Woman Driver
I got to the cargo bay PM-Port (personnel module port) and start to insert myself into the assigned shuttle pod, a hand stops me. "Hold on cowboy. You're back-seating it today." I look up and its Commander Paula Carmichael with a big grin. I wobble into the backseat. It's tight. She helps me hook-in and straps me down so hard I could barely breathe. "Don't worry Jim. It won't be a long ride."
Did you catch that? She called me ‘Jim’!
Paula maneuvers into the front seat. A crewman helps ready her. The top comes down.
My headset starts working, a male voice says, "Pod people, this is the – Cock – pit “, male laughter, ”… with a real commander in it. Are you ready?".
Carmichael snaps, "Jones, cut the crap! When I get back your ass is grass."
"Yes sir! Or ma'am! What do you go by?" And laughter from 3 or 4 guys.
"It will be Commandant Boot-Up-Your-Ass if you don't get us out of here."
“Well, at least one of us will have achieved penetration.”, more laughter from my earphones.
On the internal headset channel, I hear, "Pay no attention to those A-holes."
"Yes ... commander?"
"Call me Paula. And hang on."
The pod tilts back up and, Whooooooooosh!
Air Show
I lied, a little. The first few seconds are only as scary as riding a galloping horse backwards. The pod drops like a rock for 3 or 4 seconds, then flips to a nose-forward attitude. With two people, it's a tad longer! I finally took a long, deep breath, let it out and hear Paula laugh. I look up front and just catch her pulling a smart device out of her flight suit arm pocket. She presses an icon. I see her index finger swipe the screen and the craft reacts instantly.
Whoa! I didn’t think that was possible!
"How are you doing back there?"
"Good."
"Ready!?"
"A ... Nooooo ..."
And we perform a giant barrel roll. "Just showing off. This is a little more to my liking! I’ve got to sharpen my skills."
"Don't be in a hurry ... on my account." And she laughed. A good laugh.
And we glide on, making big sweeping turns, nose down dives and hard-G pulls. In a matter of minutes, it seems anyway, I never checked my watch because my hands are death gripping the seat handles, we are talking with someone on the ground. I look around and it doesn't look like Texas. There are snowcapped mountains, forest land and hay bale covered foothills. Moving fast, we line up for our approach. Then flare-level-flare-level-flare-thump-thump touchdown. The rear parachute deploys and we slowdown fast enough to choke me against the harness. Holy smokes, that was ... well ... awesome. The craft rolls up to the end where a group of people are standing.
"Welcome to Montana!" says Paula.
Big Sky Country
“Montana!?”
“I hope you like the outdoors. Do horses or cattle scare you?”
“I live in Texas, remember?”, undoing my harness.
Chuckling, Paula said, “Yeah, well, it doesn’t get hot-as-hell here, less cactus, and fewer rattlesnakes. We do have grizzly bears.”
“Are they friendly?”, removing my headset.
She smiled, “Only if you scratch their bellies.” Changing the subject, “I hope you don’t mind the detour?”
“I get paid for it, right?” I shrugged and looked around, “Besides, it’s beautiful here.”
I spent the next few days hanging out while Paula and a team from Musk Enterprises held meetings. I don’t know what it was about. Something was up! For me, it was a vacation. I went fly fishing, rode horses with a couple of the ranch hands and four-wheeled around looking at wild buffalo, deer, antelope, and elk.
We ate like kings. On our final night, the ranch chef grilled up buffalo steaks over an open pit fire and we dined al fresco. I think they gave me the smallest steak, it weighed in at a puny 20 or 30 pounds. But I finished it. Bookended with several bourbons and completed the feat with a quarter apple pie -- but hold the à la mode because I was watching my weight. I then drifted off into a deep coma that would make Snow White envious and woke up in my bunkhouse bed, fresh as a daisy, if daisies get hangovers.
Back to Texas
We, as in me, Paula, a few Musk muckety-mucks, and other men who looked very military — buff, calm, cool, and full of wise-cracks — headed to the airstrip in a pickup-ATV-jeep convoy.
Waiting for us was Paula’s private jet. We all climbed aboard, and Paula headed to the cockpit.
Inside our flying palace, rich, high-tech appointments were everywhere: carbon fiber, walnut, brushed aluminum, and more tanned hide than a Miami Beach bikini contest. But I can’t explain the Rorschach-test of lavender and lime striped velvet curtains, or pink shag carpeting, so deep kids must wear floaties to cross it. We had a stewardess (that’s what Paula called her!), who had our drink orders filled before the door was closed. Ah, I was born for this kind of life.
Over the PA system Paula’s voice crackled, “Welcome aboard gentlemen. And yes, we are part way through redecorating. The plane was owned by a South American drug lord and, as you can see, he had more money than taste.”
I might be going paranoid, but those military types and Musk dudes were eyeballing me with the same jilted and stink-eye looks first-timers might have before the start of a Tijuana one-legged stripper act. My neck hairs are tingling.
Paula Has an Idea, About Me
We landed at Musk airfield, outside Austin, Texas, just a couple hours later.
A small convoy of electric SUV’s pick us up at the airfield, and we race to Musk HQ like Arab sheiks on a binge drinking holiday. I think we made the 20-mile distance in 7 or 8 minutes. Arrival at HQ is obvious: a 350,000 square-foot über modern building looks like a multi-stack vanilla Oreo cookie that’s been stretched and pulled to a few hundred yards in length and hovers. Ok, it doesn’t really hover, but rather just a designed-in optical illusion. We parked underneath and take elevators up to the top floor — and the home of all those crazy Musk ideas.
We, I mean all of us from the jet, plus a few dozen more Musk-eteers, gather in the huge, wood paneled conference room … meeting room … club room — I don’t know what to call it. Like your living room but a dozen or so acres in size. There’s elegant modern furniture in clusters here and there, plus a well-stocked bar, of which I was now leaning against. A long wall of picture windows — I’m still counting, but miles and miles of them — gives a perfect view of rolling Texas hill country. I was waiting for a house boy to replace my boots with slippers when the big cheese walks into the room.
Or, as they say, “Arrives.”
Like all things Musk, no time wasted on polite civilities like “Welcome. My name is …” or “The bathrooms are located next to the Art Deco museum, please utilize an electric scooter and return back in 10 minutes.” No, our name-less speaker, Mr. X., starts right in:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are the hand-picked team chosen to destroy the UN Eco-Enforcement oil refinement facility. Here is the plan …”
I nearly fainted. It might be private jet lag — I’m told that’s a condition afflicting the less beholden. Then I looked at my bourbon on the rocks and thought, “This is my first one.” Glancing around the room, no one else had fainted or left their jaw on the floor. None appeared stunned or wobbly. Was it just me!?
As I came out of my near black-out, I glanced over at Paula — not a bad habit for admirers of beautiful things — and I noticed she was looking straight at me! My heart stopped. I then noticed she was smiling, and my heart stopped again. It was the most fantastic smile a human male could withstand without cheering, kicking a little Irish jig, or doing a back flip. So, I looked away, paused, and looked back and she was still smiling at me, which congealed my heart into a flubbery mass of mush, and I was going to need one of those defibrillator machines soon. Then I heard my name spoken by the mysterious host, “Mr. McCole, as a legitimate Orbit company vibration engineer, will perform a maintenance call on the UN oil facility and plant several radio homing beacons.”
Now, he blathered on and on about the rest of the plan and not getting caught or one might die and other trivial stuff like that, as I fell into a chair someone had placed behind me. It was a very comfortable chair and I wanted to fall asleep and wake up on a Montana ranch again. Paula was at my side, holding my hand, which was nice, as I came out of my second semi black-out. I looked down, wondering how I managed not to spill my drink, when Paula said, “Jim, you’ll do great. You’re key to this whole plan, and you’ll do great. Don’t worry about a thing.” And some other encouraging words that were in English, but I apparently wasn’t speaking that and just mumbled in an ancient Swahili dialect. Well, that’s how it was described to me later that night when I commanded the bar.
So that was it. I was a center piece to their plan to demolish the eco-thug’s money machine. A gorgeous woman shanghaied me to her ranch lair, then all that wining and dining, the regal flight on the private jet, the cockeyed looks coming from the special op’s guys. It was all part of a setup. How could I have been sucked into such a crazy scheme? Well, easy, when I look back on it that way.
Then I had an outer body experience where I muttered, “Yes, I’ll do it.” All the while my inner body was screaming, “What the hell are you thinking!? No!!!”
Unlike the argument one has with the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, both whispering suggestions into your ears and forcing your brain to decide which to do: report the $22,500 you made selling a car to your brother-in-law or telling your brother-in-law the car is a recovered flood vehicle and was under water for 2 weeks. This was slightly different. I could, well, you know, die.
But too late. I’m committed. No turning back now.
My glass needs a refill.