The journey from the V3
to Go Down City would be a short but spectacular one, so Scat hurried through
the shuttle’s cargo bay and into the launch room, grabbing a forward-facing
launch seat close to the flight cabin.
Before him and filling the window to the port side of the
flight cabin was a living and shining Trevon. To the starboard was the
blackness of space. As they closed in on the planet, Trevon’s horizon flattened
out until the brilliant white band of its terminator ran in a straight line
from roof to floor. It then appeared to rotate and drop below them as the
shuttle altered its approach and offered its heat shield to the thin upper
atmosphere.
A frenzy of heat and light wrapped itself around the shuttle,
obliterating the view, leaving a visible disturbance in its wake.
Some 20 minutes later, the shuttle slowed sufficiently for
the air to part before it and Scat could then see the sky all around him. The
blackness of space was gone and the refraction in the atmosphere obscured the
detail he had seen from space. The shuttle continued towards a morning sun that
pushed a wave of light across the mostly white and sometimes green Trevon
surface, in places scarred and brown where mines dug deep into the crust. A
line of clouds obscured the frozen continental seaboard, dissipating over a sea
of gunmetal blue.
Scat’s spirits lifted. If he were lucky, the sky would be
clear on the surface, the air sharp and bracing, smelling of decaying
vegetation, snow, salt - all natural things.
At 20,000m, the shuttle extended its wings and slowed from
Mach 4 to a sedate 450 km per hour, its flight properties changing from a
ballistic missile to that of an air-rider. As it descended through 5000m it
buffeted slightly, dipped, straightened, yawed and banked as it lined up on the
Go Down City spaceport, only just visible in the haze some 10 km away. Then a
member of the crew closed the flight cabin door in preparation for landing,
stealing the view away. In no time at all, it was hitting the runway, wheels
screeching, cabin rumbling, loose bin lids rattling.
The three shuttles pulled off the runway to a row of
buildings set back from the main terminal and once they had powered down,
everyone, including the flight crew, disembarked along a closed and windowless
gantry into a small customs hall reserved for Lynthax personnel. Teams of
environmental specialists pushed past them in the opposite direction to
fumigate the interior.
In the background, and spread out around the hall, were
several groups of Lynthax Security, each trooper armed with a stun gun and,
this time, a lethal small arm.
Off to Scat’s right he could see the supervisors, who, like
him, had been led on board the V3 in
plasticuffs, being re-arrested. As he looked back at the head of the queue in
which he was standing, he saw two troopers waiting, looking at him.
It would be his turned next.
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