Planet Earth is blue 2

My head throbbed, as if in the grip of an angry giant. Crawling forwards, I encountered the bars of energy that sealed my cage and was thrown back with a jolt to lie retching on the asteroid’s cold surface. I could see one of my captors keeping watch on a ridge; her tall thin figure was silhouetted against the stars, the crest running down her back marking her out as a middle-rank detachment commander. She seemed impatient and I could guess why – they’d been hunting me for months.

Ceres had already set and Jupiter was only just visible above the horizon. I remembered training there with my grandfather: that thrill of diving into its swirling outer mantle, the exhilarating sucking gravity, the moment of terror when you feel you are about to be crushed, the skill (hard to master) of holding your nerve as you pass just beyond pain before the subtle change of trajectory that accelerates you out and away again at ten times your original speed. ‘Riding the sling-shot’ they used to call it.

My guard’s shape stiffened as bright lights emerged above the ridge. She waved her hand and the prison ship eased itself down close by.