THE RACE OF THE ROCKETS

The amazing adventurer JASMINE STARR, inventor of the atomic rocket, has blasted off into space, in the company of her ever suffering maid CLAUDETTE T. S. GRANT and ace reporter MARK STYLES.

To their shock, the trio have found that space is not the final frontier but rather the boarder between EARTH and the EMPIRE OF SPACE, ruled by the merciless tyrant AYTAN ZARDO THE TERRIBLE.

Now, our heroes are trapped aboard one of ZARDO’S many IMPERIAL WAR ROCKETS, blasting towards his foreboding PLUTONIAN ICE CASTLE...

Jasmine tapped at the door and found that it opened quickly – they clearly had not expected an escape to be so quick and efficient. Claudette tensed as the door opened ... and then sagged in relief. “Oh Missus!” she exclaimed.

“Never fear, Claudette,” Jasmine said, then found the controls to the magnetic restraints – which switched off with a series of loud clunks. The restraints popped open and Claudette almost swooned against Jasmine. Jasmine swung her arm around her after holstering her pistol. “Come on – we must find our reporter friend.” She stepped out...

And froze.

For standing in the corridor was five of the guards. Each held in their hands large, boxy looking rifles.

Skar stood behind them.

“Open fire.”

The rifles roared with flames and smoke!

Commander Vile watched through the forward view-screen as the raylight tugs began to lock into position. His finger rubbed along his chin as his mind thought to the orders he had been given by his lord and master, the Emperor of Space.

Bring them to me. Keep the male in ultra-sleep. He is the most dangerous one.

The raylight tug was a majestic sight indeed. Nearly a hundred thousand tons of intricately interconnected wires and cables all for the sole purpose of spreading tens of thousands of kilometers of reflective material that could catch and reflect away starlight – in the inner system – and travel-rays in the outer system. The sails themselves provided a mere fraction of the thrust as his war rocket’s nuclear engine – but while that war rocket could only spew forth its might for a short time, the raylight tug was capable of pushing continually at a steady rate for as long as travel-rays were fired at them or the light of the sun would shine upon them.

If he was forced to rely merely upon the water in his war rocket’s tanks, he’d have arrived at Pluto only with the help of an ultra-sleep injection ... and even with the effects of ultra-sleep, he would be a withered old clone, able to but breathe his last words to his mighty Emperor. Such a fate would be one that Commander Vile would gladly accept, for his loyalty to the Emperor of Space could not be questioned ... but it seemed like a waste to him, when he would far more gladly give his life for the Empire of Space in the field of battle.

As it was, the raylight tug would turn a voyage of years ... into a voyage of a mere forty Star Days, which were approximately the same length as the foolish Earth Days used by the petty humans.

The faint reverberations and clunks of the attachment systems rang through the hull and Vile smiled to himself. The idea of a mere forty days being all that was between him and his waiting love-slave harem of beautiful lizard-women was enough to warm even his cold, dark heart ... but then came the alert trill of his communication wand. He snatched it from his hip, aiming the wand at his lips. “Report!”

“This is Lieutenant Tailscorn,” the low rumble of his second in command, the ever dependable Skar Tailscorn. “The females attempted an escape. One of your clone marines has been slain.”

Commander Vile scowled. “By the mount of Mars!” He wished he was under thrust, so he could stand from his command throne. As it was, he tore the straps keeping him to the chair from his body and thrust himself towards the deck hatch. “Are they restrained?”

“Yes, they are, Commander Vile.”

When Vile had reached his prison cells, he saw that the two females had been restrained, back to back, against a magnetic shackle, their arms bound behind their backs. The curvier one looked terrified, while the slender one looked defiantly smug. Vile realized now his mistake – he had taken her expression for guarded nerves ... but he could see now the intellect flashing behind those piercing eyes. He considered ... the pain-scourge could, via the use of induced microwave beams, break even a will such as that with prolonged exposure and when combined with other instruments of torment.

“I am quite ready to begin the torment, my Commander,” Skar growled – his eyes flashing with ire. Clearly, he had a bone to pick with this feisty female. Commander Vile considered ordering him to leap to it – but something held him back...

Commander Vile knew that the Emperor had been seeking one thing above all else – the way to at last, finally, conquer Earth and the earthlings that knew not his magnificence. But there was another emptiness in the Emperor’s life, one that even fifteen long years of domination over the rest of the solar system had not yet salved. He smirked, slowly, then reached out, taking hold of the skinny female’s chin, lifting her head upwards.

“Are you, perchance, any form of royalty?”

She spat in his face – the glob of spittle having just enough momentum to splash against him, even in the freefall of the prison chamber. He groaned and recoiled, clutching to ceiling strap with one hand, his other pressing to his befouled cheek. “You wench!” He snarled, and Skar, leaping to the unspoken command, held out his pain-scourge. The impudent female clenched her jaw, trembling as the induced microwaves blazed through her flesh, cooking her from within!

Skar drew the pain-scourge backwards and she shuddered, then hissed out through her teeth, as globes of spittle merged and split within the air. The entire ship shuddered and the globes began to drift to the floor – they were under acceleration. Commander Vile shook his head, slowly, then snapped his gaze to the curvaceous woman. “And you?”

“T-Take yer eyes off me!” she snapped. “I’m a gentlewoman!”

Vile huffed, then took hold of Skar’s shoulder, drawing him close. “Do not harm them overmuch. I wish to ... check something with the Emperor.”

Skar growled. “Can I at least take my vengeance on Starr?”

“No,” Vile said, knowing what said vengeance might entail. Considering the virility of the lizardfolk, that was the last thing he needed, if his suspicions were true. Seeing the flash of emotion on his second’s face, he sighed, then said: “Not a second time. And pray your seed did not take, my scaled subordinate, or else you may end up facing the lava mines of Io!”

He turned, then stalked from the room in the sliver of gravity provided by the unfurled beamtug sails.

Within the vast corridors of the foreboding Plutonian Ice Castle, Aytan Zardo, the Emperor of Space, Lord from Beyond, Protector Regent of the Solar System, and High Dominion of Earth regarded the astro-map of his star domain that hung above his viewing pool, and considered a million variables as the stars slowly swung beneath his gaze.

His pointed eyebrows were turned into a narrow V, while his bald pate gleamed from the torches that flickered within his room. In the privacy of his chamber, Zardo allowed himself the comfort of a bright red jumpsuit, clinging to his lean and limber body, with a golden cape that draped about his shoulders. A flute glass filled with shimmering green liquid from a distant solar system that could only be fabricated in his Nuclear Alchemy Engine was clutched between his fingers.

Zardo shook his head, then downed a gulp, feeling the warm burn of the immortality wine as it slid through his throat and struck his belly like the warm glow of a distant star. With the growing energy of his monthly imbibing of the immortality wine flowing through his mind, plans and schemes began to slot into place within the mazelike mind of the man who would be the ruler of all the solar system.

“If we can but keep the Hawkmen and the Faemen at one another’s throats...” He growled under his breath. “And secure those Jovian moons and their Trojans ... then the Sword of Heaven will have no allies at all. Yes.” He stroked his chin beard. “Yes, it is all coming into-”

“Father!”

The door to his contemplation chamber opened and the only being in the whole of the solar system who could dare disturb the contemplation of the Emperor of Space entered – trailed by her handmaidens. If Pluto had been as Zardo had found it, centuries before, the way that his daughter, the Space Princess Zella, entered into the chamber would have launched her into the very ceiling. But Zardo, aware of his preferences and future dominion, had spent many centuries hollowing the planetoid and spinning the dwarf world, so that gravity could be provided via rotation rather than the trifling mass of the obscure orb.

Such was the might of Aytan Zardo!

“Father!” Star Princess Zella said, her long, flowing red dress being held in train by her handmaidens – both hawkgirls from distant Venus – as she strode towards him. “How could you have atomated him!?”

“I consign a great many fools to the deatomizer, my dearest daughter,” Zardo said, his voice wry. “You may have to be more specific.”

His daughter gasped in shock, then threw herself, dramatically, upon one of the couches normally reserved for one of Zardo’s many love-slaves. She sprawled there, throwing an arm above her face, covering her striking purple eyes. “Lieutenant Commander Than Thanagan! He was the most handsome of your entire clone legion!”

Zardo sniffed. “Than Thanagan was a traitor,” he said, frowning. “A clone ... who had joined the Underground of Free Peoples.” His lip curled as he glared back at the astro-map, imagining the many festering spores of that most accursed Underground. “Free People ... free to what? To toil in ignorance and deprivation of the mighty mind of Zardo?” He shook his head. “They are as deluded, as mistaken in their intentions as you were of Than Thanagan’s treason. Put him from your mind, my daughter.”

Zella pouted, then blinked as the ray-communicator chirruped, signaling that an important communication ray was coming in. Zardo reached forward and flicked the toggle, frowning imperiously at the face of Commander Vile that projected onto one of his many screens.

“My lord,” Commander Vile’s recording spoke, his tone serious. “We have engaged the tug and have begun our transfer. With a gravity assist around the star-center, we shall be arriving in forty one point seven Star Days. Behold!” He gestured and the view-screen displayed an image of the first human that they had captured. In the depths of ultra-sleep, the human male looked significantly less dangerous than he had in the initial securo-picts. Zardo rubbed his chin-beard gently as he took in the male’s body ... he was clearly a man who had seen war.

“Oh my!” Zella exclaimed, her eyes shining brightly like glittering amethysts. “What a dreamboat!”

Zardo chuckled. “This male was captured in the orbit of that bedeviling orb, Earth. Does he please you, my dear?”

“Oh my yes!” Zella said, rubbing her palms together, her sadness over Than Thanagan forgotten in a flash. “And a human? I’ve never met any other humans before!”

“Indeed,” Zardo said, amused at his daughter’s ignorance. Not that she could be expected to recognize one of her most common companions as originally being human. The irony of his human daughter wishing to meet another human, while being around a human almost every day of her life? It pleased Zardo’s deep sense of whimsy. As he reflected on this, the screen flicked to another securo-pict, this one of...

Zardo sat up, his eyes widening. “By the ice-hells of Europa!” He thrust his finger at the face on the screen. “Do you recognize that face, my dear?”

Zella shook her head.

“That is the striking image of my ‘old’ friend...” Zardo turned to look upon his daughter. “Of Jacob Starr!”

Zella pouted. “Who?”

He picked up his communication wand and dictated into it. “Begin communication ray transmission to Commander Vile.” He paused, waiting for the affirming click from his communication wand, which was even now transcribing his words to the com-ray station.

Once he had heard it, he spoke. “You are to bring this Jasmine to me without harming a single hair upon her head. Stop. Any harm done unto her will be preformed upon you ten thousand fold! Stop! Thus Speaks Emperor Zardo! Out!” When the communication wand had chirruped to indicate the ray communication had been transcribed, he nodded again. “Send communication!”

Zella nodded. “How long must we wait?”

“A mere forty one Star Days, my dear,” Zardo purred, leaning back in his seat, steepling his fingers.

“Only forty one days?” Zella sprang to her feet. “I must prepare myself to impress him!”

Zardo, already half ignoring her as she swept from the room, nodded as he looked at the defiant face of Jasmine Starr. Quietly, he whispered. “Soon, I shall have what I have needed for five hundred years...” He caressed his chin beard. “A Queen worthy of my glory. An Empress to rule the worlds and moons ... at my side and my side alone!”

“Well, Missus, this looks like it is the end of us!”

Claudette groaned as she leaned against Jasmine – and Jasmine had to admit, she had never been quite in a pickle quite so picklish as this. In the mere five days since they had been snatched from the Atomo, they had traveled countless miles away from the Earth – further than any Earthman or Earthwoman had ever been from their blue orb ... and Commander Vile had decided that he would not make the same mistake twice. The two of them had been confined to their cell and the guard had been doubled, then quadrupled after a short time. Now, sixteen men stood at the corridor beyond their cell at every time, rocket-bolt pistols at their hips and swords naked in their hands.

“Never fear, Claudette,” Jasmine said, quietly. “I have been considering the situation. And this brig is not so impregnable. We simply need to find the right time for a distraction.”

Claudette looked over her shoulder, her eyes widening as she whispered, under her breath. “W-What’s yer plan, Missus?”

“Simplicity itself,” Jasmine whispered back. “This war rocket can never land upon the surface of a planet, even the smaller orbs beyond the Earth. Mars would prove far too rigorous a gravitational field than this rocket could handle.” She nodded. “Thus, the vehicle must have a secondary vessel that we can steal and escape upon.”

“W-What about Mr. Styles?”

“I have no idea where he is, sadly,” Jasmine murmured, softly. “But I’m sure we can find him somewhere within these awful brigs.” She sighed, quietly. “So keep your chin up, Claudette. We shall be out of here in a trice.”

“I ... I’m afraid, Missus...”

Claudette turned. Her breasts pressed, gently, against Jasmine’s back. Her hands pressed to her shoulders and the warmth of her breath tickled against Jasmine’s neck. Jasmine leaned back into her, her eyes closing slightly as she let herself enjoy the warmth of her. She turned, then, so that her more slight figure pressed to Claudette’s, a familiar pressure that the two had long shared across many adventures. Jasmine, her voice a quiet croon, whispered to her. “You never need to fear with me, Claudette...” Her hands reached down, clasping the other woman’s pert rump. She squeezed her through her golden star suit, her fingers dimpling the skintight fabric. Claudette gasped, sounding faintly shocked ... as she did every time.

“M-Missus, we can’t!”

“Oh, we’re beyond the bounds of Earthly law. What’s some dyking beyond the Van Allen Belt between some old friends, eh?” She grinned, then leaned forward and captured Claudette’s mouth. Just like back on Antarctica, and in France, and in Algeria, and in Australia, Claudette stiffened, as if she was worried some authorities were going to burst down the door and drag them away ... then leaned into it, moaning as she thrust her tongue desperately into Jasmine’s mouth. Jasmine pushed gently, and under the gentle twentieth of a gravity that the war rocket currently thrust under, she laid Claudette upon her back within the cell.

Her hands undid the clasps around Claudette’s throat and her maid gasped as her bountiful breasts were freed – jiggling in delicious slow motion within the minute gravity of the cell. Her nipples were rosy red exclamation points that simply begged to be sucked, and Jasmine never let down a comrade. She closed her mouth around Claudette’s nipple, sucking on her with just enough edge of teeth and pressure to wring a soft moan from her southern belle. “Oh heavens!” Claudette moaned, her thighs spreading as Jasmine’s hand inched along her belly, peeling her star suit from her body. Claudette, despite her pretending to be shocked that they were having lesbian sex yet again, kicked and wriggled her body so that her star suit was left on the floor like a shed snake skin and her wild bush of bright blond pubic hair. The folds of her cunt were sopping wet, the beads of her arousal forming and then slowly, slowly dripping away from her.

“Oh you are a dish, my dear Claudette...” Jasmine crooned.

“M-Missus...” Claudette whispered, her hand covering her face, blushing hard. “Y-You know how badly it flusters me ... ta have you lookin’ at me there, like that. Like I’m- EEP!” She squeaked as Jasmine grabbed her rump, lifting her with ease. Normally, Jasmine would need to bend her head down to feast – but in the ultralight gravity of the war rocket, she was able to lift her lover up so that her hips were clear in the air, her legs hooking over her shoulders. Jasmine leaned down and kissed her cunt, thrusting her tongue home.

“Ohh Jasmine!” Claudette gasped out, finally using her Christian name – a delicious contrast, considering the lewd, un-Christian nature of their sapphic act. If any had seen them doing this on Earth, it would have been an immediate sentence to a psychiatric ward – but such laws were of no consequence to the daring adventurer, and she had a great deal of practice in bringing Claudette to orgasm – her tongue honed in the pussies of Egyptian queens, ice cold Soviet snipers sent to slay her, and once, between the legs of a woman crafted by none other than Dr. Mundo the Mad Physician as part of his deranged goal of global domination.

Thus, it was no shock when, after a few short moments of licking, kissing, nibbling, Claudette was crying out: “Jasmine! Jasmine! OH JASMINE!” Her body trembled and her thighs tightened and a thin spurt of her pleasure filled Jasmine’s mouth as the confident conqueror of space closed her mouth around Claudette’s pussy.

Jasmine pushed her down, and then swung her legs around. Her own sex was revealed by the simple expedient of tugging aside the thin red strip of material that snaked between her thighs. Exposing her sex allowed her to slot her legs and then buck her hips so that their pussies ground together, the pleasure of the friction drawing a soft, short hiss from Jasmine, between her teeth. Her eyes half closed as she watched the way that her maid’s body trembled and jiggled as she moaned, her mouth opening, then closing as she tried to keep her moans in check...

Tried...

And failed.

“Jasmine! Ah! Jasmine! Yes!”

The door to the chambers hissed open and Jasmine turned her defiant gaze to the two of Zardo’s clone troopers who stood at the entry way. One thrust his finger at them. “What are you doing?” He asked, his lips curled in a frown.

“We are making love, if you want to join,” Jasmine said, her voice fierce and defiant. Her hands reached down, dragging Claudette closer. The two clones flushed, their eyes exchanging a glance as the fronts of their armor seemed to grow a bit tighter.

“W-We did not know females could engage in this activity...” one of the clones said, but the other grabbed his arm and yanked him back. The cell door closed and once more plunged the two women into darkness, leaving only a pale illumination to heighten the gleams of sweat along Claudette’s flesh. Jasmine grinned, then let the pleasure flow over her as she gasped out and moaned, her sex twitching against Claudette as Claudette bit down on her knuckles to keep herself from moaning too loudly.

“I believe ... ah ... we have an opening,” Jasmine purred.

“H-How ... how do you mean?” Claudette asked, her voice dazed.

“Those clones engage in their own intercourse...” Jasmine swung her legs free, laying back, sighing as she did so. “Male in form – so they have to, to borrow a bit of French, frotter.”

“F ... Frot-wuh?” Claudette asked, her eyes wide as saucers. She put her hands over her breasts, crossing her legs, trying to attain some measure of modesty before the woman who had just fucked her silly.

“To rub, my dear Claudette,” Jasmine said, smiling as she stood. “Those two clones are without a doubt, at this very moment, drawing themselves aside, sliding down their loincloths, and taking out their throbbing, aching erections...” She shook her head slightly – while behind her, Claudette blushed and rubbed her thighs together, squirming. “Then they will take those heavy cocks and grind them together – base to base, their glans gently bumping against one another, while their masculine chests press together. Pec to pec. Nipple to nipple. Their mouths, close enough to kiss. A forbidden intimacy, I’m sure, but one they will savor as the most dominant of the pair will take hold of the other’s hips...”

“A-And?” Claudette whimpered. Her hand had dropped between her legs, despite herself, and her middle finger rubbed the very cleft of her aching clitty.

“And?” Jasmine shook her head, still looking at the door that would lead out to freedom, her mind whirling as she planned. “Why, then, they would thrust against one another. Kiss. Bite. Maybe even lick at one another’s necks, two masculine creatures, trembling with intense, homoerotic energy, their cocks surging with pleasure, their balls gently pressing to one another with the force of their grinding.”

“Y-Yes ... yes...” Claudette whimpered, fingering herself faster and faster.

“And then, once their pleasure has reached its peak ... we shall strike,” Jasmine said.

“Yessssssssss!” Claudette wailed.

“I’m glad to hear you’re so gung ho about this, Claudette!” Jasmine turned, to see Claudette’s head wobbling from side to side, her expression looking positively silly, her smile broad.

“Yessiree, Missus...” Claudette mumbled, then laid onto her back.

For the next two days, Claudette and Jasmine made love again and again and again – such that Claudette almost lost her shame for it and Jasmine almost lost her pleasure in it. But each time, they exposed themselves to their guards, and each time, they aroused the guards – until the entire clone legion compliment aboard the war rocket had been inculcated with the sensual arousal of what they had witnessed.

But Jasmine had not been idle in her lovemaking.

A war-rocket, even a war-rocket such as the one designed by the Emperor of Space and his astro-engineers, had to follow along certain design specifications as implied by the laws of physics and engineering. The engine that Jasmine had seen during their brief battle had been quite similar to hers – if on a larger scale – meaning that the reactor was made of several stages of interacting systems. The uranium within the reactor heated water, which was shunted through a turbine – this turbine was spun to create the electrical energy used by the ship’s various death rays and other high energy gadgets. But the reactor produced immense amounts of heat ... heat that needed to be gotten rid of, lest the whole reactor melt down.

By examining the wall panels, Jasmine had found the maintenance hatch that opened into a pair of steam pipes. One would have thought that it should have been sealed, but the space above and below the steam pipes entrance into the room were sealed with heavy insulation, and the pipes themselves were barely as wide as a human female’s shoulders. It would be tight as a bolthole for her, and instantly lethal beside ... for one of the steam pipes drew superheated steam from the reactor to the radiators that ran along the sides of the rocket, while the other took the cooled steam back from the radiators back down to the reactor – so that the whole cycle could continue.

Jasmine nodded to herself.

By the fifth day, the final part of the plan had come into focus.

The door opened as Jasmine had Claudette’s head buried between her thighs and the other girl was lapping at her sex like a starving woman. Jeanette moaned hungrily – and ignored the thumping sounds of Lieutenant Skar entering the chamber, his face a mask of fury.

“What are you up to, Starr?” He growled. “Half of my clone legionaries are too distracted with your newfangled Earthling ways to do their duties!”

Jasmine gently pushed Claudette away, panting softly. “Merely passing the time, Lieutenant. And my Claudette, she is too ... focused on my beauty to resist. I cannot stop her. She’s insatiable.”

“Missus!” Claudette exclaimed, horrified.

“Too beautiful, eh?” Skar growled. He withdrew a new ray wand from his bandoleer, fiddling with it. Jasmine tried to tense without seeming too. But then Skar, to her consternation, shook his head and slid it back into his bandoleer. “As much fun as it would be to scour your pretty human face with my ray wand, I have my orders. The great Zardo himself desires you to be his bride.” He chuckled. “You will fit in quite well with his love harem, I can see ... but I must separate you two, if you are going to be this distracting to the crew.”

Jasmine realized she would have to change tracks. She snorted, then shook her head, starting to stand. “Separate me? So, you wish to let me tell the Emperor of Space himself that you could not keep discipline aboard his imperial war rocket without separating me from my concubine?”

Skar’s eyes narrowed. His teeth bared. “As if the Emperor would-”

“Listen to his new wife?” Jasmine chuckled. “You will find I am quite persuasive, after I have shown him my skill at the ... wifely duties.” Her tongue flicked along her lips, suggestively. “If you were impressed with my skill while bound and held down, imagine me liberated.”

Skar’s eyes widened fractionally. His teeth shone even more brightly as he stepped forward, thumping despite the minute gravity. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“I believe I would, Lieutenant. As the Queen of Space, you would find there is very little that I would forget. Now, take my Claudette from me if you dare. Or are you a coward, you scaled-”

Skar growled, drawing his ray wand with a quick jerk of his hand. He aimed it at Jasmine’s face.

“Think well on your next words, Earth woman, or else the Emperor will hear of how you were tragically burned in steam pipe breach!” He snarled, glaring at her.

She snorted. “Threaten and bluster, that’s all you can manage, lizard!”

She saw his thumb claw depress the firing switch – and started to move before he had completed the motion. The death ray from his ray wand was invisible, but the point of pure, blinding white it sparked up on the steam pipe behind her was not. The metal weakened, then the steam pressure forced the hole open and a streamer of brilliant, face-melting hot steam geysered out and struck Skar directly in his face. He shrieked and threw his hands up, the ray wand flipping through the air as he stumbled backwards. He fell to his knees, screaming as his hands cupped his face, thick globs of black blood forming between his fingers.

“Dammmmnnnn youuuuuu Sssssssssstarrrrr!” He shirked, his species sibilants slipping back into his voice under the duress of pain. “Dammmmn youuuuuu!”

Jasmine, though, had already snatch the ray wand from the air and aimed it. The other steam pipe burst and a huge gout of much cooler steam exploded into the air, turning the whole chamber into a thundering cloud. A shoulder drove against Skar and he fell, hearing the clattering and banging of movement past him. He forced down the agony, whipped out his communication wand, and bellowed into it.

“Sssssssssssssstarr hasssssssss essssssssscaped! Lock down all hatchesssssssssss! Ssssssssssstarr hassssssssssss esssssssssssscaped!”

Commander Vile was in the midst of his daily astrogation observations when the alert came. The Domination had just about reached the orbit of Venus during its steady falling towards the sun on its course towards Pluto, and he was eyeing the suspicious radar returns on his scopes – unsure if he should send a communication ray towards it or not. At their current trajectory and steadily increasing velocity, the Domination could not have been caught by the radar return ... but there were several robot rockets in the vicinity that could be plucked by pirates.

He had just settled in sending the communication rays to Prince S’kye of the Hawkmen when the alert came up. He swept over to the internal security station, where the master at arms was hastily working his controls, bringing up the picture-screens that showed the internal systems of the rocket.