Flipspace: Sol Side Up

By John Steiner

On completion of two missions, the crew of the Mockingbird returns to Earth for Grav Leave. Not everyone welcomes them back as intrepid explorers and peacekeepers. Colonel Ramachandra becomes the target of a kidnapping plot, and the abductors’ motives aren’t clear. Major Lamarr Fitch struggles with the responsibilities of filling in. He must organize the ship’s crew to get Colonel Rama back. Captain Malcolm O’Connell confronts his past and the legacy of being a reincarnated Xerces Protocol patient.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melange Books, LLC
• Release date: Mar 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781612358369

John Steiner

John Steiner earned his Associate of Biology at Salt Lake Community College, where he is currently working as a tutor in math and chemistry. He exercises an avid interest in history, science, philosophy, mythology, martial arts as well as military tactics and technology.

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Special Smashwords Edition

FLIPSPACE:

Sol Side Up

by John Steiner

Published by

Melange Books, LLC

White Bear Lake, MN 55110

www.melange-books.com

Sol Side Up, Copyright 2014 John Steiner

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-61235-836-9

Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America.

Cover Design by Becca Barnes

SOL SIDE UP

by John Steiner

On completion of two missions, the crew of the Mockingbird returns to Earth for Grav Leave. Not everyone welcomes them back as intrepid explorers and peacekeepers. Colonel Ramachandra becomes the target of a kidnapping plot, and the abductors’ motives aren’t clear. Major Lamarr Fitch struggles with the responsibilities of filling in. He must organize the ship’s crew to get Colonel Rama back. Captain Malcolm O’Connell confronts his past and the legacy of being a reincarnated Xerces Protocol patient.

Table of Contents

Sol Side Up

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Glossary

About the Author

Previews

Chapter 1

Unwelcome Home

Seventy days and two missions later, the blue and white triangular ISS 454 Mockingbird parked its Flipspace Device at Lagrangian Station Five and reentered the Earth’s atmosphere. Colonel Sumitra Ramachandra received the honor of taking fly-by-wire control for the reentry corridor to make their landing. In her eyes appeared instrumentation data and a blue and white sky rising up over the Raven class Intra-Solar Vessel. A lighter and less intense blue than Kepler 22b certainly, which she wouldn’t have noticed without having been to the exo-solar world.

Colonel Ramachandra, Maggie, the AI, said. There are two OSF 168 fighters taking up escort wing positions.

Copy that, Colonel Rama answered, while switching views to her left then right wings.

The two much smaller craft exhibited a similar blended body-wing triangular outline for hypersonic speeds. They differed by having a nose cone with canard wings to add lift in landings and takeoffs and a variable height vertical stabilizer that never rose over a meter. Their operational ranges didn’t reach far past geosynchronous orbit, hence the designation of orbital supremacy fighter. They reflected an exclusive air-to-air role few crewed craft held, whereas most others kept to lower altitudes and took on a wider diversity of simultaneous functions in the battle space.

The two fighters followed the Mockingbird as it dipped into the highest layer of clouds that streaked thinly across Earth’s unique blue yonder. Farther down, clouds acquired more volume and the gleaming white brought memories of childhood to Rama. Between a few friendly puffs of vapor stretched the Vandenberg Offshore Airbase on the coast of the Republic of California.

Units like the Fifth Aerospace Force, the First Light FTL Ops Wing, which commanded the Mockingbird, the Magpie, and now six other ISV-71 Ravens, had no single home base. Instead, they employed the mobile basing concept pioneered a little over a century earlier. This improved the rapid reaction capabilities of air wings who were the forerunners of the Aerospace Defense Response under NATO. That was before the focus of space-based operations went beyond peering back at the Earth.

Sumitra fine-tuned her alignment with the runway she was instructed to use. She activated magnetic suspension to augment the lift provided by wings, which were angled out to their full one hundred-fifty meter spread. Mat Tread landing gear emerged from under smart material armor. The left and right main gear made contact with the tarmac first. The dozen malleable pads of each gear rolled as wheels and were joined by four more Mat Treads from the nose gear. With reverse-directed thrust from the four Planck engines atop the tail, Colonel Rama slowed the Mockingbird to taxiing speed.

The ninety-meter long space and Flipspace-capable aircraft turned to a lot reserved for it. Sumitra saw huge crowds gathered there. They were held back by holographic projections of yellow caution lines and by Base Patrol personnel. Many hands held signs, but Sumitra saw not all of them were nice.

Sighing and shaking her head, the colonel shut off the ship sensor feeds to her ocular implants, and then unstrapped. Others in the Combat Information Center also unstrapped, with her XO, Major Lamarr Fitch showing a sour face.

Yes, yes, that’s why we faced the Jade Continuum and Risky Business, Fitch mocked in a light tone. So we can come home to deal with protests against what we do to keep those ingrates safe.

Sumitra waited for the rest of the CIC crew to