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“It’s beautiful.”
“Yes, it is.”
His hand came to rest upon hers against the Comet’s front glass. Despite the high temperature she could feel the heat of his body next to hers.
Before them a solar inferno took place in its ebbing glory. Giant flares rising slowly from the deep red churning sea only to fall back onto themselves. The vestiges of the marvelous event they had come to watch. Less than three hours ago a giant stream of plasmatic matter had shot from the star in front of them to the smaller star behind them. Two parts of a binary star system, connected every thousand years.
She hadn’t seen what kind of data they had collected, she could wait till the Captain had analyzed it all and was presenting it at one conference or another. It hadn’t been his research she had come for. It had been the chance to spend time with him. He had asked whether she wanted to come with him, she hadn’t thought twice about saying yes, she saw him seldom enough.
That the rest of the Futurecrew hadn’t come with him was an added perk. It left her as more than a guest, an observer in the backseat.
During the experiment, while he kept an eye on the fragile instruments, she kept watch on the Comet’s systems. This close to the binary all systems had to work flawlessly or else the raging storm outside would turn them into plasma themselves. While the Comet’s systems had been fine-tuned for this, they still needed manual corrections and input from time to time.
And then there had been Joan’s big moment, when the Captain had let her fly his beloved ship. It hadn’t been like flying in deep space with Grag at her side who was always ready to intervene when the Comet threatened to get away from her control.
No, this had been the real thing, she had been on her own, the Captain glued to his screens, softly giving her commands on which way to turn, while she had flown the Comet into the plasma stream that had connected the two stars.
All in all her flight in the stream had only taken fifteen minutes, but to her it had felt like hours. She imagined she could still hear the matter roaring all around them, hitting the Comet’s shield, the deep and angry sound mixing with the high and strained whine of the cyclotrons. It was as if she could still feel the lithe space ship vibrating as it fought against the tremendous forces trying to tumble it into the smaller of the two stars.
The Comet was shielded against the tremendous heat outside and still the temperature inside had risen to a hot summer day’s heights in the cockpit. The same couldn’t be said for the engines, those had gotten far hotter, Joan had flown the Comet out of the solar stream just a few degrees short of what the Captain considered even their short term maximum.
Which was also the reason they were still here instead of on their way back to the moon, so the Captain and Professor Simon could analyze the gathered data. The engines needed time to cool off before they could take the long journey back home. Having turned off the gravity to funnel all energy into the shields and engines during the experiment, they now floated in front of the main window, holding lightly to the window’s frame.
Has if he had read her thoughts, and she wasn’t sure he couldn’t do that, he said: “About three hours till the engines are cool enough. But I think I can restore gravity now.”
He pushed away from the window, gliding over to his seat.
She summoned her courage and turned towards him. This was the ideal chance for something she had wanted to try for some time now.
“Wait!”
He had managed to brace himself in his seat. She hoped he hadn’t intended to turn the gravity back on while she was still floating near what would become the Comet’s ceiling.
His eyes flickered with emotion as he looked at her, a mixture of awe, scientific madness and question.
There was nothing to it, she pushed away from the window, sure she was blushing.
“Captain, there’s a scientific experiment we should conduct.”
Now that she was close enough to him, she stopped her forward motion by grabbing hold of his shoulders.
“An experiment?”
She had known that would piqué his interest.
“We wouldn’t be the first, but now that everybody has Gravity Equalizers and people travel in luxurious space liners, few will have the chance to conduct one of the great zero G experiments.”
Effortlessly she settled in his lap, waiting for him to puzzle it out. She didn’t have to wait long till she could see the light bulb going off.
“Oh, Newton’s Third Law!”
He hugged her close, the excitement clear in his voice.
“Yes, actio et reactio.”
“And the question of rest. We should make a test plan.”
Joan was completely contend to be bend backwards over his console, while he typed the test conditions, since, being quite good at multitasking, he kissed her heatedly.