The Beacon: Hard Science Fiction by Brandon Morris (red white and royal blue hardcover TXT) 📕

The Astra sped along a wide, almost immaculate concrete runway that seemed to stretch to the horizon. But that was deceptive. Somewhere, far out there, it merged into the equally gray desert.

Peter immediately felt the liftoff in his stomach. The noise grew louder, a mixture of wind and turbine noises. Francesca spoke into the microphone under her chin.

He thought of the radio, trusting she hadn’t left it behind. The mothership pulled up more steeply, and Earth disappeared from his view. Soon they entered dense clouds, became enveloped in mist, and then quickly exited as if they’d been conjured into another world where a white sun shone out of a sky that grew darker by the minute. Peter leaned forward to admire the cloud layer, which reminded him of an alien city, full of residential towers and giant, exotic trees.

Francesca didn’t seem to have an eye for all this beauty. Although she was almost as much a passenger as he was so far, she had to operate instruments and read off values. There was even a clipboard with an old-fashioned paper checklist on which she made entries from time to time. She carelessly put the pen down next to it. Peter reflexively reached to grab it so that it wouldn’t roll away, but the pen was faster and nestled on the underside of the checklist.

“It’s magnetic,” Francesca said with a smile.

Of course. They would soon experience weightlessness. A free-floating pen would be a hazard.

“Launch preparation,” Francesca said. “Fellow astronauts, your seats will now move into launch position.”

Peter looked back to observe what was happening and was surprised by his own seat, which slowly tilted backward. Of course, this should have been obvious to him. One of the women shrieked briefly. Above him, on the ceiling of the glider, a couple of screens activated. They showed curves and tables from which he could make no sense. Francesca calmly continued her work.

“The radio?” he asked.

“Under your seat.”

“Thank you.”

That was very reassuring. Nothing can actually go wrong now. The only thing that worried him was that the word ‘actually’ had crept into his mind.

The force of their rocket motor pressed him into the cushions. The belts tightened automatically. Now the VSS Astra was on its own. Francesca had explained to them in training that their weight would double. Peter raised one arm. It felt like he had to move it through a viscous liquid. The acceleration seemed incredibly high to him, but when he looked outside the impression faded, and they might as well have been standing still, in midair.

Only the sky kept getting darker. It was as if a storm front lurked up there, a dark danger. But what he wanted to protect the solar system from must still be light days away. The rest of the atmosphere above them, to which the refracted and captured sunlight gave its blue color, just got thinner and thinner, allowing the blackness of space to shine through.

Soon he saw the first stars. He could already hear loud oohs and aahs. For the other passengers, who could see directly into the cosmos through portholes, the sight must have been even more fascinating.

But he also benefited from his seat position. Their home planet lay before him. The Earth was no longer a surface, limited by an unreachable horizon. It turned into a sphere before his eyes, curled up like a tired cat. A strip, becoming narrower and narrower, separated the beings on its surface from the deadly vacuum of space, protected them from cosmic radiation and the eruptions of the sun, preserved them from galactic cold, balanced the different energy levels, and—ultimately—enabled life’s existence. His existence.

A deep gratitude spread in his soul. He didn’t even know he could feel such a thing. It was an almost-spiritual feeling. This had to be the moment that most astronauts raved about for the rest of their lives.

He looked at Francesca and saw a tear in the corner of her eye. Either the air was too dry, or she felt it too, even on her 99th flight.

He didn’t ask her about it. It was too private.

Much later came the moment of weightlessness. Francesca switched off the rocket motor when they had reached orbit. Everyone was allowed to unbuckle. Peter climbed to the back with the other passengers to float a bit, but it was not what he expected. For him, the feeling of freedom came from outside. The darkness of the cosmos fed it, as did the beautiful, blue-white-green globe below him.

Weightlessness itself was merely constant falling, an endless ride in the express elevator. He could move in a way that was impossible on the ground, but that didn't make it any easier. Maybe it was a matter of getting used to it, but he had to be much more careful about how much momentum he gave himself, where his movements directed him, where he could grab something to stop or redirect himself.

“Peter, would you come here?”

He pulled himself forward, climbed headfirst over the back of his chair, and sat down.

“Don’t buckle up,” Francesca said as he reached for the seatbelts. “Open the compartment under your seat, please.”

Peter leaned forward, felt under the seat, and pulled on the handle his fingers found. A drawer of sorts appeared, containing a technical device. He unpacked it. His USB stick was plugged into one side.

Francesca turned off her microphone and explained to him the buttons the device had. There were about 300, but he would only need a few.

“I’ve already tuned it to 418 megahertz,” Francesca informed him. “You start the broadcast with this button here when I give you the signal. If for some reason you need to restart it, you press here. And you can cancel everything with this button.”

She had changed to a more confidential tone. Now they were co-conspirators with a common plan.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He gave her a thumbs up. “All right.”

“Mission control, unclear radar echo on standard orbit, changing orbit,” Francesca announced after reactivating