by Chaton

Created on: November 04, 2008

A short sci-fi story about Government Conspiracies! Enjoy!
The Mesopotamia wrenched itself painfully from the Martian atmosphere, hull vibrating violently with the throb of the straining thrusters. Jackson detested take-off. Holding her breath in the dark cockpit, she made a few minor adjustments to the controls. Lately, with every subsequent run, her ship struggled a little more each time that it left Mars. The vibrations increased in violence as the structural integrity of the old ship strained beneath the assault of the gravitational pull of the red planet.

"Come on!'' She whispered, augmenting the rich mixture of fuel to the atmospheric thrusters. Suddenly, the vibrations ceased. The Mesopotamia was free of the planet beneath her.
"Cruising engines engaged thrusters off. We're on our way, sir." Her co-pilot, Ortega, stated.
Jackson relaxed in her seat, unbuckling the harness. Wiping away tiny beads of perspiration from her forehead, she hoped that the crew hadn't noticed her nervousness.
"McCall?"
"I'm entering the co-ordinates now, sir." The navigator replied, deft fingers flying over the keyboard. "Course laid in for Venus. We'll be landing at Beyrana City in exactly eighteen hours and forty-three minutes."
Jackson glanced up at the monitor to see the rusty planet dwindling to the size of a dry pea. Would her ship make it through another launch? The tense feeling in the pit of her stomach told her otherwise. The Mesopotamia was too old and worn following twelve years of by-weekly flights to Venus; she was on her last legs. The ship's engineer, Marshall, could only patch the transport up so many times. The company she worked for would have a new ship ready in a month or two, or so they said. They had been giving her the same line for twenty months now. The Mesopotamia was supposed to have been scrapped two years ago, but, as usual, bribes given to the Martian Transport inspector had pushed back the ship's overdue retirement.
That afternoon, before launch, she had spent an hour trying to convince her boss that the passengers should be limited to lighten the load on the Mesopotamia. After a much heated discussion, he agreed to transfer fifty colonists and their personal belongings to the Utopia, a newer ship that was lifting off the following morning. The Mesopotamia was left with a total passenger count of three-hundred, and that was probably what got her safely away from Mars today. This run would be the last one for the Mesopotamia. Never again would she bring

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