Escaping Gravity – Bruce Sentar

Any more holdouts giving you trouble?” I asked. “Negative,” Lily said sharply. “These pirates are not much of a challenge for a hunter like me.” “Of course.” I chuckled. “Please let us know if we can join you on your hunt.” I reframed the question for her benefit, and we continued our sweep of the ship.

“Oh, hello.” A kikai woman turned far too casually at our entrance to the captain’s suite. She was dainty and thin, with a pair of fox ears atop her head and a bushy tail patting the bed beside her as she greeted us. Her hair was loose and fell in a soft green wave that her tail mirrored as it swished back and forth when she saw us, with a white tip that went still before it curled around her.

“Ah, Winston. Sam. Happy to see you two doing so well,” she stated. “Yes, ma’am,” the two men said, bowing. She turned to me with bright, shining eyes. “I must have you to thank for the pirates’ current difficulty managing their systems. Are you here to rescue me?” She asked the question with none of the concern I would expect from a captive. “I suppose so. Can we get you moving?” I gestured behind me. She stepped closer and sniffed the air, eyeing me strangely before smiling. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a bearing to match the noble humans?”

she asked. My face twitched even as I tried to suppress a reaction. “No. I must say, yours is the first time I’ve received such a compliment.” I let the conversation hang. “Sorry, I have failed to introduce myself. Tiri of the Shikai family,” she stated, dipping her head. I glanced at the two men, recalling their brief story. This must be their boss. “Merchant?” “Yes. Have you heard of me?” she perked up, with bright orange eyes. “No. Just following these two.” I pointed. “Now, lady, while I would love to chatter, unfortunately there is too much for me to do.”

“Of course,” she said lightly. “Sam, Winston, you are to help him as much as you can. Pirates are nasty business. If one of you happens to have a weapon for me, I can make my own way back to your ship.” I raised an eyebrow slightly, more than a little hesitant to arm her. She was far too comfortable aboard a pirate ship for my liking, but perhaps I just didn’t understand her circumstances.

However, Sam knelt before the lady and held out a beam saber he must have picked up earlier. “Lady, I saw this blade and could think of nothing but you.”

y eyes scanned over the reports, the schematics, and the diagnostics, putting together patterns even as the computer did its work. I wished some days that I were a supercomputer, able to interpret the data as fast as these machines, but that was impossible. Instead, I had to sit here and wait patiently. Well, not that patiently. I hadn’t slept for nearly forty-eight hours, and I was being careful with my caffeine intake. Despite my cardiologist’s opinions, caffeine was needed for me to keep up my focus.

After all, the launch was fast approaching, and there was work that needed to be completed, then double-checked, triple- checked, and, if possible, checked a few more times. Horizon and its CEO did not allow a single slip-up, and I needed this. The CEO was a douche, but he was bankrolling my lifelong obsession: going farther into space. A familiar flutter bounced in my chest, a palpitation from my heart and a warning sign that I needed to rest a bit.

If only I had time to rest. “Your complaint has been documented,” I muttered under my breath as I promptly ignored the warning sign, sifting through my drawer sightlessly and trying to find my pills to keep my condition at bay a little longer. I needed to at least finish this report and initiate the next. Then perhaps I’d go and sleep on the couch in my office. One thing that working for a billionaire got me was a nice office, largely because I was a key part of him pulling off this mission.

While the report was running, my attention shifted to a more personal document. These were theories I tinkered with on the side: schematics, diagrams, and theoretical equations that I had yet to solve. But given enough time, and perhaps some spare computing power when my employer’s servers weren’t cooking away on the latest launch, I could progress space travel a step further. I could maybe even get it to the point where someone like me, with a condition, would be able to go into space safely.

Naturally, no one was ever going to risk a mission when one of the most unpredictable aspects was the human component. Someone with a heart condition could easily ruin an entire mission should something go wrong through no fault of their own. I dreamed of a day when space travel would be easier and considerably more available. My heart reminded me of how unlikely that future was for me, sending shooting pains through my chest again.

This time it was a little too much. My hand, searching through the drawer, became slightly more panicked.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 2c1f3b7c245822cf
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,719,802 bytes (3.547 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 418
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 709.83 minutes
• Total Words: 141,966
• Total Characters: 787,340
• Average Words per Page: 339.63
• Average Characters per Page: 1883.59

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