054. Air
Speeding 22 kilometers above the surface of the Earth in the stratosphere at 7,348 kilometers per hour. The ozone layer, what's left of it, is thickest right about here. Clouds are far, far below.
The larger shuttlecraft meant for carrying more people goes at half the speed in atmo as the Class F ones that only carry a handful of crew. They're older, used every single year to shuttle students and teachers from all over the globe to Starfleet Academy. They're supposed to be perfectly safe.
But things wear down. They get old. Rusty. Weakened by repeated use no matter how thorough the inspections are. They're sturdy old things that won't fail, but you've seen the aftermath of accidents, treated the wounds before. It happens. It will always happen.
A crack in the hull could mean the pressure changes cause the whole craft to rip in half. Even a small hole could spell disaster, spinning the craft out of control, or a sudden loss of pressure, or heaven forbid you're too high when the temperatures start rising, even more if there's a solar flare or some kind of superheated anomaly. If you don't fry instantaneously in your seat, chances are with a big enough breach, you and everyone else on board will be sucked into the air, left to fall the long, long way down to the ground. And that pleasure is even if you survive the temperature, oxygen content, and air pressure variations during the decent.
Or a disease could break out in that small, confined area and kill everyone before medical help could be summoned. Other crafts could get run into. Instruments can be inaccurate or fail altogether. Something could happen to the pilots, god willing they're in fit enough shape to be flying and know what they're doing anyway. Could go into a spin, a catastrophic engine failure, diving into the ground. In fact, the smallest bit of debris from space junk not entirely burned up could be enough to sheer straight through the craft, killing everyone or at least condemning them to death very soon. A lot can go wrong 22 kilometers up at 7,348 kilometers an hour. And people wonder why you locked yourself in the bathroom.
You never liked flying, even when you were little. Your father would toss you into the air, arms extended out, reaching back up to you, reaching to catch when you fall. Most children tend to squeal with delight and a bit of terror, laughing at it all once they're safely on the ground again, but not you. Bushy hair flying everywhere, eyes wide, limbs flailing, desperate to feel something, anything solid again. He never dropped you, of course. Not once. Children take that for granted. But you were always so sure that he'd miss.
The first time you got on a shuttlecraft, you kicked and screamed and embarrassed your parents. You hated the very idea of it, and hated it even more on takeoff, that feeling in your gut. Through teary eyes you looked out the window to see everything shrinking below, clouds above coming closer. You didn't open your eyes again until your mother carried you out. On the way back home, you vomited. Twice.
Older and wiser, you stand on the edge of one of New York's skyscrapers, a class trip. You spent most of the trip up, just as the trip back, locked up in one of the bathroom stalls, face buried in a textbook on biology, ears plugged up filled with some modern country, a little jazz, some progressive rockabilly, whatever music you had stored away. The distractions helped a little. The small, confined space, too. Having a toilet on hand to kneel at when your stomach started rolling even more. You got poked fun at for the ordeal by a few classmates you never got along with, and your group of friends mocked you in a way that only friends are allowed to with some concern tinging their voices. But it was more or less forgotten.
But up here, you feel the wind whip by, and you can see for miles around. It's refreshing and a little awe-inspiring. Central Park is enormous. The waters look calm. Everyone's taking pictures. It doesn't bother you at all until one of the boys thinks it would be funny to give you a sudden shove from behind (it's not you, it's them; they're doing it to everybody). You can't fall; there's protective, transparent aluminum all around to prevent that kind of thing, but you stumble forward, and suddenly you're petrified of tumbling over until your face hits the invisible wall.
You're fine with heights. Heights don't scare you in the slightest. You can stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and enjoy it as much as anyone.
It's the falling that's terrifying. It's the idea of falling. You don't fall in a shuttle. You're strapped in, taking off, pulling against the gravity of Earth, then soaring back down. That knowledge doesn't do anything for you, though. You would much rather sit in a tight, dark box and ride it out as best as you can. No wide open spaces. No heights to fall from. If something goes wrong, you'll be the last to know.
Joss laughed when you reluctantly shared with him your desperate plans. He knows how much you hate flying. Starfleet. Space. That requires a lot of flying. But you didn't know what else to do at the time. Had to get out of there. Nowhere else for you. You could get a desk job, you snapped back, throwing what was left of your things in the house into a trunk. Or be a doctor on call at the Academy. Be a teacher, even. You didn't have to go into space. But Joss just kept shaking his head, chuckling.
And now that you understand how it all works, now that you know how the world works, and the atmosphere, and the sun, and stars, and most importantly the reaction of the human body to all kinds of scenarios, you're more frightened than ever before. You took up the habit of drinking before every flight a few years back. The drinking helps. Or at least, you feel like it does.
And 22 kilometers up at 7,348 kilometers an hour, you grasp the restraints with white knuckles, trying to concentrate on listening to a kid named Kirk beside you. Better than thinking of all the ways you could horrifically die, anyway.
The larger shuttlecraft meant for carrying more people goes at half the speed in atmo as the Class F ones that only carry a handful of crew. They're older, used every single year to shuttle students and teachers from all over the globe to Starfleet Academy. They're supposed to be perfectly safe.
But things wear down. They get old. Rusty. Weakened by repeated use no matter how thorough the inspections are. They're sturdy old things that won't fail, but you've seen the aftermath of accidents, treated the wounds before. It happens. It will always happen.
A crack in the hull could mean the pressure changes cause the whole craft to rip in half. Even a small hole could spell disaster, spinning the craft out of control, or a sudden loss of pressure, or heaven forbid you're too high when the temperatures start rising, even more if there's a solar flare or some kind of superheated anomaly. If you don't fry instantaneously in your seat, chances are with a big enough breach, you and everyone else on board will be sucked into the air, left to fall the long, long way down to the ground. And that pleasure is even if you survive the temperature, oxygen content, and air pressure variations during the decent.
Or a disease could break out in that small, confined area and kill everyone before medical help could be summoned. Other crafts could get run into. Instruments can be inaccurate or fail altogether. Something could happen to the pilots, god willing they're in fit enough shape to be flying and know what they're doing anyway. Could go into a spin, a catastrophic engine failure, diving into the ground. In fact, the smallest bit of debris from space junk not entirely burned up could be enough to sheer straight through the craft, killing everyone or at least condemning them to death very soon. A lot can go wrong 22 kilometers up at 7,348 kilometers an hour. And people wonder why you locked yourself in the bathroom.
You never liked flying, even when you were little. Your father would toss you into the air, arms extended out, reaching back up to you, reaching to catch when you fall. Most children tend to squeal with delight and a bit of terror, laughing at it all once they're safely on the ground again, but not you. Bushy hair flying everywhere, eyes wide, limbs flailing, desperate to feel something, anything solid again. He never dropped you, of course. Not once. Children take that for granted. But you were always so sure that he'd miss.
The first time you got on a shuttlecraft, you kicked and screamed and embarrassed your parents. You hated the very idea of it, and hated it even more on takeoff, that feeling in your gut. Through teary eyes you looked out the window to see everything shrinking below, clouds above coming closer. You didn't open your eyes again until your mother carried you out. On the way back home, you vomited. Twice.
Older and wiser, you stand on the edge of one of New York's skyscrapers, a class trip. You spent most of the trip up, just as the trip back, locked up in one of the bathroom stalls, face buried in a textbook on biology, ears plugged up filled with some modern country, a little jazz, some progressive rockabilly, whatever music you had stored away. The distractions helped a little. The small, confined space, too. Having a toilet on hand to kneel at when your stomach started rolling even more. You got poked fun at for the ordeal by a few classmates you never got along with, and your group of friends mocked you in a way that only friends are allowed to with some concern tinging their voices. But it was more or less forgotten.
But up here, you feel the wind whip by, and you can see for miles around. It's refreshing and a little awe-inspiring. Central Park is enormous. The waters look calm. Everyone's taking pictures. It doesn't bother you at all until one of the boys thinks it would be funny to give you a sudden shove from behind (it's not you, it's them; they're doing it to everybody). You can't fall; there's protective, transparent aluminum all around to prevent that kind of thing, but you stumble forward, and suddenly you're petrified of tumbling over until your face hits the invisible wall.
You're fine with heights. Heights don't scare you in the slightest. You can stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and enjoy it as much as anyone.
It's the falling that's terrifying. It's the idea of falling. You don't fall in a shuttle. You're strapped in, taking off, pulling against the gravity of Earth, then soaring back down. That knowledge doesn't do anything for you, though. You would much rather sit in a tight, dark box and ride it out as best as you can. No wide open spaces. No heights to fall from. If something goes wrong, you'll be the last to know.
Joss laughed when you reluctantly shared with him your desperate plans. He knows how much you hate flying. Starfleet. Space. That requires a lot of flying. But you didn't know what else to do at the time. Had to get out of there. Nowhere else for you. You could get a desk job, you snapped back, throwing what was left of your things in the house into a trunk. Or be a doctor on call at the Academy. Be a teacher, even. You didn't have to go into space. But Joss just kept shaking his head, chuckling.
And now that you understand how it all works, now that you know how the world works, and the atmosphere, and the sun, and stars, and most importantly the reaction of the human body to all kinds of scenarios, you're more frightened than ever before. You took up the habit of drinking before every flight a few years back. The drinking helps. Or at least, you feel like it does.
And 22 kilometers up at 7,348 kilometers an hour, you grasp the restraints with white knuckles, trying to concentrate on listening to a kid named Kirk beside you. Better than thinking of all the ways you could horrifically die, anyway.