Here we go, rather a bit more expository than part one.
EDIT: Okay, here's everything from Chapter 1 as it's been rewritten:
Space Force Part 1
“If peace is not to be my lot in life, if Chaos and Strife are to be my companions, then I ask they at least not be boring. Shouldn‘t be hard to swing, oh Lord.”
As the distinctive knock once again rapped against his front door, Jason Abernathy, looked up from the cutting board where he was finely mincing garlic cloves.
“Come in already, damn it!”
Jason heard the sound of a key being inserted and the door opening a second later. “You’re just in time for dinner, if you’re hungry,” he called from the kitchen as he went back to his garlic. A second later his head jerked back up as he heard two distinct sets of footsteps.
“Uh, John?” he called out, reaching for the pistol holstered on his belt.
As expected, and much to Jason’s relief, the face that rounded the corner out of the entryway was that of one John Kimbrell, Commander, United States Navy SEAL. He rather admirably failed to look surprised at the nearly half-inch muzzle hovering a couple feet from his face.
His companion, a somewhat tallish woman in an Army officer’s uniform, had a somewhat different reaction.
“Holy shit! Put that down!” she demanded with an odd combination of mousy squeak and command.
“Relax Lieutenant, he just has a love of theatrics,” John said through a smirk.
Looking rather sheepish, Jason reholstered his forty-five and looked back to his two guests. “Sorry about that, you’ve never had anyone with you when you dropped by unannounced before. Got the ‘ole paranoia running. What’s up?”
“Same thing as always, there’s a situation that requires your unique talents.”
“I suppose it was too much to hope you were just inviting yourself over for dinner.“
“It’s eleven at night, shouldn’t you already have had dinner?“ John asked with a chuckle.
“Second dinner, whatever. And you say that ’unique talents’ thing every time, and yet I’ve never done anything a hundred others, still on active duty, couldn’t.”
“This time is different.”
“You also say that every time,” Jason replied with a smirk.
As he stepped back to dump the minced garlic into a sauce pan the woman pulled an envelope from her jacket. “Mr. Abernathy, this is a check for fifty thousand dollars, tax free.”
“Fifty-k? Tax free? You must have really stepped in it,” Jason posited as he stirred the garlic in and smelled.
“You have no idea,” John answered disinterestedly. “Get your shit together, we have to go.”
“Whoa, ease up. I haven’t agreed to a damn thing yet. You should have offered the standard fee, no way I’m taking a job worth fifty grand without knowing what I’m getting into.”
After turning the heat down and notch and setting the spoon down, he fixed a hard glare on John.
“I have orders when I can give you details. In fact, the entire process of hiring you has been laid out in some detail. I can’t tell you squat other than my own opinion at this point.”
“So, what’s you’re opinion? Boss?“ Jason shot back with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s a risky job and I’m worried about your safety, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better if you were onboard. By the way, I’m on the pointy end for this one.”
“Crap, way to lay a guilt trip. Who’s the hiring agency?”
“Hell, I don’t even know.”
Jason’s eyes wondered over to the thus far taciturn Army officer and scrutinized perhaps a bit more closely than strictly necessary. He guessed her height at five feet and nine inches, since she had about an inch on him. Despite a carefully neutral expression, her wide, high cheekbones and big, green eyes had a strong girl-next-door quality. Her light brown hair was short enough to be held in place with just her cover, not quite reaching her collar. Pretty cute, was the conclusion he reached before looking down.
Judging by the shoulders and sleeves of her well tailored uniform, she had quite a bit of muscle. Her stance and the graceful stride he had noticed earlier furthered his guess that she was quite the devoted athlete. Intending to examine her rows of commendations, or so he told himself, he looked further down, at her chest. Then his gaze lingered. She was decidedly well endowed, especially for such an athletic woman. A nasty suspicion began to form in his mind.
“Who’s the spook?” he asked after his very thoroughly examination.
He was rewarded by the sight of the unknown officer’s face, already a bright red, now scowling and lashing him with a withering glare. In response he blew a kiss and winked, to the chuckling amusement of John who went back to pretending to ignore the exchange.
Just as she opened her mouth to respond, John answered, “1st Lieutenant Miller is working intel for the…unit I’m working in right now. She’s also the representative of the hiring authority.“
“Fair enough,“ Jason held up his right hand, “Pleased to meet you.“
She hesitantly took his hand a shook it and quickly let go. “Thank you, Mr. Abernathy.” There was something faintly odd about the way she spoke, but he could not put his finger on it just yet. He decided to figure it out later.
“So I’m guessing you have a better idea what I’ll be up to, Lieutenant,” he began, looking for a reaction and not seeing one. “How long do you expect?”
“I would guess no more than forty-eight hours at the longest, likely half that.” Again, there was something faintly off with her voice.
“Will I be fully briefed before I actually have to sign anything?” he asked with growing exasperation.
“You’ll receive your brief before you have to commit,” she answered slowly.
“In other words, no. Compartmentalized information. So I’m doing the bricks without straw thing, again?” he looked over to John who just shrugged.
“Fine,” he grumbled pulling out his cell phone. He pushed a few buttons and held it up to his head. “I have to disappear for a little bit. The usual crap. Follow up on that as soon as you get this message. I’ll be depositing about forty grand in the corporate account as soon as I get a chance. File it as a consulting fee. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I can, should be just a couple of days. Take care.”
“Two things, Jason,” John began, “First, Pete is not on the cleared list to even know you were getting hired.”
“You know damn well he’d have figured it out.”
“Yeah, yeah. Second, you realize it’s actually after midnight in D.C., he was probably asleep.”
“My heart bleeds for the corrupt bastard. At least I left a message instead of calling back until he made it to the phone,” Jason tossed over his shoulder with a grin as he stalked out of the kitchen. He shouted back over his shoulder, “Keep stirring that sauce and when the timer goes off, drain the noodles and stir them into the sauce and turn the burner off.”
Finally showing a smirk, Lt. Miller asked, “What, are you his cook now?”
“Shut up, Linda.”
In his bedroom, Jason opened up his closest and looked over its contents.
“Hello ladies, who’s coming with daddy this time?”
“Is he really worth the trouble, sir? There are plenty of people on Tranquility with his qualifications.”
“The qualities listed on his service record and contractor jacket have very little to do with why we need him. Why else would the Navy have put up with the sarcastic bastard? We need him to avoid as many casualties as possible, no matter how much he pissed you off.”
“I am not pissed, sir.”
“Of course not, just angry,” John replied with a smirk. If ever there was anyone to get a visceral reaction out of this oh-so-self-controlled woman, it would be Jason.
“Sir, he blatantly undressed me with his eyes! Not to mention he asked us in and then met us with a drawn pistol.”
“If you recall, the barrel never even wavered in your direction.” John heaved his shoulders in a sigh and continued, “You understand that if ever certain organizations found out he was the one who did numerous things he did, they’d come after him, right? I’m sure you have a point, he is pretty damn paranoid; pulling a gun because he heard your footsteps, but I can’t bring myself to care. Hell, I’d likely have done the same thing.”
“I understand that, sir, but…”
“He was eyeballing you? Yeah, he is a bastard, but if you get pissed whenever a guy checks you out, you must be pissed twenty-four/seven.“
“Gee, thanks, sir.”
“Besides, he was looking for a reaction. You’re an unknown to him, so he wanted to see how you’d react.” Sadly, this was another example of John misinterpreting his friend’s actions. Linda’s accusation of mental undressing was quite accurate.
The other officer seemed to think for a few seconds before replying, “Is he like that all the time?”
“Alright, look, I’m going to say this once, so pay attention. He has very little in common with the people we’ve been working with back at 1st SFHQ. He is not a hyper-disciplined, motivated lifer. He liked the military, but he didn‘t have the BS tolerance to put up with the covert world and yet it‘s all he‘s ever done. Does that make any sense?”
To her shaken head, he continued, “He doesn’t think the same way most people do. It’s occasionally disconcerting as hell, and yes he is a bastard, but that is the very reason we need him.”
She took a moment to respond, “So I‘m to just grin and be-…”
“Aw, John, I never knew you cared so much. Where’s the car? This crap is heavy.”
“Jason, if I go through those bags in the trunk, I’m not going to find an arsenal, am I?” John asked as he swung out of the neighborhood and onto Heller Street, heading towards Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
“That depends on how you define an arsenal,” Jason answered non-committally.
“We’re taking a military flight, Jason. Personal weapons are a no-go.”
He looked over from the passenger seat and smiled. “You’re a SEAL and the mouse back there,” he indicated the Lt., now fuming, in the backseat, “Has the look of a weenie, probably with a courier card. If the two of you can’t get a couple of bags on-board a plane out of here, you don’t deserve your pay.”
“Mr. Abernathy…,” she began to angrily retort.
“Jason, if it‘s all the same to you,” he interrupted.
“Whatever, our orders do not authorize you carrying personal weapons.”
“Think about that for a moment. Am I going to need to be armed?”
“I…I’m not sure,” she began until she saw John’s nodding from the driver seat, “Yes, yes you will.
“Right, and civilians carrying military weapons is verboten. So, unless someone else is gonna lend me their personal weapons, I need to bring my own,” he concluded rather smugly.
“That’s…inconvenient. It hardly matters I suppose, they won‘t be searched on boarding,” Lt. Miller answered as John drove up to the Langley gate.
Aha! Jason thought as his suspicion regarding the Lieutenant was confirmed. Tall, muscular, and she does have an accent! The fact that she was trying to hide it probably indicated that John had revealed why she was along for this trip.
“So is this going to be one of those, ‘ride in the backseat of a fighter blasting along on its afterburners the whole way’ things, is it? Always wanted to do that. Oh, another thing, why the hell does a U.S. Army officer, Intel at that, have a British accent? It slips out,” he turned to look at her,” Whenever you talk without thinking about what you’re going to say in advance.”
He settled himself back into his headrest and allowed a canary-eating smile to cross his face.
“Wow,” she replied, sounding impressed, her accent coming through without any attempt to hide it now. “To answer your last question, I grew up in London and after being commissioned was stationed working for NATO so the accent never faded. As for transportation, no fighters, we have something else waiting.”
“Wait,” Jason said with dawning incredulity, “Your name is Miller? Linda Miller? Robert Miller’s little girl?”
“Uh, yeah,” came the very uncertain response.
“Holy crap! I taught you how to…,” he stopped and looked over at John who was pretending not to listen, “…forge passports. You had different hair then. Blue, I think.”
“That,” she paused, “Wow.”
“Good grief, Jason, you taught a CIA section chief’s daughter to forge passports? Why the hell were YOU forging them in the first place?”
“Well, shit, it was a big party, I didn’t know you or the other guys well, and everyone was talking old war stories from before I even got commissioned, so I was getting some work done. She just walked up and started asking questions.”
“I remember that! That was you?”
“Well now that you’re all reunited, we’re here,” John said as he pulled the parking brake and killed the engine, shaking his head in disbelief.
A few seconds later Jason was pointing to his left, “Uh, air terminal’s that way.”
Instead of changing where he was walking, John kept walking right towards the gate directly onto the flight line. Out on the flight line was something that did not seem to belong there.
A sailor in woodland camouflage, body armor, and duty belt with a rifle slung against his chest opened the gate as John reached it.
“Nice night, Commander,” the Master at Arms, or base cop, called as he stepped out of the way.”
“And the fishing is great,” John answered, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe he just said that. The local security officer’s idea of protecting classified assets included some silly notions.
After they were all through the gate and onto the eerily lit flight line, Jason took a long, hard look at the odd, dark shape resting on the taxi-way near the gate. It looked like the bottom half of a diamond, halved again and resting with the longest and shortest faces up. Upon closer examination, the bottom was curved inward along the objects long axis and the from the nose was very shallow, ten or fifteen degrees.
Even the three landing gear holding it up, long door set into the angle of the side halfway back from the tip, and bank of windows wrapped a wide arc halfway up did little to disturb the image of a geometric shape, seeming to hover in the half light of the oddly empty flight line.
“What the hell,” Jason stopped and pointed, “Is that?”
John turned back to look at him with a broad smile on his face, ”That, my dear old friend, is the X-39B Aurora.”
“Bull. Shit.”
================================================================
The cut down arrowhead slowly rolled down the taxiway silently as one by one, the last of the air field lights were turned off, leaving the flight line to be eerily illuminated by backscatter from lights further away in the base. The result of an even odder twilight, deliberately masking the details of the strange craft.
When it reached the actual runaway and lined itself up for take-off, it sprouted downward angled wings along its leading edges. They seemed to flow directly out of the hull, like liquid metal, then flexed up, down, forward, and back, oddly reminiscent of a bird’s wing. After the wings settled into to place, the hull of the craft itself spread and flattened somewhat, aligning the angle of the top into the angle the wings had settled into.
Two horizontal rectangles on the back of the craft began to glow and a low rumble could be heard. Then the rectangles seem to cant themselves upwards and the rotated through an entire circle before aligning with the vehicle’s axis of symmetry.
With her pre-flight checks completed satisfactorily, the pilot pushed her head back into the g-seat and smirked to herself thinking about her passengers, one in particular. Then she said a single word.
“Afterburners.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
“Alright Jason, strap your stuff down quick and strap yourself into one of those seats with their backs to the tail,” John said as he hurriedly strapped himself into one of the seats facing the nose.
Instead Jason simply looked around the strange plane’s interior. It was a box, eight feet wide, twelve feet long, by about six feet vertically. There was a two rows of three seats at the rear, facing forward, another row facing the tail against the forward wall, and an open space between them with tie down points. The bare deck with cargo straps was incongruous compared to the large, comfortable looking seats, but the most obvious feature was what was missing. There were no windows.
Taking in the entire cabin, Jason’s mind rapidly went to work trying to understand why such an unconventional, and apparently secret, aircraft seemed to be a personnel and light cargo transport. If anything, it rather reminded him of a C-2 Greyhound, the Navy’s COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery) plane used for the same thing. That is, if he ignored the exterior.
“Jason, seriously, get strapped in fast. You do not want to be standing when this thing takes off,” John implored him again.
His woolgathering interrupted, Jason put off asking questions until he had bags tied down. Then, before he could say anything, Lt. Miller bent down and jerked the straps as tight as she could then had to catch her balance as the plane began to taxi.
“Whoa, they could at least wait until we’re seated!” Jason blurted out as he caught himself with a hand on the deck.
John’s rather disconcerting reaction, mumbling something about being in a hurry followed by quiet recitation of the Lord’s prayer, provided the impetus for Jason to put his questions aside, at least for now, and strap himself in a row back from the others.
The first thing he noticed about the seat, upon sitting, was that it was not nearly as comfortable or soft as it appeared. In fact, it felt rather like sitting on mesh of rebar. That thought bounced around his head for a moment.
“Are these g-seats?” Referring to seats meant to help the occupant deal with the high g-loading of air combat and other demanding maneuvers.
“Keep your mouth closed, tongue inside your teeth, and head back as far as you can,” Lt. Miller tersely replied.
As a faint rumble began to sound behind him, Jason replied, ”Why? You make it sound like we’re about to do a cat-…HOLY MOTHER OF SHIT!”
Luckily he had his head pressed back against the seat as the whole world seemed to explode. Or at least it sounded like it had. Of equally immediate concern to him was the impression that his weight had increased several fold and that gravity was now angled towards the plane’s tail.
It took several seconds for the implications of what his senses were telling him to make sense. Most of his attention was focused on continuing the stream of profanities he was still shouting in the hope that if he could hear any of them, which he couldn’t, that it would mean he was still alive.
Roughly five hours later, or about three seconds as an objective observer would count, he found that gravity was indeed still pulling him earthward in the direction of the belly. He only noticed this because his own suddenly immense body weight was pulling him down and backwards with roughly equal force now.
This state of affairs seemed to drag on for an eternity, days at least, but in reality only lasted a bit over a minute before the g-force eased off to a still very noticeable but survivable level and the continuous explosion died to down to a sort of distant rumble.
Jason’s litany of vulgarities had petered out at some point when things were still loud and now he simply felt as if he had been beaten rather enthusiastically with a tire iron.
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded, feeling instantly foolish as he had obviously just been launched into geosynchronous orbit as expeditiously as possible.
“That,” Linda began, not moving her head at all and putting quite a bit of venom in the single syllable, “Was our pilot getting us out of anyone’s range of observation as quickly as possible. Some genius decided the best way to limit exposure was to simply go really, really fast.”
“If I ever meet that genius, I’m gonna…hurl, all over him. Shouldn’t we have had flight suits with those little inflatable thingies for that?”
John chuckled, weakly, from the seat directly in front of him. “Little inflatable thingies? I thought you were supposed to be smart and know about stuff.”
“I will kill you.”
Further conversation seemed a tiring idea and an uncomfortable silence settled over the cabin.
In the cockpit, the pilot eased her climb to a more gradual one and began the engines’ high altitude, high speed sequence. That was actually the third and final phase of the engine alignments and was only used as the Aurora reached handshake range from space. The air was mighty thin at a hundred and twenty thousand feet, but there was enough of it if you moved fast enough. In this case, that was around fifteen times the speed of sound.
The wings had long since flowed back into the leading edges and now the belly formed an even deeper concave. At this speed, the lift keeping the Aurora in its climb was provided by surfing the shockwave that stretched back and under from the nose.
It struck her as amusing that such a secret craft with every imaginable stealth technology, compatible with its flight profile at least, was then required to fly so high so fast. The friction heating of the hull, especially the underbelly, routinely crawled into the quadruple digits. To any downward looking satellite with infrared sensors, it glowed like a torch.
She burst out into a real smile as she remembered when her fellow pilots and her had been given, much edited, intel briefs of other nations’ communications chatter that indicated that when their satellites had tracked an Aurora, they had all dismissed it as a glitch in their sensors.
Then her expression grew a bit wistful. She really wished the passenger module the boffins had dreamed up to fit into her payload bay had included some way to monitor the passengers. She had a strong suspicion that the nonchalance two of her passengers had effected on previous flights with her at the controls would be notably absent.
She was, of course, quite perfectly correct, but at least all the passengers were beginning to feel more or less human again. The subtle vibration that had begun without any of them noticing had ramped up to about what one would expect driving over a gravel road at about thirty miles an hour. That had the effect of more or less shaking everyone out of their fugue.
“God, I hate riding in these things,” John muttered as the vibration finally peaked.
“There’s more than one? What cruel masters you serve! Wait, there’s more than one?” Jason demanded as his brain began working again.
“Yeah, oops. Forget I said that.”
“Well, hell, don’t feel too bad. I already figured out this thing isn’t really an Aurora.”
To this, John actually turned to try to make eye contact before gamely inquiring how Jason arrived at that conclusion.
“Umm, well I worked in…a place where I would have heard about it.”
“And yet here we are, riding in one,” John replied smugly.
“But the Aurora project was supposed to have started in the eighties, and I KNOW there wasn’t one then, and not any time before 2007 when I resigned.”
“Mr. Abernathy, I know you worked with tech integration, I’m cleared and read into stuff you’ve never even heard of. Feel free to speak your mind,” Lt. Miller said with a smirk over her shoulder.
“That hardly qualifies as a need to know,” came the reply. The thought had just crossed Jason’s mind that no one had warned him what to expect from the takeoff from Hell and he was feeling a bit petulant about it.
“I’ve read just about everything about you, Mr. Abernathy.”
It occurred to Jason that they had claimed previously to be in a hurry, and the ludicrous speed he was sure their craft had attained seemed to underscore that. Why then, he wondered, would she have read everything about him?
“That’s a bit creepy, Lt..”
She caught herself before saying something in reply and just shook her head. Predictably, John chuckled quietly.
“Okay, I didn’t want to ask before and give you a reason to re-evaluate letting me bring my own weapons, but,” he paused for a second, working the courage to ask a question he was sure he wouldn’t like the answer to, “Am I going to be doing direct action on this?”
John thought for a moment before answering, “That was still undecided when we came out to fetch you, but I’m thinking yes.”
“Shit. Shit! SHIT!” Clearly agitated, he began fidgeting in his chair. “You know I’m not trained for that! There’s hundreds of other shooters, real shooters, you could nab if you needed a trigger-puller.”
“Okay, just relax. You’re not actually committed to anything yet. Sign the NDA, we’ll brief you, and you can nix the whole idea still,” John replied as he handed back a clipboard with the aforementioned NDA. It was a pretty standard non-disclosure agreement, a form of contract upon which the signer promised not to disclose any of the classified information he was about to come into possession of.
Having signed more NDAs than he could count, Jason just signed it and handed it back. This is the last time I let my willy make decisions, he thought.
Both officers looked over them to ensure he had signed and initialed everywhere he was supposed to. Then they began his very short briefing.
“No questions until we’re done. This will be short,” John began.
To John’s grumbled affirmative, John gestured to Lt. Miller to begin.
“The United States Starship Dyson has recently returned from its first cruise…”
“The wha-…,” Jason cut himself off before either of them could.
After sparing a second to give him a meaningful look, she resumed, “It is currently docked at Tranquility base, 1st SFHQ, and has not communicated since an incident where it was attempting to obtain samples from an asteroid. At that point, the telemetry cut off, but not before several of the cameras sent back images of some kind of alien life form.”
John began as soon as Linda stopped, “The ship seems to have returned entirely on automatic, but we have scans indicating human life, as well as half a dozen other types, still on board, but the returns are erratic and we haven’t been able to get a count.
Upon our return to Tranquility, an assault team will board the Dyson and attempt to locate and secure any survivors and take back the ship. I’ll be leading them. Your job will be to try to find any weaknesses, behavioral patterns, or anything else you can regarding the enemy.”
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“I seem to recall you did pretty well fighting in shipboard conditions,” John commented dryly.
“Yeah, guess I did. So, fifty-thou for going in with your shooters to clear aliens out from a starship? My main job being saying smart stuff?”
“That’s the cliff notes version, yeah.”
“Damn, you know I’m not turning down the chance to check out a starship. Seriously, when did we get those?”
Both officers simultaneously informed Jason of his singular lack of need-to-know. Eventually, the stream of questions regarding humanity’s first steps out into the stars died out, amidst a very disappointed grumbling.
The conversation then turned to more practical matters. Where to go as soon as the pilot popped the hatch on the ground, what medical checks he could expect to be rushed through, not arguing about being blindfolded and led about, and, finally, strenuous exhortation not to dawdle, ask questions, or do anything else that might cause a delay.
Apparently, the time pressure was a bit more severe than he had been led to believe. Giving in to the nagging, Jason hurriedly signed the forms, conveniently filled out already, as they were handed to him.
Meanwhile, the pilot nosed her plane down into an almost meteoric dive.
Less than two minutes later, all three passengers emerged shakily from the steaming Aurora amidst an orchestra of ticks and rings as the downright hot skin of the craft cooled in the chilly mountain air. All three were voicing complaints about the apparently insane pilot, Jason going so far as to claim on oath of blood vengeance. Not that his heart was really in it, that organ was, instead, somewhere in his pelvis.
Without preamble, three flight liners, in gear Jason did not recognize, were herding them into a building just off the runaway’s apron. Inside was, incongruously, an series of stations containing medical gear and attended by very intent men and women in scrubs with sanitary masks already on. As he was told to drop his bags and strip to his underwear, Jason groaned.
As promised, after being thoroughly poked, prodded, drained, questioned, and scanned by an array of devices, some of which he didn’t recognize, he was handed a slit-less hood. Guessing, accurately as it turned out, that those attending him were in no mood for theatrics, he slipped it over his head and blindly stumbled after his guide, who had a death grip on his hand.
Still wearing nothing but boxers, and a rather drafty pair at that as he was unhappy to discover, he was guided through several corridors with enough turns to leave him completely lost, then down, he was fairly sure it was down, for a long, long time in an elevator. When he heard the doors hiss open, his guide only took him far enough to have cleared the elevator doors before stopping.
“Sir, in a couple of steps you’re going to feel very disoriented. I will not be with you at that time. It is vital you DO NOT remove your hood until you hear voices telling you to,” his anonymous guide informed him in a very clear, forceful voice. Marine, at a guess.
Jason nodded his assent. It was painfully obvious to him, at this point, that he was playing way out of his own league and he was going to do exactly as he was told. At least, that is, until he had a better idea what the hell was going. The only place he’d ever heard of anyone being required to wear a blind hood was in bad fiction, this was a whole other animal compared to what he was used to.
His guide then told him to start walking straight forward, advising him that he would encounter a ramp and that he was to proceed up it. As he did so, he felt himself growing more and more tense. He was beginning to have the suspicion he was going to take a step off the ramp into nothing and fall face first.
As he was thinking this, his left foot came down on empty space. Already expecting it, his reflexes were more than sufficient to recover his balance. As he started to make sure of his footing and prepare to demand an explanation, he felt a hand land between his shoulder blades.
Just like jump school, he had time to think before being shoved forward.
As he crossed an unseen threshold, the world exploded. Or maybe it didn’t. It was hard to make up his mind. He felt himself falling, but only for the briefest instant. Then he felt like he was floating, like he was underwater. Fighting down panic, he determined to hold his breath. He reached for his hood, just stopping himself as he remembered the sergeant’s (was he a sergeant?) admonition.
Refusing to embrace a cliché, he refused to believe that he was smelling colors and hearing heat and cold alternating like a guitar string. Whether or not he was indeed feeling dots of primary colors across his body he was somewhat less confident on, but decided to reject for good measure.
His lungs began to burn.
Then he felt the very familiar, and almost welcome, sensation of a steel grate. More specifically, falling onto a steel grate face first. He heard a string of profanities and judging by the vehemence, doubted he was producing them.
“Mr. Abernathy! Mr. Abernathy! Take off the hood!”
Needing no further coaxing, he ripped off the hood and found he was in what looked like a vast auditorium filled with people in the most peculiar suits.
