Rocket! An Ell Donsaii story #4) (8 page)

The big guy said, “I’m Vic. Are you a student at the ‘U’?”

“Part time.”

He nodded, “I’m on the football team.” His eyes said she should be impressed. “Vic Galtieri.”

“What do you study?” Ell looked over at Joe who’d unsteadily come around Vic.

Joe cheerfully said, “Belle!” and reached out toward her.

“General studies.” Vic said to Ell, then he turned slightly toward Joe, “Get lost.”

Joe turned to look blearily at Vic. Ell said, “Joe’s a friend of mine.”

Without looking back at Ell, Vic growled, “Joe’s a drunk who’s gonna go sit down until he’s sober enough to walk.”

Joe turned back to Ell with his big grin still plastered on his face, “Maybe he’sh right Belle, you wanna help me go sit down?”

Narrowed eyes on Joe, Vic said, “No, she’s gonna stay here. She and I were talkin.’”

Sighing inside, Ell reached out to steady Joe. “Vic, I can decide for myself what I’m going to do.”

Ell saw Vic tense and his hand start to rise. She dropped into the zone a little.

Vic said, “This drunk can sit down right here then.” His hand rose.

Realizing that Vic intended to shove Joe and knock him down, Ell sent her hand up underneath Vic’s. She wondered if she could push his arm up just the right amount? She didn’t want to hit his arm hard and injure him like she had her step-dad Jake; she just wanted to push it up enough that it didn’t hit Joe. It was a big arm. She went deeper in the zone and watched her hand settle under Vic’s meaty distal forearm. She pushed upward gently and then a little harder when she realized it wouldn’t be enough to move an arm the size of Vic’s. Vic’s hand slid up and over Joe’s shoulder and Ell’s hand rotated to settle on Joe’s shoulder, steadying him and turning him away from Vic.

Vic stumbled when his hand didn’t meet the expected resistance. Ell realized that Vic was fairly drunk himself, though it didn’t show on him like it did on Joe. Ell started to guide Joe toward a bench keeping an eye on Vic over her shoulder. Vic staggered a step or two, then turned back toward them.
Damn, why can’t he just leave us alone!

Gordon appeared behind him, “Hey Vic,” he started.

“Butt out Gordon.” Vic rumbled, shambling after Ell and Joe.

Gordon started to reach out for him, “Vic, calm down! You know how you get when you’re drunk.”

Saying, “I said BUTT out!” Vic reached out one big meaty hand and shoved Gordon. Gordon staggered back, stumbling into an azalea bush and losing his footing. Vic resumed stumping after Ell and Joe.

Ell turned Joe and sat him down on the bench. He grinned up at her. “Heeyy Belle,” he drawled, seemingly completely unaware of the high tension situation surrounding him.

Vic lumbered up and reached for Ell’s arm, “Let’s get outta here Belle.”

Ell moved her arm so he missed it, “No! Vic, I’m sorry, but you’re acting like a jerk. I don’t
want
to go anywhere with you.”

He narrowed his eyes and reached again, “Come on! You’ll like it!”

Ell moved her arm out of his grasp again, Gordon was coming up on Vic’s other side. She wondered what she could do to get this situation back in control?
How had it escalated so quickly? Are all college parties like this?
Or was it something about her, somehow bringing out the worst in people?

Gordon said, “Vic! Leave her alone!” and reached for Vic’s arm.

Ell had come most of the way back up out of the zone, she pushed herself back down into it.
Crap!
She saw Vic tensing as Gordon touched his arm.
He’s going to hit Gordon!
Vic’s hand formed a fist and he began to turn toward Gordon, muscles bunching as he built a full roundhouse punch.
My God! If that punch hits, Gordon’s going
down
. Hard!
Ell moved with Vic, reaching up again to slap the bottom of his forearm and deflect the punch up above Gordon’s startled face. Gordon’s face showed that he realized how badly he’d underestimated Vic’s current state. Vic’s knuckle grazed Gordon’s forehead, knocking his head back a little, but then Vic himself, unbalanced by the miss, lurched forward and stumbled into Gordon. They went down in a tangle of limbs, Vic bellowing with rage.

Ell stepped closer, studying the debacle in front of her. Vic was coming down, his waist across Gordon’s ribs, Vic’s upper body to Gordon’s right. Gordon’s arms were flailing out, trying to keep his head from hitting the ground. Ell reached out for Gordon’s right hand with hers, reaching with her left hand into her purse. When she had a good grip on Gordon’s hand she leaned back, pulling hard, trying to help keep his head from hitting the bricks, as well as pulling him out from under Vic. As the two men crashed to the ground, Ell’s pull slid Gordon somewhat out from under Vic, but not completely. She leaned to her right, trying to roll Gordon out from under him. As she’d feared, the thrown punch having failed, Vic began to surge back, now ready to wrestle.

Ell leaned forward, stretched out her left arm and gently squeezed a small dose of pepper spray into Vic’s face. Then she surged back to resume pulling on Gordon’s arm. Vic’s arm that had been snaking around Gordon’s torso, stopped and began pulling back to grasp his face in agony. Gordon rolled the rest of the way out from under Vic, got his hands under him and heaved himself to his feet, prepared for fight or flight. His eyebrows creased as he looked at Vic. “What happened to him?” Vic was scrubbing at his eyes and coughing violently.

“Pepper spray,” Ell said quietly, looking around at the crowd that had begun staring at them. Barrett and Randy from her security team were just turning to fade back into the shadows as it began to look like they weren’t needed. She leaned down to Vic, “Sorry Vic. Let me help you get into the bathroom to wash your face.”

Gordon said, “Whoa! Remind me not to piss
you
off!”

Vic coughed again, he must have been inhaling when Ell shot him with the spray. “Wha’ ta’ Hell happen’!?” He coughed again but pushed himself to his feet and let Ell start leading him toward the house.

Ell turned to Gordon, “Gordon. Where’s the bathroom?”

Gordon shook his head, “I wouldn’t go in there with him if I were you Belle. He’s an
animal
when he’s drunk. I wouldn’t have invited him but he
promised
to stay sober.”

Ell rolled her eyes at Gordon, “He’s hurt, we gotta help him get in and get this stuff washed off of him.”

Gordon shrugged and said, “This way.” He stepped into the lead and Ell guided the sobbing Vic after him.

When Ell got back to the farmhouse that night she found Steve waiting up. “Hey, you’re not on duty.”

“No but Barrett called to let me know what happened. You’re a one woman calamity zone!”

“Hey!
I
didn’t start anything! It was a drunk guy that apparently
likes
to get into fights!”

“Drunk guy getting in a fight over a
woman
.
You!
You really should stay away from these situations!”

“I didn’t do anything to get the guy started! He was plain spoilin’ for a fight!”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sorry, I know it wasn’t your fault. I just don’t want you getting hurt is all. You really shouldn’t be going to these kinds of wild parties. At least not looking so good. Pretty girls attract aggressive guys. ”

Ell looked at him a moment, “Hey Steve. I know it’s a weird dichotomy, but, even though I’m your boss, I’m
just
a kid you know. I need to get out and live life a little don’t you think? That’s half the reason I’m taking that astronomy class—so I can spend some time with kids my age.”

Steve looked up at the ceiling, then drew a long suffering sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I just don’t like it.”

She grinned at him, “’night Dad.”

Steve rolled his eyes, “I’m not your Dad,” he growled, “if I were, you’d be better behaved!”

She blinked her eyes up at him, “Yes Daddy.”

“Oh Hell, who am I kidding? You’d have me wrapped around your finger.”

Chapter Five

Ell looked around the table at her D5R researchers. Another meeting, another set of frustrating results. “Roger, what about your idea to use nanotubes for an intermediate path to making our ports?”

He shook his head dispiritedly, “We entangled some nanotubes but they have to be moved much slower than buckyballs if you don’t want to break the entanglement. It would slightly speed up the creation of a 10mm port from doing the whole thing with buckyballs. But each port would still take months. Sorry.”

Ell tried not to let her disappointment show. “Any other ideas?” she asked with a perky tone.

Stavos said, “We should go out.”

Ell tilted her head, “Out?”

“Yeah, socialize. Get to know each other away from here. Think about something else besides work.”

Ell’s first thought was surprise that he thought of it as work, doing what you loved. Well, what
she
loved. Though she loved research, maybe the rest of the team
did
think of it as a job? She knew first hand that research was fun when you were getting results—not so much when results were few and far between. In fact, maybe she liked science, not slogging away at the research end of it. “Sounds good!” Ell tried to keep some sparkle in her voice. It frequently surprised her to be nineteen and have these older people looking to her for leadership, but she recognized that she was their leader, no matter how unexpected it may be. “What do you suggest?”

“Sports bar, tomorrow night.”

Ell looked around the table seeing ambivalence, or at best small amounts of enthusiasm, but she didn’t have any better ideas. “OK!” she said keeping an enthusiastic tone, “Tomorrow night. Ben to pick the bar, D5R to pick up the tab, fun to be had by all!”

***

Washington D.C.—Critics of NASA are lining up to say “I told you so,” in regards to NASA’s decision to move quickly to the ill fated Vulcan 5 rockets. Steven Esklund has begun demanding that the “ancient” International Space Station be abandoned once the current astronauts have been safely rescued. “It has been up there far longer than its expected lifespan anyway. We have no business putting people up there into harms way to do things that can be done by robotic entities.”

“The new PGR chips make remotely operated telepresence the obvious method to further space science…”

Allan, Ell’s AI spoke in her ear, “You have a call from Phillip Zabrisk.”

“Put him on! Phil, how are you doing?”

Phil chuckled, “How am I doing? Ha! Asks the woman who’s single handedly destroying my intended career as an astronaut?”

“What?! How do you figure that?”

“Haven’t you been hearing all this talk about using remote control of robotic astronauts with those PGR chips that are based on your theory? Then they won’t have to keep sending expensive astronauts into dangerous locations?”

“Oh!” Ell thought furiously, then said with a chipper tone, “But a remote telepresence astronaut can be over six foot three can’t he?”

“You’re so behind the times! I took Denson’s advice to slouch and convinced NASA that I’m six foot two and a half, not six foot three and a half.”

“Oh.” Ell said in a small voice.

“And, I
don’t
want to fly my spaceship from a cubicle! No girl’s gonna go googly eyed over that!”

“Sorry.” Ell said contritely.

Phil laughed, “Oh hell, it isn’t your fault. Besides, telepresence or no, I can’t believe they won’t be sending people up there again once they get this Vulcan 5 snafu straightened out.”

“So, did you get accepted by NASA?”

“Well I haven’t been rejected yet. I’m hoping to find out before graduation.”

“Oh! That’s right, when exactly is your graduation?”

“Wednesday, two weeks.”

“Hey, could I get a ticket?”

“Sorry, they’re all gone.”

Disappointed, Ell said, “Oh.”

“However there is a spot reserved for one ‘Captain Donsaii’ on the reviewing stand. Something about her being a ‘special friend of the graduating class.’”

“What!”

“Yeah, the class figured that ‘Ell Donsaii’ should be there for the graduation of her class, even if she was too uppity to graduate with the rest of us. I got elected to ask you.”

“Hah! I’ll be there. ‘Uppity’ and all.”

“They want you to wear your uniform. Since you’re still in the reserves you’re entitled to wear it.”

“Oh! I’ll have to get it out of storage. Have your AI send me ticket codes and the other info and I’ll be there.”

***

Ell walked into Bailey’s for their D5R “social hour” and looked around.

A pretty hostess asked, “Would you like a table?”

Ell heard her name and saw Ben Stavos waving from over near the pool tables. She thanked the hostess and headed over to hop up on one of the barstools around the tables Ben had sequestered. She grinned at him, “Is it just you and me?”

“Naw, Eddy just came in, Sheila is in the bathroom, Brian promised he’d be here. Don’t know about ‘team ring ding’ though.”

Ell had noticed a little rivalry developing between the team trying to entangle tori and the team trying to make rings out of the buckyballs. She wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad but it was crazy to pretend it wasn’t there. “Are all the ‘ball busters’ going to be here?”

“Hah! ‘Ball busters!’ I like that! I think they’ll all be here.”

The waitress came by and Ben ordered a Guinness. Ell ordered a Coke. “What! Are you a teetotaler or something?”

Ell grinned at him, “Uh, Ben? Underage? Are you trying to be a bad influence on me? Lead me into a corrupt life of drunken debauchery?

His eyes widened in startlement as he was reminded just how young his boss was. Eddy ordered a wheat beer and Sheila a glass of Merlot.

More and more of the D5R team filtered in and ordered drinks, then nachos and wings. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits with good-natured teasing developing between the “Ring dings” and the “Ball busters.” Ell surveyed the happy crowd and decided that the “social hour” had been a great idea. She leaned closer to Ben and said, “Hey thanks for suggesting this. Think we should do it regularly?”