The Shuttle Pod

The M-470 shuttle pod was docked at a landing site just thirteen miles outside of Memphis. As they drove there, Kat kept glancing sidelong at Jack. He couldn’t stop grinning. She liked how easy he was to read; his excitement was infectious.

They pulled into a three-story garage, with green blinking lights overhead to highlight the open spots. Most of the Memphis parking lots had implemented the green light system to account for invisible hovercrafts, but this was still cooler because, well, this wasn’t in Memphis and it was a landing site. With shuttles. Of course Kat had been to sites before, but she had never been able to go in. Shuttle sites were places where you sat in the car and waited for Uncle Casper to land.

“Ready?” Jack asked with a wide grin. Kat nodded, and smiled, followed him out of the car and to the elevator. He had taken her on trips before – to the lab at Jackson where he worked, to his mentor’s facility in Nashville. It was like this half-hidden world that you knew was there but couldn’t always see. Space stations, research facilities, aliens. It made home seem so un-glamorous. Home was a place where her dad spent half an hour navigating to the right TV channel. A place where you couldn’t use the printer and the microwave at the same time or risk blowing a fuse.

When the elevator door opened there were two greyheads on the platform.

“Hello,” Kat said timidly as they got on the lift. One of the greyheads garbled something in Eurian.

“Salutations to yourself,” said the other greyhead with a splintery accent. “My friend does not know Earth-speak. Pardons.”

When they got out of the elevator, there were goodwill robots to greet them. Jack had informed her that among the greyheads it was custom to have robots to boost morale at any place of business. The robots were short, like the greyheads, with a large wheel in the center of their body and two glowing yellow lights set to appear like eyes in their voice box.

“Welcome. You look great today,” said one of the robots to Jack. It had a buttery female voice, and for a bizarre moment Kat felt annoyed. Then the robot turned to her.

“Hi. You’re amazing,” it said.

“Oh. Thank you,” said Kat.

The top of the lot was a long asphalt runway, and it was littered with shuttle pods. A dozen at least. They glittered in the daylight, all steel and chrome. The greyheads headed off in another direction and Kat followed Jack down the landing field, staring at the pods with undisguised wonder.

His pod was about as large as a train car – it was painted with an American flag and the word ‘Peppers!’. The exclamation point was, as he’d informed her, part of the name. The shuttle’s captain thought they had named it after his wife. The rest of the crew, along with Jack, really meant it as an ode to the 80s band the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their music had found a resurgence among interstellar circles shortly after the Contact.

The gangplank was already unfurled and the two of them walked up. Inside, Peppers! looked a little like Kat’s Grandpa’s trailer. There were a pair of bunk beds set against the wall. A coffee table with a deck of cards and an opened beer. A couch that was wedged up in the corner.

“Well?” Jack asked. “What do you think?”

Kat glanced at the doorway to the mini-kitchen, where she could make out the sink – full of dishes.

“It’s really cool,” Kat said, smiling and sticking her hands in the pockets of her sweater.

“Wait until you see the cockpit.”

The front of the shuttle had a glass window overlooking the asphalt landing pad, although it was tinted and didn’t let in light. It was kind of hard to see through it. An array of buttons and levers were set into a semicircle chrome dashboard around a rotating office chair with wheels. Kat ran her fingers over the buttons.

Jack was watching her when she looked over, with that goofy grin over his face.

“Want to take it for a ride?” he asked. Kat blinked at him.

“What? You can do that?” she asked. Jack shrugged.

“Sure,” he said. “It’s the company’s pod.”

With a mischievous smirk he flipped a couple of switches and sat in the driver’s seat. Kat didn’t stop him. The pod hummed to life, and the floor shivered under Kat’s feet. She looked around for a seatbelt, or at least a handle of some sort to hold on to.

“Don’t worry, it isn’t bumpy,” Jack said.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Kat asked. In response, Jack laid his hand over a large geared lever. He gave her a wink. With that wide smile he said,

“You ready? Here we go, Kat – hyperspace!”

He pulled on the lever sharply and the pod lurched under them. Kat stumbled and grabbed onto the back of his chair. For a moment the pod kept shuddering. The dashboard made a high whining sound, like a cat at a window.

And then suddenly it stopped.

The overhead lights went out. The pod filled with darkness. And silence. Thin strips of blue emergency lighting flickered on in a row down the length of the ceiling.

Kat glanced out of the tinted window, her heart thumping in her chest. They were still on the landing. She looked at Jack. By the faint light of the emergency strips she could see his furrowed brows and slack face.

Then Jack groaned and buried his face in his hands.

There was a noise from behind, a rustle, and Kat whirled around. The zipper on her sweater made a clanging noise as it hit the wall.

Standing with his head poking out of the mini-kitchen was a greyhead. He had a sheepish smile on his wrinkled face.

“Pardons,” said the greyhead. “I was using the microwave.”