Downriver

Missile jousting jet on alert.

Nuclear cruise missiles move quick, so they have to move quicker. Rail sleds like these get them into the air in under a minute, ready to joust incoming threats with their piggybacked retransmission missiles. The militarisation of space has made ICBMs much easier to track and intercept, and so low-flying cruise missiles are a more intimate danger.

Their world has poor missile guidance and range, so they need to be “jousted” by jets with powerful radars to reliably intercept them. Vekllei moves them around on rail sleds because their country consists of small islands whose airbases are easily observed and targeted. Pilots receive as much as 6Gs on takeoff.