• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Taken from The Hidden Realm, by Adrian Kyte
The loss of gravity brought about a sudden discomfort for Gerrid; theonly sense of up or down maintained by a superimposed view of planetEarth receding in an illusory transparent nose of the craft, and the seatstraps fixing him down. He was glad not to have eaten for over sixhours – and yet he knew this would be unlikely to prevent him fromvomiting. L76/Roidon did not seem to be showing any symptoms of nausea, but he had no trouble identifying it in Gerrid.‘We've been weightless for a while,’ Roidon said. ‘It's only now our acceleration has dropped off that you're noticing it.’‘Then please,’ pleaded Gerrid, ‘crank up the thrust again.’‘The power cells need to be conserved – and in any case, we're nolonger being pursued. It seems the Darangi had not anticipated this being a space vessel.’‘They'll follow us. They’re Just keeping a low profile, I guess.’‘They're not registering on any spectral frequencies, at least within athousand ks.’Even at Mach-15, the moon's approach was only just perceptible.This type of craft was originally designed to skim the outer edges of Earth’s atmosphere, only the two added-on fusion engines gave it short boosts for escape velocity and double the standard acceleration for ahyperjet. During the initial thrust the fuselage creaked so badly it was arelief it hadn't broken apart.With engines off line, the combined effects of zero g withoutacceleration had turned Gerrid's stomach along with the fluid in hisears. The lunar surface filled the view-screen at an alarming rate, itsilluminated face causing the image to fade to a tolerable level.‘We're going too fast,’ Gerrid heard himself say, after a bout of vomiting; the words as much of a reflex as his stomach's reaction.‘I don't want to use reverse thrust in space; have to conserve power,’Roidon explained. ‘Going to pull us up into an orbit, so brace yourself.’The moon's edge fell away, and pullback force kicked inreassuringly as a burst of thrust pushed down against its subtle gravity.‘We've got rid of the momentum,’ Roidon informed. ‘Just need to bring us down from orbit.’‘How many times have you done this?’ Gerrid wondered.‘A few.’Landing was smooth – even though Roidon activated the retros from
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...