Practise
By Gumnut
7 Aug 2004/22 Nov 2005

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaah!"

The sound of his jubilant yell bounced off the bulkhead as he slid the ship sideways, forcing it into a barrel roll, the glistening bulk of ice rock blurring past so fast the engines seemed to echo a speed scream back at him. As he breached perihelion with the giant tumbling snowball, he flicked a control and Puddlejumper One spun on its axis and broke its excuse for orbit in a perpendicular manoeuvre that would have had Newton rolling over in his grave.

God, this was good!

The moment he cleared the first rock, another shoved itself into his path, its trajectory wavering, jagged in its aimlessness. He only grinned wider, Aunt Pegasus felt like throwing him a challenge.

His mind, experienced in aerial combat, calculated his velocity versus obstacle, compensating for the third dimension of space, and the little ship answered, careening off to the left in yet another roll that sent the sight of the great ice ring into a tumble.

A moon loomed into focus.

A thought tickled his mind.

Hehehehehehehe.

Puddlejumper plunged towards the surface.

Space was silent, but his mind filled in the blanks. The scream of atmosphere rushing past, the roar of engines, and exhilaration as the blood sang in his bones.

A readout flickered on the screen, calculations of time of impact, and warning alarms began to ring. Words in a language he couldn't speak echoed in the cabin.

He ignored them all.

He knew what he was doing.

The vacant ball of rock loomed in the forward viewport. He flicked a control and the stable descent broke into a spin.

He let loose with another yell, riding the little ship like a bronco at a rodeo, bending physics into decorative origami. This was it. This was his joy in life. The freedom. The exhilaration. The innate beauty of the backdrop to his actions.

Flying.

Puddlejumper continued to scream at him, alarms shrieking in multiple languages and colours. He eyed the readouts, calculating trajectory, angle, pullout point, atmospheric density….

Imaginary wind blew through his hair.

He slammed a hand onto the controls, skimming the ship across the ionosphere of the small space body and ricocheting Puddlejumper out perpendicular to its original course…and at twice the speed.

Yeah, that was cool.

As he steadied out the little ship's course, he turned an excited grin to his passenger. "Wanna go again?"

Elizabeth Weir didn't answer. Eyes wide, face sheet white, fingers white knuckled, she simply stared at him.

Arched eyebrow. "What?"

xoxoxoxoxox
FIN.