To the Stars

By Stephen Brandon

As John came of age he thought he had the world by the tail. His sisters weren't interested in the part of the inheritance he wanted. Others had their own plans for him. Step by step he learned the lessons that life has to teach. Experience had its own idea of what he would learn along with the scars that time supplies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Brandon
• Release date: Jun 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463708033

Stephen Brandon

I've loved westerns and science fiction since I picked up my first book at the public library. I've been writing on my computer for years. I never planned on any of my stories being published, just to be read by myself, family, and friends. The base journal is on forty spreadsheets with links to about a thousand files of short one day paragraphs plus other stories. {My claim to fame, written by someone else. Thanks.} "As an earthbound retiree, Stephen writes mostly science fiction and short stories. He is a voracious reader and has written for a few years, publishing his stories on Smashwords."

Book preview

To the Stars

Published by Stephen Brandon at Smashwords

Copyright 2019 Stephen Brandon

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Author's Note

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, incidents, and dialogue are from the authors imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or other persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Real and fictional locations are used for background only.

This is a short story from the Saturn series. A young man that thinks he has the world my the tail, soon finds out differently.

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Table of Contents (ToC)

Two Mining Trips

The Trap

The Flight

Another Mission

Mapping Mining trip

Sissy

Acknowledgments

About Stephen Brandon

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Two Mining Trips

On my sixteenth birthday mom and dad gave me the codes for the Missing Lucky Bitch. My older sister had gotten married, and my younger sister was a bookworm. Neither were interested in the ship. We'd all heard the stories mom and dad told about the early days, and how the ship got its name.

Then he lowered the boom and told me that I couldn't solo until I was eighteen. Unknown to me he'd hired a seasoned navigator, Running Elk, to teach me all the tricks, all I had to do was gather a crew. It took six months to get the ship checked out because they hadn't used it in a few years.

Matthew and James were the first two guys I asked, and they accepted. Their parents OK'd them going provided there was an experienced hand along. Finally on 9615 we were all loaded and launched.

Dad gave me a map with coordinates in the belt. He said that the asteroids should still be there and his and mom's tags should still be active. Over the years they'd kept upgrading the Bitch and he estimated we could be there in less than six months.

The first thing Running Elk did was make us tear down both of the environmental systems and rebuild them. It took over a week each because she had us inspect every part and tell her how to use alternate parts, and fabricate parts to rebuild it. Dad had never shown me the small machine shop he had in the rear cargo bay. The next item on our training was the soft spacesuits, and then the hard suits. Dad was a slave driver when he taught me about the ship, but Running Elk was worse.

Then one morning she shut down the navigation computer before breakfast. After breakfast she had us assemble on the bridge, and pointed out that the navigation computer was off. James turned white as a sheet and almost started crying. Running Elk walked over to a panel I'd never seen open, and pulled out a sextant and small computer. Looking at us she then commanded us to suit up and meet her at the front airlock. Outside she clamped the sextant to the frame and showed us how it was used to locate several stars and record the readings. We all thought we had it made because it looked so simple. Each of us had locations all over the place. Then our education started. Using star charts we located the north star, Polaris, and then several others. She told us that every star pinpointed after three increased the accuracy of our location. The small computer's batteries only lasted about three hours with all four of us entering star names and angles. I thought we had it made after the first lesson until we got back inside and she started bringing up the readings. They described an arc a third the way around the solar system. She was laughing while she informed us that we could also use planets and the sun to refine our readings. Days later even when we started getting our location almost correct she made us keep practicing two hours every day in addition to other training on everything from the plumbing to the exterior solar panels. One evening after dinner she