Rolling Thunder Read Online Free PDF Page A

the windows. My first Navy command, known only as Ferry 563, could desperately use a wash and a new paint job, but she’d get me off the ground.
    I waved to my passengers waiting back at the dusty little shuttle bus. They joined me, a symphony in crimson, and I told them they could get aboard. There were four men and one woman, all outranking me according to the fruit salad on their sleeves and shoulder boards. One was a rear admiral. Suddenly this didn’t seem as much fun as it had a few minutes ago. Nobody wants big brass looking over her shoulder.
    There were ten seats on the lower deck and ten seats on the upper. Everybody was in the basement, and I glanced at them to be sure they were buckling up. I didn’t much want to be the one to tell an admiral he had to strap in.
    I made my way to the bridge and settled into the command chair, which, like the whole ship, had seen better days. One of the seams was sprung and a bit of cotton fluff peeked out. I powered up the systems and watched the indicators appear on the window in front of me as the ship performed a self-diagnosis. Oxygen tanks full. Pressurization system nominal. Radar okay. I activated the PA.
    “Ah, this is …” I bogged down for a moment. Protocol said that, since I was flying this tub, I was the captain. The word stuck in my throat for a moment. Then I thought it over and smiled. My first command!
    “This is the captain,” I said, thankful that my voice didn’t squeak. “Everybody hang on to your socks. We’re outta here.”
    I eased the stick forward and heard the low rumble from below. A vast cloud of dust rose all around me. I moved it forward some more, and the exhaust sound grew louder. Under the ship, grains of sand would be melting into black glass. The contact lights went off for each of the landing legs, and I felt a little pressure pushing me back into my seat. All systems were go at one point two gees, and we started to climb out of the blast cloud.
    One point five gees. One point seven. Two gees. I leveled the thrust out there, and settled back into the cushions.
    I took my nameless ship straight up for eight miles, out of a lot of atmosphere, before vectoring the thrust to bring us into a forty-five-degree angle of pitch. Then I rotated the ship so I could look up at an ever-increasing slice of North America on my way into orbit.
    To the naked eye it didn’t look a lot different than it would have a century ago. The air was now cleaner. They say that at the turn of the century there could be smog from coast to coast, some days. Today was crystal clear, only a few bands of clouds here and there, much like it must have been in 1950. Back then they were only getting started on the Interstate highway system, which ended up crisscrossing the entire country with ribbons of concrete and—get this —individually piloted vehicles! Everybody moving at seventy miles per hour or more, rain, snow, or darkness, and no central control. The carnage was incredible. Now those routes were the basis of the electric rail system. At night they’d light up like a vast jeweled spiderweb. It’s pretty. But by day you can barely see them. We were passing over the Rocky Mountains now, heading for the Great Plains. Over the bits of what once was the United States of America.
    No more. The Big Wave had changed all that.
    DURING THE GREAT Diaspora, when just about any country or even a wealthy group of people such as a corporation or church could build a starship, a bunch of fanatics hollowed out a small asteroid and set off for a nearby star. To this day no one knows for certain who it was, though there are three leading contenders, and each group has its advocates, so to speak. But there’s always the chance that any of these three groups may one day show up, listen to the story in shock and horror, and say, “Who? Us?” There’s no way to know, but we do know that at least two of these groups are totally innocent of atrocity.
    Whoever they were, these