Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

by the idea of the crazy Wrogul running anything more innocuous than a toaster. But since he was strapping into a spaceship preparing to fly to space, it might be too late to complain and get off.

“You’ve had basic flight training, right?”

“I did a few hours at shuttle controls and learned basic orbital navigation,” Rick said. Most of his training was for boarding actions with Mickey Finn. His memories with the Winged Hussars were only a few months into his time, well before he was killed in action. He didn’t know if he’d had more training in that time, and it didn’t matter anyway.

“Good enough; take the copilot position.”

“Roger that,” Rick said and settled into the couch to the right and behind Sato. The ship’s cockpit was covered with many small circular viewports, and one longer oblong one for direct piloting and probably rendezvous. It did remind Rick of a shuttle, a little. Only much bigger. Once he was strapped in, he gave Sato a thumbs up.

<We’re preparing to take off,> Sato commed to Dakkar.

<Very well. I am entering my support module.> Sato had looked in on the Wrogul before the encounter with his “friend.”

The alien had cleaned its room and even found some metal to weld and create an onboard living tank. He hadn’t set up life support for the aquatic environment yet. Sato planned to help after they were in space. Rick was fine with letting Sato deal with Dakkar, who he really wasn’t interested in interacting with.

“Tokyo Starport flight control, this is private merc ship Vestoon, requesting permission to take off for laser orbital insertion.”

“Vestoon, this is Tokyo Starport flight control, you have been assigned to launch laser #2. You are 3rd in line. Take off is in 12 minutes. Coordinates for your launch window and alignment parameters are being transmitted now. Please send your payment code.”

Sato typed in the special account and verification code. His jaw moved, grinding his teeth as he waited. They had some credits on their Yacks, but not much. Laser-assisted launch could cost as much as 20,000 credits. Without the assist, they’d be forced to use the ship’s built-in ascent engines, which would necessitate refueling in orbit. The fusion torch could easily put them into space with very little fuel. It would also irradiate several square kilometers of prime Japanese real estate. Rick was reminded of the radioactive hell around areas of Sao Paulo after the Raknars had used fusion engines to land.

“Vestoon, codes accepted. A total of 9,500 credits has been deducted from your account for laser launch assist. Prepare to take off in T minus 11 minutes.”

“Acknowledged,” Sato said and cut the line. “Let’s run down the checklists.”

The checklist wasn’t overly large, and only provided one tense moment, when Sato flicked the control to open the laser target, a rocket-shaped nozzle on the rear of the ship that articulated over the fusion torch. It would be the target the ground laser would burn into. Megawatts of laser energy ablated away material at super high temperature, creating thrust, and boosting them into orbit at very little cost.

“It’s not responding,” Sato said after a second.

“What do we do?”

“Hold on,” the scientist said. He opened a panel and started looking around. “Ah,” he said and held up a fuse. “Must have come loose when I was working on it earlier.” He clipped it into place and tried the command again. There was a distant whine from the rear of the ship and a clank. A red indicator came on, red being a good color in many galactic designs. “There we go!” he said.

Before long, it was time, and Sato brought the flight controls online. The computer beeped with their coordinates. “What do I do?” Rick asked.

“Just make sure I’m lining us up correctly,” Sato replied. “I don’t want my new ship cut in half by a launch laser.”

Rick nodded profusely; he wholeheartedly agreed. Accidents with launch lasers were exceedingly rare. When they did happen, the results were usually spectacular. However, as long as the ship was in the right place, the laser did most of the work, as long as you flew a predictable course.

“Ascent engines on,” Sato said, and Vestoon shook as the ship’s nine rocket motors came alive. They’d topped off on reaction mass, hydrogen and oxygen, the previous day. It had been the cheapest part of the operation.

The engines rumbled for a few seconds as Sato examined the readouts. He frowned.

“Problem?” Rick asked.

“Number seven is running a little hot.” On a Tri-V, there was a graphic representation of the ship with nine pulsing blue circles, the ascent engines. One of them, under the left rear, had a green dot flashing in the center.

“What do we do?”

“Nothing. We can hover with seven, as long as we don’t lose two next to each other. I’ll add it to the list of shit to check in space. Taking off.”

The rumble turned into a roar, then into a banshee’s scream. Rick turned down the audio receptors. “Why’s it so fucking loud?”

“They didn’t bother with soundproofing,” Sato yelled, then shrugged. “It’s designed to spend most of its time in space.” A second later, he felt them take flight for the first time with a lurching near-tumble sideways.

“Holy fuck!” Rick blurted.

“I got it, I got it,” Sato said, and the ship stabilized immediately. His hands didn’t move on the arm rests, and his eyes were closed. Sato was operating the ship entirely with his pinplants. Rick knew in the logical part of his brain that Sato could do a thousand times more with his mind and pinplants than he could with his hands and eyes. His emotional side cringed; this wasn’t how you fly something!

The ship leveled off and began to move smoothly, climbing to 500 meters and leveling off.

“Give me a vector to the