Astronaut Candidate Programme. She smiled and fingered the folders on her desk. These applicants had gone through weeks of intensive interviews and medical and psychological screening. As part of the medical team at the Worldwide Science and Space Agency, Corrine had already met some of the successful candidates.
‘Where am I going, then?’
Every candidate got told in person if they’d been successful by a member of the team at WSSA. She’d been here three years and had been waiting for the chance to do this. The training programme only accepted applications every few years.
Her secretary handed her the schedule. ‘California, Washington, Idaho and Nevada.’
Her colleague Blair stuck his head around the door. ‘You got yours too?’ He was carrying his folders in his arms. ‘Who did you get?’ He crossed the office in two strides and spread the folders out to see the names.
Almost immediately he started laughing.
‘What? What is it?’ Corrine looked at the names in front of her. Three were familiar to her. One was a civilian school teacher. One a marine. One an engineer. Blair picked up the last folder before she even had a chance to read the name.
‘You got the Top Gun? Good luck with him.’
She snatched the folder back out of his hand. ‘The Top Gun?’ She stared at the name, Austin Mitchell. There were so many candidates there was no chance of meeting them all. She frowned. ‘What’s wrong with Austin Mitchell, then?’ She opened his folder and started flicking through the pages. Distinction. Merit. Top scores on just about all his testing. The guy seemed more or less perfect.
Blair shook his head and laughed again. ‘You’ll see.’
* * *
Austin checked his instruments one final time and gave a cheeky smile.
‘Bates, don’t you dare,’ came over the intercom.
His laughter had already started. Some traditions would never die. He was already descending for landing—he just wasn’t exactly over the landing strip he should be.
‘Bates, I’m warning you...’
The adrenaline was coursing through his body—just as it always did when he got behind the controls of a plane. But this wasn’t just any plane. This was a brand-new prototype of the F-35. A modified stealth bomber. People wouldn’t even hear it coming until it was directly overhead. Including his colleagues in the control tower.
He gave a final check of his instruments—he was the only aviator in the sky right now. The way was clear.
As he positioned the plane he glanced around the surrounding area. There was a reason the Top Gun aviators trained in the middle of the Nevada desert. No one to disturb.
There was a little speck on the landscape ahead. A member of the military personnel headed towards the tower. He hoped they were prepared.
He manoeuvred the F-35 into perfect position. ‘He’s doing it again, folks. Hold onto your coffee cups.’ There was a resigned sigh over the intercom.
‘Yee-haw!’ he yelled as he passed twenty feet above the tower. Buzzing the tower was one of the perks of the job. Maybe not for them—but definitely for him. And if his luck played out the way he hoped it would, this could be his last time.
* * *
She was halfway up the stairs when the noise wave hit. The plane had passed overhead in the blink of an eye. They didn’t call them stealth bombers for nothing. Her fingers tightened their grip on the rail just as the whole building rattled and the noise washed over her.
Did people still do that crazy stuff? Surely that was just for the movies?
The sand swirled around her, pulling her carefully styled bun out of its pins and sending stray tendrils across her eyes along with a choking mouthful of sand. She coughed and spluttered, then tried to brush some of the sand off her black knee-length skirt and jacket.
Ignoring the slight shake of her legs, she thumped up the rest of the stairs and keyed in her security code, throwing the door wide. ‘Who is that idiot?’ she yelled.
All heads in the room turned towards her. She gulped. Not exactly the best entrance in the world.
One of the controllers stood up and walked towards her. ‘And you are?’
It was clear she had security clearance or she wouldn’t be here. That didn’t mean that anyone would know who she was.
She covered her mouth, coughing again, and stared at his outstretched hand. She reached into her bag and pulled out some sanitiser, giving her hands a quick rub before she shook his hand. ‘Hi, I’m Dr Corrine Carter from the Worldwide Science and Space Agency. I’m looking for Austin Mitchell. I believe he’s one of the instructors.’ She gestured back towards the gate. ‘They sent me over here.’
There was the tiniest raise of his eyebrow, but he disguised it well. The guy gave a nod and a firm shake of her hand. ‘Luke Kennedy, Air Force Controller.’
The motion caused a sprinkling of sand to land on the carpet. She bit her bottom lip and took off her jacket, giving it another shake. Windswept and dishevelled wasn’t exactly the look she wanted when she told the candidate of his success. She held up her hand and shook her head. ‘What on earth was that about? Surely these guys are past all the cheap stunts?’
She looked around the office, trying to guess which one of the uniformed personnel was Austin—the guy who’d aced practically every test during the astronaut application procedures.
Her eyes were drawn to a plane landing on the adjacent runway. The plane that had nearly made her land on her butt in the corridor.
Luke Kennedy smiled. He followed her line of sight. ‘It’s kind of a tradition for the Top Gun instructors.’
‘Doesn’t it drive you crazy?’ She stared at a few tiny blotches of coffee on his shirt.
‘Oh, it drives me crazy all right.’ His accent was so thick it was almost a drawl. ‘You said you were looking for Bates? I mean, Lieutenant Commander Mitchell?’
She nodded, then frowned. ‘Bates? Why do you call him Bates?’ She glanced at the file in her hand. ‘That isn’t in his medical file.’
His smile reached from ear to ear. ‘It’s his call sign. I’ll let you find out for yourself why he’s called that.’ He pointed across the tarmac to the plane on the far side. ‘Well, I guess you found him. Give him a few minutes. He’ll take the plane back to the hangar.’
Corrine’s mouth fell open. ‘That’s him?’ She gestured towards the plane, which had safely landed and was slowly making its way back to the hangar.
Luke Kennedy turned back to his chair. ‘That’s him all right. Good luck.’
She bit her lip. That was the second person to wish her luck talking to Austin Mitchell. What was with this guy?
She put her jacket back on and left the control tower. One of the ground crew gave her the go-ahead to cross the tarmac and enter the hangar.
This was her last candidate. The teacher had cartwheeled down the corridor of the school she worked at when she’d got the news she’d been accepted. The engineer had stood up and announced his success to all his colleagues to much celebration. Even her marine had whoop-whooped when he’d been told and then proceeded to jump off one of the pieces of training equipment and body surf across the upheld arms of his colleagues. What would a Top Gun instructor do?
This guy was a little unusual. He hadn’t just been selected because he was a pilot—he’d also been selected because he had a master’s degree in microbiology. It seemed he’d completed his studies and immediately signed up for the navy doing two tours of duty in Afghanistan as a pilot before being selected for the Top Gun programme.
Lots of the work on the International Space Station was