The Parliament of Dreams

by Wheller

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Sparky was more than a little nervous. As they were walked by the NKVD towards the launch pad, Sparky was able to get a better look at the ship that they had prepared. The ship itself was three hundred metres long, though Sparky figured that most of the ship’s length was a solid rocket booster intended to carry the ship into orbit. The actual ship itself was likely only a third of that length. They stepped into a large lift surrounded by a wire cage, and road up towards the docking hatch of the ship. She couldn’t actually believe it; the NKVD was sending them into space!

It wasn't that such travel was unheard of. There were a few stations in orbit that people could go to... if you had the money to go. Civil space travel, while available, was still very expensive, and here they were going to the gas giant Tartarus.

'You like ship? She is the Anatoliy Leninov', Yuri said towards Sparky.

'Leninov?' Sparky asked. 'Wasn't that one of the crew on the Discovery One mission?'

'Dah', Yuri said with a nod. 'Was originally called the Titov, but changed at last minute'.

'Why would you do that?' Sparky asked.

Yuri shrugged. 'We are told to change ship name, we do not ask why... Titov probably fell out of political favour'.

Sparky swallowed, considering what she knew of the Præsidium, she could only imagine what ‘falling out of the political favour’ actually entailed.

The lift reached the top of the launch pad, the wire mesh door opened up with a creek. At the far side of the hallway were several NKVD agents standing guard at the open airlock, each of them armed with twin assault rifles at their flanks. ‘I’m certainly glad they know we’re coming’, Dizzy said with a nervous gulp. Sparky nodded her head in agreement.

Yuri walked towards the open door and pointed inside. ‘You leave immediately, head inside and fasten seatbelts’, he said.

‘What?’ Sparky asked in disbelief. ‘We don’t like... get any training or anything for this mission?!’

‘No’, Yuri said plainly, as if Sparky’s question was completely ridiculous. ‘Is easy! Like riding rocket bus! Have you ever ridden rocket bus?’

‘No!’ Sparky said with a frown.

‘Oh’, Yuri said with mild disappointment. ‘Oh well. You’ll be fine, you have space sickness bags!’

Sparky frowned; as if that made everything alright. She was not, however in any position to argue with the NKVD agent, and she, however begrudgingly, stepped inside.

The Leninov’s floor didn’t seem to actually be a floor, Sparky made the mistake of looking down, and discovering that it was merely a see-through wire mesh. She froze in place, her fear of heights instantly paralysing her. The Leninov was clearly designed to fly along the x-axis, but for takeoff it seemed to need to travel along the y-axis. The wire mesh floor was temporary, and could be taken down after they’d reached space to give them access to the rest of the ship. Sparky stiffened her resolve, closing her eyes and continuing to step forward, despite her fear. ‘Hey everyone? Don’t look down! Just... don’t!’ Sparky said as she climbed into a seat, and fastened the restraints.

She discovered that they were not the only ones in here. Two Præsidium cosmonauts were fastened into the row of seats in front of her. Figures, the NKVD wanted to send them, but they didn’t trust enough to not send some of their own people to keep an eye on them. ‘Uh... hi!’ Sparky said.

One of the cosmonauts turned around and looked at her in confusion. ‘YA ne ponimayu, chto vy govorite’, he said without emotion in his voice.

Sparky offered him an uncomfortable smile and turned her head back towards the door as the others filed in behind her. This was not a comfortable position to be in; she was lying on her back, almost completely perpendicular to the ground. Sparky looked at DC Hopely as she fastened herself into the seat next to her and offered her a nervous smile. ‘I sure do know how to get us into messes, don’t I?’ she asked.

‘It’s okay Sparky, you do it well enough that I can forgive you’, DC Hopely said with a smirk.

‘You’re not still thinking about... you know?’ Sparky asked in reference to their talk in the aft lounge aboard the Madame La Salle.

DC Hopely shrugged. ‘I don’t know Spark, things kind of changed on me, figures though, I’d made peace with myself, and I was comfortable with every choice I’d ever made. I was ready... ready as anyone ever can be. Then the commies come and ruin all of that’, DC Hopely said with a chuckle.

‘They seem to be good at that’, Sparky said.

‘Yeah, yeah they do’, DC Hopely said as she turned her head, looking out of the hatch, she could see, and somewhat hear what was going on outside. She chained her neck, trying to get a better look.

‘What is it?’ Sparky asked.

‘Oleg and Yuri are arguing...’ DC Hopely said. She raised a hoof to hush Sparky, and listened in on their conversation. ‘Oleg thinks this is a bad idea’.

‘What? Sending us?’ Sparky asked.

‘No, sending anybody’, DC Hopely said. ‘Why would he think that? What do they know that we don’t?’

They would not get an answer. Juan Carlos was the last one to shuffle inside, and once he made his way to a seat, the NKVD shut the door hatch behind them. DC Hopely frowned, wishing that she had been able to hear more of Yuri and Oleg’s conversation. She instead turned her attention to the two cosmonauts in front of them. ‘Kakovy vashi imena?’ DC Hopely asked of them.

Sparky was more than a little confused, and at times like these, wished she was able to speak languages like DC Hopely. The two cosmonauts turned back to look at them, and both raised an eyebrow in surprise. Sparky was also able to get a good look at them for the first time, both were similar looking, as if they could be siblings. Both cosmonauts were grey coated with black manes. The only real difference between them was that one was male, the other was female.

‘Marusova’, the mare said.

‘Korolev’, the stallion said.

Wonderful, now they at least had names attached to them.

Several loud speakers began to blare overhead and Yuri’s voice filled the room. Sparky didn’t even bother paying attention, he was speaking in Cossack, and she didn’t understand a word anyway.

Soon enough, the loudspeakers ceased, and Sparky did her best to relax. She looked over at DC Hopely, and discovered that she had tightened her grip on her seat. ‘What’s going on?’ Sparky asked

‘You might want to hold on to something’, DC Hopely said.

‘Why?’ Sparky asked, raising an eyebrow.

The rocket engines ignited, the rapid acceleration jostled Sparky around in her seat as the Leninov lifted into the air, she held on for dear life as the rocket ripped through atmosphere on a one way trip into outer space. Her heart skipped a beat from the sudden jolt when the first stage separated, and they continued to ride into the sky, and then again some minutes later at the separation of the second stage. Before they knew it they were in orbit, Sparky felt herself drifting upwards slightly in her seat, and tightened the restraints, this was what zero gravity was like, or at least, it was close enough.

The Leninov turned in orbit towards an object. Sparky looked out of the front windows towards it, figuring that it looked like a satellite.

Korolev said something to himself in Cossack. ‘Preparing for separation’, DC Hopely said, translating for him.

‘Separation? Separation of what?’ Sparky asked. Suddenly the satellite before them fired a series of explosive bolts, separating the object in two. Marusova expertly piloted their ship in between the two parts. The ship shuddered slightly as if they had collided with them. She slid a few of the holographic control panels into place before announcing what she did.

‘Docking complete, beginning rotation’, DC Hopely translated for them.

The satellite wasn’t a satellite at all, it was an attachable centrifuge to generate artificial gravity

Korolev sat back in his seat as he began to work the piloting sliders on his holographic control panel, as he set course for Tartarus. His console began to beep and he eyed it suspiciously before speaking again. ‘Something is tracking us’, DC Hopely translated. ‘Looks to be a Præsidium telecommunications satellite?’

Suddenly, the entire ship rocked. Something had just hit them.

‘Or not!’ Sparky cried out. DC Hopely unbuckled her restraints and pushed herself over to look out the window. Suddenly, the ship was rocked by another hit.

‘A telecommunications satellite, right!’ DC Hopely cried out. ‘It’s a Præsidium point defence laser!’

Sparky’s jaw dropped. ‘Oleg’, she muttered to herself. Oleg thought it was a bad idea to send anyone out to Tartarus, but apparently, it was a bad enough idea to kill them over.

‘Uskorenie! Polnyĭ khod!’ DC Hopely cried out.

‘My ne khvataet topliva na obratnyĭ putʹ!’ Korolev cried back.

‘Sdelaĭte eto, ili my mertvy!’ DC Hopely snapped back at him and grabbed a hold of the nearest object she could.

Korolev punched the accelerator, the Leninov rocketed away, breaking orbit and moving out of range of the point defence satellite. They were free, they were safe.

Sparky let out a sigh of relief. ‘Just once, I’d like to go a day without someone trying to kill me!’ she exclaimed.

‘Yeah... yeah me too’, DC Hopely said nervously. ‘Um... we have a small problem though’.

‘What is it?’ Sparky asked.

‘In order to escape, we had to accelerate hard... that burned up a lot of fuel’, DC Hopely said with a nervous swallow. ‘In short... we’ve got enough to make it to our destination... but...’

‘But?’ Sparky asked.

DC Hopely frowned. ‘But we won’t have enough to make it back’.

Comments

[garouken]

BUM BUM BUM

[Spiffers]

and road up at towards the docking hatch of the ship - should probably be "rode up it" (although might be rode up at, if that's actually what you meant)

Not much to say other than that... good chapter

[KingOfTheMuffins]

‘In order to escape, we had to accelerate hard... that burned up a lot of fuel’, DC Hopely said with a nervous swallow. ‘In short... we’ve got enough to make it to our destination... but...’

‘But?’ Sparky asked.

DC Hopely frowned. ‘But we won’t have enough to make it back’.

Apollo 13 is only thing that comes into mind, despite being a totally different incident....

[KaijinZero]

sigh....different characters(mostly), same sh!tstorm

[Blik]

Seems like the cosmonauts didn't build a big enough cushion into their fuel tanks if one extra acceleration depletes that much of their chances for return. Is more of their equipment going to be sub-par?

[SCaitan]

Considering that she was nervous getting on the airship Sparky actually handled the launch of the rocket pretty well...a lot better than I would have without training. Especially when the Praesidium rockets have the same level of comfort I expect from a real Russian one.
Anyways, better a unicorn in space than an earth pony. Unless they have some ZeroG spoon handlers for Hopley I see big trouble coming up.

[Low-quality memes]

YOU MEAN THIS?472229
sorry caps lock accidently

[Macon Mixx]

The last two chapters have just been one unexpected twist after another! Does this mean they will abort?

489972 If they are using something like a hydrogen fueled fission rocket, the difference between a slow acceleration and a fast one could be immense. Like, the fuel they expended to get away from that laser in a jiffy could be half of what it takes to get clear to Jupiter when you are in no hurry.