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Chapter 14

The Privateer Ship Andromeda

Capitol Starport, Aterrizaje

New Austin


Captain Catherine Blackwood steepled her fingers patiently as she reclined in her command chair. The entire crew was strapped in, either at their duty stations or in their racks. New Austin had made for a pleasant visit, but Catherine had business to attend to, and it was time she got underway. Her command screens showed her that everything was in order and that all systems were functioning as they should be. The ship rumbled quietly as the engines idled hot.

A window popped up on her screen. At the same time, a calm voice came over her headset. “Andromeda, this is traffic control. You are cleared for launch on your planned trajectory.”

“Roger that, control. Thank you,” Colin, who was up on the flight deck, replied. “Andromeda out.”

A klaxon sounded and red lights flashed. All boards were still green. Satisfied, Catherine tapped her headset. “Colin, take us up.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

The low rumble of the idling engines grew into a throaty roar. The vibration increased to a rattle as the ship was buffeted by the thrust reflecting off the landing pad. All at once, the roar reached its crescendo, and Catherine was pressed back into her seat as the Andromeda left the surface of New Austin. She kept a watchful eye on her screens, even though she had complete confidence in her pilot and wasn’t expecting trouble. Launch and landing were the two most dangerous parts of a ship’s flight. An accident or failure that would, in space, be an annoyance, could be catastrophic during atmospheric flight.

On another of her displays, Catherine watched the dusty surface of New Austin recede into the distance as the Andromeda rocketed toward the heavens on a plume of smoke and fire. My God, I do love it so, she thought to herself with a smile.

Spaceport control contacted the Andromeda one last time. “Andromeda, spaceport control. You have left our airspace. You are go for throttle-up. Safe travels.”

Colin replied crisply, “Roger that, spaceport control, we are go for throttle-up. Thank you. Andromeda out.” He then announced over the intercom, “Stand by for throttle up. Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark.”

On Colin’s mark, he opened up the ship’s engines a little more. Most spaceports had altitude and thrust restrictions on inbound and outbound ships. An engine sufficient for interplanetary travel could be extremely destructive to ground infrastructure if not managed safely. Catherine was pressed deeper into her acceleration seat as the ship rocketed away from the surface at four gravities. She was unable to suppress the wide grin that appeared on her face. She loved this part, the launch, screaming into the heavens on a tin can spitting hellfire. It was a sensation the very first astronauts on Ancient Earth had experienced, and it bound spacers of every era together.

Stuck in her chair until the ship reached escape velocity, Catherine had little to do unless disaster struck. Her crew was competent and her ship was in good order, just as it should be. She thought it would be unprofessional of her to gush to her crew about how proud she was of them, and how much she loved watching them work, but she made her feelings known in subtler ways. Still, just to keep herself from daydreaming too much, Catherine pulled up their planned trajectory on one of her displays.

In ninety-six hours, they would rendezvous with an automated fueling station in high solar orbit. Getting from the surface into space consumed a lot of propellant, so much so that larger, capital-class ships were typically not capable of atmospheric flight. This limited their versatility and left them reliant on orbital infrastructure for support and maintenance, but it allowed for hull designs much larger than even the biggest of atmospheric ships.

Her reaction mass tankage topped off, the Andromeda would then boost along a trajectory that would take them to the Lone Star System’s third, and least used, transit point. It was there that her long journey would really begin.

I hope you’re still alive, Cecil.

* * *

I hate this part, Marcus thought to himself. He’d spent plenty of time aboard ships while in the Espatiers, but he’d never been fond of getting shot into space on a thermonuclear blowtorch. Travel from civilized spaceports generally had an impressive safety record, but Marcus could never shake the feeling that the ship was going to rattle itself apart, leaving him to plummet to his death.

Annie, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying herself. “This is amazing!” she said over the intercom. The strain of the acceleration did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm. The eight newcomers to the Andromeda were each secured in their individual berths, which doubled as acceleration couches, but had an open channel with one another so they could chat. Wade remarked that it had been a long time since he’d done this, but seemed fine. Ken Tanaka had fallen asleep somehow. Devree Starlighter cried out with excitement as the Andromeda hit four gees; she found the whole thing as thrilling as Annie did. Benjamin Halifax grunted tersely and muttered the occasional obscenity. Jeremiah Hondo seemed perfectly at home under acceleration, and chatted with Wade. Randall Markgraf joined the conversation briefly, complaining of light-headedness, before blacking out.

The team had nothing else to do while the Andromeda was accelerating at more than one gee, and Annie was too much of a novice to be allowed to roam the ship while it was under high acceleration. At two gravities, Marcus recalled, you could get up and walk around. It was like carrying another man on your back. You just had to be careful about falling down. Many spacers wore shoes with arch supports, and swore by them.

At four gravities, though, it wasn’t safe to move about unaided. A fall that would result in only a bruised butt and ego under normal circumstances could break bones and burst blood vessels at four times the gravity that the human body was designed for. Falling any kind of a distance could kill a man as if he’d flung himself off of a building. Driving the point home, a small red light above the hatch to his berth informed Marcus that it was sealed. He couldn’t get out if he wanted to.

It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic. The kind of berth he found himself in was often derisively referred to as a coffin, but it was actually comparatively spacious. Marcus had enough room to stretch, move about some, and climb in and out without bumping his head. That in and of itself was a luxury he would have paid good money for on more than one long haul in a Concordiat Fleet troopship. “Hey kiddo,” he said, straining under his own weight. “How you holding up?”

“I’m okay!” Annie insisted, though she sounded a little less enthusiastic now.

It’s also a good thing there’s a relief tube in here, because I have to piss. Being compressed under four times one’s normal weight tended to dramatically exacerbate a full bladder. “Good. I’ll be right back,” Marcus grunted to the group. “I gotta piss.”

“Good luck,” Wade said with a strained grin. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“That’d be a hell of a thing,” Marcus mused. “All this planning and preparation, and I get incapacitated trying to take a leak.” Chuckling to himself, Marcus signed off of the group chat and strained to get the relief apparatus into place.

This is the first day, he thought to himself, straining to urinate under his present apparent weight of 332 kilograms. What have you gotten yourself into?



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