Free Gabriel's Redemption by Steve Umstead

jets whined a bit louder and the craft began to taxi.
    “Ready to ride the Panther, sir?” Jimenez called to him.
    “Ready as I’ll ever be, Mister Jimenez,” Gabriel replied. He blanked his screen and sat back in his seat.  
    The whine grew louder and the spaceplane turned, apparently at the end of the runway. The whine turned into a throaty growl, and with a thump the brakes released and the spaceplane accelerated as if shot out of a cannon.
    Gabriel felt his body press into the seat, which flowed around him automatically. The active cushioning gave crucial areas of his spine and neck extra support, pressing against his side and thighs to prevent blood from pooling. The pressure was intense, far more than he had ever experienced in normal flights. The spaceplane jounced down the runway, rattling his teeth. Just as he thought he might black out, the plane’s nose tipped up and he was pressed down into the bottom of the seat, the active cushioning shifting its focus and allowing his upper body to flex a bit. The graying of his eyes faded and the ride became a little easier on his body. Except for the violent shaking.
    “Woo hoo!” yelled Sowers from the front row, his basketball long since pinned to the aft bulkhead by the acceleration. Gabriel felt the plane angle near vertical and heard the pitch change as the ramjets switched to scram, and distant memories of rocket launches popped into his head as his weight shifted to the middle of his back. All around him the fuselage creaked and popped as the scramjets roared their fury behind him.
    Gabriel leaned over to shout to Takahashi, who had taken the seat across the aisle from him before takeoff. “Ensign, is this normal? It feels like we’re going to disintegrate.”
    “Perfectly normal for a Panther, sir,” he replied, holding an airsickness bag in his right hand.
    “How many times have you flown on a Panther?” he asked.
    “Uh, three sir, all on the Travolta II .”
    “What happened to the Travolta I ?” Gabriel asked.
    “You don’t want to know,” he replied. He leaned over sideways into his airsickness bag, ending that line of conversation.
    “Fantastic.” Gabriel returned his eyes forward, where the wallscreen was showing the forward camera view of the atmosphere disappearing. A deep indigo sky awaited them, stars twinkling in the distance. “Three minutes to orbit,” the intercom called. Gabriel closed his eyes, tried to ignore Takahaski’s groaning, and held down his lunch as best he could.

    “Admiral MacFarland?” the comm unit on the mahogany desk called.  
    MacFarland raised an eyebrow, but didn’t shift his gaze from the foggy floor-to-ceiling window he stared out. Lake Ontario was only now beginning to ice over, later and later every year, he noted. Even the best efforts of Earth’s scientists, recycling, electric vehicles, and fusion power plants couldn’t fully stop global warming, and combined with the lingering climatic effects of the Dark Days, the landscape had changed forever. Now even this far north in late December, when lakes and rivers should be frozen over, only a rime of ice along the shoreline could be seen.  
    His office within the North American Federation Department of Defense’s massive stone and steel building, nicknamed the Cube, afforded him an excellent view of Humber Bay out the southeastern-facing window, and High Park out the northeastern one. A corner office, fortieth floor, as befitting a man of his stature. Admiral MacFarland was the Director of Naval Intelligence for the NAF, having risen quickly through the convoluted ranks to hold an esteemed post as a mere Vice Admiral. Some said he lied, cheated, and stole his way to the top. He’d never deny it.
    The comm unit buzzed again. Annoyed, he ordered his neuretics to disable the system. He glanced down at his cigar, ash nearly up to his gnarled fingers. Bringing it to his lips, he took one last puff, then sent it flying into a corner wastebasket. A snap