NASA since the
Mercury missions to have the backup crew work in Mission control during the
flight, keeping up communication with the flight crew.  It seemed kind of
cruel to me, to have the losers down on Earth having to talk to the real
astronauts during their flight, but hey, I have Aspergers so what do I
know.

   Grace asked me if I had been told about the CME.

   "Yeah, they told me.  Course correction this afternoon.  I can do it."

   "We know you can do it, Ann.  I was just wondering of you were worried
or wanted to talk about it."

   "No, I don't want to talk about it." But there was something I wanted to
ask Grace.  She was medical so maybe she knew the answer.  "Grace, did NASA
ever say why only one person on the Mars trip?"

   "Sure they did, Ann.  There were lots of reasons - less fuel, less food
which also meant less fuel, less equipment needed for air and water, so
less fuel.  All spaceflights are basically about fuel consumption.  You're
the physicist - you should know all that.  Plus there is the whole
minimization of loss, one life is more easily expendable that two or
three."

   I had heard all of these reasons before, read them in the stories in
Time or Newsweek, heard them from the flight managers.  But somehow I
thought there was something else, something that was missing from the
official statements.  "What's the other thing, Ann?  What is the other
thing they never say?  There was another reason, wasn't there, something
they did not tell us or the press."

   Grace was quiet for awhile; I could imagine her looking around the
control room, seeing who was listening.  It was close to midnight back
there, only the overnight skeleton crew was around, probably a lot of folks
out getting a cup of coffee.

   "You promise not talk about this, Ann" She sounded like she was
whispering.  It made me whisper too.  "Yes, Grace, I will keep it all
secret."

   "It was sex, Ann.  NASA could not figure out how get around the sex
issue.  They could send up an unattached couple, and chances are they would
have sex at some point.  What happens if afterwards they fight or decide
they don't want to see each other anymore?  They could send up a married
couple, but it would have to be a childless couple because of the risks. 
What they had a falling out?  Or if a decision had to be made that put one
of them at risk - could the partner be trusted?  And in both cases there
was the chance of a pregnancy, even with birth control implants, Unless
they volunteered for sterilization, but NASA nixed that because of the
possibility of bad publicity.  And don't start on an all male crew.  There
is not a prison on earth where supposedly heterosexual males do not
practice homosexual contacts.  Think of the reactions from the Christian
Conservatives when the press reported the first act of sodomy on the planet
Mars!"

   We both laughed.  I tried to imagine Michael bent over on Mars, the
bottom of his spacesuit around his ankles, the Navy pilot with his cock up
Michael's skinny ass, the red dust of Mars blowing over both of them.  It
was silly.

   "So they sent up a woman like me.  Do they think I don't like sex?"

   "Well, to be honest Ann, no, they don't think that.  They know all about
us, our former relationships, things like."

   "Oh my God!  They know everybody I've fucked?"

   Grace shushed me.  "Keep your voice down.  The overnight MPO almost
split his coffee.  They don't know details or anything, but yes, they are
aware of former boyfriends."

   Grace started talking to someone else in the Mission Control room, and
then the overnight medical officer came on.  "Ann, I need you to send the
analysis of your baseline blood sample down.  I believe the analyzer should
be finished by now.  Then why don't you relax for an hour or so, maybe
watch some TV.  I am told you will be reminded for the time synch at
15:00."

   Every night, while I slept, NASA streamed movies and TV shows for me to
watch.  There is only so much they could keep me doing everyday during a
six month spaceflight, and they programmed in some relaxation time each
day. This was the first, there would be another longer one this evening
before bed.  I could also surf the Internet - the connection was slow, but
I had worked with a software developer before I left to put together a web
browser that would allow me to downlink several URL requests while another
batch was loading.

   I watched a stupid comedy show for a half hour while I surfed around
some news sites and blogs.  I had a friend who was blogging my flight for
me - I was too busy to do it myself - and I made some comments on her
posts. That should make her readers excited.  Soon it was almost time for
the time synch.

   "Ann, this is Mission Control.  Please initiate system clock re-synch."
I started the program, and set the controls to "Accept".  "We are relaying
the system re-synch command.  You should be receiving it in a moment. 
Probably you will not notice anything."

   I watched the small digital clock display in the corner of the control
monitor.  At 14:59:26 it jumped to 15:00:00 and continued.

   "Looks like it came through."

   "Was there much discrepancy, Ann."

   "About thirty-four seconds.  Is that bad?"

   "Probably not, but we will relay to Science.  Now, the uplink is loading
the course correction profile.  All we need you to do is push "Initiate" at
precisely 15:37:00 your time."

   Small programs popped up windows on the control display and then
disappeared.  I had nothing I had to do but watch the monitor and tell
Mission Control if anything happened, like one of the programs crashed or
asked for a password or the blue screen of death appeared.  That would be
funny!

   But funny things never happen.  Flight Control came on.  "OK Ann.  We
can't do this in real time.  On my mark you are on your own.  At 15:37:00
push 'Initiate'.  We will be back on the horn with you after the burn. 
Mark."

   It was 15:34:24.  I watched intently as the second ticked by.  At
15:36:00 I started hovering my finger over the red square on the monitor
with the word "Initiate" on it.  15:36:30, 15:36:40, 15:36:50, 15:36:55...

   The spacecraft jerked, like I had driven over a speed bump.  I could
sense the roll that accompanied the pitch maneuver, the stars rotated
outside the small window.  Then the main engines fired.  For fifteen
seconds I was pushed back against the seat, the first acceleration I had
felt since liftoff, fifteen weeks ago.  It was like a giant hand was
pressing down on my chest, it hurt when my heart beat, and I felt nauseous.


   Then it was over.  Mission Control was talking to me.  "..in about five
minutes, and when it comes in we will be able to tell if the burn went as
planned.  How do you feel Ann?"

   "OK.  I'm OK.  God, I've been out here so long."

   The rest of of my day consisted of a second exercise period, bicycling
through the Black Forest of Germany to Mahler's 9th symphony; followed by a
yummy dinner of mashed potato tube, beef stew tube, and chocolate ice cream
tube.  I could think of a tube I wanted in my mouth, but ice cream did not
come out of it (although there were boys in school when I was little who
told me it did).

   After dinner I watched a little more TV, a drama about a small town
hospital that I started watching when I was on Earth.  It had been on for
years, you probably know the one I'm talking about.  During the show, it
occurred to me that it had been about twelve hours since Mission Control
had told me about the CME.

   "Mission Control?"

   "This is Ops.  Yes, Ann?"

   "When is that Coronal Mass Ejection supposed to hit me?"

   "Let me get back to you in a second." There were voices in the
background, then Ops came back on.  "Science says that you are likely to
start getting a glancing blow in about two hours.  They are not sure how
severe it will be, there may be a short loss of communication and
telemetry. You will be asleep so you will not even notice."

   "Thanks."

   I stayed up another hour, until Medical started harassing me.  I slipped
out of my jumpsuit and put it in what we called the "Air Washer" - water
was too precious a commodity, so chilled air was blown over the suit while
I slept.  It killed most of the funk, at least as far as I could tell.  I
pulled on a t-shirt and fresh pair of panties, and threw the old ones in
the AW.  I zipped myself in my sleep bag and tried to doze off.

   The thing that woke me up was not the stupid little alarm, but the lack
of it.  There was no sound from the cockpit, no alarms, no voices on the
intercom cheerfully wishing me a good morning.  I unzipped the sleep bag,
did a forward flip and came down in the command chair.

   "Mission Control?" Nothing.  I checked systems.  Comms looked OK,
telemetry downlink was OK, but the telemetry uplink had a Missing Data
error.  So it was true, the CME had knocked out communications.  It was
4:04 by the system clock, I had only slept about five hours.  Damn, I was
back to my old ways, soon I would be sleeping only two or three hours
again, like I did right after the flight started.

   There was nothing to do.  I strapped in to the seat, put on my medical
telemetry cuff, and waited.  There was not a whole lot I could do until the
CME passed, and for once I did not have Medical harping on me about eating
breakfast.  I was still in my t-shirt and panties, but it was not like
anybody was going to see me.

   I don't know if I had dreamt last night.  I am never sure if I dream or
not, when I wake up am I remembering a dream, or just thinking about
something?  Do others worry about this?  So, I had either been dreaming, or
I had been thinking, about my boyfriend, the one who liked my gap, the only
one I had in college.  Most of the guys I met in college were freaked out
by me.  A couple of them wanted to be my friend and ask me out to the big
game or some such bullshit.  Where are the guys you read about, the
rapists, the maulers, the guys who puts a girl up against a brick wall and
fucks her hard?  Why did I never meet one of them?  Joey was the closest I
got.  He was in a lab I was working in as an assistant.  He was from New
York, his family was Italian, his last name was Petrelli or Patrolli or
something like that.  I never cared.  He asked me if I tutored and I told
him sometimes.  The first night I went to his dorm room to tutor him in
physics, we worked on homework for maybe fifteen minutes before I was
kneeling on the floor by his bed, sucking his thick cock.

   We dated for about six months, if by dating you mean I went to his dorm
room, stripped, and let him do anything he wanted to me.  It was the
perfect relationship, as far as I was concerned.  There was nothing he
wanted me to do him that was too nasty, just so long as he put his dick in
me afterwards.

   I realized that I had slipped my hand in my panties.  Oh well, about
time I let off some steam.

   I kept thinking about Joey, how he would make me sit on his cock and
fuck him while he watched football on Sunday afternoons, frigging myself
while he leaned around to see the TV screen.  I remember the afternoon when
I skipped lab and we went a lake, and he tied me to a tree and threatened
to leave me there, naked, for the fishermen to find.  He made me promise to
do all sorts of nasty things if he let me go, like lick his ass or suck off
his friends, but in the end he let me off with a good ass fucking.  I had
not let many guys do that to me, but I had played with myself a couple of
times like that.  It wasn't so bad, I probably would liked it better if he
had some lube, but instead he just spit on my asshole a few times before he
slowly popped his cock past my sphincter.  It hurt at first, but after a
while I got into it, and when he reached under to rub my clit I thought I
was in heaven.

   I was really getting into it now, my fingers moist from my pussy juice
sliding over my clit.  I snaked a hand up under my shirt and started
pinching a nipple.

   Joey used to pinch my nipples.  He loved it, he said, and I told him I
liked it too.  Riding him on his bed, he would reach up and pull on my hard
nipples and it made me come faster.  I am not stacked like a lot of girls,
I have stupid little tits that are just barely big enough to see.  I really
don't need a bra, but I wear one anyway.  Joey liked to suck on my nipples,
bite them just hard enough that I yelped, but not so that I cried.  He knew
what to do to me to make my feel he owned me.  God, I loved that!

   It was closer now, I could feel it building, that electric burn that
started deep in the pit of my stomach and moved up my spine, washing over
me, washed like a wave on a beach...

   "Ann, come in!  Ann, dammit, are you OK?" It was Mission Control.  How
long had they been trying to raise me?

   "I'm here.  I'm OK.  How are you?" I tried to catch my breath, but they
could probably tell I was out of breath.  Dammit, the cuff!  They knew
everything that was happening to me!

   "Medical says your heart rate and body temp are elevated, and your
breathing is labored.  We were afraid something bad happened when the CME
hit."

   "No, no, I'm OK.  Just doing some exercise, waiting for you guys."

   "Well, OK then.  We have to do a few more simulations down here, then we
will be relaying the new course corrections to return to Mars trajectory."

   A few seconds later another voice came over the intercom.  It was Grace.

   "Hi, Ann," she said.

   "Hi, Grace.  You're up early."

   "Just checking on you.  Hey, Ann?"

   "Yeah?"

   "Medical and I, we know what you were doing." Crap!  I can't get off in
private when I'm 4 million miles from Earth.  "And Ann?"

   "Yeah Grace?"

   "Now you know why they picked a woman instead of a man for the solo
flight to Mars."

   "Why is that, Grace?"

   She started to giggle.  "So they wouldn't have to send up a ton of
Kleenex!" 

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