High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr
A/N: I don't own anything Andromeda. I wish I did though. The poem above was written by a young man John Magee, Jr., when he was only 18 years old. He perished in WWII at the age of 19.
"Hurry up Mom!" asked a very impatient, eight-year-old Dylan. "Can't you do it faster?" he asked as his mother was going through the preliminary flight checks.
"No darling, I can't. These things have to be done in a certain order and they cannot be hurried. Remember Dylan; the most important thing in space has to be safety. Nothing is as important. But there, I am finished, are you ready?" she smiled indulgently at her eager little boy.
"Oh yes Mom! I am more than ready."
"Very well, here we go!"
Dylan felt an incredible power course through the ship his mother was piloting. Then it began to move faster and faster and faster! Dylan, who was tightly buckled in to his seat, held on to the handholds of his seat. His heart started racing, almost keeping time with the acceleration of the ship. This was his first trip into space! He had been campaigning his mother so that she would take him with her on one of her runs. She said she would if he kept his room neat and clean for a month. He did that enthusiastically. His room looked so tidy, his mom said it looked as if a cleaning bot did the job. Anyway, they were on their way. Dylan had a huge smile on his face when they broke through the clouds. "Oh Mom, this is so beautiful, I don't even have the words for it.
"If you think this is great, let's try something else." With that she rolled the ship sharply to the right and then turned upside down. She soared through the clouds and danced in the jet stream, hurling at incredible speeds, doing loops and turns which took Dylan's breath away. "But baby, the best is coming right up." She hit the accelerator and they roared through the skies, up and up and up. Suddenly, they broke the atmosphere and they were in space.
"Oh Mom! Oh Mom! This is so beautiful. I have no words for it. In awe, he looked at the stars, Tarn Vedra's moon and the planet itself, the nebulae and distant galaxies, and he was lost. He knew that when he grew up he would live and work here, in this incredible wonder.
"So, I gather you approve baby," said his mother, smiling at his reaction.
"Oh yes. When I grow up this is where I want to be. Nowhere else."
"Well, if you study hard, you will get the chance honey. But for now we need to break orbit and take these supplies to Fountainhead. With that Stephanie Hunt broke orbit and entered slipstream.