Base Jump

by Geoffrey Hart

Previously published as: Hart, G. 2020. Base Jump. Flash in a Flash Episode 82 [30 June 2020]

Hamilton stood on the airlock platform, gazing down with some trepidation into the roiling inferno that was the red giant. Sure, base-jumping was all about taunting gravity. But if you failed on a planet, your friends would have something to bury.

He checked the laser heat pump, and the readouts were nominal. It would keep him cool even in the corona. If it failed, at least he wouldn’t have long to worry about it. Ditto for the inertial dampers; they’d buffer him against the worst shocks the solar atmosphere would generate, and if they failed, he’d become a millimetre-thick layer of paste inside his environment suit before the impact registered.

Finally, the light sail that he’d deploy when he was ready to return. That had been folded by machines, as the slightest rip would doom him. He had to trust that they’d done the job right; there was no way to test it before use.

He took a deep breath, waved at the cameras on the press platform, and disengaged his magnetic boots. Then he stepped backwards off the platform, falling cleanly into a 180° rotation, head down towards the star.

Falling, he wondered how he’d ever top this one.

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