Orbital by bill zhao copyright 2017 Bill Zhao Table of Contents act one (earth)

dangerous it might seem or how hard it was to cope and in that
moment Derek felt safe. He knew it was the right thing to do.
Now he couldn’t tell whether the rocket was taking off or not. He
couldn’t trust his senses. Bright orange light and fire engulfed his
vision while the immense roar of flames drowned his ears. Heat
blanketed his body. Closing his eyes didn’t help. At this point he
thought the launch failed but just as he was about to give up hope, the
darkness of the night sky soon covered the small window panes. The
noise was gone. The heat subsided.
“
Holy shit… we did it” said one of the operators and the rest cheered. The
engineer added “My god. I almost can’t believe we actually flew out in this
trash can” Another operator asked “Boss, what about you?” to which

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Carter replied “well, I had my doubts but it all worked out so I can’t
complain”
Derek sat silently in his seat. Feeling like he just had a near death
experience.
The Australian asked “So what now, boss? To the moon?”
“
Oh yeah...”

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11
Incoming
12:01 AM
Just outside Earth, Solar System
Derek looked outside the small window. He looked at Earth. Déjà vu
covered him. And not the good, happy memory type. This was more
like the “My dad was an intergalactic supervillain who just shot an
orbital ordnance strike at Earth” type. The once hectic and lively city,
set ablaze. Now it’s nothing more than a dark, radioactive wasteland.
Even after all those years. Derek’s dad was a good man. Why he would
do something like that still pondered Derek’s mind every day. He kept