Shanghaied to the Moon Read Free

upright. Mom’s triumphant cry rings out in the office. “Tower, tower, positive airfoil! I’ve got control!”
    Whatever she was faced with in there, she was handling it. But then something went wrong. Maybe she made a mistake. Or another system blew. Or maybe, with the hydraulics out, she wasn’t strong enough to work the yoke.
    In the best of my dreams, I’m there with her. Not a six-year-old. I’m Val Thorsten and I reach into the cockpit. Grab the yoke. Put my hand over hers. Pull! Pull! The scar across my palm hurts from pressing against the yoke, but I just pull harder.
    â€œEyes open! You must watch.” I want to stay in my head … where it ends different—
    the lightning reflex
    the brilliant last-second maneuver
    even the cavalry
    anything .
    Because the hero shouldn’t die in the end.

2
    MISSION TIME
    T minus 14:42:02
    I take the elevator from the Counselor’s office to the TransHub, hail a Marble, and get in. When I press my thumb to the fare plate, the Marble rolls down the chute to the main travel tube. Dozens of Marbles whiz by like beads on a string, while mine bobs gently in the levitation field.
    â€œDestination please?”
    I should go home. Get to work on my science project.
    â€œI’m sorry. Perhaps I did not hear you. Destination please?”
    The neat idea for the project is gone. It was clear as a blueprint before.
    â€œIf you do not wish to take a ride, please return to the TransHub. If you do not wish …”
    Mark won’t even be home yet. He was going to the cafe with Andrea.
    â€œIf you …”
    â€œGamma Station, Old Spaceport.”
    â€œThank you.”
    The Marble drops into the traffic stream and accelerates, but the motion dampers are so good there’s no feeling of speed. That’s what I don’t like about Marbles. You can barely tell the difference between parked or moving. I want to feel the punch of acceleration.
    â€œETA is four minutes under present traffic conditions.”
    My mind slips into automatic, calculating the average speed at 120.345 miles per hour. The Marble’s readout says 120.348. I’m that quick on my feet with calculations, but it doesn’t help with AstroNav. My problem is getting the star field vectors oriented right. It’s like I have some kind of stellar dyslexia.
    The Marble stops at Gamma Station. The door snaps open. A chill ocean breeze whisks all the heat out. I zip up my jacket and step onto the platform. No one here, except a guy asleep on a bench in the sun next to the outside wall of the station. He’s hugging a large, limp duffel bag. Its dark shape looks like a giant toy bear with all the stuffing kicked out.
    Angling away from the bench, I put about ten feet between myself and the guy. An easy scissors-kick vault puts me over the guardrail in front of the fence. I lean against the wire mesh. The metal bites cold where it touches my face. Rays of the late afternoon sun seep through my jacket, warming my back.
    The Old Spaceport spreads out eastward over the salt marshes to the ocean. Ships aren’t launched from here anymore. It’s a museum. When I want action, I go to the New Canaveral Spaceport further up the coast. Even from here, I can see some of the taller gantries and watch a few ships come and go. Dad’s rocket left from there two nights ago—an Alldrives Eniex 70. It can make the Moon run in four hours; nothing but the best for employees of Alldrives Space Systems.
    That’s who Val Thorsten works for. Who I want to work for. They run the asteroid mines and the Jupiter colonies and eighty percent of the transports. They build the fastest ships and win the exploration contracts. That’s where I want to be, on the edge, piloting that kind of ship into unknown space. Ships like the ones displayed here at the Old Spaceport.
    They were all unique in their day—firsts of a kind. Each one needed a special pilot. Apollo