Free Project Sail by Anthony DeCosmo Page A

off the scanner.
    Wren shrugged and swallowed another mouthful of drink. The coffee was rich and silky smooth, reminding him of a fine chocolate. He wondered how an engineer on a dirty cargo ship brewed the best coffee he ever tasted.
    However, as Titan grew in the window, Wren found something even more curious than the origin of great coffee. He pointed over the pilot’s shoulder and asked, “What are those?”
    Of course, the annoyed old man piloting the Virgil felt no duty to respond, but Captain Horus joined Wren at the window and provided the answer.
    “The one on the left is an American Montana classbattleship.”
    Wren nodded toward another large dot hovering above Titan but on the other side of the moon, nearly over the horizon.
    Horus told him, “That, I know, is the Russian battleship Fyodor Ushakov. It has been there a long time. At least the Americans rotate in a new ship once in a while.”
    To Wren’s eyes, the massive machines resembled gunfighters facing off in a frontier town, ready to draw.
    A flash from the surface bounced across the atmosphere like a bolt of lightning, illuminating the orange clouds from beneath. Seconds later, something with a contrail nearly reached orbit before plummeting back into the colorful soup enveloping the moon.
    “Was that a fucking missile? They fighting a war down there? Wait, no they aren’t, or those battleships would be shooting, too.”
    “You would think so but they just hang there, watching each other.”
    The Virgil steered toward the American share of the sky and the battleship came into focus. The ship was gigantic because Americans always think bigger equals better. Wren thought the shape resembled a thick broadsword. Ridges—probably gun ports--lined what he saw as the blade and spheres belonging to the diametric drive bulged from the undercarriage. The rear third resembled a hilt and while a structure on the top suggested a bridge, he knew military vessels built their control centers deep inside, surrounded by bulkheads.
    Another flash in the sky, then a second missile flew in the opposite direction.
    “Something is fucked up down there.”
    Horus told him, “You’ll find that fucked up is just another day on Titan.” He noticed his passenger’s mug. “My engineer knows how to make coffee, doesn’t he?”
    Wren considered for a moment and then answered, “I’ve had better.”

11. Titan
    The Virgil hovered above Titan in the shadow of the USNA Battleship. It remained there for hours waiting for clearance.
    When permission finally came, two bulkheads in the freighter’s belly swung open and down lowered the Virgil’s heavy drop ship. The craft resembled one-part 1990s American space shuttle and another part cargo helicopter with an open space between the nose cone and the engine baffles filled only by a pair of guide rails.
    Next, the cargo bays circling the Virgil’s aft rotated until the desired one aligned with the heavy lifter. The boxcar-like container then slid onto the lifter’s guide rails locking into position, ready for transport to the surface.
    Below on Titan, flashes, fireballs, and missiles crisscrossed the murky atmosphere. While the entire moon did not appear affected, there was enough happening to give the place the feel of a war zone.
    After their flight plan received permission from ground control, the heavy lifter dropped free of its berth, falling to Titan in a nose up position and disappearing into the nitrogen-rich orange soup encompassing the moon. The ship then performed a series of s-turns to dissipate speed, an easier task in gravity only one-third that of Earth.
    While the thick atmosphere limited visibility, the passengers managed to glimpse a variety of topography, including windswept dunes and pools filled with various frozen liquids all illuminated by sunlight that, at its strongest, barely rivaled twilight on Earth.
    But unlike most of the moons in the solar system, Titan had suffered few impacts; craters were