Transport.

  That word has certain connotations, and none of them were evident in the E.H.A.L.O.E.P- which was an incredibly stupid acronym, for the record. It stood for Emergency High Altitude Low Orbit Evacuation Pod- in other words, it's a bunch of chairs on a lot of explosives that throw you to the edge of space and then let you fall back to earth. Having said all of that, I was incredibly happy to see the vomit comet rocket, as it was known among us boots on the ground.

  When we were inserted, this baby was dropped off as well. You wouldn’t know by looking at it, but this thing had limited capability to move over land in addition to what it was intended to do. In other words, it could be dropped off at the LZ with us, and then crawl its way to where we could get to it for an evac.

  Well, you hoped it was there at the extraction zone and not fallen in a ditch somewhere. It had an AI that left a lot to be desired.

  “Everyone in and secure!” Jones shouted as he jumped through the hatch and into one of the seats. A bar came down like you would see on a roller coaster from sixty years ago and other belts and straps connected by themselves as he was secured to the seat.

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  “Damn I hate this,” Fred muttered as he got into his seat and the straps began to wrap around him. All it would take was the AI to not realize he was a human and those straps could kill him by themself. “Feels like I am being mummified.”

  “You would think differently about it if I introduced you to this one gal I know,” Lenny waggled his eyebrows suggestively… Or at least I think he was, helmets make that a bit hard to tell.

  “Lenny, I get turned on by blowing shit up,” Jones commented dryly. “And even I think what you do in the bedroom is weird, and I think it is even stranger that you feel the need to tell us about it!”

  “Hey don’t knock it until you try it.”

  “Oh for the love of God,” Sargent Sorli groaned. “AI, launch us into space before he says another word.”

  [countdown initiated, launch in ten]

  “You guys really need to open your minds- it can be quite fun!”

  “Longest ten seconds of my fucking life!”

  [four, three, two, one- launch]

  And this is why it was called the ‘vomit comet rocket,’ massive acceleration straight into the sky just below what would knock a person out, and when we made it to the top, we’d just drop right down again.

  They don’t pay me enough for this, Lenny thought.

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