Orphans of Apollo - S1 E10
January 2022
From the ashes of forgotten space dreams, a new era of exploration begins.
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Previously: having made the decision to leave, Larsson, Isaac and Ling board a train and head for Edinburgh. They know the university are picking apart their lab, but have they alerted the authorities yet?
The black mini van pulled up outside Signature Flight Support. It was a courtesy vehicle from the handling agent. Sara had arranged it to collect them from Edinburgh Waverley Station. The building looked nothing special. Small dreary single-story, with tired red brickwork. Inside, however, was much more pleasant, a well-appointed lounge, which would not look out of place in a luxury hotel.
“They have just called us on the radio Mr Larsson, they’re about fifteen minutes from landing,” said an impeccably dressed young man from behind a desk in the corner of the room. “Immigration will meet you at the aircraft to process your departure paperwork, as the crew is remaining on board. Please have a seat. Can I get anyone a drink?”
“Thank you, we will be fine,” said Larsson politely.
Ling collapsed into a large armchair, exhausted. “I’ve never been on a private jet before,” she said wistfully.
“I’ve never had to flee a country before,” whispered Isaac as he bent forward to pick up a magazine from the coffee table in front of them. He sat back, “let alone my own!”
The next ten minutes seemed to take an eternity. Isaac flicked casually through his magazine, pretending to read it. Larsson seemed to actually be reading his, while Ling stared out into the night.
“Mr Larsson, they are just taxiing in now. If you are ready to go, please follow me this way,” the young man behind the desk said.
He walked over to a door on the far side of the room and held up an access card to the reader next to it. It chimed cheerfully and he entered a PIN. The door clicked to unlock. He held it open for the three of them. Outside they entered another black minivan and drove out toward the apron.
“There she is,” said Larsson. Ling and Isaac looked over to see a sleek silver jet with the distinctive Gulfstream large oval windows. It nosed slowly toward a marshaller waving red lit batons. He slowly brought them to a cross above his head and the nose of the jet nodded slightly as it stopped. Even inside the van they heard the low rumble of the engines suddenly disappear, to be replaced by a wine which faintly subsided.
“It’s much bigger than I imagined,” exclaimed Ling.
“It has a range of almost 14,000km, so it can reach a good chunk of the globe in one hop from home. It’s my time machine.”
Ahead of them was a car which had arrived at the ramp before they did. It was obviously an official vehicle of some kind. It moved slowly over and parked opposite the still closed door just behind the cockpit. As it did, the door slowly opened, revealing inbuilt stairs. At the top of the stairs was the figure of a lady in a long coat, silhouetted by the well lit cabin behind her. As soon as the door reached the extent of its travel, she began to elegantly descend the stairs. Two men had now got out of the vehicle and were standing at the bottom of the stairs. As they exchanged pleasantries, the minivan pulled up slowly behind the car and the young man got out to open the door for them. Now they were exposed out on the ramp, there was a definite chill in the night air.
“Hi Sara,” said Larsson.
“Sorry we’re a little later than expected. The pilots tell me the winds were slightly stronger than forecast. We are still good to go without refuelling though.”
“Good.”
“Good evening sir, if I can just see your passports, you can head on up out of the cold,” said one of the men in a soft Scottish accent.
Larsson handed his passport to the man and he looked at the photo page, up at Larsson and then across to some paperwork, which Sara had given to the other man. Then he handed Larsson the passport back.
“Thank you, Mr Larsson.”
He then proceeded to go through the same routine with Isaac and Ling.
“You can leave your passports with Sara. She can finish the paperwork. Come on, let’s get out of the cold.”
Isaac and Ling did as instructed and followed Larsson up the steps into the jet. After the upheaval of the last few hours, the luxury of the cabin seemed to Ling like entering a new world, a new life was about to begin. They walked down the plushly carpeted aisle, past a full galley complete with marble-effect worktop and wood panelling. Then into the main cabin with its large leather seats and even a couch. Larsson motioned them to sit at a four-place table while he went to the private stateroom at the very rear of the cabin.
Ling sat down opposite Isaac and through the large window she could see Sara was still in conversation with the two officials at the foot of the airstair. They all seemed to be looking over the same document on a clipboard Sara was holding. She seemed to be pointing out certain parts to the other two. The apparently more senior of the two was shaking his head. Ling’s heart beat faster. The official motioned for Sara to hand him something. From her coat pocket, she took the stack of three passports and sorted through them, selecting the only red one from the pile. The Chinese one. Ling could feel her heart thumping in her chest now. She looked across at Isaac, he was casually removing his jacket and settling himself into the seat. Obviously completely unaware of what Ling could see happening outside. The official was closely scrutinising the passport and seemed to be trying to match it against the paperwork Sara had presented to him. His partner was now talking on his radio.
Ling sat frozen, watching them for what seemed like an eternity. Then the man with the radio raised it to his ear and pointed something out to his partner. They both seemed to agree, and the passport was handed back to Sara. Just like that, they turned and headed back to their car. Sara climbed the steps and what seemed like mere seconds later, the airstair began slowly closing. Ling suddenly become aware she was holding her breath and exhaled heavily.
“Are you Ok?” enquired Isaac. “You’re not scared of flying, are you?”
“No, no. I’m fine,” she managed to say.
Larsson appeared from the back of the cabin, holding a laptop just as Sara came down the aisle.
“We all set?”
“We are now. Just a little hiccup on some of the paperwork, but it’s all sorted. Sorry, it was my fault. I filed the paperwork in such a hurry I made a typo on some of Mrs Xue’s details.”
Larsson sat down next to Isaac as a voice came over the cabin PA system. “We’ve just received our start clearance, so we expect to taxi in under five minutes.”
“Mr Underwood, Miss Xue, my name is Sara Jensen as you know I’m Christian Larsson’s Executive Assistant. It’s all been such a rush I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself properly. In addition to being an Executive Assistant, when we travel in the jet I’m also the designated cabin crew, so as you are first time flyers with us by FAA regulation I’m required to give you a safety briefing before we get underway.”
“Before we do that, we have one more important thing to take care of, just to be on the safe side,” said Larsson.
“Isaac, can you remotely access your virtual machine and download your research data,” said Larsson, handing the laptop to Isaac.
“Certainly.”
“The satellite connection in here is pretty fast, but there is a bit of latency.”
As Isaac typed away, opening a connection to the VM, he was barely aware of the jet starting to move. After a few minutes, he seemed satisfied, turning the laptop so Larsson could see it.
“Looks like it’ll take about ten minutes or so to complete.”
“Now Sara, where were you?”
They all looked across at Ling. She was fast asleep.
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I hope you enjoyed episode ten of “Orphans of Apollo”. This concludes our little flashback sequence and next episode we will return to the “present day” of 2055.
As I mentioned last time this week was going to be very busy, so not much of an update. It was my son’s tenth birthday. I’m not sure where that decade went! We have had my father staying, which is great but not conducive to getting any writing done.
I also had to prepare for a flight test at work so I could renew my examiner rating. So basically I have to do a flight test on another pilot while someone else checks me on my examining. All very stressful, so I’m glad that’s over for another few years.
When I set out on this serial, it was my intention to continue publishing weekly all the way through to the end of the draft I have. As I have been working on this for the last few weeks, I’ve realised this might not be possible. I might need to take an intermission to catch up, especially going into the busy period for my day job. We’ll see how it goes. I still have some episodes in the can, so if I’m going to, I’ll take a few weeks break at a point that fits the flow of the story.
Thanks for reading,
Alex