Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    No More Final Frontiers
    Unavailable
    No More Final Frontiers
    Unavailable
    No More Final Frontiers
    Ebook45 pages35 minutes

    No More Final Frontiers

    By R. Jean Mathieu

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Mister Hevia.” Han Feixing called over the radio.
    “Madame EdCo?” Dennis replied.
    “Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” Han replied. The dodgy electronics in Dennis’ suit cut out a syllable or two, but he knew the order by heart.
    “Opening the pod bay doors.” Dennis called back. He slid a thin-gloved finger across the vast doors of the space shuttle Discovery, manually unlatching the fore compression locks. “Yuri, do you copy?”
    “Copy, Dennis.” Yuri said. “Opening the pod bay doors.”
    Noiselessly, another lock released under Dennis’ hands. On the other end of the payload doors, Dennis watched a little puff of condensed air evaporate from under Yuri’s hands.
    “All fore locks disengaged, Madame EdCo.” Dennis said. “Yuri, how’re you doing?”
    Another puff of air.
    “Finished.” He said. “All aft locks disengaged, Madame EdCo. Positioning.”
    Dennis loved this part of the day. He brought his legs between his torso and Discovery’s tender skin, and gently pushed off, letting out his line behind him. He fell carefully into the black, feeding line out through his fingers. Finally, he tightened his grip and slowly came to a halt, relative to the shuttle.
    “We are in position, Madame EdCo.” Yuri reported. “Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”
    Below them, the sun glinted off the white skin of Discovery as the doors opened majestically. It was just them, and Discovery, and the pregnant swell of the Earth hanging in a beautiful inky black sky. Dennis tensed in anticipation, and he could hear Yuri’s shallow, excited breath in the static of the radio. It was the last flight of the season, and they wanted to make it a good one.
    The doors were open, and now a sheet of transparent aluminum was all that stood between the payload and the void. Dennis watched the lights dim in the payload space, where thirty children sat strapped in, and searched for a set of eyes filled with wonder.
    He saw only darkness there, broken in one or two places by the screen glow of handhelds and pads.
    “Bad luck,” Yuri said, shielding his eyes, “we look good in the sunlight, but it makes it hard to see the children, yes?”
    Dennis went to shield his eyes. It didn’t help. He didn’t see anyone in the payload space looking out.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFedoraArts Press
    Release dateOct 24, 2013
    Unavailable
    No More Final Frontiers
    Author

    R. Jean Mathieu

    Roscoe Mathieu, the award-winning author ("Gods of War," Cuesta Literary Contest) has seen and experienced more by the age of 27 than most would dream of doing in an entire lifetime. He is, effectively a human magnet for the strange, weird and adventurous - the spiritual descendant of colonial-era adventurers, deeply enthralled in a bittersweet relationship with the wild, exotic beauties of foreign coasts and strange lands. As a quick run-through of his checkered career to date, he was a Cuesta Literary Contest award winner with "Gods of War," now published via MindFlights.com. Soon after receiving the award, he embarked upon a year-long teaching stint deep in the heart of China as an ESL teacher for Buckland International Group - a year that saw him physically assaulted by students twice, got in a barfight once, trekked across the vast expanse of the country and through ordinance-laced fields, and fell in and out of love. Parts of his experience were blogged on a Livejournal account under the alias "bigstarbound," documenting the emotional upheavals of a young man in a totally alien landscape. His work as a videographer for AGP Video in Morro Bay was a transitional period before his next adventure, literally setting sail with the Lady Washington for a three-month period. Roscoe continuing his ad hoc career as an educator teaching elementary classes about the history and techniques of sailing ships at every port, basking in the salted winds of the Pacific all the while. Since the Lady Washington, he's worked as a volunteer copy editor for TravelChinaGuide.org, headed CWS Software's visual novel writing team, and returned to China to finish his schooling. He is now publishing his essays at Innerspace, and his fiction with FedoraArts Press.

    Related to No More Final Frontiers

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 1, 2020

      After every war someone has to tidy up. — Wisława Szymborska, “The End and the Beginning,” 1993 The road, just in front of the sidewalk where I sat and played jacks, would be ankle-deep in dust, and seemed to drink up the moonlight like folds of ve

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Penguin Whisperer

      Jan 1, 2023

      The Penguin Whisperer
      6 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Mar 4, 2024

      To Err Is Human; to Forgive, Supine —S. J. Perelman, Baby, It’s Cold Inside, 1970 You must know the bees have come early this year too: I see them visit aster, sweet Williams, bleeding hearts, and azalea blossoms hardy enough to not have crisped with

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Moon Is Full of Money

      Sep 7, 2017

      I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces ... I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams an

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Moon Is Full of Money

      Jul 18, 2019

      I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces ... I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams an

      14 min read

    • Article

      Brave New World

      Sep 27, 2020

      Brave New World
      12 min read

    • Article

      Jungle Fever

      Apr 5, 2020

      Jungle Fever
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Forbidden Island

      Sep 17, 2022

      The Forbidden Island
      6 min read

    • Article

      Heart Of Darkness

      Jan 19, 2024

      Heart Of Darkness
      10 min read

    • Article

      River’s Edge

      Nov 30, 2022

      River’s Edge
      2 min read

    • Article

      Iceland

      Apr 24, 2019

      Iceland
      16 min read

    • Article

      Rocket Man

      Jan 26, 2022

      STAR TREK AND REAL SPACE flight have crossed paths before. A Space Shuttle test orbiter was christened Enterprise. Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space, appeared in The Next Generation. Two astronauts cameoed in Enterprise. But all of those we

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Bargain

      Dec 10, 2022

      “Which one of you owns G2V3889?” Cygnus glided through a luminescent star field suspended in the center of an otherwise dark, oblong studio, then turned in a slow circle to survey the twenty Agents surrounding him. “Come on, speak up.” Vega shuddered

      16 min read

    • Article

      Master Of Knots

      Apr 19, 2021

      Master Of Knots
      4 min read

    • Article

      That Time We Dug For Dinosaurs

      May 11, 2022

      That Time We Dug For Dinosaurs
      4 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 1, 2021

      The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent? All nature prompts and reproves us. How early in the year it begins to be late! —Henry David Thoreau, Journal, August 18, 1853 I thought of Carthage, Baalbek, Jerusalem, Rome,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Writing Outer Space

      Apr 12, 2018

      On the one hand, there is the world as we know it, the ground-level of human life and everything it entails: the whole arc of history, the transformation of our natural environment, nervous first dates over coffee. On the other hand, there is the rem

      9 min read

    • Article

      Of a Fire on The Marsh

      Mar 5, 2018

      Of a Fire on The Marsh
      20 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2023

      In the popular belief, ghosts are a selecting tribe, avoiding millions, speaking to one. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Demonology,” North American Review, 1877 Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass. Let the stars appear and the moon disclose he

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hernan Diaz, Fiction

      Mar 20, 2019

      Hernan Diaz, Fiction
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mutilated Gods

      Aug 6, 2020

      Mutilated Gods
      10 min read

    Reviews for No More Final Frontiers

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words