you've got a stake in the world we ought to share

[gone_byebye]

The door opens into a perfectly civilized waiting room that could be at any airport anywhere in the early twenty-first United States if it only had a few dozen more people and a good deal more chaos. As it stands, the Virgin Galactic facilities at Spaceport America are considerably more organized than anything currently in commercial operation. Life's good when you've got a vertical monopoly.

At the moment Peter Venkman- looking younger than the one from the Bar, and with somewhat blockier but still recognizable features to those who've met him- is talking with a few people in sober grey suits. One of them glances up at the newcomers, eyes going wide; Peter turns. "Okay, see," he says to the blonde woman nearest him, who's got the Virgin Galactic logo on the tag hanging from her suit jacket, "that would be what the President was talking about when he said extraordinary resources. Hey, kids. They've got the ship all ready for us."

"Maybe not entirely ready," says the VG representative. "We're going to need a couple of minutes to switch in a slightly bigger chair..."

"Yeah, you do that." Peter grins. "Okay. Now. Can I get some names here before we head off into black-sky country?"

As Ray moves forward to start making introductions, a woman's voice with faint traces of Punjabi and English accents comes over the loudspeakers. "Final preparatory tests are complete. Once boarded and secured, VSS Enterprise is ready for launch."

Comments

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Enterprise?" Kirk is all smiles. "Ray, did you know about this?" He'd be feeling at home anyway. As mundane as the place looks, it has that feel of People On A Mission.

[gone_byebye]

"They only have two ships at the moment," Ray says. "The other one is VSS Voyager, and Voyager's only capable of sub-orbital flight. The name slipped my mind, but-" He smiles. "Just part of a long and glorious tradition."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"As I'm well aware of. Sailing vessels, aircraft carriers, the first test Space Shuttle, and a few more after your time and before mine." He keeps smiling. "How long till we get to see her?"

[gone_byebye]

For answer, Ray points to the window. "That way," he says. "You can't miss it."

There would be a link here to the appropriate image, but the narrator has been informed that the current version of Flash is not up to the task of visiting Mr. Branson's web site. Suffice it to say that the vehicle in question is white and red and designed to carry only a handful of people- but it's built by people who damn well know what they're doing.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

It reminds Kirk of a shuttle craft. It isn't what he expected, not form this time period of large and noisy boosters. "How does it get to orbit?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray points again to a significantly larger aircraft heading towards the smaller one. "That's how," he says. "That's Eve, the White Knight Two mothership. Enterprise is going to be piggybacking up most of the way; when Eve there reaches her maximum altitude, the locks holding Enterprise in place release, and Eve heads back to Earth as Enterprise's engines start their burn. Same design as Burt Rutan and the original SpaceShipOne, only scaled up to support a larger space vehicle."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

Kirk's timeline stuck with boosters straight through to the dawn of the Warp Drive Era, so he's a bit dubious about this. Not that he knows the engineering principles behind this well-established alternative.

"Well, as long as they know what they're doing."

[gone_byebye]

"You were the one who said Branson was going to be all right," Ray points out. "Timeline divergence, I take it?"

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Branson was a visionary, but he basically gave money to Roykirk and NASA and got out of the way. And Roykirk was...well, from what I've read, he was quite unique. And strange."

[gone_byebye]

"Huh." Ray shakes his head. "Well, this was based on the design work done by Burt Rutan and the rest of the crew at Scaled Composites Technologies. They're based in Mojave. The first actual commercial passenger flight's supposed to be taking place in... oh, early 2007. They're going to put the passengers through a week of flight training and they don't have to wear pressurized suits, but they're not going orbital, either. Mr. Branson's supposedly got big ambitions for this kind of venture."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"So we're pushing this past its limits. And it's untested." Which doesn't seem to bother Kirk very much. "Sounds cozy."

[gone_byebye]

"Yeah, pretty much," Ray says cheerfully. "Technology testing's always a dicey business, but you're never gonna know what to expect until you get it out in the field, you know?"

Peter is looking at Ray as if Ray had developed an extra head, mind you.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"No, you never do," Kirk says with one eye towards Venkman. He sees things more Ray's way than Peter's, though Peter isn't wrong.

"You must be one of Ray's fellow Ghostbusters, right?"

[ifeelsofunky.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that'd be me," says Peter. "Dr. Peter Venkman, at your service. And you would be...?"

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"James Kirk. I'm a friend of Ray's from the Bar." He assuems that Ray must have told his coworkers about the Bar.

[ifeelsofunky.livejournal.com]

Uuuup go the eyebrows. "Wait, what? As in-"

Winston suddenly raises his voice. "As in Naraht's captain, Peter. Remember?" Winston was, after all, the first of the three non-Bar Ghostbusters to realize why Lieutenant Naraht looked familiar. He is also the only one with any kind of common sense. He steps forward now. "Don't mind Peter, sir, he's got a hell of a case of jet lag. My name's Winston Zeddmore, and over there is Egon Spengler." 'Over there' refers to the tall, dark-haired, bespectacled man who's arguing with... oh, God, he's arguing with the pilot. "Welcome to New Mexico."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"It seems that Naraht got around, didn't he?" And spread Kirk's fame across the realities. Kirk would have to ask the Horta about that someday.

"Glad to meet you." He extends his hand gives a fairly relaxed handshake to each. "Has Ray told you that I'm probably the closest thing you're going to get to an expert on EVAs?"

[ifeelsofunky.livejournal.com]

"Actually, he came here once to give us a hand with an incident happening underground," says Winston as he reaches over to shake the hand. "We kept him under wraps, though. Didn't seem like a good idea to make him public."

Egon turns away from the pilot and heads over. "Good. I'm glad somebody is. Thank you for coming, Captain-"

"Admiral," Ray corrects.

"Admiral. We appreciate you taking the time to do this."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Well, let's say that it seemed like a good way to pass the time." He tries not to let his frustation at being Bound show. Not that they'd get it. "And I support the space program, not when or where."

[ifeelsofunky.livejournal.com]

Egon nods. Peter smiles. "Terrific. Hey, when all this is over, can I get your autograph?"

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

Kirk makes a very confused face. "I don;t see what good that will do you, Peter. Even if I do exist in your timeline, I'm not due for about 250 years."

[ifeelsofunky.livejournal.com]

"Call it a good luck charm," Peter says. "I don't have to show it anybody. I just wanna keep it in my wallet."

Winston rolls his eyes.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

Kirk stares at Peter for a moment. And can't makes sense of it. "Seems okay, I guess."

[gone_byebye]

Peter's almost got his mouth open to explain, and Winston's almost about to clap his hand over Peter's mouth, when a soft cough comes from the nearest door to the room. "If everyone is ready," says the Virgin Galactic representative, "we have your suits."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Then let's go..." Kirk isn't taking the lead, but not for lack of enthusiasm. He's missed space.

[gone_byebye]

They're not custom-fitted, but they do a pretty good job of matching everybody up properly. (There's some relief that nobody has to come up with a suit for Hellboy, though.) Ray's very visibly doing his best not to squee; it's not working well, but he's trying.

"All right. Does anybody have any questions or concerns before boarding?"

[bprd_agent_red]

Hellboy is surprised how well his suit fits, its hard to get clothes that will work on him. He looks around and out at the ship, "Hey Ray, think I can get a window seat?"

[gone_byebye]

"Won't be a problem," Ray says. "These planes're designed for people with a lot of money who want to see space for themselves. All the seats are window seats. And you get a really nice big porthole, too."

[bprd_agent_red]

"Great, sure beats the hell out of a garbage truck." Hellboy grins.

[gone_byebye]

"I can only imagine," Ray says. "Okay, then, I think we're set..."

(OOC: It's 3 AM where I am. I wish I could continue,b ut I'm losing coherency tonight. My apologies!)

[bprd_agent_red]

"Let's go stop someone from raisin' a buncha gods." Hellboy nodded.

[ooc: no worries I must be off too. I probably won't be back around til Friday though, m'sorry.]

[md_donighal]

Michael, who's just finished suiting up*, nods. "Time to save the world. I hope it's a habit I don't break again."

* Even if he were sure he could fly all the way there under his own power, which is debatable these days, he doesn't have an exact heading for the station and, what with space being the vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big place it is, doesn't want to fly around in a random orbit looking for it.

[md_donighal]

The man in the gray suit steps forward. "Dr. Venkman? Michael Donighal. I was on the Foliage Census run, though the two of us went in different directions once we all got inside the complex."

[ifeelsofunky.livejournal.com]

Peter leans over and offers a hand for the shaking. "I think I remember you. Nice to see you again, buddy- tell me, do you have any experience in space? Because I kind of get the feeling a couple of our number are gonna be spending some serious quality time making friends with NASA's answer to the barf bag."

[md_donighal]

"A fair amount. It wasn't something I did regularly until my original world's 2060s, but I can manage. I've no idea if I have vacuum support back, but I can fly under my own power again; even if I need a suit, which is quite likely, I won't be relying on an MMS pack."

[ifeelsofunky.livejournal.com]

"Okay, great," says Peter. "That's great. They're giving us suits here, but we don't get to keep 'em as souvenirs or anything. Ray got you guys up to speed, right?"

[md_donighal]

Michael nods. "International Space Station went offline, last known transmission showed one of the astronauts apparently dying an unholy death, got it. Did he mention that the Bar's brain-trust managed to identify the incantation the preceded Major Hogarth's transfiguration?"

[not-oswald.livejournal.com]

"He hadn't just yet," says Egon, looking up from his argument with the pilot (who hastily makes his break for it). "Although if it's what I think it is..."

"Yeah, it is, Egon," says Ray. "I'm sorry."

Dr. Spengler lets out a single extremely vulgar word under his breath.

"I don't think I liked the sound of that, Egon," says Peter. "Tell me I didn't hear what I thought I heard."

"Venkman, I-"

"You know what? On second thought, never mind. That kind of request never ends well with you."

Egon nods and turns back to the man in the grey suit. "If that's the case then I strongly suspect we're going to be forced to destroy the newly added section of the ISS. I managed to acquire some of the specifications for that wing and they look disturbingly familiar. Ray, who do we know who works with cold riveted selenium?"

Ray knows exactly the same bad words as Egon, if that syllable was anything to go by just now.

[md_donighal]

Cold riveted selenium, in and of itself, means nothing to the red-haired man, but in the context of two Ghostbusters discussing it, he thinks he gets the idea. "Let me guess: someone built a replica of the Manhattan Spirit Antenna where there'd be no interference from planetary mana?" Michael emits a brief burst of Irish Gaelic involving Mother Tana and twenty lit candles. "But I can destroy it." He snaps his fingers, striking sparks. "It'll take me longer than it would have once, but I can do my part to destroy it."

[not-oswald.livejournal.com]

"Good. Our equipment isn't designed for that kind of thing, which would've left Dr. Stantz here with the job of hacking it loose with his lightsaber," says Egon. "And I think we're going to need him inside more."