Descending Road - A GOODBYE KISS by Dana W. Paxson

A GOODBYE KISS

2417 CE

Tompuso‘s human payload slept.

The starship‘s enormous first-kick engines opened up. A mighty blare of blue-hot energy flung an overbright sunrise at the pockmarked moonscape below it. These engines were Hau Ren‘s ‘hot sticks’, the pride of Sinese propulsion systems: cylinders ten meters wide and two hundred meters long, made of nanostructured iron, silicon, hydrogen, and trace elements. This combination of laser-triggered fusion and mass driver technology spewed iron vapor from the ship’s stern in a searing straight-line beam at thousands of meters per second, carefully timed and aimed into deep space to avoid spraying anything or anyone with the radioactive metal.

Many kilometers from the ship, the beam faded to yellow, orange, red and then black. Along its brighter range, an occasional blast of brilliance marked its searing, destructive encounter with some bit of space detritus from the Hives.

Slowly gathering speed, the ship lumbered off from Oberon, kissed Uranus goodbye with a fading stream of metal hail, and headed for the wandering, smoldering star Thorin. There, Thorin‘s gravity sling would throw it out of the Sun’s well, pointing it on its way to Zeta Tucanae.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	A GOODBYE KISS 2417 CE Tompuso‘s human payload slept. The starship‘s enormous first-kick engines opened up. A mighty blare of blue-hot energy flung an overbright sunrise at the pockmarked moonscape below it. These engines were Hau Ren‘s ‘hot sticks’, the pride of Sinese propulsion systems: cylinders ten meters wide and two hundred meters long, made of nanostructured iron, silicon, hydrogen, and trace elements. This combination of laser-triggered fusion and mass driver technology spewed iron vapor from the ship’s stern in a searing straight-line beam at thousands of meters per second, carefully timed and aimed into deep space to avoid spraying anything or anyone with the radioactive metal. Many kilometers from the ship, the beam faded to yellow, orange, red and then black. Along its brighter range, an occasional blast of brilliance marked its searing, destructive encounter with some bit of space detritus from the Hives. Slowly gathering speed, the ship lumbered off from Oberon, kissed Uranus goodbye with a fading stream of metal hail, and headed for the wandering, smoldering star Thorin. There, Thorin‘s gravity sling would throw it out of the Sun’s well, pointing it on its way to Zeta Tucanae.