Flight home.
11/02/2120
- Fasten your seatbelts, - Landskricht announced, when Zavirdyaev was already wielding his carabiners.
- Takeoff, I must admit, is the most unpleasant thing, - Zavirdyaev grumbled, - if you don't count that flight with maneuvering, when you showed off your class.
- Don't worry, everything will be much calmer now. We'll fly in low gear, as they say in such cases, who know nothing but a car.
The ship's artificial intelligence, as usual, was carrying out pre-flight preparations. The visor of Zavirdyaev's instrument module reminded us of what had happened in orbit - it was slightly crumpled from a kick. Landskricht put the broken computer somewhere in a bag, sweeping up plastic scraps and crumbs with a brush taken from God knows where, in a very homely manner.
Finally, the shuttle went up. As with the first takeoff, the takeoff from the rocket launch site, the side chambers-nozzles passed the baton to the central one and Zavirdyaev began to be pressed into the seat. Nevertheless, it really was much easier than what happened during the escape from the Superfederant. The overload did not exceed two units.
Quite quickly, the ship began to change its vector, entering a trajectory that seemed to be parallel to the ground. And so it turned out. Having gained some five and a bit Mach, the ship flew just like an airplane. The altitude was about sixty kilometers.
- Are we going to fly like this? - Zavirdyaev was amazed.
- What's wrong with it? We're flying like in an airplane. There is no weightlessness. Sit in your seat. It's not for nothing that it can transform and change position like that.
- This is the biggest perversion that could be done to a spaceship.
- Why is that? Although I understand you. You're used to the fact that shuttles have to reach orbital speed, enter the optimal trajectory and all that. This one doesn't have to. You like it, right?
- You ask! Are you going to take it for yourself now?
- Easy to say. And fuel, refueling, maintenance. Even such an independent machine needs all that. Besides, it's a people's machine, - Landskricht chuckled.
- Zavirdyaev also laughed. There was a reason for that.
- What's up with missile defense and air defense now? Does your AI control the situation?
- It's such for these defense systems now that it doesn't even need to be controlled. Fly wherever you want. By the way, we've passed the altitude range where the winds are so strong that aviation won't go there. These are altitudes from five to thirty thousand meters. The wind here and there is two hundred and thirty knots. How do you like it?
- Wow! And how long will it last?
- No one will even remember in six months. The climate, however, will shift a little, it has shifted before, people just didn't write it down in their chronicles. This will also even out.
A phosphorescent atmosphere flickered in the windows. At some point, land appeared. According to navigation data, this was the coast of South America. The Lacaille missile launch site with its inhuman level of defense was located somewhere there. Now all this was inactive.
Why, after all, would you not like to officially declare yourself? - Zavirdyaev asked a very simple question that he hadn't asked all these days, - or would you contact these bosses of ours. Well, like with me. What would that threaten you with?
All of humanity would have to be beaten painfully and they would hate me. Then they would love me just as much as they hated me, and when I was gone for a certain number of years, a catastrophe would happen. But with your bosses, everything would be different. If I had contacted them, they would have secretly thrown all their energy into Anti-Landskricht conspiracies and Anti-Landskricht activities. So to hell with them all... However, why are you so worried about this? This is all for you now. You wanted it, right? They wanted to deceive you and throw you out then, but they won't deceive you now.
Zavirdyaev stared thoughtfully out the window.
- Hang like this and I'll disappear, - a voice was heard.
Zavirdyaev quickly turned around. Landskricht was there and, as if nothing had happened, was controlling the ship, making slight turns every now and then.
- Yes, I'm joking, - she said soothingly. - In general, of course, I'll disappear, but after we land. We'll park the ship and get out. Someone will fly in or come to us. Then I'll disappear.
- And what will happen to me?
- You're a hero to them, so don't worry.
- For whom?
- For your national government, and for most other countries too. For Oppenheimer you are an unknown quantity, most likely a dangerous, unpredictable competitor, but under him now the seat not only wobbled, but broke. He will be accommodating.
- And how do you know?
- It's all communications. A demarche of machines. Have you forgotten?
Zavirdyaev stared out the window again.
- But I will miss her, - he thought to himself.