Starting The Ball Rolling

With a plan in place, they jumped back close to Saturn's orbit the next morning and put the ship to start coasting towards Earth going at the 25% light speed they were able to hit on the way to Pluto before Holly and Rachel had started using their mover ability to push it faster. They then shut the engine down and, with no engine power, they set the engine to do a couple of short runs to make it look like they were experiencing engine problems and then continued to coast towards Earth with random engine runs set to last for longer periods as they got closer and were more likely to attract attention from other space agencies. As they finally came to the notice of earth's space agencies and their status was questioned, they stuck to their story of the engine having an electrical glitch that caused them to start getting unpredictable data from the engine and, thinking they were correcting an improper trajectory, they had put the ship on an unexpected trajectory before they had to shut the engine down and try to correct the problem. They also told them that after they had verified their actual course taking them towards Pluto, they used the small planet to perform a gravity slingshot that put them on a course back home and they had been using brief tests of the engine to perform small course corrections to keep them on course for the company's robotic shipyard to enable them to perform the needed repairs to the engine's electrical system. When they finally coasted to the robotic shipyards that Stephan had used to build the ship originally, they briefly used the engine to slow the ship down to a crawl and slowly floated forward until the robots were able to secure the ship to the dock and start doing a systematic checkup of the engine and appear to be doing an upgrade to the electrical system that looked to outside eyes like the needed repairs.

A short while after Stephan had given the robots instructions of what to do to the ship to get it ready for the next trip and had started them to making a bigger ship capable of carrying the needed future colonists, Greg and Angie arrived with their shuttle, Tesla, and carried them to the International Space Station. They then endured a day filled with a round of interviews set up to document what they said had happened to the ship and the speeds it had been able to reach before malfunctioning so that the information could be passed on to the various governments that might be interested in the engine's performance. After a brief rest, they then all boarded the Tesla and gladly returned to Earth.

Upon landing the ladies gladly let Stephan deal with the mass of personnel from all of the different agencies that were throwing millions of questions at them, quickly grabbed what little they had left in their lockers in the changing room for the space suits, and went back to their respective homes to enjoy the quiet relaxation until Stephan had satisfied the information everyone was demanding of him.. Late the next day Stephan finally arrived to the office. Asking the others to gather with him in the conference room, he quickly went to his office and changed into a spare suit he had kept there for when needed and, after freshening up, he grabbed the paperwork he needed and went there himself.

Walking in he wearily told them, "I swear next time I'm gonna push one of you out in front of me and let you deal with that crazy circus you ladies left me with all the way up until they finally ran out of questions about an hour ago!"

"Ouch." Dawn expressed in sympathy, "I didn't know they'd keep you that long or even how they came up with that many questions. I thought it would be just a couple hours and then you'd be home by supper time."

"I wish!" Stephan sighed, "Each agency would have like two or three hours with of questions and then pass me off to the next agency all day long. And the closest I got to sleep was the fifteen minutes or so it would take them to decide who was next, come in and get all their questions prepared, and then wake me up demanding to know everything they could think of. I mean I even had one guy ask me if what I ate affected top speed of the engine while another asked me if I saw any alien structures on the far side of Pluto."

"Wow." Rachel chuckled.

Seeing Ranita coming up to the door, Stephan told them, "The reason I called you guys together though wasn't to fuss about leaving me to the wolves. I t was to give you a heads up on what Ranita has probably come to tell me has arrived."

"I guess all that radiation up in space made you psychic boss." Ranita shyly opened with, "I've got about a dozen press folks downstairs saying you invited them for something."

Smiling, Stephan told her, "Yes I did. Please put them in the big conference room we have downstairs for company wide meetings and those rare press interviews. Tell them I'll be down in about ten or fifteen minutes, please."

She acknowledged it and left as Holly demanded, "Whoa boss! What's with the press so soon?"

"That, my dear, is why I called you here." He answered, "After getting so much attention from almost all arms of our government along with a couple others I decided last night to go ahead and use this attention to help us roll out the colony plan. That way it gets at least a little bit of serious news before we get it put out there as a crazy waste of time and money or played up to just attract the cooky space nuts looking for aliens and all."

"So does that mean you want us there with you for serious business like visuals? Or did you give us a heads up so we know not to give too much info within hearing distance in case they have any roaming the halls looking for some inside scoops?" Rachel asked.

"A little bit of both to be honest." Stephan replied, "I'd like for you to come with me to the press meeting, but I was gonna let holly stay up here working on that new design. And, as for Dawn and Jessica, they'd focus more on Jessica being so young than on anything we had to say if she was with us while Dawn's dad would probably have a hissy fit if she was even in sight of the press without being able to promote his company and all their medical research and all that."

"Well Jessica stayed at home today saying she was gonna chill in that pool she had you build for her," Dawn explained, "And when it comes to the press and those nosy or off the wall questions some of them ask you, I'd much rather be up here out of sight. Especially if that one reporter that was halfway stalking me every time I was in public looking for some controversy on dad a couple years ago is down there."

Stephan laughed and replied, "That guy is the reason I have those spikes and electric car zappers and doorbells outside the house. Cause I got tired of him hounding me for info thinking I was friends with my neighbor or parking at the end of my driveway so he could try and watch your gate or use his binoculars to spy in on any windows he could see. I finally got tired of it and paid one of your guards to randomly drive out and circle around town without stopping for a couple of hours every day for a week so I could put all that stuff up to keep him away so I could work in peace."

"But anyway," Stephan concluded, "Just wanted to make sure we were all set and ready to play our parts today so we can start getting the ball rolling on this colony deal before we wait too long and have to push the ball harder to get it rolling and all. Now, Rachel, let's go ahead and get this over with before the press gets bored and start asking about our dating lives and what we had for breakfast or what color our offering to the toilet god was this morning and all sorts of even more awkward personal questions."

Chuckling as they left, Rachel complained, "But you know I love watching them squirm when I start going into detail about Holly and me knowing they can't print any of it without it coming off like they're writing some erotic porn story."

"Yeah," Stephan groaned, "but then they start hounding me wanting to know if I let y'all get intimate while at work, or if I participate, or even if I'm secretly running some type of sex shop. I know it's funny to look back on after they leave, but it's awfully aggravating to deal with while they're trying to dig up whatever dirt on any of us they can think of."