Chucking Monkey

By Nicholas Sheffield

The new launcher has been a revelation with its ability to get equipment into orbit at an economical price. But can it be used to launch humans?

There's only one way to find out... fire up a chimpanzee and hope for the best.

Danny is his name. He's been training for months. But when it comes to the big day will he be in the right frame of mind for the mission?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicholas Sheffield
• Release date: Jul 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465865021

Nicholas Sheffield

Nicholas Sheffield grew up in Hamilton, New Zealand. He obtained a Bachelor of Management Studies from the University of Waikato, and has a long history of work in the Information Systems sector. He and his wife Simone have six children. Double Dragon published his first work, Overlanders, in 2004. The novel revolves around a group of friends whose utopian existence is put at risk when they’re thrust into the archaic and dangerous cities of the overlands. Sheffield’s writings are generally set in, or around, the Earth, and employ a plausible use of technology. Therefore many of the popular science fiction themes, such as time travel and alternative dimensions, never appear in his works. The concepts that form the spine of each story are often as important as the main narrative. They’re not always held up to the spotlight, but tend to be woven quietly into the background.

Book preview

Chucking Monkey

Published by Nicholas Sheffield at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Nicholas Sheffield

Cover photo NASA

Tim stood before the large glass panes of the mountaintop control tower. His forehead was a collision of lines, and his fraying eyebrows were crowding his deep-set eyes. The tension they showed extended down to the bony fingers behind his back, which fidgeted away nervously. He was always like that just before a launch.

His gaze was fixed on a long slender silver pipe, about three meters wide, which was a stone’s throw away. He could follow the run of that pipe from the high windswept peak right beside him, all the way down to the very foot of the mountain where it vanished into a blur of parched scrub. Its length was immaculately straight due to supporting metal pylons that negated the craggy contours.

It was a coil gun. The muzzle stretched above the peak of the mountain, and the loading bay started a distant seven kilometres away - way down low on the flat grassland. Much of the length along the grassland was actually below the