“Confirming booster separation,” said Andrei.
Dimitri swept his eyes across the display readouts in front of him. The altimeter was rapidly slowing its upward climb. They were now approaching a kilometer above the Lunar surface. In a visual readout on the monitor the chemical booster could be seen falling back toward the rapidly diminishing regolith.
“We are approaching ignition point,” said Andrei.
“Affirmative—Katja, arm the unit launch sequence,” said Dimitri.
“Launch sequence is armed, will commence automatic acceleration in five, four…” said Katja.
Dimitri moved his hands away from the controls and rested his arms on the sides of the acceleration couch. There was really nothing left for him to do. If something went wrong, well, that was going to be the end of things. It hadn’t happened yet, people tended not to do sloppy work when their job was building something to withstand a nuclear blast.
“Three,” continued Katja.
Dimitri flicked a switch on a small console on the couch’s arm. At that moment the bridge’s speakers came to life to the sound of a chorus. The opening refrain from
Hymn to Red October echoed throughout the small space, overly loud. The crew exchanged knowing glances and smirks.
“Two,” said Katja, not deviating from the countdown
“This song isn’t even Russian, Dimitri,” chided Andrei.
“One, mark,” exclaimed Katja.
“I know,” said Dimitri.
There was a faint shudder through the cockpit as the first propulsion unit fired out the back of the vessel. For a second there was nothing, and then a blindingly white flash issued from all the on board sensors as the first unit detonated. The cockpit shuddered and shook as gravity suddenly returned, pressing all of them down into their couches at twice their normal weight as the vessel began to accelerate up from Novokolomna’s launch pads.
“I just always really liked it,” Dimitri shouted, barely audible above the music, the rattling of loose fixtures, and the rumbling of the space frame.
From the ground the spectacle was awesome. A small, bright red bullet rode upwards from a perfect sphere of billowing plasma, only visible to those watching through special adaptive optics scanners. The blast was eerily silent in the vacuum, outshining the Sun overhead and casting stark shadows across the remaining debris on the launch pads. The booster which had fallen away had disappeared in the vast sphere of light and there was only the faintest tremor to be felt as what was left of it smashed into the ground as a pile of liquefied slag, pooling along the ferrocrete. It would be collected and reprocessed by robots later. The first explosion was subsumed by another almost immediately, then a third, a fourth, and so on, a vast pillar of interlinked spherical nodules ascending into the pitch black night.
“Escape velocity achieved,” said Katja, seemingly all too soon, “system is switching to 1g timing.”
The roar which suffused the cockpit began to dim as the rate at which the units were ejected and detonated slowed to once every few seconds, the music winning the war for sonic dominance as gravity slowly back to relax its grip on their organs, an all too-pleasant development.
“Injection path is good,” said Andrei.
He turned his head away from his console and flashed a grin at the other two “We’re on our way to Pluto!”
“We’re not going to Pluto and you bloody well know it,” said Katja, unfastening her couch’s straps and standing, a bit shakily at first. One got used to the vibrations eventually.
Andrei adopted a false hurt look, saying “But I thought we could stop on the way. We’d be the first people there, you know, and the others probably have the same idea.”
Dimitri threw back his head and let out a laugh. “Are you saying we should race them, Andrei,” he said pointedly.
Andrei became blasé, shrugging his shoulders “I don’t see why not, there’s going to be enough of us out there; somebody should set some records.”
Katja smirked and shook her head, saying “Boys,” as she exited the bridge.
Dimitri and Andrei shared a glance and burst out laughing as she went, before unhooking and following behind for dinner. It was unwise to eat before launch. In the empty bridge, the
Hymn continued as the
Alexander Pushkin accelerated away from the Moon. From one of the asteroids drifting in Earth orbit it could be seen as a thin filament of brilliant white light spooling from the surface at a physically discernible pace, as if a spider were spinning a web away from Luna.
It wasn’t the only one. Several other lines were spun out in different directions, and some others were approaching, like laser pulses slowed and made visible. From the surface the streaks of light could just barely be discerned behind the seemingly immobile gleams of the rings, the transiting orbs of the development stations and asteroids, and the thrust jets of the maneuvering vehicles orchestrating the vast concert which played out above the cradle of humanity.
OOC: Never said a single thing and don't plan on either about China symphony, you're simply creating arguments for yourself to counter
OOC: Just preempting the all too-likely defense that almost invariably comes. Insurance so I don't have to bother doing it later.
