The road to success

One thousand, five hundred and two miles. A mere jump away. All Tod needed to do was
keep his eyes on the road.

It was hot and stuffy within the vehicle, the cockpit was immaculately well kept, with not a
single speck of dust. Behind Tod was his living quarters and on the wall were two wall-
mounted beds (he used the top one for his clothes storage).

On the seat next to him was a suitcase. The suitcase was causing torrents of sweat to
cascade down the back of Tod’s neck and he occasionally kept glancing towards it. He had
got the bag two million miles away and had been on the trip for three miserable, sweaty
and boring days.

Tod looked outside of the window, his eyes first went where they were supposed to be,
then they wandered past the road. Towards the cold vastness of the infinite space. It
staggered Tod back then and still now, how humanity had done it. How they had built roads
to connect the stars and the planets together without breaking apart, to make the cars that
would once struggle to pass along a gravel road, now travel between the worlds where
people in their billions could live on their very own planet, to protect or destroy. The
universe was humanity’s business partner, and it was starting to make connections.

Thunk.

The sound terrified Tod to the core. The handbrake was yanked, the space suit self-donned
and the air properly-pressurised. Get out. Tod bolted out of the vehicle with his eyes
scanning the area before locating. A pile on the ground. Tod was dashing towards the heap
of jagged metal the sonorous snake hiss of escaping oxygen pounding his ears. A travel-
bullet. Tod now scrambled to look if there was someone inside. There was someone inside
protected by a cover. Life signs? Positive. Oxygen content? Falling. Tod steadied himself for
his next move.

He had fifteen seconds.

He pulled off the cover.

Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve. Tod grabbed the person’s body and started to run,
eleven, ten, Tod barrelled the body into the vehicle. Nine, eight. he slammed the door
behind him. Seven, six, five. he put the air to normal pressure. Four, three. the air was at
normal pressure. Two. he yanked the person’s helmet off. One. the person was safe.

Now that the person, now she was safe, Tod placed her in his medical room (which was the
size of a store shed) and went to look at the travel-bullet. Realising that he had another
person, who he did not know, within his vehicle, he took the keys with him.

He went back outside. The feeling of being inside the space suit always pleased him, he
hoped that when he got to his destination that he could still continue to go outside. He
scavenged what he could from the travel-bullet, including a new cooling system. Tod looked
at the shuttle, it was mainly used for escaping any crashing. He checked the serial number,
anyone who could read it could gleem some information. The shuttle was for a tourist
vehicle, roadless. The severity of burn marks concerned Tod. The roads were made to repair
themselves instantly in case of passing meteor.

Cooling system now installed, Tod now thought it best to inspect the woman in his med bay.
Life signs normal. He looked at her face. She was bright green. Not having a greenish tinge,
not a basting of green, a full rich green. Tod touched her face. No paint was on top. He
checked the life signs. No anomalies. He checked the background. Results!

She was a native from the planet he was going to, he smiled, all he needed to do was drop
her off at the nearest hospital and all would be fine.

Tod went back to the cockpit; the place was much cooler now. He looked at the suitcase. He
checked that all was inside, just to be sure. Inside were recommendations, his resume and a
few personal belongings.

Five hundred and three miles remaining, thirty minuets spent, Tod told himself, a mere
jump away. He closed the suitcase; he was going to get that job.

There was the clang of metal against metal, the sound of breathing, she was up. Tod felt for
the weight of his gun within his holster. Tod cursed himself, rule three of basic weapons
training, never let an unknown entity have access to your firearm.

The high-pitched whine of a gun being charged.

Tod felt within his pocket, to see if he had remembered any other part within his training.
He had. The woman now stated “Put your hands where I can see them.” Tod calmly replied,
raising his hands in the air “I believe you know what happens when you shoot inside with
that calibre of gun?”

The woman, her voice now beginning to wobble, said “No.”

“The cockpit will depressurise, and become unusable and you will die within fifteen seconds.
If you make it out of here alive, you will be unable to steer even if you fix the leak. You will
die within a week as that is when the water supplies run out.” It was a common myth,
anyone with even the smallest amount of piloting skill could easily tell that this was false.

The woman lowered Tod’s gun.

Tod took his gun back with relative ease. He checked for batteries. He showed the empty
slot to the woman, she looked shocked, then she hung her head in shame. Tod holstered the
empty gun. “Rule one of hijacking with a gun,” he said with a smile on his face,“make sure
that your gun is loaded.”
Tod gestured for the woman to sit down on his bed, he turned the pilot’s seat around and
sat in it.

The woman’s cheeks turned a darker shade of green. “What was I thinking!” she stated her
head now in her hands. “I thought that you were some messed up person, here to sell me to
the nearest slave trader.”

Tod raised a concerned eyebrow. “Well, I wouldn’t do that, but I would like to ask for your
name and what you were doing within a holiday travel-bullet”. News did not travel between
planets; they had figured how to get roads to connect but not telegraph poles or electrical
cables. The woman gave a decisive murmur.

“Pardon?” Tod asked.

A murmur came again.

Tod turned back to the road. They were beginning to enter the planet’s gravitational pull.
The road now began to bend and weave, the thing that held it together waning under the
planet’s gravity. Slowly it began to pull upwards, as to avoid burning up in the re-entry.
Entering an atmosphere was a tricky procedure. It was easy to enter one, but much harder
to do it without burning up on re-entry, even harder if the gravity was higher.