Mother of Storms

March-June 2028
 
 
This is the good part. Hassan Sulari loves this one. When the magnetic catapult on the mothership throws his little spaceplane forward and he kicks in his scramjets, somewhere over Afghanistan, he’ll sail upland away into a high suborbital trajectory over the pole. Hassan has never gotten authorized for orbit, but this is pretty close.
It’s his first real mission. He’s carrying four cram bombs—“Compressing Radiation Antimatter” is what it stands for, and when they talk to the media they are supposed to stress that they are
“mass-to-energy, not really nuclear” weapons, because for all practical purposes they are baby nukes and that’s bad PR.
The catch is that damned jack in the back of his head. He accepted a lot of extra money from Passionet to have it installed and to fly with it, it’s going to make him rich—and in UNSOO that’s not common—but there is still the nagging feeling of showing off. After all, he’s a pilot, not an actor.
“We’re getting ready to go plugged with you,” the voice from Passionet says. ... read full excerpt from Mother of Storms ebook