GROUNDED
By William Sambrot
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Startling Stories Fall 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Lieutenant Colonel Martin sat back in his hard desk chair and looked out through the tinted window to where the slim, dartlike jets waited, poised on the sun-washed runways. A red and blue jet swooped down out of the brilliant, cloudless sky and shot along the runway, wheeled and rolled back toward the parking strip. It was the courier ship from Washington.
The colonel frowned, his sunburned face breaking into sharp, diagonal lines. The courier plane was used only in cases requiring utmost secrecy. And always, it brought trouble. Today, it brought trouble for Martin.
He waited, tapping a lean finger on the desk, his eyes distant but not seeing the harsh ridge of up-flung barren mountains, looming clear and incredibly near despite the fact they were sixty miles away—sixty miles of alkali wasteland where only gila monsters moved, scuttling from rock to rock to escape the brazen sun.
Beyond those mountains was Project Breakaway, the Air Force's top secret attempt to fling a dart up high enough and fast enough to break free of earth's clutching gravity. It was Colonel Martin's job to command one group of jets that guarded the approaches to Project Breakaway. It had been a dull job—routine, boring—up until yesterday morning.