2 August 2012
The start beacon fires, a distant glimmer flashing red. The dragons slowly open to the sun. Reflective wings extending as we gently glide ahead; The soft acceleration has begun.
You'd think there's total silence in the emptiness of space, But singing through the long and slender spars The steady solar wind sounds like snowflakes against lace, An angels's breath amid the sea of stars.
Soaring ever faster, racing through the asteroids, what took us days just takes us hours now. to my starboard, the Nicola leads us through the void, Her dragon wings a flame before my bow.
I whisper to my dragon, the Kristina, "That's OK," Patting the control board, brightly lit. The gravity of Jupiter will win or lose the race. The plunging, slingshot U-turn makes or breaks it.
Behemoth planet, striped and swirling, looming in our view As wings retract to safely fold away. To finish, we're just coasting, no more sailing left to do. We leave behind the moon shadow peppered day.
We fall into the massive night like marbles down a well. How many g's can ship and pilot take? The crushing forces seek to squeeze my flesh to gel, Before I'm yanked around and back to day.
I'm hurtled by this churning giant at a breakneck speed And flung with force directly at the sun. Behind us, Jupiter and his moons quickly do recede. We're weightless now until the race is done.
Though we're only drifting, I am gaining from my risk. My deeper, harder plunge has sped my pace. As we witness Sol's expansion from a dot to a disc, I'll overtake the leader of the race.
The wings come out again as soon as we're across the line To brake us down from 2 percent of c. I'll be buying lots of drinks on Earth, and that's just fine. Dragon riders are a close fraternity.
The Asteroid Cup • Opuss № I