Sun Ship

Mind Less 2 by Lisa Rae Winant

I was having a lot of trouble thinking of microfiction to go with one of these paintings. I mean a really hard time: I have difficulty writing straight fiction. And I was looking at this one picture and wondering who this woman might be. The idea of this woman, Anja, meshed with an old idea I had a while back for a short story. And it took off from there. A major tangent, so far out it's in outer space. Literally.



Sun Ship

Ponderously, elegantly, the ship spread her sails in the black of space. The sun caught the sails, burnishing the metal deep gold. The sails, jointed and translucent, the immense wings of the ship's much-patched hull. The solar winds changed, blowing the ship about like a bird in a storm.

Anja sat in the bridge, fingering the string of pearls around her neck and staring out at through specially tempered crystal. The beauty of it all never failed to amaze her, even after five long, lonely years on solar energy detail. She was beginning to feel isolated, seeing no one but the taciturn receivers at the energy depot orbiting Mercury. Even being antisocial by inclination, she was beginning to doubt her already questionable humanity.

But the glory more than made up for it.

The sun hung in the black before her, a ball of living fire, arcs of flame dancing across its surface. Reds and oranges and yellows muddled together, shot through with white and brightest blue. The ship creaked and lurched under the force of a particularly strong solar wind. Anja's fingers danced over her board, checking the joints of the sails, the levels of the ship's energy collection. Absorbed in her work, Anja almost missed the flash of brilliant light.

She looked up to see terrible fire gathered below her, churning and shifting: a solar flare. Anja swore—there'd been no predictions of flare activity. She worked desperately to winch in the sails and maneuver away as the pillar of flame billowed upwards. Not fast enough. She slammed her fists down on the board. Then her world exploded.

The bow wave of the solar flare caught her, devouring the ship in a maw of heat and light. Anja felt herself scream, but heard only the roar of fire. The ship was tossed helplessly in the wake of the enormous firestorm. Anja was flung against walls and ceiling, feeling bones crack like kindling. Her world spun, filled with burning light and pain.

Then everything stopped.

The light disappeared, turning everything black in its absence. The sound vanished, leaving a roaring silence to be filled with the plink-plink of cooling metal. Anja slumped against the floor, pain clawing at her nerves and breathing heavily. She was lucky to be alive, at least for now. Radiation or damage to the ship may yet take her.

She looked out the viewscreen and her breath caught in her throat. The flare had flung the ship recklessly into space. In her new orbit, she could see the Earth. Hanging like a blue-green jewel in black velvet: vibrant, lush, and home.

For the first time in her term, Anja felt like her conviction was a punishment. Her hand flew to the pearl necklace built with tracers and electrodes, finally understanding it for the chain it was. She wanted to go home. Tears started to gather in the corners in her eyes; she'd stared so long at the sun that looking back was almost like going blind.