MoonRush (13 page)

She held his gaze for another long and uncomfortable moment before finally relenting. “Fine.” Jarod knew that tone well. She was anything but fine, and space couldn’t be much colder than the air Cleo was leaving behind as she stalked
away
.

Simon raised his eyebrows at Jarod, nodding toward Cleo’s retreating back. Jarod just set his jaw and glared at the controls in front of him. The little man chuckled at Jarod’s refusal to answer the implied question,
and
then spoke into his headset as he revved
the engine. His voice echoed through the ship. “Hold on, everybody. If it isn’t glued down, kiss it good
-
bye!”

As Jarod’s stomach dropped out through the bottom of his feet, he thought
that might be excellent advice.

* * *

Rob drummed his fingers against his armrest. He wasn’t nervous…okay, maybe he was a little nervous, but who wouldn’t be nervous to go into space in this piece of shiz? This feeling was like right before the roller
coaster started moving, or the second right before stepping off the high dive.

This was going to be epic. As long as the
Eureka
held together.

As he sank back into his seat, Rob checked all of the straps that held him in one more time. The pilot Simon had told them to get ready, and Rob wanted to be more than ready.

And how cool was it that their pilot was a midget? Wait. He was supposed to say dwarf, right? No. Little person. That’s what it was. Uncle Jare used to tease him about the time that his dad had been managing apartments during a long hiatus in treasure hunting. One of their tenants had been a little person, and apparently a very young Rob had asked the man where his mom lived and why he could drive a car and Rob couldn’t.

Rob’s thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like some kind of click
,
followed by a whine and a groan. Then there was a click with a hum and a clank. Rob craned his neck forward to see what was happening.

Simon called out from the front, “Hold on, everybody! This happens all the time. No problem.”

That couldn’t be good.

A flurry of whacks and bangs interspersed with swear words filtered back to the hold. Then there was another click
—
followed by a whoosh and a roar. The entire ship vibrated. Rob could feel his teeth buzzing against each other, the humming resonating in his skull.

In addition to the vibrating, a very disturbing rattle was mixed in
with
the liftoff soundtrack. Rob thought he heard something break off the ship and tumble to the ground, but with all the other noise
,
there was no way to be sure. Oh
,
well, they’d find out soon enough, he guessed.

He turned his head to look out the port window in time to see flame burst out all around them. All was red and orange and yellow swirls and jets and fingers as the fire seemed to be doing what it could to crawl inside the ship with them. It licked the wall of crushed cars, melting them into a bizarre automotive Rorschach test. Rob was sure he could almost feel the heat from the jets. Like under his seat.

And then the ship started to rise. At first
,
it was only a few inches. As if the
Eureka
wasn’t quite ready to leave this world.

“Come on,” Simon growled up front. “Let
’s
go.”

Rob strained to see past the flames to the problem. Then he found it. The supporting struts. They were still firmly attached to the ship. Great. Everything was more than happy to fall off, but not the struts.

He didn’t know much about rocket launches, but he did know the ship’s hull could only take so much heat for so long. If those struts did not let go
,
they
all
might just fry right here, in the middle of a junkyard.

Not cool.

Then the struts sprang open
,
and the
Eureka
surged forward like the best damn roller
coaster ever. Rob felt as if his chest had been shoved into his back.
Gravity
pulled at his body, pushing the breath from his lungs, holding his arms and legs in place, pulling his face back like some kind of bizarre plastic surgery.

What had been a tiny wire poking him in the back before now threatened to pierce his spin
e
. He tried to shift around to avoid it, but failed miserably. The g’s had him in their thrall.

Still
,
Rob could not keep the grin off his face.

The only thing he could do was turn his head to watch their “launchpad” consume itself in fire. Most of the flammable items were simply dust
,
but anything plastic blended in with almost Burning Man-like statue created by the stacked cars
,
which glowed fiercely. The highest burned a blinding white
.
T
hose farther away
appeared
a duller red. From the way the rocket blast hit the earth, it looked almost
like
the very dust from the yard was aflame.

Rob had never seen anything like it before. He was pretty certain he wouldn’t see much like it ever again.

The site grew smaller and smaller as their ship arrowed up into the sky.
T
he launchpad was
now
a tiny dot still afire, while the rest of the sprawling junkyard mimicked
a
blazing maze. It was like one of those cornfield labyrinths, only made of trash.

Then the entire yard became a distant speck beneath them as the
Eureka
entered the clouds. Up and up, higher and higher. Rob had more experience than most adults regard
ing
what lay below. He had gone down into the depths of the ocean more times than he could count. But other than the occasional commercial flight
,
he didn’t know much about being up above. And he had never gotten up this high before.

The sky took on a darker hue as their ship streaked toward the upper atmosphere. Rob felt his gut clench with excitement as they neared the border of space. The ship lurched as the solid rocket boosters detached. Rob watched as the small side accelerators took the boosters out to the side of the
Eureka
before they spiraled down toward the distant ocean. At least this relic wasn’t one of the old three
-
stagers. This thing might be old, but it wasn’t forty years old. That was a good thing, right?

Looking around at his crewmates, Rob saw reactions etched on their faces. Cleo was worried…big shocker there. Cleo was always worried. Rob guessed that visions of the ship disintegrating around them were dancing through her mind. No sugarplum fairies for her on this flight.

Buton, robbed of his laptop during the launch, had the look of someone trying to raise polynomial equations to the power of seven. Come to think of it, that was probably the exact thing that Buton was doing. Anything but actually experiencing the g’s of this awesome launch. The guy was wicked smart and totally cool in his own weird Gand
h
i-type way, but Buton didn’t know how to just cut loose and have fun.

Then the spaceship popped out of the atmosphere like a cork out of a wine bottle.

There
!
T
hey had made it past the Earth’s atmosphere, and no one was dead. Rob felt the drag of gravity loose its grip on his body just as the bluish view out the window turned to velvety blackness dotted with points of bright light.

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…”

As Rob unbuckled his multiple seat
belts and propelled himself into the air, Jarod’s voice reverberated throughout the hold. There seemed to be more than a little relief in his uncle’s voice.

“Thank you for choosing Ramshackle Flight
s for your space travel needs…”

Rob bounced off the ceiling and whooped. “This is awesome!”

No one responded.

“We’re actually in space! All right!” He tried to high-five Buton on his way past, but first off, he missed the angle
,
and then Buton was about three seconds too slow. So instead of a hi
gh-five, he almost got a smack in
the face. Even that wasn’t enough to dampen his enthusiasm. He careened off the nearest wall.

Rob hated to admit it, but being in space was eve
n cooler than being underwater.

* * *

Cleo watched Rob’s zero-gravity antics and bit her tongue. She was sure
that
he was going to bash into some sharp corner somewhere and that she’d have to stitch him up, but Rob wasn’t going to take kindly to her hijacking his fun.

Besides, he really
was
enjoying himself. Cleo couldn’t help but smile as he pushed off from another wall and zipped straight for Buton’s head for a second time. Buton diverted him without even looking up from the scientific journal he was reading on his wrist-tablet. If it weren’t for the lack of gravity, they might almost be back on
the
Rogue
s
’
Gamble
.

Jarod’s voice crackled over the loudspeakers once more
,
mock
ing
an über-calm pilot’s voice. “If you’d all be so kind as to look out your port window…”

Buton smirked. “It seems our esteemed captain now fancies himself a tour
—
”

Cleo heard Buton cut himself off as his gaze found the window. She propelled herself over to his side
,
and found herself struck equally as dumb. The glowing blue
-
and
-
milk swirls of their home planet filled the tiny widow. There was a moment of reverent awe as they all breathed in the beauty of the Earth, a precious jewel that they had never seen from this perspective.

Rob breathed out in what almost sounded like a prayer. “Oh, mama!”

Cleo completely understood. All the irritation of getting out here in this tub vanished as the reflected radiance of the
E
arth’s surface suffused her face.

Even through the clouds of the weather patterns on the face of the globe, Cleo could pick out continents and oceans. She saw the American continents, the bottom of the North
Pole,
and the bulk of the South
Pole
. The wide stretch of the Atlantic was laid out to her view, as well as a strip of Africa.