Chapter 75 - Annihilation event (2) (2/2)
”The force of attraction between objects in space that increases with mass.”
”Close enough, and what is the opposite of that?”
”Of attraction? That would be repulsion…. Oh god. has that happened before?”
Realizing the terrible truth and implementation of negative gravity Terra's face turned grim.
”The Galactic Empire knows of at least 2 hundred thousand civilizations that have annihilated themselves by generating a strong enough anti graviton field to overcome strong and weak attraction yeah… But back on topic, ICI liftoff please.”
[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED.]
With a quiet humm the Stinger lifted off the ground, along with a few plants that had been near it and rose to about 5 meters.
”By eliminating most of the effect gravity has on the craft and creating a 'gravity well' above it the craft can achieve flight without the use of engines.”
”Well I'll be damned…”
”That would be 50 pushups.”
Accepting her defeat Terra got down on her arms and started doing pushups as she muttered to herself.
”If you can lessen the force of gravity then can't you also increase it?”
”Correct~ ICI give me a localized 5 g field please.”
[CONFIRMED.]
”Ugh!-”
Falling flat on her face Terra suddenly struggled to breathe as if a fully grown horse sat down on top of her.
”Come on, that was only 20 pushups, you still have 30 to go so quit sleeping in the grass.”
”Are. You. F.u.c.k.i.n.g-”
”Okay then, as the perfect instructor I am I'll do it alongside you.. Come on, 1.. 2..-”
Spending the rest of the day going over all the Stinger's functions, Terra felt like she finally understood more about it and how it worked, that is until the way back.
”So you know how in the wild eagles will sometimes drop their children from the nest to make them better at flying?”
”Yeah I do Dax…. What is this about?”
Feeling anxious about Dax's tone and sudden monologue, Terra stopped playing around in the zero gravity.
”Nothing in particular~”
[ADJUSTMENT BURN CANCELLED. ICI SYSTEM LOCKOUT CONFIRMED.]
”Dax?”
”What?”
”Are you for real?”
”What are you talking about?”
[5 MINUTES AND 24 SECONDS TO REENTRY, WARNING: INCORRECT DECENT TRAJECTORY, CHANCE OF CRAFT DESTRUCTION AT 96.5%]
”You better get on that.”
”ARE YOU F.U.C.K.I.N.G-”
Cutting herself short as she realized arguing would deduct from her assessment score Terra bounced off the wall and made her way into the c.o.c.kpit and strapped herself in as Dax slowly followed with a smile on his face.
”Give me control now!”
[YOU HAVE CONTROL.]
Looking around as the flight computer gave her control over the craft, Terra located the controls she needed.
”That's the stick, which doubles as a knob controller to control translational and rotational motion…. Where's the throttle? Wait I don't need that.”
Thinking out loud Terra rushed to remember what she had been taught by Dax.
”And grip the stick to enable it then gently- f.u.c.kf.u.c.kf.u.c.k-”
Sending the craft into a free spin by overcompensating with the rotational thrusters, Terra lost most of her composure.
”Enable SAS please!”
[SYSTEM, STABILITY AUGMENTATION SYSTEM, NOW ENABLED. HOLDNING ATTITUDE, KILLING ROTATION.. WARNING RCS OFFLINE, NO POWER.]
”What do you mean 'no power'!?”
[RCS OFFLINE, NO POWER.]
”Enable rotational control system!”
[RCS ONLINE, SAS ONLINE, HOLDING ATTITUDE: RETROGRADE.]
With the flight computer taking partial control over the craft it finally stabilized and started holding attitude.
”Okay then.. Time to atmospheric reentry?”
[1 MINUTE AND 5 SECONDS, OUTER ARMOR AT 58% HEAT CAPACITY.]
”F.u.c.kf.u.c.kf.u.c.kf.u.c.k-”
As the Stinger gradually started to heat up from the friction of the atmosphere below Terra did her very best to survive.
---
[ASSESSMENT OVER, CADET RATING:B+]
”... I'm sorry.”
Looking at the mostly charred Stinger that she had barely managed to land without crashing outright, Terra was filled with guilt.
”What are you talking about? that was great.”
Not really being that upset about the entire thing Dax had a large smile on his face as he congratulated Terra.
”Really?”
”Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. I honestly believed you would crash and die.”
”What!?”
”What?”
As the sun slowly set on Kingsted the spysat-1 was about to enter sleep mode when a source of light blinded most of its sensors.
[ANNIHILATION EVENT LOCATED, CATEGORY 7.]
From space the small fireball quickly grew in size and swallowed the surrounding forest as the shockwave made the earth ripple like a pond when a rock was dropped into it.
[SHIELDING SENSORS…]
With the shockwave reaching the satellite in low orbit it was knocked out of operation temporarily.
[SENSORS RESTORED, ADJUSTING EXPOSURE.]
After a few minutes the satellite had rebooted and restored some of its sensors to operational levels, and it once more focused on the event. The original blast had only lasted a few seconds, but had superheated the surrounding air and created a blastwave that had carbonized all the trees in a 5 kilometer radius around the blast, and started multiple forest fires around that. The ground itself at ground zero had turned molten, and a large part of the surrounding atmosphere had been ionized and was creating lightningstoms by the sheer blastwave that was currently traveling around the globe.
[EVENT SIGNATURE IDENTIFIED: ANTIMATTER MIRV STRIKE CORE #515. DETONATION CONFIRMED, RADIATION CONTAINMENT NOT CONFIRMED.]