Beyond the Event Horizon Episode One, Page 2

in the asphalt.

  "But won't it be difficult to take off in this weather?" he asked.

  "I've taken off in worse weather than this. It will rock a bit at first, but nothing to worry about," said Kimble to allay his fears.

  "Taken off? I thought you were the captain of a large cargo ship," said Steve, rather surprised.

  Large cargo ships, as a rule, transported ore from the asteroids and were so big that they never landed on the surface of a planet. They unloaded in orbit.

  "Even I was young once, Steve," said the captain, smiling.

  "Forgive me, sir, but non-flying weather has always been non-flying weather."

  "So it has, but no-one ever told us about it in the SSS," replied Kimble as if to himself, looking at the screen of his tablet. Glancing back at Steve, he said, "Everything will be OK."

  The trip had already lasted at least half an hour and they had still not reached their launch pad. Steve had not realised that the spaceport was so huge. The glare of powerful floodlights was soon visible in the distance. It seemed they had finally reached the shuttle that was to deliver the team to their ship awaiting them in low orbit.

  The bus slowed down gradually, and the light became brighter and brighter then suddenly disappeared, leaving a few floodlights illuminating a launch pad with a squat shuttle mounted on it.

  Steve discovered to his surprise that what awaited them was not a civil ship but a military one. Quite small, squat, streamlined, predator-like - it had already opened the entrance under its belly, from which a red light was emanating. The powerful engine nozzles suspended above it looked significantly larger than those of civilian ships of the same size.

  The bus drove as close to the shuttle as it could, then finally stopped. Steve was sitting next to the door, so was the first to leave the passenger cabin and come under direct bombardment from the cold rain. The water didn't just fall from above, it beat into his face from all sides, even from below, bouncing up under his untucked shirt and running in a cold stream down his stomach.

  Steve ran for the shuttle as fast as he could. You might think that the faster you run, the less wet you get, but in such rain, it makes no difference. His clothes were soaked through the second he left the bus.

  The interior of the shuttle was quite spartan. Everything was functional, with no concern for either convenience or comfort. Steve hadn't expected anything else. The wide entrance led into something like a cargo hold, which, unlike civilian shuttles, had two rows of seats for spaceborne troops, their backs to the walls. Further on there were illuminated racks for weapons, which now stood empty. Further on still, the compartment narrowed, ending in a door to the cockpit. Unlike the space for passengers, the cockpit had narrow windows, their lower edges roughly at shoulder level. All the lighting above was red, but looking down, there were a vast number of lights of every possible colour. The two pilots were already strapped into their seats, chatting to each other.

  One of them, hearing Steve's footsteps, turned round and took a quick glance at him. Steve, who was looking round the interior of the cockpit with interest, met his eyes. He nodded in greeting, but the pilot simply turned back, ignoring the gesture. Oh well, armies have their own ways of doing things. Not so much formal courtesy, but, on the other hand, more respect when things got serious.

  After shaking the water off his clothes and wiping his face with his sleeve, Steve went further into the lounge and sat down on one of the seats. He found and fastened his seatbelt and lowered the stabilising bar, which clicked into place. Cushions immediately inflated themselves on either side of his back, fixing his body in place completely. Cool! There were no such devices on civilian ships.

  Steve took a quick look back at the entrance, where the others were still hurrying in. The water was not just trickling off the roof of the shuttle and the engine nozzles, but pouring down in streams. The bright glare from the floodlights lit up the rain, blinding Steve's eyes as it dispersed. Because of this, it was impossible to see what was going on outside the ship from inside. Shadows periodically appeared as if from nowhere, breaking through the downpour and momentarily opening the curtain of water to the world outside.

  The torrential rain forced the team to get from the bus to the shuttle amazingly quickly. Some coped with their seats at once, while others fiddled about for a while trying to strap themselves in. Kimble walked along the rows of seats, strapping in those who couldn't manage it themselves. Only then did he flop himself down onto a free seat and strap himself in with lightning speed, an action he had obviously done hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.

  Once firmly in place, the captain made some sort of gesture towards the ceiling. Steve followed the gesture with surprise, and only then noticed the dark eye of a small camera above them. It seemed that the pilots had been using it to observe them. There had been no need for them to look round from their seats.

  "Roger," said a voice from one of the loudspeakers above Steve's head. He was sitting quite close to the cockpit, and could hear the pilot's voice even without the intercom.

  At that very second, a deafeningly loud hissing noise was heard from outside. The ship was blowing out its nozzles with compressed air to eject the water that had drained into them and any other detritus. The solid wall of water cutting the interior of the ship off from events on the launch pad disappeared immediately. The water gushing out of the nozzles could be seen for dozens of metres behind them as it swirled around and away into the night sky.

  From the direction of the entrance came the sound of hydraulic amplifiers, straining. The entrance door, which also served as the floor, thus making it easier to enter the shuttle, began to rise, sealing the entrance behind it. Once in place, it slammed sonorously, moving sideways slightly into slots that locked it in place. The deafening hiss from outside fell silent immediately.

  A small monitor came down to a position just in front of Steve's face and relayed the image from the external cameras. He could see the water from the rocket engine nozzles still shooting off into the darkness.

  Suddenly, from somewhere behind them on the other side of the hull plating, sharp sounds like discharges of electricity were heard. At the same moment, the water from the nozzles stopped flowing in uniform streams, and diamond-patterned shock waves passed through it. The frequency of the waves kept increasing, and, with a bright flash of light, two plasma exhaust jets shot out of the ship's tail. The shuttle was instantly filled with a low roar, incomparably noisier than on civil ships.

  Steve took his eyes off the screen to look at Kimble. It was hard to make out in the semi-darkness of the shuttle, but he thought Kimble looked pleased. The lift-off in the military shuttle must have brought back some pleasant memories from his past.

  The violet plasma jets changed their focal length several times, then the engine nozzles were lowered. The ship shuddered noticeably and rose vertically into the air. It was shaken from side to side almost instantly, with gusts of wind trying to throw it on its side and back to the ground.

  After gaining only a few dozen metres of altitude, the nozzles changed direction again, and Steve felt the acceleration inclining him to the right. The side cushions were good shock absorbers, preventing his body from bumping painfully against the harder parts of the seat.

  The shuttle stopped being thrown from side to side, and, instead, started vibrating like mad. The noise of the turbines continued to increase, and Steve felt the ship accelerate even more. Yes, it seemed the pilots had never heard of passenger comfort.

  Steve looked at the image from the front camera, but his eyes could make out nothing but onrushing drops of water. Suddenly the drops were no more, and the amazing sight of the starry night sky and the bright moon shedding its soft light on a dense blanket of cloud opened up before him.

  The ship's acceleration increased significantly. This is really too much, thought Steve. The excess G was beginning to make him feel uncomfortable, and the shuttle was now gaining altitude at an acute angle to the vertical.
Under the pressure of such acceleration, the blood was beginning to leave his head and his vision was blurred and fading.

  After a few minutes, the ship suddenly changed position sharply, so that its ceiling was now the floor. The shaking had almost stopped, and the shuttle was moving along smoothly and steadily. Describing a huge arc, it left the atmosphere and went into orbit to meet the expedition ship.

  2

  "Visual contact with destination point," one of the pilots said over the intercom.

  Steve woke from his half-asleep state and looked at Kimble, who nodded to the camera.

  "We'll soon be there," he said to Steve.

  Steve again turned to watch the images from the cameras displayed in front of him. The ship waiting for them was still just a bright spot in the distance. It was difficult to tell which way was up and which was down, but it seemed as if the shuttle would have to gain a few more dozen kilometres of altitude to reach the ship.

  Steve felt the shuttle turn a little and lower its nose, and the expedition ship was lost from view. About 15 minutes later, however, its belly suddenly came into view floating right above the shuttle.

  The expedition ship was enormous. Steve was not very good at recognising types, but it looked like a medium class cargo ship. He had to admit he had been expecting something more