Challenge #03037-H114: The Learning Process

Ad astra per aspera -- Anon Guest

[AN: My old primary school motto was Per Ardua Ad Astra - by effort to the stars. If I read this correctly, this means "To the stars by breath" ::googles:: Almost. "Through the rough" not "by breath". Was I close?]

Groundbreaking travel, as the name suggests, is fraught with unforeseen perils. The first person to hang onto the back of a horse or an ox had no idea what they were in for. The first person to ride in a cart instead of leading it was likely the inventor of the seat cushion as a direct result.

Currently, the crew of the Zipliner are learning the perils of near-light travel. Beginning with - inertia's a bitch. During the acceleration process, the crew are pressed into their seats and only maintaining consciousness because an "overly concerned" engineer insisted that they each were connected to CPAP machines.

They weren't laughing at that one engineer now. They weren't very capable of laughing at all. Frankly, they were thankful that their plotted course was well away from anything they could bump into. If it weren't for the reflective shielding, they may not have had a ship by now[1]. The real trick, in the moment, was finding the strength to reach the controls before they hit anything significant enough to overwhelm the systems as they existed.

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