IGNITION

Chapter Four

In Japan, aboard the Spring Breeze capsule Mioko Takamada heard a click as the command radio came on. “Attention man in the capsule” a harsh voice announced. Your friends are all dead. Please open this hatch as we have a very important package to bring aboard. And a pilot.”

Mioko shivered in terror. She’d heard the fighting though the gantry intercom those screams, and watched over monitors as her friends died trying to stop armed madmen with nothing but fire extinguishers, prybar’s and determination. She’d watched as each was brutally tossed over the safety bar, most still alive. It was nearly two hundred meters to hard concrete and having watched that, she was in no illusion what her own fate would be should she open that hatch. But what to do? If she could hold off a few hours they would be defeated, since the launch window was only thirteen minutes long, if only she could only buy that time.

Lights flickered on the consul and it took several long seconds for her to understand. Having taken the control tower, with time short someone was readying this ship for launch. ‘Maybe I can blow it up’ she thought. Automatic safeties would pull her command section away, dropping it in the ocean nearly two kilometers from shore so she’d be safe and her friends deaths avenged. Grabbing the pre-launch checklist she started following its simple steps.