The portal on Lewis’ left looked down at the approaching planet, which was shrouded in cloud cover and a moon in full shadow. It struck him that seeing a lunar eclipse that close was something he would never have thought of in what he already considered his previous life. The reflection on the inside of the glass revealed the abundance of the prior couple weeks; good food, exercise, and study had filled in some of what living the life of an infantry soldier had taken away. Space travel had been thrust upon him and his team when the Star Skipper had shown up and extracted them from a no-win situation that had his team pitted against a tank. He had taken it for a space shuttle at first when it had dropped out of the sky in a serious stall, and fried the tank by firing its main engine as it passed over. When it came back around to land, he saw that it had the characteristic stubby wings and round nose of a reentry capable vehicle. It landed in a vertical position a couple hundred yards from where the jeep lay on its side. As tall as a thirty-story building with markings that looked vaguely like letters and words, but in an alphabet that was unlike anything he had ever seen before. The crew convinced his team to come aboard and avoid the last tank that was on its way.
During the hours and days that followed they had all learned, healed, and gotten to know the DeLeahs. The ship belonged to Lenon and his sisters, Dayen and Dayel. Also on the crew were Michael R, Dayel’s husband, and their daughter, Naurel. Lenon was the tallest man that Lewis had ever seen, head and shoulders above Lewis’ six foot six. The twins were identical and as different as two people could be, Dayen was strong and physical, a warrior in every sense of the word while Dayel was slight, smart, clever, and charming all at the same time. Michael was a small man, quick and quiet, always ready with a smile or a reasonable explanation of how something worked. Naurel looked about ten and spent most of her time in her room reading. From the way they carried themselves Lewis suspected that the adults in this family had seen more combat than his team had and probably had some interesting tricks up their collective sleeves.
On his right-side Alice Roquette, former cavalry scout, leaned against her safety harness to look past him. A look of awe had settled on her dark face and made her eyes even more intense than usual. She had spent most of the last ten days lifting weights and it showed.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
An orange flicker caught his attention in the portal, small and faint at first then growing into a painfully bright flame that covered up the entire view. At the same time a vibration began in his sternum and spread to the structure of the craft like it was on a rutted gravel road at highway speeds.
He turned around as far as he could in the restraints to address Tony Telini, their radioman, who sat looking completely relaxed, “how fast do you reckon we’re going?”
Telini shrugged and thought for a minute before answering in his flat California accent, “don’t know but I guess it’s about fifteen or twenty thousand miles an hour. Our shuttles were moving around seventeen. That fire out there is plasma from the compression of the air that can’t get out of the way at this speed. Kind of like we’re crashing into every molecule we come to.”
Shawn Blair was next to Telini with his head pressed hard against the headrest obviously enjoying the adrenalin rush. His blue eyes were nearly closed and that small smile they had all seen when combat got sketchy. Lewis asked him, “what do you think Shawn? Is it as good as running those south Texas roads?”
“Hmm.” Blair said, “would be if’n I was drivin’.”
“That’s why we don’t let you drive, besides Michael actually knows how. And he’s the cutest.” Lindy Gomez, their medic, said from the back row. Her dark brown hair was barely visible around the seat. Lewis reflected that those two bickered like siblings and acted like they hated each other sometimes, while he suspected that they were good friends.
Mack Rollins, the old veteran on the team, sat still and impassive as usual.
Michael’s smooth voice came out of the speakers in the ceiling, “this is your copilot speaking, if you have not buckled your seatbelt yet I implore you to do so at this time. We appreciate you riding with us, and we realize that you paid dearly for it so please enjoy the reentry.”