Snow Crash
02-12-2010, 01:03 AM
I watched the planet through the cockpit window, transfixed. Earth looks beautiful at 100 miles up. You don't see any of the ugliness that you do when you're standing on the ground. No starving civillians, no walking wounded moping about like zombies. No mercs pretending to be cops in rough urban areas and literally getting away with murder. No, up here, it is only tranquility, you and the giant blue ball below you, freckled with clouds. I loved being a pilot.
I had seen my first magprop spacecraft when I was ten. My father, an Air Force pilot of no small repute, had taken me to see its unveiling and first public flight out in the Mojave. Despite the ignorance of my youth, it was not lost on me that I was witnessing a special moment in history, and as the years past from that special day, I watched as mankind stampeded into the Solar System in Government, Corporate, and occasionally Privateer vessels. I knew, even then, that I would be in one of those ships one day.
Of course, I didn't set my sights on anything less than to be a pilot. If I had chosen something else, the old man would have disowned me right then and there. So I put the work in at school and university, and joined the Air Force. Family connections got me to where I wanted to be in double quick time, which, according to friends, pissed off some of the brass. But did I care? Hell no, I got to fly to Mars and back every week, a journey that never got boring, let me tell you.
And this bit was one of the best parts: approaching the planet as the Sun rose over the western Atlantic, making for the North American continent. It was fitting that my destination be the spaceport where I had seen the first of these types of ship launch. In this moment, you forget everything: the war with the Asian powers, the terrorists who attacked us and our buddies in Western Europe now on a daily basis, and the food and water shortages that even those with money had issues avoiding.
I didn't really care that I just flew freighters. Fighter and bomber piolts died too quickly for my tastes, and I was too in love with the interplanetary travel and the sights that accompanied it to go jumping headlong into war over the Middle East and Eastern Europe. I was a military officer, sure, and I would fight for my country, but I was in no hurry to die. And besides: my colleagues and I provided a vital service to the military, ferrying in either raw materials from Mars itself, or new equipment from Mars Orbit, where it was manufactured in those big zero-g dry docks. Some folk complained about the space-based shipyards being so far away, but the threat of a Chinese, Indian, or Russian ASAT or DEW blasting one of those docks out of the sky meant I had a job that I loved, so I never complained.
Of course, I had to be wary when approaching Earth that my own vessel didn't come under such an attack, but I rarely heard so much as a beep from the warning systems. So imagine my surprise when I heard one this time as i prepared to dip into the atmosphere. My tactical officer yelled "ASAT" at nobody in particular, before burying his face in his console, watching each screen before him intently. The radar told me where the missle was coming from. Port side and gaining fast. Probably fired from Cuba or Venezuela. Whatever the source, the missle was thwarted long before it got close as the tactical officer targeted it with our ship's on board DEWs and fried it.
The ship safe once more, I felt myself relax and draw a breath. ASATs were a nuisance, but with a competant tactical officer sitting to your left, you could knock it out before it got close enough to damage you with its shockwave. DEWs, on the other hand, were a different story. You could rarely get away from them due to their speed. Fortunately though, this approach rarely saw them, as with the Western powers having locked down the Atlantic approaches to North America pretty tightly, the Russians had trouble deploying them in a position to intercept inbound space traffic.
A warning sounded again, but before my tactical officer could yell an update, the ship was shaken by a mighty blast. My inquiries as to whether or not it was a DEW was met with dismissal by the tactical officer, who instead informed us that we'd been targeted from somewhere in orbit. A second blast shook the ship, and I felt the controls grow sluggish in my hands. At the same time, the air grew thin almost instantaneously. I ignored the engineering officer as he stated the obvious: we were leaking air. Our best chance to avoid dying through lack of oxygen or being blown into flaming scrap was to get to the surface as fast as possible.
I pitched the ship forward, and pleaded with it to go faster. My view of the planet surface below grew obscured by the burning air that enveloped the ship as we entered the atmosphere old school style. The magprops could ensure a smooth ride down to a planet, but not when the'yve been blasted twice by a particle beam. The screen in front of me told me I was losing altitude at a phenomenal rate, while simultaneously telling me I was putting the ship in danger.
In moments like those, you are either someone who panics, or you are a man who cannot be distracted from his task, cannot be shaken. I proved to be the latter, even as the third blast tore a hole in the ship that gutted the cargo holds and the crew's quarters, sucking many of my shipmates into the atmosphere. The bridge crew where safe though, and despite the ship now being in virtual freefall, I was still able to influence the trajectory, and set about my task dilligently, coaxing my mortally wounded vessel towards the safety of the gulf of Mexico using the radar. Behind me, the communications officer was issuing a mayday in high, panicky tones.
After what seemed an eternity, the view through the cockpit windows cleared, and I could see the water rushing up to meet us, the clouds that had found themselves in that part of the world that particular morning seeming to part for us as we fell.
The impact left only three of us alive, and none of the three fit for duty. My career was over. I got a shiny medal and a handshake from the President. I also got a wheelchair. In exchange, I had to give up the beauty of seeing our planet from the one place you can't see the ugliness that we inflict upon it.
I had seen my first magprop spacecraft when I was ten. My father, an Air Force pilot of no small repute, had taken me to see its unveiling and first public flight out in the Mojave. Despite the ignorance of my youth, it was not lost on me that I was witnessing a special moment in history, and as the years past from that special day, I watched as mankind stampeded into the Solar System in Government, Corporate, and occasionally Privateer vessels. I knew, even then, that I would be in one of those ships one day.
Of course, I didn't set my sights on anything less than to be a pilot. If I had chosen something else, the old man would have disowned me right then and there. So I put the work in at school and university, and joined the Air Force. Family connections got me to where I wanted to be in double quick time, which, according to friends, pissed off some of the brass. But did I care? Hell no, I got to fly to Mars and back every week, a journey that never got boring, let me tell you.
And this bit was one of the best parts: approaching the planet as the Sun rose over the western Atlantic, making for the North American continent. It was fitting that my destination be the spaceport where I had seen the first of these types of ship launch. In this moment, you forget everything: the war with the Asian powers, the terrorists who attacked us and our buddies in Western Europe now on a daily basis, and the food and water shortages that even those with money had issues avoiding.
I didn't really care that I just flew freighters. Fighter and bomber piolts died too quickly for my tastes, and I was too in love with the interplanetary travel and the sights that accompanied it to go jumping headlong into war over the Middle East and Eastern Europe. I was a military officer, sure, and I would fight for my country, but I was in no hurry to die. And besides: my colleagues and I provided a vital service to the military, ferrying in either raw materials from Mars itself, or new equipment from Mars Orbit, where it was manufactured in those big zero-g dry docks. Some folk complained about the space-based shipyards being so far away, but the threat of a Chinese, Indian, or Russian ASAT or DEW blasting one of those docks out of the sky meant I had a job that I loved, so I never complained.
Of course, I had to be wary when approaching Earth that my own vessel didn't come under such an attack, but I rarely heard so much as a beep from the warning systems. So imagine my surprise when I heard one this time as i prepared to dip into the atmosphere. My tactical officer yelled "ASAT" at nobody in particular, before burying his face in his console, watching each screen before him intently. The radar told me where the missle was coming from. Port side and gaining fast. Probably fired from Cuba or Venezuela. Whatever the source, the missle was thwarted long before it got close as the tactical officer targeted it with our ship's on board DEWs and fried it.
The ship safe once more, I felt myself relax and draw a breath. ASATs were a nuisance, but with a competant tactical officer sitting to your left, you could knock it out before it got close enough to damage you with its shockwave. DEWs, on the other hand, were a different story. You could rarely get away from them due to their speed. Fortunately though, this approach rarely saw them, as with the Western powers having locked down the Atlantic approaches to North America pretty tightly, the Russians had trouble deploying them in a position to intercept inbound space traffic.
A warning sounded again, but before my tactical officer could yell an update, the ship was shaken by a mighty blast. My inquiries as to whether or not it was a DEW was met with dismissal by the tactical officer, who instead informed us that we'd been targeted from somewhere in orbit. A second blast shook the ship, and I felt the controls grow sluggish in my hands. At the same time, the air grew thin almost instantaneously. I ignored the engineering officer as he stated the obvious: we were leaking air. Our best chance to avoid dying through lack of oxygen or being blown into flaming scrap was to get to the surface as fast as possible.
I pitched the ship forward, and pleaded with it to go faster. My view of the planet surface below grew obscured by the burning air that enveloped the ship as we entered the atmosphere old school style. The magprops could ensure a smooth ride down to a planet, but not when the'yve been blasted twice by a particle beam. The screen in front of me told me I was losing altitude at a phenomenal rate, while simultaneously telling me I was putting the ship in danger.
In moments like those, you are either someone who panics, or you are a man who cannot be distracted from his task, cannot be shaken. I proved to be the latter, even as the third blast tore a hole in the ship that gutted the cargo holds and the crew's quarters, sucking many of my shipmates into the atmosphere. The bridge crew where safe though, and despite the ship now being in virtual freefall, I was still able to influence the trajectory, and set about my task dilligently, coaxing my mortally wounded vessel towards the safety of the gulf of Mexico using the radar. Behind me, the communications officer was issuing a mayday in high, panicky tones.
After what seemed an eternity, the view through the cockpit windows cleared, and I could see the water rushing up to meet us, the clouds that had found themselves in that part of the world that particular morning seeming to part for us as we fell.
The impact left only three of us alive, and none of the three fit for duty. My career was over. I got a shiny medal and a handshake from the President. I also got a wheelchair. In exchange, I had to give up the beauty of seeing our planet from the one place you can't see the ugliness that we inflict upon it.