Space Force One

Space Force One

As the hangar doors slowly parted, a hot dry wind blew in from the desert around Area 51. But even the hot air was not enough to prevent the goosebumps from forming on his body at the sight of the magnificent ship in front of him.

Feelings of apprehension, nerves, fear, and excitement all washed over him as he walked into the hangar. He smiled at himself as he recalled having these same feelings twenty years ago on his first steps into the Air Force Academy. Only here in this hangar, there was no one yelling at him, no one berating him, no one barking orders at the young plebe to start doing pushups until his arms gave out.

In this hangar he felt a singular purpose, a singular drive. And it was all focused on the triangular ship sitting all alone in the middle of the hangar, and silently levitating a few feet off the ground.

Space Force Major Brad ‘Parsec’ Mayfield’s sense of awe and admiration of this ship never dropped a single iota whenever he entered this hangar. This ship represented the culmination of decades of higher than ‘Top Secret’ black-budget defense spending. Today’s flight represented what he knew would be one of the last hurdles before the gravity of this development would be presented to the American public, and ultimately the rest of the world.

Gravity. A theory which Sir Isaac Newton had compiled into a formula to understand why things fell towards the earth. The same force which keeps the earth orbiting around the sun, and our moon orbiting around the earth is a force which even the brilliant mind of Albert Einstein couldn’t completely figure out. But this ship, his ship, call sign ‘Phoenix’, represented the achievements of America’s top scientists and engineers to fly right past the known limits of gravity.

The two sentries guarding the ship snapped to attention and executed a perfectly timed slow-motion salute as the Major moved to within a few steps of the ship.

“Sir, good luck today, sir.”

Major Mayfield couldn’t stop grinning at the two-person Space Force security team. They must have practiced that salute hundreds of times to be able to maintain the precision of an Olympic skating pair. Mayfield stopped, came to attention, and gave the security team an equally slow-motion salute. The pride in these young men was evident in everything about them. Their uniforms were crisp and perfect. Their M-16 rifles were as polished as their perfect boots. It was American soldiers like these two who reminded Mayfield every day why what he was doing was so important.

“Sir, your preflight for ‘Phoenix’ is not scheduled for another hour. Do you need assistance from someone in the maintenance flight?”

“Thanks Sergeant, but no, I don’t. I just want to ensure everything is perfect for today.”

As the security team stepped aside the Major reached up to the bottom of the ship and placed his right hand on the underneath side of the ship. He could now feel the gentle pulsing from the High Energy Electro-magnetic drive system which both powered the ship, and provided the magnetic field to levitate it off the ground.

Mayfield stood still as a small round optical device came out of the ship and slowly scanned his right eye.

“Identity confirmed. Entry into Phoenix for Major Brad Mayfield authorized.”

What had previously looked like a solid-seamed shell of the ship split open and a small ramp extended down from the ship to the floor of the hangar. Mayfield nodded his thanks to the security team and made his way up the ramp to the main flight control section of the ship.

Looking around the control center he was easily able to identify the modifications which had recently been made to his ship.

He had been flying the Phoenix for just over three years, and up until this past week, the Phoenix had been a single-seat ship. Now just three feet away from his control seat a second seat had been added. The second seat was not for another pilot or navigator, or flight control engineer. This seat was a seat of honor with an appropriately adorned headrest bearing the Seal of the President of the United States of America.

Mayfield slid into his control seat as easily as slipping on his flight suit this morning. He had spent thousands of hours flying the Phoenix. His flights allowed him to fly, or submerge everywhere from the depths of the Mariana Trench, to the tops of the Himalaya mountains, to a distance far away in outer space. It was here in deep space where he had earned his new aviation moniker of Parsec. He had taken the Phoenix to a distance of just over three light-years away from Earth, and then returned.

But almost none of that mattered anymore as he energized his main display screen and finished energizing his ships flight control systems as part of his pre-flight routine. As he went through the checklist to verify the status of the High Energy Electro-magnetic drive he still marveled at the science at his fingertips.

Truth be told, he actually understood very little of the physics which made this ship possible. He had read the formal documents which brought him into this program as thoroughly as he could comprehend. After trying to follow the logic of the calculations and algorithms he then asked most of the top scientists how this damn thing actually flew. What he received in response was the data used in the patent issued back in 2018 to the US Navy for a ship which incorporated an inertial mass reduction device.

What he understood was this craft wasn’t affected at all by gravity. It was encased in a quantum vacuum and as a result neither Earth’s gravity, nor the rapid acceleration rates of moving from standing still to Mach 20 felt any different to the occupants inside the ship. What he learned was that Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity was still correct, but incomplete. Einstein had theorized nothing could move faster than the speed of light because the relative mass of the object would approach infinity. But the physics of this ship allowed it to reduce the relative mass, thereby allowing the ship to fly past the speed of light.

The hard physics of General Relativity had not been violated. Standard mass objects could not move faster than light, or even approach light speed. The Phoenix and her technology were neither of those things.

Mayfield paused to let out a deep sigh. What would he say to the President of the United States as he piloted their ship outside of Earth’s atmosphere?

How would he react to the question of how they were flying in what most people would call a UFO? Well, actually, it was just a flying object now. To Mayfield and the rest of the Space Force team, the ship was no longer unidentified.

This president would be the first U.S President to experience powered flight in a ship not bound by gravity. How would the President of the United States feel about being the first president in history to travel in a U.S. made ship on a flight around the inner solar system?

But the rhetorical question which could not be answered was did the President truly understand the gravity of the situation he was about to unveil?

After the U.S. made the operation of this ship and the technology known to the world everything would change. The trillions of dollars which had been spent launching satellites and humans into orbit were now obsolete.

The use of fossil-fueled aircraft and cars, and trains were as obsolete as a horse and buggy carriage.

How would the president answer all the people who would now know the U.S. had been working on this project quite literally for decades? Or, would he punt the proverbial football and only admit to what had taken place since the patent was issued to the U.S. Navy?

A pit was forming in his stomach as the magnitude of these issues were becoming painstakingly obvious. Could he separate his knowledge of this wonderful technology and what it represented from the reality the world would face upon learning of this ship?

His reverie was broken by the voice coming through his headset.

“Space Force One, come in. Air Force One and POTUS on final approach to base. Copy?”

Space Force One. He was about to fly the President of the United States on a special trip past the moon and on a sight-seeing tour of Mars in a ship which seemingly defied the laws of gravity Sir Isaac Newton had theorized hundreds of years ago.

“Space Force One copy, pre-flight complete. Let’s do this.”