Circle of Retribution

Gardener Jackson was one of the best pilots to ever come out of Mars Space Academy. He was a natural to fly the missions that would mine Saturn's atmosphere for the fusion fuel, Helium 3, that the Solar System needed. But there was one problem, a foe he didn't even suspect would stop at nothing to prevent Gardener from succeeding, including life-threatening sabotage. "Circle of Retribution" is a story in the Future Chronology Series. This series of short stories published by Hiawassee Publishing ranges from near future stories to far millennial stories, from familiar Earth-based settings to distant worlds. Excerpt: "You first," said Maxine, "I want to watch you to get an advantage." "Okay," said Gardener, "here goes." The flight suit was similar to the old wing-suits used on earth. A web of material between the legs allowed the pilot to run on the ground and use his legs for stabilization when in the air. Another web of material extended from each arm tapering into the body at the waist creating a triangle. The arm material extended as much as two feet beyond the fliers hands. Unlike the old wing-suits, Titan's flight suits had active compensators built-in to help maintain proper flight attitude. This kept the suits from rotating around the fliers yaw axis as was common with wing-suits. From the top Kitty Hawk sloped downward in all directions. Gardener consulted the heads-up display of his face mask to note wind direction, the data came from the base weather center through the rf-link. Gardener turned to face the wind and began walking down the slope into the wind. He spread his arms out and sped up his descent. Before long he could feel the pressure of Titan's atmosphere against the suit wings. He started to flap, the airfoil shape of the wings started to lift Gardener into the air. He was no more than a few feet off the ground when he noticed he was climbing at a high rate. Checking the wind speed he was surprised to find it had increased to twenty kilometers per