by D. Brumbley
“Guess it was a good idea to send the truck back. It would look pretty tempting right about now.” Logan said quietly with a hand on Anna’s waist. “Don’t fall asleep up there. Somebody’s on this ship that is not supposed to be, they’re gonna want access to the flight deck, maybe try and take a joyride.”
Anna pulled Logan in for an intimate kiss, since she wasn’t about to walk away from him without taking that, especially if there was even a tiny possibility it was her last kiss with him. “I love you.” She looked up into his grey eyes after she said it, just so he would be sure to listen to her.
“I love you too. Reach out if you need me.” He tapped the communicator in one of the front pockets of his jumpsuit.
Anna followed Orion back to the cockpit and then sighed once he showed her where to sit and keep watch while he prepared for liftoff. They needed to get into the air as quickly as possible, but she was oddly calmed and fascinated by all the controls. “I’ve certainly never seen something like this before. Looks like fun.”
“Fun, huh?” Orion smiled back at the odd woman and chuckled nervously as he worked, looking over everything that Fitch had done approvingly before he actually strapped himself into the pilot’s seat and reached for the intercom. “You’ve got an interesting idea of fun. Lock down that door for us and run a final pressure check on the hull. Back panel by the door. If you think the rest of this looks like fun, you shouldn’t have trouble finding it.” After giving the order, he picked up the intercom and sighed before he clicked it on. “Alright, everybody. Pre-flight is clear, the exit window is open, and we’re about to get this bird in the air. I still show a dozen of you not locked down back there, so either get latched in the next twenty seconds or it’s possible you’re gonna end up a stain on the rear bulkheads. I would prefer that not happen. Hold on tight and just settle in, this next part gets bumpy.” He put the intercom down and nodded approvingly as the number of unbuckled passengers began dropping quickly. “How’s the pressure looking?”
It took Anna a little bit to familiarize herself with what he wanted her to figure out, but it wasn’t too complicated. “Looks like the pressure is stable. You should be good.”
“Keep an eye on it. Basically if anything starts yelling at you back there, yell at us about it. Ship’s systems do most of the work for you when it comes to monitoring. And keep the hatch locked.” He let out a deep breath once she confirmed the pressure was stable, and looked up to set his eyes on the airstrip ahead of them. “Alright, then, everybody, time to kiss the planet goodbye.” He hit a few switches that brought the engines on either side of the shuttle roaring slowly to life, then closed his eyes and brought his fingertips up to his lips in a quick gesture, tapping them against his mouth, then his forehead before returning his hand to the throttle and drawing it sharply back to throw the ship into forward motion. WIthin seconds, they were hurtling down the runway at a breakneck pace, and seconds later they were tilting upward into the sky at an increasingly steep angle, shoving everyone and everything on board back into the deep padding of their seats as the engines pushed harder and harder toward the clouds.
Anna had never experienced anything like the feeling of the thrust of the shuttle roaring skyward. She’d been on a small plane, a helicopter, but this, this was something all its own. It both terrified and thrilled her with the speed and power behind it, even though she was glued to her seat by the pressure of it all. “Wow.” Was all she could mutter through the pressure on her body, but she was clearly enjoying it while most probably weren’t.
Orion did his best to keep from being obvious about the fact that it was the first time he’d done a liftoff of that nature as well. He needed to look like he was a professional, otherwise the whole situation would fall apart in a hurry. “Really wakes you up, doesn’t it?” He managed to turn his head slowly to look back at Anna in the corner of the cabin, grinning even though his entire body was shaking under the throttle. “Remember not to hold your breath. The cabin is re-pressurizing as we go higher, so if you hold your breath, you’ll end up collapsing a lung.”
“Good to know.” She said haltingly as they continued up and up, and it felt like it was no time at all before they had broken through Earth’s atmosphere and they were leaving it behind them. Anna kept working to breathe, but it was getting easier. “What a rush!” She eventually said breathlessly as she stared at Orion. “No wonder you’re a pilot!”
He smiled back at her as they finished their initial break-out, nearly ten minutes later, which he knew was the most difficult part, not to mention the most energy-consuming. Their acceleration was starting to taper off, and he could feel that they were about to be back in near-zero gravity once they were finished with the initial burn. “Mrs. Bickford, there’s a seating realignment panel by your right hand. Move through that and realign them for null gravity instead of ground-based. Fitch, start checking our position and replotting our course, I’ll handle engine disengagement and redeployment.” Orion started shutting down the engines by degrees, and looked back at Anna with a grin. “This is nothing. The real fun starts when you don’t have gravity to deal with. Or at least not as much.”
Anna looked over to her right and started tapping around on the screen without making any changes at first so that she could just explore and learn a little bit more about what was in front of her. Every computer had a “save settings” or some kind of “are-you-sure?” feature before any changes were made, and the shuttle was no different. Eventually she got around to realigning the seating as he told her to do, it just wasn’t immediate. “Not having gravity will definitely be an adjustment, that’s for sure.” She looked up at him and then smirked as she thought about something she definitely shouldn’t think about in a potential life-or-death situation, but as a newlywed, sex with Logan was always somewhere in the back of her mind.
“It’s more complicated than you might think.” He said once he saw her smirk, and let out a brief chuckle as the acceleration of the ship began to dramatically slow, until they were barely being held in their seats. “And yes, I’m talking about sex. I know a smirk like that when I see it.”
Anna just laughed and she noticed when Fitch looked back at her, but she didn’t look ashamed or embarrassed. “I imagine it is pretty complicated. Some men have a hard enough time finding the right hole on the ground.”
Fitch couldn’t hold back a laugh after that kind of comment, since she wasn’t expecting it, but she just looked over at Orion and shook her head. “See? This is why I like women. So smart.”
“Calm your tits. That one’s a newlywed just like me.” He finished the preparatory steps to disengage the engines, then cut the throttle completely, which left the cabin feeling strangely silent after the rumbling that had been shaking them for the duration of the initial escape. The lack of shaking added to the loss of gravity was something Orion was accustomed to, but he knew it would be incredibly disorienting for the rest of the passengers on board. “And this would be the part where everybody in the back starts puking. What do you think, Fitch? We’ve got two hundred plus Earth-born in the back. I’d be willing to put money down on…let’s say seven percent of them losing their lunch. What do you think?”
“Only seven? I’d take higher than that.” Fitch glanced back at their Earth-born passenger, but the woman didn’t seem to be too bothered by the change. “Really? Married? Damn it. Didn’t even notice the ring before.” She lowered her voice before she continued. “I heard that they don’t really care about that down there, though.”
Orion gave her a warning look before he glanced back at Anna. “Old and married and bored, maybe not so much, but I’m pretty sure every newlywed, on the planet and just off it, cares about it at least for a little while.”
Fitch just shrugged and looked back at Anna again too, but the woman seemed too distracted by everything around her to notice the conversation.
Anna heard the conversation, the space was too small not to, but she wasn’t sure what she should
address. Certainly she had her own preconceived notions about Orbitals as they did about her. “Marriages matter.” She eventually said out loud, since she felt it was necessary to say. “Who you spend your time with before you get married, not so much, but it does after. On the note of talking about what we’ve heard, I’ve heard that you have to get government permission to fuck around up here. But I doubt that’s true, or else I would suspect that your penitentiaries would be full of a lot of lawbreakers. Heaven knows I wouldn’t be able to abide by a law like that.”
Orion looked back at her with an appraising expression, looking her up and down to reassess her and, by extension, Earth-born in general. “No government permission needed to fuck around however you want, only if you plan to get pregnant. Outside of that, they don’t really care. Otherwise, yeah, everybody would be a felon.”
“You have to get permission to get pregnant, and yet down on Earth, it’s illegal to buy, sell, or use birth control. Funny how that goes, huh?” She looked around at all the different screens but stayed in her seat. “I’m sure we have all sorts of differences.”
Orion certainly hadn’t considered that possibility for people from Earth, and he couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. “I’m sure we do. Aside from, you know, height.” He chuckled over his shoulder at her and then began unbuckling himself from the chair so that he could move a little more freely. The shuttle was still being thrown around a little as they adjusted their course to start moving safely upward into orbit without flinging themselves completely loose of the planet’s gravity. “You can unstrap now. Just be mindful of what’s around you, since we’ll be making adjustments. If you’re gonna puke, there’s a bag under your seat. Otherwise you get my cleaning bill.”
“Sucks for you, I left most all my possessions back down on Earth, including cash.” Anna unbuckled slowly, mostly because she couldn’t really remember how to get out. When she did, though, her look sobered as she turned toward the hatch. “I hope everything goes okay out there.”
“That’s why you’re here, help keep an eye on things while we get the course set.” Orion pushed himself up out of his seat gingerly, and spun deftly in the air to re-orient himself toward Anna, using the toe of his boot to push off a spot on the control panels that didn’t have anything dangerous nearby. He looked as comfortable in null gravity as a bird in flight, pushing himself around with perfect balance and the grace that could only come from long experience.
Within a few seconds, he had settled himself close by, upside down with his feet hooked into a stray exposed pipe in the ceiling. His fingers moved over several of the control panels near her that had been dark during liftoff, and they came to life to show half a dozen shots of the passenger section in its reconfigured seating arrangement. “This is real-time, but they’re recording on a constant feed, have been since we took off. You see anything that needs looking into, circle it on the screen so we can reference it later. Don’t be shy about it. Though I get the impression shy isn’t something you’d be much good at.”
“Definitely not shy. You could ask just about anyone in my hometown and they’ll tell you. Though if you do intend on asking about me, steer clear from most of the male population. They tend to embellish.” Anna didn’t look up from the feed, her gaze first focusing on Logan. It wasn’t easy being away from him at a time like this, no matter how fascinating the shuttle was, or how calm she seemed to be. Joking around was her defense mechanism.
“Well, the only one here from your hometown is your husband, and I doubt he’s likely to do much embellishing.” She seemed like she was settled in well enough with the monitors, so he went back to hover near the pilot’s seat, moving from one set of controls to another as he and Fitch worked to set the ship on the course that would get them to Nine the fastest, bickering like old friends the entire time.
Once they were able to unbuckle from their seats safely, Mercury checked over her patients again and then looked over at the large man that was now her assistant/bodyguard. “Well, Mr. Bickford.” She said politely as she looked down at her tablet. “I can tell that some people are not handling things as well as they thought they would. How are you feeling now? Do you need medication for nausea?”
“Flying doesn’t usually bother me, Doctor. I’m alright.” He took his time getting out of his seat and starting to float around the cargo space, though, moving gingerly through the air to look things over and get accustomed to the fact of weightlessness. “This…I can only imagine this takes some getting used to. Though I guess not for you.”
“I’m not as used to it as you would think. I’m a doctor. I’m used to working in a space that’s closer to earth-gravity, but certainly not as heavy as actual Earth gravity.” She looked up at Logan again, even though he was only slightly taller than she was. Without gravity, everyone was always looking up. “Come on, let’s start scanning our passengers.”
He followed her toward the passenger compartment after a last look back at the two unconscious assault victims, and immediately had to dodge someone floating through the space to clean up the result of someone not getting to their barf bag fast enough. He saw another few pieces heading for Mercury ahead of him, and reached out to grab her by her waist to yank her out of the way with one hand still braced on the bulkhead. One of their fellow passengers floated by, apologizing profusely, with a bag in which they were working on cleaning up the mess, and all Logan could do was shake his head. “Very glamorous thing, space travel.” He actually chuckled once and moved with Mercury toward one of the closest rows so they could get started.
Mercury just shook her head, since while unpleasant, vomit was not the worst thing she’d ever seen floating around, certainly not after dealing with childbirth. She smiled at him, though, since she was grateful for his quick reflexes. “Thanks for the save. I would not have appreciated getting vomit all over myself this early in the game.” She laughed softly and then got to work, pleasant as ever as she moved from person to person, scanning, offering whatever she thought would help people feel better. It was going to take time, and she was nervous about what they might find, but she was doing her best to keep a calm composure and even head.
Gordon was sitting calmly near the front of the passenger section, without showing any signs of nausea or difficulty with traveling in null gravity. He was still strapped into his seat, since he didn’t see the point in floating around aimlessly. He looked over at Jessie floating next to him with a smile. “Having fun?”
“Well, it’s certainly different.” She was holding onto the straps of her seat just to keep herself close. “And I’m glad I took the doctor up on the meds before I even boarded the ship. I would not be doing well right now otherwise.”
“It takes some adjustment. But once you’ve been doing it a while, you get used to how everything moves. Or doesn’t, as the case may be.” He smiled at her as she tentatively let go, but his eyes were constantly darting around the space to make sure they weren’t about to get vomited on. “I’ve always thought it felt rather…freeing, if I can say that?”
“It feels scary too.” She admitted as she eventually reached out for one of his straps so she could keep herself anchored, but misjudged and pulled herself a little too close to him. “Sorry.”
“You should be more sorry.” Gordon said as he reached up to tug one of the straps of her suit to pull her even closer with a smirk. He certainly didn’t mind her proximity. “You want me to shove you off? Throw you across the room so you can feel what it’s like to fly?”
“And what, watch me crash into five other people first?” She looked directly into his eyes and examined the color of them a little bit now that they were so close together. “I think I better stay here.”
“I think you’d better.” Gordon’s tone was teasing, but his grip on her suit didn’t relax. His eyes were a strange kind of brown that kept teasing at her mind that it was hazel without ever actually proving it with the presence of other colors. There were shades in them from amber to ear
th and everything between, his pupils narrowed almost to single points in the bright light of the passenger cabin. “The main thing is to remember not to jump off something as if you’re on the ground. Good way to break an arm when you try to land on the other side. Goes for a lot of things in life, really.” He let go of her suit just long enough to adjust his grip along her side and pull her in a little more closely, until she would have been sitting on his lap if sitting had meant anything in their present situation. “Comfy?”
“Um, sure.” She said hesitantly, since she didn’t expect him to be so…openly touchy-feely. “I guess in space I don’t have to worry about crushing someone like you.” Jessie had curves in all the places, hips, large breasts, and an ass that was more than a handful, and Gordon was wiry, even if he was taller than she was.
“Give me a little more credit than that. I may be skinny, but you’ll find I’m not weak. Or easily crushed.” He said with a grin, moving his hand over her leg as he held her in his lap. He was a little surprised that the woman was comfortable with him so quickly, or at the very least wasn’t moving away. He knew how off-putting he could be, and while he made no apologies for it, he also wasn’t surprised when people swore off his presence on account of it. “In fact, the first lover I ever had was about your height, and not a small woman. Her breasts were far less impressive than yours, though I didn’t quite have an adequate appreciation for that at the time.”
Jessie just rolled her eyes and looked away from him, but there was heat that crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “Didn’t know you were a tit man.” She mumbled sarcastically, since he’d made no secret previously about her breasts.