The Long Road to Gaia by Timothy Ellis Read Free Book Online Page A

wondering if the scout would reappear or not.
    And suddenly it was there.
    "Hunter to Galactica."
    "Talk to me James."
    "Sir, I have the honour of reporting
the existence of a natural transportation mechanism. We were taken to another
solar system."
    "Where?"
    "Son," said Jon. "Wolf
359."
    The joy in his voice had even me cheering.

2193
     
    Lieutenant (JG) Jon Hunter flew the scout
ship out the front of the left flight pod, and headed for the jump point. He
showed no signs of the nightmare which had woken him in the middle of the
night.
    It was his first mission in charge. He had
three crewmen with him.
    Galactica had already spent months in this
system, and this was the last jump point to send a scout to. On his say so,
Galactica would jump into a new system behind him.
    I'd been watching this kid all his life,
and sincerely hoped he wasn’t the one. In my opinion he took too many risks.
His older brother was much more stable, and would make a good Captain someday.
Jon though? He didn’t have it in him.
    He did a way too fast zip through the
pre-jump checklist, all the time thinking about what he might discover on the
other side, and how it would boost his chances of early promotion. It was about
all he could think of. That and impressing his girlfriend, with his promotion.
    "You guys ready," he called out
to his small crew.
    A chorus of yeah's came back to him.
    The jump point was right ahead of him now.
He pulled his belt a bit tighter around him, and sucked in a breathe.
    The ship jumped.
    "Ouch," said Twelve. "What
terrible luck."
    "Am I supposed to do anything about
it?"
    "No. Not important apparently. The
bloodline is secure without him."
    I waited on Galactica until a week later,
they sent in another scout ship. It narrowly avoided colliding with the first
one.
    It took them a while, but it was later
determined there was a red light on one of the engine coolant indicators, which
the pilot ignored or hadn't noticed. As soon as the engine was used to
accelerate after the jump, it had exploded. The crew had died immediately. None
of them had been wearing their space suits for the jump.
     

2284
One
     
    "Drop," said Colonel William
Smith.
    Captain George Takai shot him a glance
which suggested something not to be put in words. The look he received back
told him the Colonel was not happy, and wasn’t going to put up with the usual
Takai smartarse quip.
    There was no way the Dropship could
actually drop. It was docked in a bay of the Earth Torus. Takai was the pilot,
and the Colonel was riding the jump-seat behind him.
    Takai cleanly lifted off from the deck, and
they flew out of the bay like a conventional shuttle.
    Another quick glance at their leader
received just a stern nod.
    Once clear of the Torus, Takai dropped
them.
    This was no ordinary Dropship, having been
designed specifically for missions down to Earth, where no ordinary Dropship
would hope to survive. She was five times as big as a normal Dropship, ten
times heavier, and had engines more suited to Corvettes. In a way, she was a
Corvette, because only something that big could survive down there. But she was
still a Dropship, with a cockpit instead of a bridge.
    All the same, this was no ordinary drop
either. This ship and crew had made exactly three previous drops over the past
year, and each time had only just managed to get home to the Torus.
    Earth was dying.
    Not slowly, but exponentially.
    What once had been merely pollution from
industry, had been accelerated by the melting permafrost's, releasing a mixture
of elements into the atmosphere which accelerated what was originally called,
in an attempt to disguise the real problems, global warming. The Earth did
warm, but not everywhere at the same time. Storms became hurricanes. Hurricanes
became ocean sized. Instead of lasting days, they lasted months, then years,
and finally never ended. Structures collapsed, even those designed to withstand
hurricane strength winds. Trees were blown down. As the