Red Hope by J J (John) Dreese

couldn’t yet launch people into space, that
task would be left up to the Soyuz rocket. For years it had proven to be a
reliable way to get crews up to the International Space Station.
    Prior to the start of construction of the Turtles,
though, Chris faced the task of completing his team of astronauts. After more
extended interviews and searching he finally assembled a group of top notch
people. Keller got his wish to be onboard. The Russians got their wish too.

Chapter 10
     
    The first three members of the Mars crew mission came together quickly.
Adam and Molly both accepted the challenge and Keller simply assumed he was
included by default. The Russians demanded that NASA include a cosmonaut after
Keller nixed his deal with the Russian Defense Bureau.
    Chris searched far and wide to find the perfect
Russian Cosmonaut. With the team now complete, he brought them together at a
training facility near the Watsonville Airport. They would spend the next
several months working and training together. On the night after they all
arrived, Chris Tankovitch recommended that the four crewmembers have a meal
together in order to get to know each other better.
    Keller arrived late even though his beach house was
literally just a few minutes away. Everybody else had already ordered their
food. He sat down and opened a menu.
    “How would you like your coffee, darling?” asked the
waitress at the Denny’s in Santa Cruz.
    Since this was to be their grand introduction to each
other, Adam chose the familiar Denny’s restaurant as a place to meet. He always
thought it was a comfortable place to talk and share stories. Mostly, he liked
the weight of the dense coffee mugs and the clunk they made on the table.
    The waitress was getting impatient with Keller and
asked again, “So how do you like your coffee?”
    He grinned up at the waitress and answered, “I like my
coffee like I like my women. Caffeinated .”
    The waitress laughed and then winked at Keller as she
walked away. Adam stirred his coffee with a clink clink and broke the silence,
“So. I think this meal is the start of something great. This group is going to
change history.”
    Keller blurted out, “Well, let’s not get too far ahead
of ourselves. This meal is the start of a long gastrointestinal struggle; I
have a very sensitive stomach and I don’t see any organic food on this menu.”
    Keller was noticeably fidgety.
    Adam recovered from Keller’s statement and continued,
“It’s okay, you don’t have to eat anything. Now, I know we’ve all heard a
little bit about each other and I figured this would be a good place to tell
the whole story. I’ll tell you about myself and then we’ll go around the table,
okay?”
    Adam looked over his glasses at everybody to see if
they were in agreement.
    He continued, “So, my name is Adam Alston and I am
still barely thirty-something years old. I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. My claim
to fame is that I was on the shuttle STS-123. That was the shuttle mission to
fix the Trelm88 satellite back in 2008. After that, I wrote a book about space
travel; it sold modestly well in technical niche markets. Let’s see, I have a
degree in engineering and another in geology from Texas A&M. My main
specialty at NASA though was mission safety. I’m guessing that my shuttle
experience and geology are the main reasons NASA wanted me to lead this mission
though.”
    Yeva Turoskova was new to America and new to this
group. Being Russian, she did not enjoy small talk at all. However, she was
willing to oblige on this occasion. She sensed that Adam was done and nodded
her head.
    In her broken English, she said, “I too have very
similar qualifications as you Adam, but my work in fossil recovery is thought
to be a helpful skill here. It is funny that you mention the Trelm88 satellite.
I was on the mission that launched it in the first place.”
    Adam smiled, “Really?  That is a small world.”
    Yeva replied curtly, “We launched it okay.