Martin L. Shoemaker

This is the Shoemaker.Space free story for October 2026. You can also purchase it for Kindle.

“Fog rolling in, Marla.”
I sighed. Did Kevin always have to make this difficult? “Fog, Kevin? Or The Fog?”
“We have three new radar contacts, all without ARCID, all coming in with The Fog.”
“Damn.” I hadn’t started the pot of coffee yet, but I turned off the coffee maker. I could really use fresh coffee to deal with The Fog, but we had too much work to do before it engulfed the airport. I sat back down at my scope and confirmed Kevin’s report. Not that I really needed to: Kevin was a slob outside the Tower, but an absolute professional once he took his station.
I looked out through the big window to the west. Yeah, I could just see The Fog off on the horizon. “OK, time to get to work. Kevin, contact ARTCC and give them the new excuse. What was it again?”
Kevin brushed crumbs off a notepad and opened it to a middle page. The Tower was very high tech, with recently upgraded scopes and comm consoles. The notepad stood out as an anachronism amid all that technology; but we never made electronic notes about Fog Traffic Control. “Fuel truck broke down on the main runway.”
“That’s good. We’ve used instrument failure too many times this year. We might get an FAA audit team.” I picked up the phone to the Director’s office. “Beth, it’s Marla. The Fog’s coming.”

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On September 8, I was honored to present What’s Up There? at the Dorr Township Library. We talked about astronomy and all the things we can see in the sky. It was a great time! View the slides… Read More