Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

18

ION SHIP DARKSTAR UAC CENTRAL SPACEHUB—DENVER, COLORADO

“ALL RIGHT, MARINES—UM, SPACE MARINES—find any available seat and buckle in. If this is your first damn time riding an ion ship, get ready to suck wind!”

Kane looked around. About fifty marines, so young, stumbling into the ship. With seating for a hundred or so, finding a seat to himself wouldn’t be a problem.

The seats, designed with all the attention to the comfort of its soldiers that the military was known for, didn’t look much better than the seats on one of the big attack transports. Except these seats had three-way harnesses that—Kane imagined—would hold the passenger safely pinned to the seat even if the ion ship flipped upside down at five g’s.

He looked behind the rows of seats and saw a bulkhead with a door that he thought probably led to some kind of cargo area. And up front, what must be a VIP section.

Kane could hear the clanging and banging as heavy items got loaded into the belly and rear of the ship.

So this will get me to Mars,he thought. And though he had picked a seat way in the back where he thought he’d be alone, that plan didn’t work. A scrawny kid looked at the seat next to Kane.

“This free?”

Kane nodded.

The new space marine stuffed his pack into the compartment above the seats. Despite the fact that these ships moved a lot of heavy equipment at minimal cost, space marines were restricted to only the most basic of personal goods.You’ll get everything you guys need up there. The sergeant who’d said that had worn a real sick grin.

“Name’s Tobias Mitchell Smith,” Kane’s seatmate said.

Kane looked at him, hoping his demeanor would inform the kid of his disinterest in any talk whatsoever. “Kane,” he said.

“People call me ‘Smitty.’ Always have.” The kid stuck out a hand.

Christ,Kane thought.Gonna be a long trip to the Red Planet.

“You ever…you ever ride in one of these things?”

Kane shook his head.Maybe I should just tell him to shut…the hell…up.

“Me either. Going to be something, I can’t wait to—”

A soothing voice filled the transport. “Five minutes until launch initialization.”

“Wow,” Smitty said. “You know—Kane, is it? That your first name?”

Kane shook his head. “Kane will do.”

“You know, I heard that the takeoff feels like you’re in some kind of bullet. The whole ship tilting, rocketing up, before hitting orbit. And these seats, they—”

Enough.Kane looked at the kid, hoping that Smitty, probably fresh out of what used to be the farm belt and nowso damn excited about going to Mars, might see that the person he was sitting next to wasn’t exactly a newbie. That it was this or get executed. “Look, Smitty. Maybe we should just sit back, okay? And, you know, enjoy the goddamn launch.” Kane kept his eyes on the kid. And finally a flash of recognition there: that maybe not bugging this guy would be a good thing.

“Yeah. Right. Just, you know, experience it.”

Kane nodded.

“Launch initialization in one minute. System check begun. Harnesses locked. Cabin secure.”

Kane didn’t hear a click, but he imagined that the weblike straps now crossing his body could not be undone. He looked ahead. His hands closed on the thin armrest. And he had to admit that despite everything, he was looking forward to seeing what this ride was going to be like.

Kane knew almost nothing about the ion engine. But he did know that the engine would not even kick in until this transport was free of the atmosphere. And to get to that point would require the basic thrust of ordinary rocket power.

“Launch sequence initialized.”

Kane felt the ship tilt back, and as it did, so did the rows of seats, now turning slowly, realigning themselves as the ship got into launch position.

“This is going to be something!” Smitty was getting excited.

The ship approached a near-ninety-degree position, and Kane heard his own seat row lock into position.

“Thrust sequence commenced.”

The engines—a mere fifty meters behind them—kicked in, the roar deafening.

“Five seconds to launch…four…three…two…”

He looked at the kid next to him, grabbing the arms of his seat with all the power his scrawny arms could manage. Kane threw him a bone. “No need to hold on; the g’s will keep you—”

Then the ship began to move. The interior cabin vibrated. Kane blinked as his eyes got used to the constant quivering. Already he felt the force pushing him back into the seat. And then, the speed started to build. Until Kane felt the massive g-force pressing against every inch of his body. He was glad he had skipped a big breakfast. And he hoped the kid next to him had also.

More force, and the sound of the engines deafening despite the baffles and thick acoustic tiles that covered the cabin.

Kane looked out the small porthole. Not much to see at first, save for the whitish gas of the atmosphere streaming around the ship as it rose.

In the old days this was probably where some of the thrusters would be jettisoned, dropping back to Earth for—with luck—reuse. But at least that part of this ancient science had improved. The engines were now more efficient, almost compact, the fuel cocktails designed for maximum power. But then the ship rolled a bit to the right, speeding north, and Kane got a glimpse of the Arctic—the bare patch surrounding the ice cap tightening, each year less ice during the winter until the Arctic Sea would turn into a year-round fishing ground. Until that too was tapped out.

Then, as the ship turned again, already close to deep space, he could see South America and the smoky, smudgy clouds dotting the continent. So many fires there, the rain forest burning away, and in Africa too, no way to contain them, so they just burned, gobbling up the forests like a beast, forever removing them from the planet. Nobody had been able to put a positive spin on that one.

“This is…so cool,” Smitty said. Guess it was good the kid was enjoying himself. Kane would have just liked to get the dead weight of acceleration off his body.

Then he heard the recorded female voice: “Attaining Earth orbit in one minute.” Another glance out the window. The white slipstream gave way to a startling clarity now, and Kane saw a lush purple sky. They were leaving the atmosphere, and only moments away from the vacuum of space.

Then: “Orbit attained.”

Like a glider hitting the crest of its arc, then curving down, the ship began to slowly tilt. But this time there was little physical sensation. A click: the gimbal mechanism that controlled the seats released and they realigned themselves to their early horizontal position.

“Hey!” the kid tapped Kane. “Look at this, man!”

Kane looked out the port again. The sky dark, filled with stars. Dizzying with stars.

“Ain’t that something?”

And Kane had to give the kid that—the view was spectacular.

Now for part two of the trip. “Switching to ion engines in five…four…three…two…”

The compact, powerful thrusters that got them to orbit flew away to the sides as the ship rode the orbit. Each thruster’s own autopilot returned it to a landing spot below. Then a low level hum, almost soothing, filled the cabin as the recorded voice said, “One. Ion engines engaged.”

Smitty’s face was plastered against the small port, so Kane could see nothing.

“What happened?” Kane tapped the other marine’s shoulder. “Let me see.”

The beautiful space night, the lush dark sky dotted with millions of stars, had vanished. What Kane now saw was something he had never seen before, or could even describe. He wondered why there had never been any vids or pictures ofthis? Maybe because all personal cameras had to be stowed for launch for security reasons, they were told.

The traditional space sky had been replaced with something that looked like a net of curling light trails, all different colors, slowly bending, twisting. It was like being inside some kind of complex molecule from chemistry class, as though they had been shrunk.

“Where are we?” Smitty asked.

Kane didn’t have a good answer to that one. And he knew now why pictures weren’t allowed. Whatever those curling, coiling light trails were, they had something to do with how the UAC’s Ion Engine worked. The view outside was the strangest and most beautiful thing John Kane had ever seen.

“We’re in space, kiddo. Just…let it go.”

The kid nodded. Kane leaned back in his seat and shut his eyes.

“Travel time to destination…fifty-one hours, twenty-three minutes, and eighteen seconds.” A trip that should take six months…now no more than two days. Two days, and then Mars would be outside the port.

The War Planet. A second Earth—if the UAC/USA propaganda was to be believed. A second homeland.We’ll see about that, Kane thought. And with that last thought, he fell deeply and blissfully asleep.