At an altitude of forty-five kilometers, Friga fires the Hope’s plasma reactors.
The exhaust, burning at hundreds of degrees, sets the skin of the balloon ablaze and rips through it.
Well-placed explosive charges detonate and finish opening the balloon like the peel of a squashed banana.
Weather balloons normally use hydrogen for lift, since it is cheap and effective.
The ballon disguising the Hope used helium.
It is slightly less effective—and much more expensive.
But if they had used hydrogen, the explosion when the engines switched on could have destroyed the Hope before they reached orbit.
Adam had thought of that.
As expected, when the balloon rips open, they go into a spiraling fall.
They lose altitude and free themselves from the rest of the balloon’s skin.
Finally, the Hope’s sturdy delta wings find support in the thin upper atmosphere, and the spiral turns into a dive.
At an increasing speed, but completely under control.
Acceleration forces grow: two g, three g.
Friga counts to ten, lowers the ailerons, and gives full power to the reactors.
More cheers when the Hope describes an elegant curve upward.
Just exclamations; g-forces prevent the woman and the two men from getting out of their overstuffed hydraulic armchairs.
Feeling his jowls down around his waist, Adam thinks how much easier it would have been if they had artificial gravity and an antigrav propulsion unit, like a real Tornado class…
Only the xenoids make them, and their importation to Earth is too tightly controlled…
So it was always mere speculation.
Over the headphones of all three comes a question from a controller at some astroport:
“Unidentified Tornado-class shuttle, Gander Astroport here. Attention: you have entered the Regulus corridor… Your trajectory is odd… Are you having trouble? Please identify yourself.”
Adam gulps: the moment of truth is here.
Gander lies within the realm of possibility, though Toronto had seemed more likely, given the latitude.
Trying to keep his voice from being overly distorted by the five g of inertial lift into orbit, Adam gives the answer they had previously agreed upon:
“Gander, Tornado LZ-35 from Wellington here. Have jet stream and problems with ailerons. Collision with weather balloon, destruction likely. Requesting guide beam to the point of embarkation for Regulus and free corridor.”
For an instant there is no response.
Just the crackle of static filling the cabin.
The fugitives look at each other, going pale.
Is everything lost?
So soon?
Friga fiddles with the triggers of the ship’s weaponry and nervously watches the radar screen, as if expecting to see a suborbital patrol ship appear at any moment.
At least she’ll make them pay a high price for her life.
Jowe turns pale but doesn’t move a muscle.
Adam sweats; could he have made some mistake?
He’s sure he hasn’t: it’s very unlikely that the controller would check up on them with Wellington, New Zealand, on the other side of the planet, and who would be crazy enough to enter an orbital corridor if everything wasn’t one hundred percent in order?…
“Tornado LZ-35, Gander here. Guide beam activated. The corridor is free. We detect the falling remnants of the balloon. You’ll have to be more careful! Have your ship checked over at the point of embarkation, and give my regards to Regulus.”
The road is clear.
Incredulous but relieved, Friga releases the triggers with a sigh and focuses once more on the controls of the Hope.
For now, the danger is past.
Or so it seems…
Just as they reach escape velocity, all the homemade welds on the Hope begin to vibrate.
It seems like the vehicle will be torn to pieces at any moment.
Friga turns to look at the shipbuilder questioningly.
“It’ll hold up, I swear it will!” Adam shouts, as terrified as the pilot but trying to fill her with confidence.
Jowe is unfazed.
Finally the display shows 11.2 kilometers per second, and Friga turns off the plasma reactors to let them rest and cool off.
Their supply of hydrogen is eighty-five percent spent.
But they’re already in hyperbolic escape orbit.
Every second takes them farther and farther from Earth.
A minute passes.
On the radar screen, the great echo marking the point of embarkation for Regulus, where hyperships wait for their passengers to arrive on shuttles to take them to that distant star, is being left behind.
But another echo, much smaller and faster, is growing closer.
It isn’t coming from the atmosphere of Earth.
It’s coming from another orbit.
A patrol ship.
Friga swears and turns on the hydrogen collector field to reactivate the reactors.
Jowe calmly calculates the relative trajectories and velocities of both space vehicles.
Adam complains about his bad luck: did they have to get detected so quickly?
Friga reminds him that only the weak believe in luck.
The invisible magnetic maw of the collector field which stretches out before the Hope traps the hydrogen atoms floating in space at a rate of one or two per cubic meter.
The remaining fifteen percent of hydrogen in the tanks would be enough to reignite and heat the reactors, but not much more.
The collector field becomes more effective as their speed grows: twenty seconds later, it has already stabilized the rate of supply to the engines.
The ship is capturing and consuming hydrogen at the same rate.
Jowe breaks his silence to state hoarsely that the patrol ship is gaining on them.
Adam, hysterical, tells him the Planetary Security guys have antigravity-based inertial engines, which don’t need an external source of fuel and don’t have to be warmed up… but even so, they won’t get caught, because they’re way ahead.
Jowe disagrees.
According to his calculations, the patrol ship is following a flawless interception orbit: it will reach firing range before the Hope has entered far enough inside the Escape Tunnel to activate the hyperengine and get it to work.
And that will be more or less within an hour.
Adam blows up and says that as far as he’s concerned, Jowe can go to hell right now: all he has to do is open the airlock, enter it, and jump into space, if he’s so scared.
Friga quiets them with her booming voice, reminding them that it’s just a patrol ship and that the Hope is armed and armored…
She fiddles with the triggers again.
The patrol ship must have positively ID’d them as a fugitive ship by now: it is keeping complete radio silence while continuing to approach.
Just in case, Adam throws up a curtain of interference to keep their pursuer from asking other Planetary Security ships for help.
Manipulating the controls with the dexterity of a pianist, Friga corrects the Hope’s course with plasma jets at full blast.
At ever-increasing velocity, the ship leaves the plane of the ecliptic; in a couple of hours it will be far enough away for hyperspace travel.
If the patrol ship doesn’t destroy it first.
It hasn’t even asked them to surrender.
Not that they’d surrender without a struggle.
A dogfight is inevitable.
The hour passes. Friga, impatient, burns with a desire to open fire.
Despite the Hope’s significant initial advantage, the faster-moving Planetary Security ship has significantly closed the gap between them.