Commission for a patron
PATREON:http://www.patreon.com/Morpheus
Paypal:https://www.paypal.me/AMKibbe
Discord:https://discord.gg/B5PJ2x2

My Books for sale on LULU:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/amk1954

Chapter 18: Launch
Nick was snoring. The days when he slept on the ship with Kate had become more frequent and he had come to really appreciate her mattress. Whatever nonsense it was made of was just so soft.
His slumber was only slowly broken when he felt himself tilting. Or rather un-tilting. The crashed ship hadn’t been fully level, pretty close, but not fully. Now though things seemed to be flattening out. He absentmindedly reached over to where Kate, his female, should have been, but found nothing.
“Kate?” Nick asked the air, groaning as he forced himself to sit up. It seemed he was alone in the bed, Kate must have gotten up early, and judging from how early the clock said it was, she must have gotten up very early indeed.
Once he had shaken some cobwebs loose in his head he tried the alternative, “Hal?”
“Ah waking up are you?” The disembodied voice he had slowly getting used to replied.
“Where’s Kate? Its ... really early and she’s already up?”
“She was excited. Its launch day after all.”
“Ya. You… I remember talking about it.” Nick had already made preparations. Essentially he told his assistant that he basically owned the shop until Nick returned, and if Nick didn’t return then congrats on being the new blacksmith. He had little other connections to this place so he was mostly prepared. “We aren’t already launched are we Hal?” He said sliding out of bed and opening his dresser.
“No. just the landing gear leveling me out for the first time in… far too long. Feels nice to stretch”
“Do you really ‘feel’ it like that?”
“Probably not, but its close enough. It’s like knowing my parts work at least.”
“Fair enough, so where’s Kate?”
“On the bridge” Hal said followed by a chuckle, “You know you’re probably already overdressed.”
“But im barely slipped into my underwear…” Nick sighed, “She’s not…”
After dressing himself he made his was to the bridge. All the instruments were alive with light and sounds. Whirring and beeping and clicking emanated from everywhere as the ship readied itself for flight. In the captain’s seat was the love of his life and the future mother of his child, hopefully the future mother of many of his children. She was focused on the monitors and dials, following along with the preflight checklist and making sure the ship was ready to go. He thought she was so pretty when she was concentrating like this, not to mention she was wearing her best ‘outfit’ for their launch into the stars.
“Misplace your clothes” Nick said, suppressing a blush. No matter how long he had already lived with this woman, seeing her totally nude just got the blood flowing.
“Misplaced my underwear too, maybe space gremlins ate them. I shall be starkers for the rest of my life.” Kate said glancing at him with a smirk before turning back to the instruments.
“Well if that’s all the space gremlins take than I’m not complaining” Nick sat down next to her and watched her work. The complete casualness of the situation somehow made her all the hotter. She wasn’t actually DOING anything particularly sexy, just normal work stuff, but the twitch of her muscles he could see under her fur when she moved, and the gentle jiggle of her uncontained and unobstructed breasts when she leaned forward were somehow even more erotic for the fact that she WASN’T being erotic about it.
“You about ready for this Nick” Kate asked at last, “Everything seems good to go.”
“I’m a bit nervous, but… ya. I’m ready for this Kate.”
The countdown started. Energy began flowing through the various conduits and capacitors. A rumble began to erupt from the reactor as it shook off its dust and energized the primary drives. Nick took a deep breath and tried to relax. He pulled the seatbelts out of his chair and buckled himself in. Kate did similar and with a shuddering rumble the world outside the front view windows began to fall away.
Nick had thought he was ready, but when the main engine fired up he realized how much he really wasn’t. The ship rocketed along the ground. Trees and mountains and hills whizzed by faster than he had imagined was possible. The force pressed him into his chair and his fingers gripped tight into the handrails, especially when the ship became to pull up. They went from facing forwards to facing upwards in a moment. The clouds rushed at them like a white wall, and for a brief moment nick wondered what it would be like to be in a cloud. By the time he was finished with his thought though they were already out the other side of it and the blue sky was giving way to black.
The acceleration force fell away, and Nick found he wasn’t being forced into his chair as hard anymore. Then the stars seemed to start to spin around, orbiting a point in front of him. It took a second to realize they were rotating around. The planet far below them, slowly came into view above them.
Nick’s eyes went wide as he saw his home from above the atmosphere. The planet still seemed so huge even from up here, but he could still see so much of it: from the forests and the cities and mighty rivers that now seemed like tiny blue lines. Mountains in the middle of the continent were in view at the same time as the ocean coast at the edge. He could also see some things that he hadn’t wanted to see. Large dark scars that spoke of the world war his people had experienced merely half a generation before Kate’s arrival. Even they though were surprising in how they looked from up here.
The massive fields of devastation that he remembered looking at when he was younger. They seemed like they went on forever and the damage left behind seemed like it would be felt for all time. From up here though they looked positively tiny. He could see them sure, but compared to just how much of the world was verdant greed and blue, it was clear just how little time would care about a world war in the grand scheme of things.
“Woah…” he said at last.
“Nice view huh?”
He pried his eyes off the plant for a moment to glance over at Kate. She was reclining in her chair and lookup up at his world too. She clearly wasn’t as shocked as he was, but still seemed a bit awestruck by the view.
“Its… amazing….”
“Much more to see yet” Kate said smiling warmly at Nick while the whirr of the hyperdrive grew louder.