Aloft (Petronaut Tales) by Ben Rovik Read Free Book Online Page A

the pedal, launching the Flicker on its first jump.  The force of the pull would also remove a pin from the wire apparatus and safely detach the wire from the machine so it wouldn’t yank the handle out of her hands before it went skyward.  It was low-tech, but all they needed for the test.
    Sir Tomas held out his hand wordlessly as she finished tightening up the wire on the handle.  Ensie opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of an articulate way to give voice to an idea that had been bubbling up in her head for the past forty-eight hours.  So, with a swallow and a nod, she passed her boss the handle to a machine he barely knew anything about.
    Iggy trotted up to their vantage point behind a low wall of sandbags.  She looked across the grounds at the Flicker a hundred meters away. 
    “All clear,” she said, raising her voice a little over the high-thrumming of the propellers.  “On your mark, Sir Tomas.”
    The ‘naut didn’t say anything.  His face looked bored as he squinted against the wind and dust that was brushing against their suits.  He grunted as he gave a sharp pull on the handle.  It happened so quickly Ensie was still looking over at his profile when the Flicker took its first leap.
    She swung her head back to the test field and looked up at the great bug in the sky.  It caught the sunlight fetchingly as it reached the apex of its jump. There was a tall measuring pylon a safe distance away on the field, with easy-to-read notches marked up to twenty meters in glossy black paint.  The Flicker made it up to about four, as far as she could tell, just a few degrees off of a vertical leap.  It sank back down at about half the speed it had gone up, as the deliberately weak propellers gave just enough lift to struggle against gravity.
    Ensie frowned.  That was faster than they wanted the Flicker to descend.  When it was jumping forward and not just straight up-and-down, as in this test, the aerodynamics of the shape would help it glide and catch some additional lift.  But adding on a pilot’s mass would probably cancel that out.
    As calculations ran through her head, the Flicker touched down with a clatter just to the side of its launch-off point.  The articulated skis bent at their hinges and took the landing nicely, like a barefoot child who thumps down on the soles of her feet, then curls her toes down a heartbeat later for stability. The machine skidded a bit before coming to a stop.  Its motor purred its high-pitched purr as the air swirled around it.
    Iggy whooped with pleasure.  “What’d you think, Ensie?  Four meters?”
    “Think so.  At least!”
    “Someone turn that off,” Sir Tomas said, dropping the wooden handle to the dust.
    Some dirt brushed into Ensie’s face and left an acrid taste in her mouth.  Ensie rubbed the back of her hand across her lips and trotted towards the Flicker without acknowledging the order directly.  It’s not as if it was an order to me, anyway.  He couldn’t care less who does the work around here, as long as he gets the credit.
    She looked over her shoulder as she reached the Flicker.  Iggy and Tomas were in conversation.  Their ‘naut was staring straight at the ground as Iggy tried to draw him out, her gestures looking especially animated against his stillness.  She couldn’t hear what her senior tech was saying.  His mouth may have been moving.  It was hard to tell.
    Ensie sighed as she clambered into the pilot’s seat, reaching out for the keypin.  She twisted the metal stick and pulled it out of its slot.  The propellers’ keening slowed and quieted, and the ranine box below the chair made the whole craft sag a few centimeters as it depressurized.  Ensie felt the machine relax beneath her as she sat in the chair, the safety harness swinging against her ankles.  The seat was a good size for her.  She lifted a finger and tapped it against the rubber-coated handlebar, like tapping the side of a glass fishbowl.  The entire