by M. D. Cooper
“Buckle up, guys,” he said, pulling on the retracted safety straps. The straps snaked from their receptacles at his touch, and snapped their locks together at his midriff.
“Awww,” Donnie said. “Do we have to? I prefer being loose and easy, if you know what I mean.” He waggled his eyebrows at Kris and Art, who guffawed.
“I hope I don’t, Donnie,” Beck replied, laughing. “And I don’t want to find out. Strap in, fella. I aim to find out exactly what this bird can do. So unless you wanna be crawling on the ceiling while I pull some sweet gs…”
“Hey, Beck,” said Kris, “Can we all have a turn flying? I’ve never flown a planet hopper before.”
“What?” Beck replied in mock incredulity. “Let you get your clumsy paws on my pride and joy? Save up and buy your own.” An idea popped into his head, and he gasped at the exciting realization. “Then we can have races!”
“Whoa,” said Art. “You just blew my mind.”
Beck started up the BlazeRay’s engine. The control panel’s holodisplay flickered to life, and his heart sped up. This was it. From the awed silence in the cabin, Beck guessed his friends felt the same thrill.
He lifted the ship from the pad on his apartment building’s roof, and checked the readouts. Everything seemed to be working. The ship’s Link initiated the connection to his mind, and Beck was integrated. His heartbeat surged even faster. He and the ship were one.
Beck hadn’t expected the Landfall ATC to be so particular about small craft. His prior flight experience was doing light dives over Eris from Korda Station; no one there had worried much about flight plans for skiffs like this. Given that there were only a quarter million people living on Carthage, he’d expected things to be even more lax.
“Come on, Beck,” Kris interrupted. “What’s the holdup?”
“Wait a sec. I’m just talking to air traffic control.” He’d been a little annoyed by the controller’s interruption, but now self-importance trumped his irritation. “I have to tell them my flight plan.”
“OK, guys,” he said. “We’re all set.”
Beck maneuvered the BlazeRay off the building’s roof. It floated like a feather on an updraft above the streets below. The ship was so responsive, he felt he could have controlled it with his breath. Normally that would be a bad thing, but with the anti-gravity systems, the ship held perfectly steady after every adjustment.
“Ooowee,” exclaimed Donnie. “Here we go!”
“Air traffic control told me to head out to coordinates at the Adriatic coast,” Beck said. “We’ll be there in around half an hour. Then the real fun begins.”
The hollers and whoops of his companions deafened him. He beamed. They were all in for one helluva ride.
* * * * *
Marcia checked in with space traffic control. The Holgate’s shuttle was cleared for landing at Naxos Spaceport, approaching on a southerly route aligned with the Holgate’s orbit. That would bring them in over the Mediterranean, allowing them to pass between the western and southern heat vents. The route would take them over the continent of Iberia, and then Parthia before they reached Carthage’s central archipelago and the island of Naxos.
She rubbed the knot in the back of her neck. The last flight of a duty period always seemed to take the longest, no matter what the duration. She would be glad to finally shut down the engines and step out into fresh air.
Spending weeks on end aboard a spaceship really made a person appreciate how rich and clean air on a planet could smell. Sure, she’d gotten used to that sour, tainted odor that the Holgate’s aging filtering units never quite managed to eradicate—after a few days aboard, you didn’t notice it anymore. But she knew it was there nevertheless, which meant that all the time she was on the ship, she felt icky. It didn’t matter how many showers she took or how often she changed her uniform, that slightly dirty feeling didn’t dissipate.
As Marcia double-checked the shuttle’s bearing and trajectory, she wistfully recalled the scent of the tomato plants in her little garden. Now that was a nice smell. Kind of peppery and green. She hoped at least a few tomatoes remained ripening on the vine, ready for her to eat. The food in the ship’s canteen was OK, but nothing beat the taste of homegrown produce.
Marcia turned the nose of the shuttle toward the westernmost landmass as the STC controller continued.
The controller had only left her a minute or two to make the adjustments, burning hard to adjust their path in toward the planet to approach over the northern hemisphere rather than the south, but she managed to execute them without causing anyone undue discomfort in the cabin.
”Everything OK?” Alma asked.
Marcia gave an absent nod. “Yeah, just a weather shift, we’re coming in from the north.”
Their new course would take them over Hyperborea, across the Adriatic and across the southern spur of the Scythian continent before they reached Naxos. It would add ten minutes to their flying time. Marcia announced the change to the passenger cabin and heard the groans and complaints. The Holgate’s crew were as eager to return home as she was.
Behind her, Dunworthy asked the comms officer, “Is the shuttle’s Link holding up?”
“Steady as a rock, sir,” Alma replied.
* * * * *
The BlazeRay flew up through the stratosphere like an ascending angel. Beck could hardly contain his delight at piloting his new ship. She was worth ten times what he’d paid for her. He’d flown his fair share of pleasure craft back in Sol, but the BlazeRay was equipped with new anti-gravity drives, and there was sim
ply no comparison to impulse drive systems. It was, hands down, light years easier to handle than the planet hopper he’d sold before leaving Earth. The controls were almost intuitive, seeming to anticipate his every move.
“Stars, she’s a dream, guys,” he said. “A miracle.”
The screen in the dashboard showed the brilliant blue and green curve of Carthage growing more convex below, the island of Hyperborea visible to the east, wreathed in dusty clouds. On their right were the drifting clouds of the nebulous ring, and on their left was black velvet studded with the Cradle’s diamond points of light.
His companions lay beside him—their seats now horizontal, as the BlazeRay swept upward—all wearing goofy grins.
“Awww, man,” Donnie said. “Beck, you just ruined my sex life.”
“What?”
“I’m never doing it again. This is a thousand times better!”
The small cabin erupted with laughter, but when the chuckles finally died out, an awed silence fell. Beck felt it too. He knew he would always remember this day. The place, the people, the activity—everything was perfect. The long journey to New Canaan felt like it had finally been worth it, and life was good.
“OK, fellas,” he said. “Time to go diving.”
* * * * *
Dunworthy shifted in his seat. It felt like they would never land. If he were just a member of the crew, back in the passenger cabin, he could read a book or watch a vid. But a captain was always on display, always scrutinized. Like he had been over that incident at Laconia. Thankfully he’d been found blameless, but the experience had left a sour taste in his mouth.
He checked the time. Nine minutes to landing.
“Let’s have the screen open,” he said to Marcia.
As the window protector drew back, a view of Carthage appeared above the instrument panel. The planet was blue to the horizon and from edge to edge. A bluish haze of atmosphere blanketed the wide, watery expanse and faded away above into the clouds of gas that flowed out of the western a-grav towers.
“A sight for sore eyes,” Dunworthy remarked.
“What’s that, Captain?” Marcia asked.
“Nothing. Just something my mother used to say.”
“It’s certainly a soothing view,” said the pilot.
Dunworthy nodded. “That it is.”
“It’s good to be home,” said Marcia. “Just bringing her around for our final approach.”
The horizon turned at an angle and grew wider and flatter. The overhanging blackness of space faded to azure. Below, the coast of Hyperborea appeared; a thin thread that grew rapidly thicker as the deep green, uneven ridges of forested hills rose.
Beyond, he could make out the Adriatic Sea and the mountains of Scythia. Beyond those would be the island of Naxos.
Dunworthy began to anticipate sleeping in his own bed, which was much larger and softer than the one in his captain’s quarters aboard the Holgate. He would be at his house in the country in less than an hour.
“Damn,” Alma said, frustration lacing her voice. “Link’s down.”
“What?” Dunworthy said, though he’d heard the woman perfectly.
* * * * *
The BlazeRay crested the curve. For an infinite second, the vessel hung in the thermosphere. Beck thought his heart was going to pound out of his chest.
“This is it, guys. Here we go. Hold onto your lunch.”
The BlazeRay tipped. Her nose was angled straight down. They began to fall.
“Oooooooweeeeeeeee,” Beck yelled.
His companions joined in with hollers and screams, threatening to deafen him. The planet’s surface was rushing up at an unbelievable speed. Beck opened up the BlazeRay’s engine, forcing the vessel down faster. Their journey to the surface would last only a tiny fraction of the time it had taken to climb up, but the buzz would be out of this world.
For a second, Beck became weightless; then, as the engine’s power boosted them into a faster dive than the ship’s terminal velocity, he was forced back in his seat.
It was the ride of a lifetime.
* * * * *
“What’s that?” Marcia asked.
Scan flagged something falling toward the planet. At first she thought it was a meteor, but it was moving perpendicular to Carthage’s surface, and accelerating faster than the planet’s gravitational pull.
“What?” Dunworthy asked, as Marcia realized that the object was a ship—and it was on a collision course.
Marcia had no time to reply to the captain; no time to contact the ship bearing down on them.
She had seconds.
Desperately, she fired the starboard maneuvering jets, attempting to slew out of the approaching ship's path. The chemical thrusters sputtered, then died.
“Not now, you ancient piece of shit!” she cursed.
She slammed a fist into the console, and by some miracle, the system came back to life, reporting a nominal burn on the thrusters. But it was too little too late. The shuttle moved like it was stuck in tar, slowly creeping to port.
Captain Dunworthy was asking something, but the words wouldn’t process for Marcia.
They weren’t going to make it.
The blood drained from her face as she glanced at the captain and Alma, mouthing the word, “Sorry.”
* * * * *
Kris was the first to notice the shuttle streaking through Carthage’s upper atmosphere. “Hey, what’s that ship doing there?”
Beck, who had been concentrating on squeezing the engine for maximum power, flicked his gaze to the area ‘above’ the ship. A ship-to-ground shuttle was flying directly beneath them. It was heading straight into their drop path.
“What the…?”
“Steer around it!” shouted Donnie. “Go around it. Now. Do it now!”
“I can’t,” Beck said. “We’re going too fast.” The BlazeRay’s console lit up, flashing a warning in red.
[COLLISION ALERT]
Beck wondered if the ride had been worth dying for.
Definitely not.
* * * * *
Dunworthy registered the word Marcia had mouthed, saw the fear in her eyes, but couldn’t think of anything to say or do. She was a skilled pilot—if she couldn’t avoid the collision, there was nothing to be done.
The console read two seconds to impact, and time slowed to a dreamlike pace. Dunworthy found himself transfixed on their nemesis, the vessel bearing down on the shuttle. For an instant, he caught a glimpse of the craft’s interior through its transparent roof. His death was approaching in the form of four men, horror written across their features.
Then the ship was gone.
* * * * *
At the last split-second, the planet hopper’s automated systems had taken control and shifted around the shuttle.
The maneuver should have exerted punishing force on them, slamming the four men against their restraints, yet they had felt nothing.
Glancing at the console’s readouts, Beck saw a notice flashing: [A-Grav Dampeners: Active].
“Shit,” he whispered as his hands trembled, slowing the engine. “I didn’t realize a-grav could do that.”
“The fuck,” grunted Art, sounding surprised that he could still speak. “I thought we were dead.”
“Me too,” Kris added. “I thought we were fish food for sure.”
Donnie didn’t say anything, but Beck noticed that a foul odor had begun to fill the cabin.
A SOLUTION
STELLAR DATE: 11.28.8935 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Landfall, Knossos Island
REGION: Carthage, 3rd Planet in the New Canaan System
Erin said to Walter.
She was back at Government House, in Tanis’s office, trying to concentrate on finding a new site for the SATC, but the social engagement she’d agreed to—scheduled for that evening—was looming over her like a thundercloud
. Even the concept, a date with a total stranger, bothered her more than she’d previously admitted to herself.
She felt like an adolescent who had never been kissed. No matter how much she tried to kid herself that she was meeting this person that Murry had matched her with only to find out a little more about them—that it didn’t mean anything, and most likely wouldn’t lead anywhere—she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, even nervous.
She was an engineer at the top of her profession. She’d been through battles and journeyed across thousands of years and light years. She hollowed out moons for a living, for core’s sake.
What is it that bothers me about meeting someone for a potential romantic liaison?
Erin gave a shudder as the phrase ‘romantic liaison’ echoed in her head. Her choice of words wasn’t helping with her cringing feeling.
Walter replied.
Erin allowed.
But how am I supposed to tell if we’re compatible? she asked herself.
It had been so long since Erin had been in a relationship, she wasn’t sure she even remembered what it felt like. And even when she’d been active, her dalliances had never lasted longer than a year or two; either she or her partner would ultimately call it off because the feeling had gone.
