Mausoleum by James Lovett EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author:James Lovett
- Language: English
- Genre: Space Exploration Science Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Death
All vessels have a purpose. The small, agile star screamers, often docked at
the recreational piers in Saturn’s rings, are meant to race and spin alongside
streaming comets. The bulbous cloud divers of the Kareton Foundation live
a life floating through the dense fogs of gas giants, harvesting vapors in
their funnel nettings to fuel the inner ring. And the wickedly toothed hulls
of the Martian Wasp-class evaporate pirates in a swarm of kinetic and laser
light.
The purpose of the Morana was to crash. To describe her in any way as
elegant would have been categorically inaccurate. A cinder block with
engines was more apt. She was a mammoth of a vessel. Her titan-tinted hull
often cast a clumsy shadow over the rest of the ships in whatever docking
bay she found herself. Her rectangular compartments, erratically welded to
the least aerodynamic areas of her frame, were sharply sloped, like the
armor of a tank. This was true right down to the cockpit viewport; a line of
glass sat distinctly inwards behind a set of sloping panels. It was enough to
let the pilot see what was directly in front of them but far enough back so
that this wonderfully limited perspective would not be interrupted in the
event of a sudden head-on collision.
Given its sporadic boxed shape, one might assume that the Morana was
a cargo vessel; all her compartments must have hidden a treasure trove of
trade and a smugglers’ sandbox of hidden hatches. This was not so, for
again, the purpose of the Morana was neither to carry nor to freight. It was
to crash. The boxy compartments with which she so rudely littered skyward
vistas were not compartments at all.
In fact, should an errant marauder,
hungry for plunder, happen to float with their breaching tools towards the
Morana’s exterior, there was a decent chance they would drill with their
plasma torch for several days only to find themselves in a dark hole of their
own making halfway through the ship. You see, when your purpose is to
crash you do not carry luggage. You simply put on the thickest padding
possible and trudge on. Such were the rectangular buffers of the Morana,
titanium guards denser than a lake of mercury.
An engineer may approach the Morana and ask a simple question. Why
be so sturdy? If her purpose is to crash, surely it would be more economical
and safer for the crew if the exterior of the Morana were built in such a way
as to crumple upon impact. A foolish inquiry indeed, for this is the mindset
one takes in case of a crash when one’s goal for a collision is to have the
occupants walk away and the vessel towed to Pluto to be repaired or
scrapped. But one’s purpose could not be to crash if it were only to do so
once. No, the Morana was meant to crash, shunt back up into the sky, and
crash again, over, and over, with minor regard for the whiplash of those at
the wheel.
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