After checking the air pressure gauge, Flash opened the hatch between the TNI2 and the Mother Ship.  Flash could immediately make out controls, tubing, and everywhere the glint of silver.  

Upon seeing the ship for the first time, he realized that this would be his home for the foreseeable future.  K. D. Bazinga had instructed him, so he knew and understood all of the equipment aboard the ship.  Still, he was entranced by the sheer beauty of it.  Floating through the hatch, Flash had a palpable sense of hatching or being reborn into a new phase of his life.





The one thing he knew for sure was that adventure awaited him.  The details of that adventure would just have to wait to be seen.  Once again, Flash sped through the void of space, yet had no sensation of that speed.  While machines buzzed and clicked softly, the effect was calming to Flash who felt more at home here than he ever did on the Earth.

MEANWHILE:



Ash Lander had been called to a relations campaign in Viet Nam, and with the setbacks due to problems with the original, renovated TNI, he had decided to go.





K.D. would remain in close contact with Flash by means of an automaton fashioned in her image, and linked to the vast archives of human knowledge.  Her face became Flash’s interface with all that was known and his adventures would  certainly add to that wealth of information.

Flying a space ship is very different than driving a car. Not confined to roads, Flash set his sights on the distant Cornerstone region, and more specifically, on the tiny planet Olo.  Space travel reminded Flash of rowing a small boat on a lake at night. Heading toward a distant star was like coming around a peninsula and seeing the light of your own cabin on the shore. As a child in Michigan, Flash had noticed the stars reflected on the surface of the dark lake and had felt as though he were floating through the heavens. Now that feeling was reversed. The heartbeat of his space ship became the lapping of warm lake water as he fell asleep. 

Uninhabited, the mothership orbited the earth while plans back at Alpha Control were thwarted and reset. The renovated TNI continued to display electrical problems which could not be easily diagnosed. The modern components were fraught with incompatibilities and faulty workmanship. Flash missed the old TNI, and longed for the simple beauty and functionality of the craft which had taken him so far, and with such consistency. 

“This is all wrong”, he said, and abandoned the state of the art technology. Instead, he chose the sister ship to the original TNI, which had been in storage for decades. Refusing assistance from the experts in the aerospace industry, Flash went over the entire ship himself, and christened it the TNI2. 











On the anniversary of man’s first step onto the surface of the moon, Flash took off alone to rendezvous with the mothership which silently encircled the Earth. He couldn’t rely on anyone else.  No one seemed to share his vision, though his crew could be beamed aboard if they chose to join him. Flash felt compelled to go on alone for now, heeding the still, small voice within. After all, it was his birthday. 

Flash carefully approached the Mothership and prepared to dock the TNI2.

Fully docked, Flash opened the hatch and entered the Mothership. Soon, he was underway, and Earth grew smaller behind him.

Eleven years ago (before some of these students were born!) I worked with some of Mrs. Larson’s students to turn this suitcase into a TV. The image on the front depicts the Apollo 11 Lunar landing on July 20, 1969 (when I was about the age of these students – it was my 9th birthday!). Today I was back to talk about inventions (see the video in the next post). I thoroughly enjoyed being with these students today. They are so confident and talented, and they are friendly and respectful as well. Thank you Mrs. Larson and students! I had so much fun in your class today!

After weeks of preparation and speaking in school classrooms, the crew was ready to leave the pull of Earth’s gravity to join the mothership, which was fully assembled except for the refurbished TNI which would dock with it in the vacuum of space. It was only left to pack their personal belongings, and after a good night’s rest, take off for Olo and destinations unknown.  

“Speaking of packing, did I mention the state-of-the-art laundry facilities aboard the ship?” K. D. asked in passing, “An efficient dishwasher, too.  Our limited water supply will be continuously filtered and reused,” she said. “All moisture within the confines of the ship”.

“And drinking water?” Flash asked.

“Yes, drinking water, too.” she replied.

“What about leaks or spills?” Ash wondered aloud.

“All moisture. If it’s in the ship, it will be recaptured, refiltered and reused. It will water the plants, and all plant material will be composted and reclaimed. Everything must be recycled and reused, including what our bodies consume. As vital as this is on Earth, it is even more important aboard the ship.” K. D. continued,  “There is no other option.”


“Can you imagine what the Earth would be like if we as a race had learned that lesson a couple hundred years earlier?” Flash mused. His dream in the cryo-tube came back to him. So many questions lingered regarding his 10 year journey in the TNI. Questions that didn’t really need answers. Everyone needs a little mystery.  At the end of the day, what are all the answered questions anyway?  They are just over.  Finished.

Flash couldn’t plan the details of his life any more than he could plan his dreams, so it seemed best to just enjoy the journey as it unfolded.



That night Flash didn’t sleep much. He rarely slept on the night before a trip. He’d have plenty of time to sleep along the way. The schedule of day and night, and breaking life up into 24-hour time periods would lose their relevance soon anyway. His mind raced on ahead of him into the unknown, but no earthbound human being could predict the future any easier. Every life is fraught with change.

Photo by Liz O’Phelan
Today I spoke to the 8th Grade Business Tech class at Cook County Middle School in Grand Marais, MN. Thanks to Jane Gellner and the students for having me. After the speech, we viewed samples of the Flash Meridian blog, projected on that white wall behind me.

Video by Madeline Young

“i want to go with you,” Ash said.



The lead scientist working on the mother ship was named K. D. Bazinga.  She was familiar with the experience of space travel from early childhood, as her father had been an astronaut.  

Everything she knew about technology had been learned while Flash lay in suspended animation, so together they were a seamless storehouse of knowledge.  She talked Flash Meridian and Ash Lander through the finer points of the large craft and explained how the refurbished TNI would dock with it, allowing excursions to the surface of planets without landing the mother ship.



“You would be the perfect person to round out our crew,” the men said, and K. D. happily consented to join them. 



“What’s our time frame?” Flash asked.

“The mother ship had to go up in pieces and be assembled in orbit.  We’ll rendezvous with it in the TNI.  We should be ready to launch soon.” She replied.

“Where to?”  Ash asked. 

“I thought we’d head to the planet Olo,” Flash said. “the sonic pulses have intrigued me for a long time.  I’d like to know if there is any life there.”



“That’s in the Griz-boom region, said K. D., though it’s not really called that anymore. It’s just a speck in the Cornerstone constellation.”

“it was downgraded about the same time as Pluto.” Flash chimed in, impressed at K. D.’s knowledge of the heavens. 

“We’ll have to do a system scan on the TNI”, Ash added, “I have some questions about the electrical system.”



“We have a lot of work to do,” Flash agreed, anxious to move ahead with their launch. 

The following weeks went by quickly as the ground crew and astronauts performed tests on the equipment and readied themselves for the journey that lay before them.

Ash traced an intermittent electrical failure to an auto start component which left hired mechanics perplexed. “Tear it out”, Ash said. “We don’t need it”. A jumble of wire was removed from under the control panel, and the problem was solved. “It’s that much less weight we’ll be carrying, too”, he said, knowing that this would only be an issue until they were free of Earth’s  gravity.

“Auto start?” he muttered, shaking his head.  No one in the hangar claimed it as their idea. 

K. D. charted the route to Olo, scanning for asteroid concentration. The near-Earth debris would be trickier to navigate than the vastness of space along the rest of their path. 

MEANWHILE



A thriving community was established on Mars. Ash and his team had been instrumental in setting up Nomicon’s operation there a decade earlier.

Another new song by Jeremy Chase (Ash Lander), performed on the Flash Meridian set.

Here’s Jeremy performing a new song on the set of The New Adventures Of Flash Meridian. Recorded on my Flip Video Camera and titles added in iMovie.