The Gemini Divergence (77 page)

The Air Force always organized their remote
LCCs that where organizationally attached to the closest air bases
by alphabetical order and nicknamed with radio alphabetical names,
i.e. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta.

A crew of missile maintenance men had been
working late into the night before and had camped out, by sleeping
in their trucks at one of the LCCs separate Launch Facilities, or
LFs.

Early in the morning, just before dawn, a
missile maintenance man had just woken to relieve himself when he
noticed saucers circling the LCC.

He excitedly woke his supervisor in the truck
and within seconds, the entire maintenance crew was on their feet
observing the lights at the LFs perimeter.

They reported the saucers, but their
supervisors had just accused them of drinking too much the night
before.

Underground, within the LCC, the Launch
Commander, oblivious to what was happening above, noticed a missile
drop off line to ‘NO GO’ status.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed, “Are those
bonehead maintenance men working on those things unannounced
again?”

“I don’t know sir,” answered his
co-missilier.”

“Call the SPs up top and ask them to check
for us.”

“Yes Sir.”

Up in the guard shack the phone rang, as one
of the guards watching the lights on the horizon picked up the
phone, he heard the voice of the missilier bellow, “Have the
maintenance crews began working on the missiles already… we just
had one drop off line?”

“No we don’t know what the hell is going on,
they called us a few minutes ago about lights in the sky… At first
we just thought they were drunk, but now we see the lights
too.”

Just then the Launch Commander screamed as
the rest of the missiles began going off line, one by one, “Hey!
I’m losing the rest of the Flight. What the hell is going on up
there?”

His co-missilier answered, “The SPs say that
they’re watching strange lights in the sky.”

“What?”

“They say that there are lights in the sky up
there.”

“Have they been drinking?”

“That’s what they asked the maintenance
crew.”

“Tell them to send a runner down to the LF
now, and find out what the hell is going on. I’ll call Malmstrom
and get an SAT.”

“Yes Sir!”

As the co-missilier gave the orders to the
SPs on the surface, the Commander reached the base, “Yeah, I have a
situation down here… the maintenance crews and the SPs are
reporting lights in the sky and I’m now, Non-Mission-Capable
because my whole flight has gone off line… Could you dispatch an
SAT to secure the LFs down here until we figure out what the hell
is going on?”

As he listened, his expression changed to
dismay, “What? You don’t have any more SATs… Why? …Because you’ve
already dispatched the ones you had on duty to Oscar, Foxtrot and
Whiskey… They’re having the same problem… Yes Sir, I’ll have to
make do with what I have… Thank you sir, I’ll keep you posted.”

The Launch Commanders face turned white as he
professed, “We’re on our own.”

Miles away at Oscar flight things had become
even more hectic. Shortly after the SAT had arrived and manned the
Oscar Flight perimeter, one of the saucers came to hover directly
in front of the LCC gate.

As they watched in horror, the phone rang.
The SAT sergeant picked up the phone as the Oscar Flight Launch
Commander asked, “Are those damn lights still hovering on the
horizon?”

“No”

“Good… they left?”

“No… guess again, there’s a flying saucer
right outside the gate.”

“What… what does it look like?”

The sergeant looked at the phone as if the
commander ware crazy then brought it back to his mouth as he
facetiously remarked, “Like a saucer that’s flying… What the hell
do you think a flying saucer looks like?”

“What’s it doing?”

“It’s just hovering there, but it seems to be
fixated with our relay tower.”

“Oh my God!” exclaimed the Commander,
“They’re trying to access the missiles… Fire the guillotine
mechanism!” He screamed, as he dropped the phone from his ear and
pointed at the switch for his co-missilier to see.

“But that will sever the main power and
control wires… it’ll take us down for days,” resisted his
co-missilier.

“It’s my call… I don’t want a Broken Arrow on
my records… Do it now!”

As the saucer seemed focused on the
communications relay tower, one of the SAT crew officers started to
approach the saucer.

When he got within about twenty feet of it,
the saucer erupted with an aural light display that quickly
culminated into a lightning blast that connected with the
approaching security officer, causing him to collapse to the
ground.

As the FSC sergeant watched in horror, the
phone rang again. Even within his state of panic, he instinctively
answered the phone, “Oscar Flight FSC.”

“Is that thing still there?” asked the Oscar
Launch commander.

“Yeah, it just zapped one of my men.”

“What? Is he OK?”

“I don’t know, I’d have to get as close to
the object as he was to find out… I don’t think that’s going to
happen any time soon.”

“We’re completely off line down here. We just
fired the guillotine… I thought that may make it lose interest and
go away.”

“I think you may have just pissed it off…
Wait a minute,” interrupted the FSC, “It is going away… It’s flying
away!”

When the saucers finally retreated, there
were many SPs and maintenance crewman that refused to return to
duty and asked to be discharged.

The ones that remained spent days trying to
get the missiles back on line.

Boeing representatives were flown in to
assist and launched an investigation that revealed that the
incident could have only been caused by an introduction of a radio
wave or EMP from an outside source.

23 April 1967

Soviets launch Soyuz 1, which was the first
announced manned space flight since the death of Korolyov.

He was quickly pursued and shot down by
Raumsfahrtwaffe spacecraft, now under Adlerkrallen’s command.

The Cosmonaut died upon impact with the
earth.

The Soviets told the world that it was a
parachute error, and that the Soviet Premier thanked Cosmonaut
Komarov for his service to the Russian people seconds before his
death, and that he died like an officer and a gentleman.

However, West German radio telescope
operators picked up the transmission and reported that Komarov was
irate and yelling, “They have killed me and you knew that they
would!”

The Soviet Union has never responded to the
West German claims.

4 May 1967

Lunar Orbiter 4 was launched and again flew
uncomfortably close to yet another Raumsfahrtwaffe space station on
its way to the moon.

They quickly destroyed it as most NASA
observers on the ground thought they had experienced yet another
technical glitch.

In space; Adlerkrallen was even more
convinced than ever that the Americans had figured out a way to
detect the stations and were sending the Orbiters to confirm their
locations.

1 August 1967

Lunar Orbiter 5 was launched and managed to
evade the Raumsfahrtwaffe for some time before being detected. It
orbited the moon for weeks; sending back many pictures of the moon,
until it inexplicably crashed onto the lunar surface without
explanation.

*~*

Schwerig pleaded with Von Sterbenbach to
allow him to move all of the space stations not in Adlerkrallen’s
control into a tiered deployment towards the direction of Mars;
creating something similar to way stations along a railroad.

He felt that it was a needed precaution in
response to the sudden escalation of reconnaissance space
craft.

He even received a nod in agreement from
Adlerkrallen, so Von Sterbenbach reluctantly relented.

Schwerig picked what he considered to be the
best equipped space station and manned it with a hand picked crew
to become the spearhead vessel for the exodus.

He also decided to lead the way himself by
taking personal command of this symbolic flagship which he had
decided to name Entstehung.

~~~**^**~~~

From Gemini to
Apollo / Shag Harbor

4 October 1967

Hughes was personally doing some additional
testing on the saucer that he had earlier constructed from pieces
of other crashed Overseer spacecraft.

Whilst flying alone from Groom Lake, he had
just entered space over the American Midwest.

His assistants constantly hounded Hughes not
to do his own test flights, noting that none of the other defense
company owners did their own test flying.

They were concerned that he had been in too
many accidents already.

To which he would always reply, “Sikorsky
always did it himself.”

As he cruised into LEO, approaching the
eastern seaboard, he was slowly succumbing to the hypnotic siren
spell brought on by the silence and beauty of space travel.

He was oblivious to the fact that he had been
detected and was now being quickly pursued by one of Adlerkrallen’s
Kugelblitzens.

Hughes marveled at the incandescent splendor
of the night time city lights below him as he further induced
himself into a self imposed delirium.

Having become so wrapped up in his own
thoughts, he had lost track of time… when suddenly; he winced at
the ear crushing volume and flash of light that came from the
unexpected blow from an Overseer Strahlenkanone.

Coming instantly to his senses, he made a
quick evasive maneuver to elude the onslaught; attempting to catch
a glimpse of his adversary.

He was slightly elated to see that there
appeared to be only one enemy saucer, and even more thankful that
he had recently refurbished his craft’s own Strahlenkanone
weapons.

Even though Hughes had not flown in space as
much as his younger adversary, he had been an ardent aviator for
decades and intensely studied the teachings of legendary Luftwaffe
combat aviators like Immelman and Boelke while filming ‘Hells
Angels’.

Using his immeasurable experience, he quickly
closed the gap between the two craft and returned fire.

The younger Raumsfahrtwaffe pilot, in an ill
thought out ploy to evade Hughes, actually steered into the blast,
causing him to receive a blow that forfeited some of his flight
control.

Hughes celebrated silently to himself as he
could now see that the other pilot was having trouble controlling
his craft, but he still could not turn inside of his banking
maneuver quickly enough to deal a finishing blow.

Realizing that it was just a matter of time
before he was out maneuvered, the Overseer pilot spun his saucer on
its axis and accelerated 180 degrees back onto his former bearing,
taking Hughes totally by surprise and giving him no time to
react.

Before Hughes’ craft slipped completely by
the suddenly approaching Kugelblitzen; the Overseer pilot managed
to get a connecting shot at him.

The proximity was too close to avoid colossal
damage and Howard’s instruments lit up like a disco-tech.

After realizing that the blow was to his main
fuel tank and not his controls or life support systems, he knew
that he still had full control of his craft… but God only knew how
much fuel he had remaining.

He swung around and re-maneuvered into the
limping Overseer’s six o’clock and when he closed the gap… he fired
again.

The Kugelblitzen’s aft section erupted with a
flash and Hughes could see vapors quickly venting into space from
the Overseer’s craft… He knew that it was just a matter of time
before his adversary would run out of fuel as well.

Knowing that, even though he had not slain
his adversary, it was very clear… the dogfight was over.

So he turned the controls to steer his craft
back west, desperately trying to limp back to Groom Lake.

As he cruised towards home, he looked behind
himself to see that the Overseer was not returning into space, but
falling into the atmosphere whilst traveling east over Boston,
towards Nova Scotia.

As Hughes managed to re-enter the atmosphere
without burning up, it became clear that he was not going to be
able to control it all the way back to Groom Lake and that he was
going to crash into the sparse Nevada desert.

Without panic, nervous at most, he squinted
onto the intensely dark desert basin, quickly trying to discern a
safe place to crash land.

After a moment he was elated to see the faint
glimmer of moonlight reflecting from salt crystals below him up
ahead.

He knew that it could only be from a dry lake
bed, and would certainly mean a flat place to set her down.

Calmly snickering at the fact that he had
crash landed more often than some pilots had actually landed, he
calmly pulled back on the wheel and braced for impact.