Legacy

Legacy.

ONE

It was dazzling, the sudden explosion of light from the deep darkness of space, the thin, radiant edge of the sun emerging from behind the planet, which had been temporarily shielding the corona’s full force. The brilliant, timeless pinpoints of light from far-off galaxies were instantly extinguished, and the thin precious atmosphere clinging to the planet’s surface below like a hazy blanket, now shone with an iridescent glow. The intense glow began to gradually spread along the slow curve of the distant horizon as the planet spun, the light continuing to expand across the thin ark.

The satellite’s camera aperture contracted slightly, protecting the lens from the glare, accounting for the sudden increase in brightness. The stray light rays from the image began to flare across the convex lens surface, producing rainbow coloured spheres which slowly moved in conjunction with the sun. The light ahead continued to grow in its intensity, as the planet slowly circled in its unremitting orbit. Down on its surface, the line of the terminator slowly crept across the earth, finding hills and valleys and eventually civilization. The morning sun gradually illuminating streets and buildings, casting long misshapen shadows as it advanced.

Again, the camera’s aperture reduced its size, electric motors sparking briefly into life, reducing the amount of light introduced onto the electronic imaging sensor buried deep within the camera’s heart, like a pupil contracting from the ever-increasing brightness. The image of this magnificent shining orb momentarily dulled again and came back into focus.

The image’s bright central glow now appeared to have several external rings, halo’s surrounding the sun. Yet another optical effect of the camera’s thick glass lens. The vast ball of burning hydrogen shimmered slightly as it continued to move across the camera’s field of vision, the light now radiating steadily and gracefully from the centre of sun which had moved out from behind the Earth.

It only lasted a minute, but the sight of the sun rising around the earth, viewed from orbit, was wondrous. The magical array of constantly changing colours that a sunrise encompassed continued to spark people’s imagination, even now, sixteen years into the new millennium, when they could tear themselves away from their daily lives and simply look to the horizon.

This sunrise had been captured by a Television and Infrared Observation Satellite or TIOS, its designation NOAA-21. The footage was a swan song of its four-year life in orbit, having spent those years observing weather systems forming around the globe and relaying thousands of images and film in its short but important life, images just as magical as this final masterpiece.

Deep inside NOAA-21, the digital video camera recorded the last few seconds of this magnificent spectacle. On the tiny surface of the camera’s imaging sensor, millions of photosites measured the light coming from the lens, splitting it into the three primary colours and then converting that light into electrons, which were finally transmitted back to its base of operations as binary code, billions of zeros and ones. It would never know the wonder or amazement of what it viewed, or the tingly feeling that creeps up the spine when watching something truly beautiful occur in nature.

However, in the Range Control Centre of the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Kyra Nox was experiencing all of these sensations and more, as she received the final images from the last functioning satellite linked to the project.

A sunrise was an incredibly unusual sight to see from this particular satellite, as it had spent its entire life basking in a sun synchronous orbit, circumnavigating the Earth, making one revolution every one hundred minutes, at an altitude of eight hundred kilometres. This was the first time it had ever known darkness as its position slowly changed onto its final heading and it seemed a fitting way to decommission the project’s last workhorse of the skies, by allowing it to witness its first and last sunrise.

It was all Kyra could do to hold back the tears, as these final, clear images appeared on the screen in front of her. She had felt strangely connected to each of these satellites in the same way she would a pet. Each one had its own personality and character exhibited over the years, and now the feelings of loss as the satellite lived out its last few minutes were the same, knowing she was deliberately ending its life. She felt the needless waste, the wonder of its position high above her in orbit and the potential to continue sending these magical images cut short through departmental budgetary curtailments.

The last megabytes of the file finished their journey from orbit and Kyra’s finger hovered over the enter key on the thin plastic arc of the keyboard in front of her. This final instruction was ready to make its three thousand kilometre journey, starting at the Wallops Airbase on the United States east coast, then relayed through the old Vandenberg Airbase on the west coast, before being projected upwards through the atmosphere to the waiting satellite. It would order NOAA-21 to alter its course one last time, retract the solar panels, which powered its systems and gave it life, and then dive towards the planet to finally incinerate within the atmosphere.

Kyra glanced back at Arthur who was watching closely behind her, seeking reassurance that the mission really was complete.

Let’s put this thing to bed, he murmured, also appearing a little troubled by the experience.

She pressed the enter key and the instruction was sent.

In low earth orbit, NOAA-21 activated its electrically driven reaction wheels, gyroscopically re-orienting itself to the new heading. Other electric motors slowly turned nylon gears, which began to retract the large six-meter solar panels on either side of its four-meter long main body into their stowed position, like a seagull folding back its wings before diving headlong into the ocean, and after three years and three hundred days in continuous operation, NOAA-21 gently allowed Earth’s gravity to capture it and began the freefall home.

It gets me every time, Kyra said, sounding disheartened. But being the last, I never thought they would end it like this.

You know the Defence Department as well as I do, replied Arthur, his voice rough. They were never going to keep the analogue satellites going. It’s all about cutting costs and staying within your budget. Our slice of the pie has been given to someone else, that’s all. Arthur was trying his best, but was never really sure which words of encouragement to use when it came to women, to stop the possibility of them bursting into tears. In his experience, the opposite had usually occurred.

Jesus Christ, he thought. It’s my department they have just closed down. I should be the one in need of comforting words. But with a long and happy retirement ahead of him, he had already conceded that none of it was worth the aggravation any more. He would just kick back and take it easy. The seven-figure pension plan would also make a significant difference.

Arthur swivelled his large body in his chair and looked out across the control centre. A dozen or so empty chairs sat idle at workstations as most of the people who worked there had already gone home for the night. All of the monitoring systems were now set to automatic. Space exploration had somehow become a nine-to-five job.

The end of the TIOS program had come as no surprise to Arthur. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration had been slowly winding up its dealings with Wallops Flight Facility for several years.

Throughout that time, as the technology aboard each new satellite improved, the ground crew who diligently looked after them had slowly shrunk in numbers. Arthur could remember the days when this control centre had been filled with people, each one watching their own individual satellite, rows of desks filled with individual lights and gauges. Fat white monitors were perched cumbersomely on top of each desk, showing every facet of each satellite’s telemetry. The harsh droning sound of printers filled the room, endlessly documenting each satellite’s condition as they chewed through reams of paper, then filed in some vast warehouse in Utah for later reference. The technicians worked in shifts of two, or even three, depending on the complexity of the operation, to keep the process running smoothly.

The whole facility had a constant buzz about it, almost a life of its own. But as the years wore on and the technology improved, the satellites began to look after themselves. They required less and less human intervention, to the point that now, one technician could monitor almost a dozen birds at any one time via the now miniscule computers and giant flat monitors which hung around the walls, each one able to accomplish the work of more than a dozen people. The Department of Defence had systematically cut their department’s funding each year, until only a handful of these dedicated people remained. Then as the analogue TIOS satellites were superseded by the new digital NPOESS satellites, the whole future of the operation had been questioned and when asked by Kyra, Arthur’s eloquent reply had said it all, I can already hear that fat lady warming up in the wings.

Arthur had never joined the military. Instead, he was happy as one of the thousands of civilians, just like Kyra, who worked alongside the Defence Forces. He doubted he could ever have passed the physical examinations with his rotund stature, and in his recent years, he had required blood pressure and diabetes medication to maintain even a reasonable quality of life. Arthur had worked at Wallops for the majority of his career, almost thirty years, starting at the bottom and working his way up Something, he was fond of saying to anyone who would listen, that the young kids of today should try. Just because they all get a degree at school, they think they are God’s gift. Generation ‘I’, generation ‘I know everything’, more like!

He had many sayings like that, things that if he had heard himself saying twenty years before, would have mortified him; he really was ready to retire.

Mrs Douglas, Arthur’s wife of almost forty years, was certainly not ready for her husband to retire. She kept warning him that if he spent too much time playing golf, or drinking at the clubhouse with the boys, there would be trouble. It seemed to Arthur, as he mopped the beads of sweat from his balding head with an ironed flat white handkerchief, that with at least another ten years of life ahead of him, trouble was inevitable.

Kyra swivelled her chair around to face Arthur. He could see her heavy, tired hazel eyes beginning to glisten from the tears beginning to form.

Can I go now? she asked with a sniff.

Arthur glanced down at her from his slightly elevated position, trying not to look down her partially open white blouse and, as usual, failing. We really should make sure that this last satellite is safely destroyed, he thought, but he could do that just as easily on his own. NORAD would be simultaneously tracking the satellite as it entered the atmosphere from its home back within the safety of Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs. If there was some kind of problem, there would be very little Kyra or Arthur could do about it now.

Get on home, he said with a sigh. There’s nothing more to do here tonight, but I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning to help clear our stuff out. Right? Arthur never could deal with tears, hopefully by the morning she would have gotten over the guilt brought on by this electronic euthanasia which he had just made her perform.

Kyra nodded and slid her chair back, leaving the Control Centre floor as quickly as she could. It was already eight thirty and if she didn’t hurry she would miss the last bus from the base to Chincoteague Island.

Stopping briefly in the women’s locker room to collect her handbag and change into some bright white training shoes, she made a last minute dash for the already waiting bus. She caught a quick glimpse of her reflection in the dark glass at the front of the facility and thought how odd her trainers looked against the smart, dark blue suit she was wearing, but with the bus waiting, she ignored the reflection and began to run.

Arthur watched Kyra leave, then turned back to his computer screen, observing the final minutes of the satellite’s demise. It was his hard-earned reputation if things went wrong and, at this late stage in his career, he didn’t want it marred by some strange random event. He also wasn’t really in the mood for going home yet anyway, already beginning to miss the place.

He sat at his desk mindlessly looking through emails with the satellite data running on the large overhead view screen. He had begun the lengthy deletion process of years of built up files that he had been putting off for weeks.

The chances of anything going wrong now had to be a million to one, he thought, as he occasionally glanced up at the remaining telemetry coming in from the doomed satellite, displayed as lines of code on the large screen.

As he thought this, he gave a little chuckle, pondering on how many times the million to one scenario had been used in popular fiction, associated with things that could never ever happen. However, with the stupendously large numbers common to the majority of astronomical movements, Arthur should not have been surprised when the so-called million to one scenario actually occurred.

As the Earth slowly increased its pull on NOAA-21, its orbit began to decay and it started to fall. It followed the carefully designed, pre-programmed path exactly, growing heavier by the second as the Earth slowly captured its mass. Its camera had already been disabled after the final sunrise images had been transmitted and its non-essential systems had been taken offline, but if it had still been recording, it would have clearly shown the large, dark silhouette that now lay in its path.

LAC/E was in a dormant parking orbit, 300km above the earth where she had resided for more than twenty years. Painted jet black and with her solar panels retracted, she was almost invisible against the darkness of space. Unused and virtually forgotten, Alexis, as she had been christened, had quietly circled the earth unaware of time, movement, or the progress that had taken place on the planet’s surface below. Once front page news around the world, she was now a relic of the cold war between the United States of America and the former Soviet Union. Even the orbit where she had been parked was virtually empty, used solely by the United States military for their experimental satellites, leaving the telecommunication satellites crowding low earth orbit some one hundred kilometres above.

Alexis was old, designed for a world war that had never happened and now outdated with her thirty-year-old technology. She had received her last transmission just before the start of the new millennium to power down and await further instructions. Her solar panels had retracted to avoid damage from the plethora of space debris, her power cells had been set to minimum and finally, her systems went dark and Alexis slept.

The countries that slowly turned below had gradually changed. The wars in which Alexis was designed to play such a vital role had evaporated, to make way for new forms of world war, modern and deadly. People still ultimately fought these wars, but there was no comparison to the previous two world wars of the now distant twentieth century. These were wars of words.

Times had changed, the stakes had changed and the enemy was not always armed with a gun. Political words were now as harmful as a canon shot had been two centuries before. Posturing now outstripped bloodshed. It had become a game, played by all nations, trying to gain the upper hand, in subtle manipulative tones. Their words were careful, there accent muted, but their ultimate intent was still the same, the acquisition of power, money and land.

The news channels followed each political change with their normal vigour, throwing out the probabilities of this and that, showing graphs and changes of power in simple coloured blocks, designed they said to more easily understand the complicated political world but which only managed to confuse and disorientate the general public. No one was really sure what anything meant anymore, but it was reported on just the same, the journalists throwing their own spin on whatever information they could uncover, using library footage if no live footage was available, making up statistics, catch phrases and, ultimately, glamorising death.

It was impossible for Arthur or Kyra to have known that the projected course that NOAA-21 was on, would intersect exactly with Alexis, but she was now directly in the freefalling satellite’s path. Alexis was not shown on any chart or recorded on any accessible satellite map, making her effectively invisible. Even if Arthur or Kyra could have looked through the video cameras attached to NOAA-21, they would not have seen Alexis until it was much too late, as she was cleverly shielded by her primitive but still effective stealth technology.

The collision was unavoidable, but was restricted to a glancing blow with Alexis, which sent NOAA-21 tumbling away through the atmosphere, pieces of its damaged outer shell peeling away exposing internal circuitry and wires. The heat quickly built as it fell. Thin outer layers of titanium and Kevlar incinerated as it dropped through the thickening atmosphere and the air resistance slowly began to increase. Then finally, the end arrived, as the central computer core of the stricken satellite succumbed to the heat of re-entry, exploding into a fireball high over the Atlantic, leaving nothing but a bright flash in the late afternoon sky, almost indistinguishable against the setting sun that filled the cloud-covered sky with a pastel orange glow.

Alexis was unaware of the passing years on the planet below. Her systems were woken by the sudden impact, the sharp jolt that had just struck her port side. Somewhere deep within her old outdated computer brain, her alarm systems lit up, registering a threat. She was ‘ON’.

THREAT UNKNOWN. ORIGIN UNKNOWN. PURPOSE UNKNOWN.

Alexis autonomously powered her internal components for the first time in sixteen years, following the carefully constructed parameters written into her programming for such an event. She was unaware of the passage of time, the shift in political powers, the change in the world’s climate, or the hopes and fears of the billions of people below. Alexis prepared to defend herself against the external threat, or any threat against the United States, just as she had been programmed to do.

The slight course correction which the collision in orbit had caused NOAA-21, showed up briefly on the NORAD re-entry trajectory monitoring systems, but wasn’t violent enough to bring up any alarms, causing it to be overlooked by the technicians there. They had much more important things to worry about, at ten o’clock on a Thursday night, just before handover to the night shift. They paid the dying satellite very little attention, as it would no longer cause anyone any trouble. Space had now become predictable.

At the Wallops Airbase, Arthur was still deleting emails, keeping one eye on the main screen which was slowly scrolling lists of numbers corresponding with the satellite’s fall back to earth. He finally looked up as the numbers abruptly came to an end, and he mindlessly finished the dregs of his large cup of filtered coffee. He would have preferred whisky at that time of night, but unlike all the movies, didn’t have a bottle stashed away in his desk drawer. Even one day away from retirement, he still wanted to leave with some dignity and not be thrown out for drinking on the job.

Odd, he said aloud to the empty room, as he noticed the small step change in the figures, several seconds before the transmission concluded.

He automatically went to take another large gulp of coffee, but found the mug already empty. Disappointed, he placed the mug down on the paper-covered desk, pondering what he had just seen. He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, looking again at the figures, almost expecting something to change. Then as his curiosity level slowly rose, he gave a large sigh and finally grabbed the mouse that sat in front of him. With several clicks on boxes, he quickly manipulated the figures into a graph, which more accurately showed the descent path of the now deceased satellite.

It’s almost as if it hit a bump, he thought.

He thought this over for several more seconds, the computer fan and air-conditioned silence of the control centre weighing upon him. NORAD had ignored it. NOAA-21 had been successfully destroyed according to the telemetry and the mission was complete. If there was some kind of problem, someone surely would have contacted him by now.

His hand hovered over the phone as he considered whom to call to verify that everything was indeed okay, still looking intently at the red coloured line with its minor step on the screen in front of him.

Ah screw it, he finally said. It’s gone anyway. It hardly makes a difference now. His hand returned to the mouse and he quickly logged off before his conscience made him look into the blip further. He had suddenly had enough for one night.

No one gives a shit about us now anyway, he mumbled under his breath as he collected his jacket from the back of the chair and, despondently throwing it over his shoulder, walked across the control room towards the doorway.

TWO

One day, I won’t wait for you, missy, Mac shouted down as the bus door thumped open.

Thanks, Mac, replied Kyra, sounding out of breath from her short burst of exercise as she leapt up the stairs into the empty bus and crashed down into the tartan coloured bench seat immediately behind the driver.

Mac looked up into the rear view mirror. All present and correct? he asked. It was the same question he always asked before moving off, something of a catchphrase that Mac had just picked up over the years driving along Route 175 between Highway 50 and Chincoteague in his ancient diesel bus.

Kyra chuckled. She remembered hearing other people on the bus whispering complaints that the catch phrase was annoying. She found it kind of homely, one of the last pieces of quirky island life hanging on in a rapidly changing world.

Outside her window, the sun had just dipped below the horizon. She found this oddly strange as just fifteen minutes before she had been watching a glorious sunrise on her monitor. She had to remind herself this was some other part of the world, probably a much warmer part at that.

She adjusted her focus and stared at her own reflection in the windows of the bus, making out the large dark rings which sat under her eyes. She looked tired. It had been a long day at the end of an even longer week, which was still not over. She would have to return to Wallops the next day to clear out her desk. She scratched at her peroxide blonde hair. It itched from being pinned up all day and she longed to pull it apart, but with a ten-minute wait at the Inn ahead of her, she would only make it look worse and resisted the temptation, rubbing the already blotchy mascara around her eyes to compensate.

She dug around in her bag, finding her phone, which, when she was younger, had controlled her life but now seemed unusually quiet. She pressed and held the ‘on’button, the vivid multicoloured display flashing across the clear centre of the shiny black ring, which was Nokia’s attempt to oust the newest version of the iPhone off its perch as the worldwide phone of the people. A tactile palm sized ring of shining black metal, with a three dimensional holographic display projected onto the thin clear plastic in its centre. It showed Kyra had no new messages, or missed calls, after trying to entice her to purchase a new hybrid Chrysler and eat some new power bar from Kellogg’s.

Disappointed not to have heard anything from her brother, or anyone else, she dropped the phone back into the dark recesses of her bag.

The journey from the airbase back to Chincoteague Island only took fifteen minutes at this time of night, as traffic was almost nonexistent. The bus set out across the marshland on the single lane road which crossed the small sand islands linked by a collection of bridges. It pounded over each metal bridge connection as it drove. In the disappearing light, the water and mud covered silt beds looked grey and cold, not the inviting island scene she had hoped for before her transfer here from Washington five years before. Has it really been that long? she thought.

The bus bounced through the final rusting metal bridge as it approached the town, the orange streetlights gradually flickering on as dusk turned to night. The bus turned right past the old-fashioned Fire House and down into the almost deserted main street.

Chincoteague was a small fishing town. In its heyday it had been alive with moored fleets of fishing vessels, bars, shops and people, a vibrant bustling community situated halfway up the east coast of the United States, two hundred kilometres south east of Washington. That was almost fifty years ago. Now, just like so many other small towns that relied primarily upon the sea for its income, it was well past its sell by date. The houses that were once occupied by fishing families had been slowly bought up by military personnel wanting to live closer to the Wallops Airbase. It had given the small community a temporary reprieve as the fishing industry began to decline, but even the military’s presence here was now slowly fading, the cycle of life changing again and the town progressively dying.

Kyra didn’t need to press the bell. Mac knew where to drop her off, having bussed her home many times in the past.

Catch you tomorrow night? asked Mac as Kyra stepped slowly down to the pavement.

Nope, she replied resignedly. This is my last one. You take care of yourself, Mac. I’ll see you around.

He waited until she was several steps away from the door before pulling the lever and closing it, then the old bus continued on through the small town, leaving its cloud of diesel smoke hanging in the cooling night air.

Kyra shivered and glanced at her watch. Almost nine o’clock. She would just make the kitchen before it closed. Automatically looking both ways, she crossed the empty street to the entrance of the Chincoteague Inn.

The building looked old and in need of paint. Large multicoloured Christmas lights hung outside accentuating the angles of the roofline. Kyra couldn’t remember them ever being taken down, just another piece of the past refusing to give up its grip on the present. The pot holed gravel car park to the side of the building had several cars randomly parked, looking more like they had been abandoned, the white lines that would normally keep order having worn away long before. The entrance door to the Inn was heavy and she had to pull hard to open it, revealing a dark, wooden clad bar and grill, looking like the depths of some antique sea vessel. Old rope nets draped from the ceiling and pieces of fishing equipment from boats long since gone hung from the walls, the spaces between filled with pictures of greatest catches and sailors standing proudly next to their victims.

She glanced around, catching sight of several regulars sitting at the bar. Bill and Eddy were down the end as usual, and judging by the collection of glasses in front of them on the bar, they had been there all afternoon. They nodded their heads in Kyra’s direction, acknowledging her as she entered, knowing her by sight. Several booths were taken with other people she vaguely recognised as regulars who lived in Chincoteague, but didn’t know to talk to, and behind the bar, Miranda had also seen her enter and was diligently heading her way.

Evenin’ dear. What can I getcha? Miranda loved to believe she was in a cockney pub in London, and tried hard to emulate the common British accent after watching the British soap operas, but always failed miserably.

Do you ‘ave any Peperoni Pizza left? asked Kyra trying not to use the same accent; it was a trap she always managed to fall into.

For you, anything, darling. Beer while you wait?

Kyra dumped her bag on the bar and climbed onto one of the many empty bar stools. Why not, she replied with a sigh.

As Miranda left to place the order, Kyra caught a glimpse of herself through the bottles of Bourbon in the mirrored shelves behind the bar. Again she stared at the reflection, the finality of the day beginning to sink in. Her dark blue suit looked slightly outdated to those she had seen the catwalk models wearing online recently. Kyra’s once crisp white shirt was creased from a long day at work, her eyes were sunken and dark against her pale complexion and her high defined cheekbones were lost as her makeup wore thin and her lips dulled.

The beer appeared in front of her as Miranda, distracted by another customer at the other end of the bar, left her alone. Kyra stared at the amber coloured liquid, watching the bubbles flowing upwards in their individual streams from the bottom of the glass. Her thoughts returned to the events of the day. She couldn’t believe it was really all over.

Five years before, she had asked for a transfer to Wallops, not to further her career, but to look after her father, Lieutenant Colonel George Nox. At that time, he had just been diagnosed with cancer. The big C seemed to be an unwanted present that everyone appeared to be receiving in one form or another.

Back then it had been a simple choice for Kyra. To move into her father’s house in Chincoteague town and get a job where he worked at the Wallops Airbase, leaving her friends and the city way of life behind. Her job as a secretary at the Pentagon in Washington was going nowhere anyway and after a messy breakup with her then fiancé, things just sort of fell into place.

Begrudgingly, her father had found her a civilian position at Wallops working for the NOAA under Arthur Douglas, whom he had known for years. Arthur had interviewed her for the job, asking questions that really didn’t seem relevant, grilling her about her previous experience and her knowledge of satellites and computer skills. Kyra was sure this was her father’s way of punishing her for leaving the Pentagon. It somehow made the transition harder than it needed to be as he insisted that she stay in Washington, telling her it would be a job for life, and maintained he didn’t need looking after. Eventually though, Arthur offered Kyra a position.

She took a sip from the beer, and then wiped away the white moustache she had given herself. Now five years on, she didn’t blame her father for those times. He had been trying to steer her along the right path, even in his strange unorthodox way. She had imagined a very different life for herself though, having grown up in Washington DC with her mother, before her death, going through school and college, then onto university only to find a long unemployment list at the end of it all after the 2009 financial collapse. Many of her friends from school and college had already moved on to different areas of the United States, going where they could find work in their chosen fields, the job markets splitting families and friendships like never before.