He stared out of the cockpit window, directly to the start tower. Here he was, and all because some club at Tokyo U were looking for someone in peak physical condition. And because they wanted to pay him 3 million yen when he came back, alive that is, and 100.000 yen per month in the time of training before the start.
He hated to admit it, but he was scared. Ranma Saotome, god slayer and martial artist par excellence, was afraid. And for the first time in his life he was able to admit that he was afraid. Well, you would be afraid too, when you have a machine under your ass, that was build with the cheapest part available and filled with enough fuel, that an explosion equaled the detonation of a small tactical nuke.
He closed his eyes.
“Main Bus A?” the pilot beside him asked.
Ranma stared at the LCD-screen in front of him.
“Connected.”
“Main Bus B?”
“Connected.”
“Anti-proton storage?”
He swallowed. He just forgot the fact that he had 10 grams of antimatter only 5 meter behind him, enough to annihilate the whole start complex and a good chunk of the island too.
“Everything inside normal parameters.”
The pilot sighed and a voice was heart through the speakers.
“T minus 10 seconds.”
Ranma breathed in deep and tried to relax. He had been selected for this flight, because he was the only one in the whole team, who was able to move normal even in a 5 g environment.
A rumbling went to the cockpit as the engines fired.
“All engines running, Five, Four, Three…”
A picture flared into life before his mental eye. The picture of the rocket he was sitting on. Two H-2A rockets put together to lift a modified copy of the never build American X-20 into Low Earth Orbit, where it would begin a new era of space flight.
“One, Lift off.”
Clamps, holding back the double rocket in place, fell back and the ‘Rideen’ slowly raises into the blue sky.
For the N-th time, Ranma asked himself why Professor Hagashi never even considered to get real astronauts, instead of himself and Ranma. While he was asking himself this question, his eyes swept over the instruments, ready to react to every single problem. His hands laid on the control-sticks and the Abort button.
Two minutes after the lift off at a speed of Mach 11 and a height of 50 kilometers over the pacific, the acceleration stopped and a jolt went through the rocket as the first double stage was cut form the second stage. Only one second later the acceleration returned and pressed him into his seat.
Outside the sky went from light blue over dark blue to a pitch black.
Ranma breathed in deep as the acceleration of the second stage was cut off and the ‘Rideen’ entered LEO. The ship had turned and as he looked out of the cockpit window he could see earth below.
“Wow,” was all he was able to say as the sight of Japan below.
Professor Hagashi didn’t stare outside, he just looked at his instruments and went through the checklist for the next step.
“Ranma, get back to work.”
Ranma just nodded and let the checklist went by as he stared out of the window and sometimes on his LCD-screen. He never even noticed the Professor speak to mission control to get a GO for the mission of the ‘Rideen’.
Hagashi looked at Ranma and shook his head. What would Ranma do when he looked at the moon or Mars from orbit? He ignored Ranma as he pressed a key to activate the Impulse engine and the artificial gravity.
As gravity returned Ranma slumped back into his seat and stared at the Professor.
“Ranma, do what I pay you for.”
Ranma just nodded. He had been in this situation in the simulator. He pressed another key and the surface of the ‘Rideen’ split open at two locations. Tube-shaped blue lined objects unfolded from the openings and locked into position.
Hagashi just smiled as he entered a command section into onboard-computer. Under him the anti-proton storage began to emit small section of anti-protons into the core, to be annihilated by together with protons in a controlled reaction. The resulting plasma entered special electromagnetic line to be delivered to the two pylons. The pylons began to glow and a minor Warp-field was generated. Enough to accelerate the ‘Rideen’ to Warp 1, maybe Warp 1.5. The was a flash and the ‘Rideen’ left Earth Orbit.
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(Posted Fri, 08 Aug 2003 16:24)
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