- Working at KSC
- NASA Old Headquarters building on KSC destroyed.
- Flintknapping points
- On going writing projects
- Vampires of Kennedy Space Center and the O&C
- Demons of Kennedy Space Center
- Demons of Kennedy Space Center, corpus callosotomy
- Ghosts of Kennedy Space Center, End of Spiders
- Dreams of Kennedy Space Center, lovers and pyramids.
- Witches of Kennedy Space Center
- Cave Bears of Kennedy Space Center
- Aliens of Kennedy Space Center, uninvited guests
- Remembering Kennedy Space Center
Director of Kennedy Space Center
"Have done with Monsters"
This is another tale of the Kennedy Space Center's multiverses, both in the distant past and the far future.
Follow ghosts, demons, gods, AIs, tourists, DNA experiments, vamps, and witches as they travel the multiverse only to discover their interconnections as allies and enemies across an endless history or future.
Every story is the true story.
This poster was on the wall of the now demolished "Old" NASA Headquarters building, I snapped a picture before demolition.
"Have done with Monsters"
The Center Director of Kennedy Space Center, a political appointee with no tolerance for bad press or monsters, stomped down the halls of the Launch Control Center where monitors flashed frost- words "Warning Forced reboot."
He snarled, stepping outside, past the glowing 'No Smoking sign,' passing in and out of the moonlight and pillars.
"Since when have those no smoking signs been illuminated?" he said to the dozen security police who followed with tightly leashed savage, looking dogs.
There she was, the monster smug and intolerable, living in his Launch Control Center.
"Ophelia! Again, I insist you move to the room we provided in the VAB Highbay Three," said Director Lyme.
"Your VAB prison?" purred Ophelia. "Where you can study and .....dissect me? Quantum biology training for your sycophants, open my skull? Trepanation your ancestral hobby. Earthers believed the practice would cure epileptic seizure neuron freeze? Computed tomography x-ray? Antiphlogistic agitated, jabs, starve, shock, purge, burn and blister? Your repulsive frictions to nape and spine, DNA harvest, salivate to your alien porn?
I must beg respectfully to decline your kindly offer of extinction, fully cognizant of the forced reboot honor you intended for me."
She had easily read his mind, his salivation at torture he would call science, and she imitated his shape, an action that always animated the vain politician.
His eyes bulged, and the bitch always gave him too little hair and too much weight. She makes me look like a tick!
"Visual shape discrimination for this type of earther. Reflection of true self, animistic sense, and to the emulative propensity representation of shark lampreys or fat blood ticks? Or a cravenly submissive vampire?" she said, followed by sharp laughter.
With too much color in his cheeks, faltering hands, and a mingled gurgle of rage, the Director drew a hidden revolver.
Guns were not allowed on the space center.
Marcus moved to tackle the Director; however, Ophelia thrust one wing at the former astronaut, the tips of her feathers curling up to make a halting motion.
Marcus remained in his NASA fighting stance and noticed the strange figures wearing oxygen tanks and full-face respirators creeping into sight from between the moonlit columns. They stopped as if waiting for orders.
"Drink this!" ordered Director Lyme.
A bottle in one hand and a shaking gun in the other. The Director set the bottle on the ground and stepped back, his gun hand shaking.
"Given in darkness, given in the light? "said Ophelia.
She purred to the wolf-children, and the guard dogs wagged their tails with puppy whimpers. A cinnamon pheromone cloud wafted over the guards, and they began to weep with longing and keening for both past and future loves.
The center director was not affected by the pheromone cloud; such is the design of those primates named politicians whose primary human affection was called power.
"Well, I'll take a taste," said Ophelia, lifting the flask to her toothy lips and taking a long draught that tasted of hydrazine.
Ophelia felt an icy chill go through her body; algorithms quantized, her eyes flashed carmine, and her shape flickered in various forms until thoroughly reconciled, and she smiled at him quixotically.
"Synthetic poison to ride to the stars? How clever the earthers!"
Enthusiastically, she lifted the flask for another sip.
The dogs howled, and she smiled; so dangerous. "Disentangle languages and time? Metaphysic exertion!"
She clapped her wings.
The public address system said, "When flight hardware is present, there is also the risk of inadvertent initiation of pyrotechnic devices, presupposed significance, agreeable combination influences, and beautiful things."
Ophelia clapped her wings again, and Director Lyme found himself spun into a vortex and sucked into a saffron cloud. The dogs howled, and the guards wept.
He fell through.
Director Lyme landed roughly on a swaying galleon.
"What? Where am I?" demanded the Director of Kennedy Space Center.
Ophelia stood on the railing; a ghost of a smile lighted her winsome features. She released the railing only long enough to draw back her loosened red hair and fasten it in place with a leather cord.
A gull gripped the ropes and flashed carmine eyes at the Director, who desperately clung to wet rigging, his fingers intertwined in rope-like twisting ivy grip.
Admiral Marcus studied the approaching hurricane through the gloaming and appraised Florida's distant emerald and white shoreline.
Marcus spoke with heroic eloquence, "Secure the sails and raise the storm jib! We will be lucky to see the dawn." We should have never left Cuba during the season of hurricanes.
Marcus turned to the English stowaway, who looked more like a merchant than a hardened privateer.
"Englishman! How did you get aboard my ship? Are you a spy for the Boston or Jamaican pirates working for their godless king?" said Marcus as another fierce billow swept the ship.
"No! What?" sputtered the Director of Kennedy Space Center.
In her human shape, Ophelia, wearing an open bodice of plain cotton beguiling with velvet trim, her red braids swept back by hurricane-force winds, spoke saucily to Director Lyme, "Isn't this exhilarating? The wind and salt spray!"
The heavily loaded treasure galleon rocked to another powerful squall.
Ophelia smiled at Lyme, "Try to be calm. Did you know, Director Lyme, that there were some survivors of the 1714 treasure fleet? Those dexterous few, those dexterous few!"
She gestured to the far Florida shore and sun, only a sinking orange blur in the west.
"The twilight of a coming doom?" asked Ophelia. "Admiral Marcus is a good seaman; he will be a good space shuttle pilot and even better master of the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. He is the sky god.
However, which galleon are we on? Hmm, some of the treasure ships went down with all hands, and some, many survived to the Florida beach. Those dexterous few. Can you swim, Director Lyme?"
Her eyes flashed carmine.
He had always been terrified of water and confined spaces, his most deeply guarded secrets.
"Are you afraid, Lyme?" she asked, blithe of mood. "Would you like some of your tasty poison?"
Torrents of sea spray assaulted him, and a wet warmth grew in his pants, a new sensation. He turned to hide his pants from the -what was she?
"How did I get on this ship?" asked Lyme, feeling queasy; the horizon was ever-changing.
Then panic again, "This is not real!" he screamed. "No, I refuse it to be so!"
The Director saw a slave chained to the mast; it was Eileen!
"Eileen! Oh my god! Where are we?"
Eileen flashed questioning eyes at the foreigner turning green from ocean sickness.
"Our hurricane witch failed in calling the warning. Can you believe that?" said Ophelia. "She is beautiful. That alone keeps me from tossing her overboard to the krakens," said Ophelia.
"You call her I-lean? How quaint."
They were all leaning toward the rocking treasure ship.
Salt spray hid the salty tears on the Director's cheeks. "No, NO!"
"Get that Englishman stowaway below decks! Or, by my leave, toss him over if he continues to be a pain," commanded Marcus.
Lyme screamed in terror because he was going mad. Stark raving mad, and to the southeast, a growing maelstrom of a killer hurricane.
Three burly seamen slapped manacles on the Director's wrists and pulled him to a hastily opened hatch, the entrance to a darkened hold that reeked of vomit and the sound of panicked women praying. An unused ELSA-breathing air escape tank with hood lay in the hold.
"No!" he screamed. He was even more afraid of dark, confined spaces and had always refused to wear the emergency escape tanks, which all space center workers were required to be certified with as a condition of employment.
A claxon sounded in the background, and the sailors dropped the stowaway into the blackness of the hold. A rat ran across his legs, flashing carmine eyes.
His final scream, "The poison!" Lyme recognized the brief odor of hydrazine wafting from the hold, and the oak hatch was sealed against the coming hurricane.
"Those dexterous few," said Ophelia, thrilled as another violent squall pushed the ship to its gunwales, the Florida shoreline ever closer.
Cinnamon locks were plastered to her forehead as the hurricane neared. "The reefs and shoals soon to feed," she cooed.
Faint screams of abject terror came from below the decking.
Those dexterous few.
A beautiful day was ending, heralding the killer night.
Other tails of the Space Center:
Vampires of Kennedy Space Center
Demons of Kennedy Space Center
Demons of Kennedy Space Center, corpus callosotomy
Ghosts of Kennedy Space Center
Dreams of Kennedy Space Center
Aliens of Kennedy Space Center
Director of Kennedy Space Center
Witches of Kennedy Space Center
Cave Bears of Kennedy Space Center
Chimeras of Kennedy Space Center
Gods of Kennedy Space Center and the Nile
Dinosaurs of Kennedy Space Center
Kayakers of Kennedy Space Center
Remembering Kennedy Space Center
Shadows of Kennedy Space Center
Gate Jumpers of Kennedy Space Center
Allies of Kennedy Space Center (Pt 2 of Gate Jumpers
Savants of Kennedy Space Center
Ferals of Kennedy Space Center
Return HOME from Director of Kennedy Space Center page
For pet lovers around the globe, "It's a Matter of Luck" is a collection of heart warming stories of horse rescues from the slaughterhouse.
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by Kim Ryba & Lina T. Lindgren
Warning: This book may cause your eyes to water in a good way. (speaking from experience after reading it)
Please give Kim and Lina a heartfelt review on Amazon!
Author Bruce Ryba at Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39B & Artemis 1. "We are going to the Moon!"
Author's discussion (that's me) on You Tube of a book review on Amazon
For the video versions of information, please check out my YouTube Channel (Turkeys, Flintknapping, dive stories etc.)
My fictional series/stories on Florida history:
Freedoms Quest (book one)
Struggle for the northern frontier and other lost tales of old Florida.
Available on Amazon
Desperate times call for bold action.
In a desperate move to retain Florida and protect the treasure-laden galleons on their dangerous return journey to Europe, the King of Spain issues a royal decree offering refuge to all English slaves who escape Florida and pick up a musket to defend the coquina walls of Saint Augustine.
In another bold gamble, the King offers refuge to the dissatisfied Indian nations of the southeast who will take up arms against the English.
Clans, traumatized by war and disease, cross the Spanish Frontier to settle the cattle-rich land and burned missions of Florida.
Follow the descendants of the conquistador Louis Castillo in remote Spanish Florida, a wild and swept by diseases, hurricanes, and northern invasions.
Book Two: Available on Amazon!