Saturn Run by John Sandford, Ctein Page A

some engineering stuff in my head.”
    “Most people don’t do their best thinking under two-plus gees. Maybe you should just relax and enjoy the flight up. You’ll have plenty of time once we make orbit to do work.”
    Not really,
Becca thought, as the flight attendant moved away.
    Time!
    The intercom pinged a two-minute warning. The cabin attendant took her station at the front of the cabin, looking back at them. Abackward-facing seat, pulling negative gees? That had to hurt, Becca thought. The flight attendant must be tougher than she looked.
    The thirty-second warning sounded. Becca took a last look around and saw green lights blink on over every seat in the cabin: smartcams scanned each seat and verified that there were no loose objects lying about and that each passenger was safely positioned and properly strapped in. The last preflight check complete, the computer system unlocked and armed the engines. The pilot started the cradle’s engines and the cabin filled with the throaty two-tone note of turbine whine and exhaust thunder.
    Takeoff was a lot like that of any commercial jet. The
Galahad
accelerated a little harder and lifted off the runway sooner, but then the shuttle reared back and started on a thirty-degree climb as the hybrid engines throttled up. They passed the ten-kilometer altitude mark at better than Mach 1, a minute and a half into the flight. The acceleration picked up, and the monitor over the flight attendant’s head said 2.2 gees of force were pushing Becca back into her chair.
    A little more than a minute later, they hit Mach 3 as they slammed through thirty kilometers. The smartfoam that cradled Becca’s head and neck prevented her from turning her head, but the high-res 3-D display in front of her gave her a clearer view than the thick-paned window to her left. Becca thought she could make out the curvature of the hazy powder-blue horizon under a sky that was rapidly transitioning from deep indigo to black.
    In even less time, they reached Mach 5 and sixty kilometers. The cradle’s hybrid engines had given up the increasingly futile task of trying to suck in oxygen from an almost nonexistent atmosphere, and were now running in pure rocket mode, gulping down their tanks of liquid oxygen and hydrogen.
    Five minutes into the flight, the
Galahad
reached an altitude of a hundred kilometers and a velocity of 3.5 kilometers per second, running hot in essentially airless space, so the speed of sound no longer meant much. The cradle’s fuel was exhausted, save for that needed to safely return to the Mojave Spaceport, and the pilot hit the disconnect. Thecradle dropped away with a
thunk
, turning for its return to Mojave.
Galahad
proceeded under its own engine power, steadily gaining altitude and velocity. Becca gratefully noted it was a less grueling procession; she no longer felt like she was trying to bench-press her own weight.
    In the next quarter-hour, the
Galahad
added another four kilometers per second to its velocity, and three hundred kilometers to its altitude. The pilot cut the shuttle’s engines; they were in stable low Earth orbit and they could stay there almost indefinitely without engine power. Eventually, the minute but unceasing drag of the thermosphere would slow them enough that they’d fall back to Earth . . . but they’d be gone before then.
    Looking out the window, Becca could see the curved, pale bluish-white horizon that rimmed an immense swath of white clouds over the dusky icy-green hues of the Atlantic Ocean. She was in space, and it was glorious, and best of all, she wasn’t vomiting! No weight, nothing to hold her breakfast down, but it was staying there of its own accord: the space sickness patch really worked.
    Crow had told her it would, but she’d heard it wasn’t foolproof.
    Maybe it wasn’t, but it was working for her.
    “Hell of a thing,” said the guy across the aisle from her. Darlington? Too good-looking, notch in chin. Big white teeth . . .