A Future We'd Like To See 1.28 - The Run
By Twoflower (Copyright 1993)

     Several star systems and a wide, wide expanse of nothing. 
That's how far I had to cover in five minutes for the run.

     I strapped in, clenching my teeth as the neurostimulants
were injected into my right arm.  The shuttle's engines warmed
up, running several self diagnostics on the warp coils and
hyperspace drives.  The self-buckling elastic webbing wrapped
itself around my torso, in front and behind.

     I checked with the computer, to make sure the cargo was
secure and kept at the correct temperature levels.  It was
absolutely crucial that the cargo be maintained at acceptable
levels; my fate depended on it.  Nerves on edge as the stimulants
mixed with perfectly innocent blood cells, I breathed a silent
prayer, braced myself, and tapped the LAUNCH button.

     The shuttle tore through the atmosphere, leaving a smoking
crater behind on the launching pad.  The stimulants kicked in,
disorienting my brain enough to make it ignore the incredible G
forces.  After leaving the planet's grip of gravity, the webbing
tightened, holding me into my seat.  The main window, the
windscreen as it were if there were any wind to screen, went
completely black to keep me from seeing the sickening light show
as my ship shot through hyperspace at warp speeds.  I tried to
keep a firm eye on the navcomp and keep from passing out as my
brain swam in a sea of synaptic fluids.

     I had to do some very fast computations to avoid slamming
into some planets.  As usual, the company hadn't programmed the
nav computer correctly.  The timer ticked down, at the 2 minute
mark, reaching the dead-end limit of zero.  Strange displacement-
induced visions danced by my range of vision.  I swallowed them
down and concentrated on the green blip, the destination, as it
approached at unimaginable speeds.  I grabbed desparately to my
spinal column to keep it from shooting out of my back.

     The chair slammed more stimulants into me as the ship
lurched out of warp and reentered pure hyperspace, then slipped
out of that with a sickening groan.  My body was in five places
at once, each place being defined as 'not fun'.  The webbing
tightened even more, to the point where I couldn't breathe, as
the ship flew screaming down out of the atmosphere, preparing for
a hopefully soft landing at the coordinates.  Various traumatic
childhood memories picked the worst time to surface.  Tears,
phlegm and saliva ran together in pools at the back of my helmet. 
I comforted to sanity, which was busy panicking and crying like a
baby who had just been terrorized by an anal thermometer, and
grasped the armrest in an iron-hard grip for impact.

     WHAM.  My inner ear mixed around like a cuisinart and my
bone marrow turned into white water rapids as the ship make a
rickety three point landing outside the house.  I hit the RELEASE
button, and the webbing retracted, as well as the other
restraints and visors.  I jumped out of the cockpit, falling
upwards against gravity.  Clutching the grass to keep from
falling off the world, I stumbled around to the rear, and pulled
the rectangular box out of the cargo hold.  Pausing only to vomit
out a third my guts out on the lawn, I lurched on.  I would have
retched up the rest, but I had a deadline.

     I checked the clock.  Thirty seconds, as far as my blurred
vision could tell.  The ground bobbed up and down as my system
tried to cope once more with normal gravity, and I made a lunge
for the doorbell, falling sideways, but managing to hit it.

     Ding dong!

     Creeeak.

     "Hello, Lightning Pizza," I rasped, forking over the box. 
"I made it in the five minute limit, so the pizza's not free. 
You owe me one hundred and twenty credits for an extra cheese and
a pepperoni."

     "I didn't order a pepperoni," the girl at the door said.  "I
wanted a supreme pizza.  Can you just take them back and get my
real order?"

     I fainted.