Blood in the Fire

Chapter Six: Brothers in Space

Earth - June 1981

Elizabeth

After lunch the next day, Mark and Luke met me in our overgrown backyard. I shivered with anxious anticipation as I watched Luke make his way out the creaky porch door and down the wooden steps. God, you move slow! Mark must have been thinking the same thing because he started bouncing and punching my shoulder.

"I can't believe I get to come with you on a mission," Mark exclaimed. "Is this gonna be like a James Bond film with explosions and code names? Will I get to wear a wrist watch with a powerful magnetic shield?" Imagine Tigger gone gangsta. That's what my brother looked like right now.

"No one's stopping you from talking to a wrist watch," I replied as I waved away the cloud of mosquitos around my head. "But a James Bond film? No, unless I missed the one where Bond recited magic spells."

"Well, where too?" Luke asked as he fished the car keys out of his pocket. It was a hot afternoon, despite the cloud cover. Luke's lethargic motions betrayed an impatience to get on with whatever we were doing and return to air-conditioning.

I shook my head no. "You won't need those. We're teleporting."

Mark's eyes grew wide. He came around to stand an inch away from my nose. "Teleport?" he whispered. "You mean one minute here, the next somewhere else?" I nodded. "Get out of here!" he yelled and punched my shoulder.

I stumbled back a step under the force of his overenthusiastic blow. "You're welcome," I replied as I rubbed my sore arm. My voice was sarcastic, but a suppressed laugh lurked beneath. It was great to see Mark excited.

Luke, on the other hand, turned a little pale when I mentioned teleporting. This is gonna be one hell of a day for you, Brother.

"Ready?" I asked. Giddy as a child, Mark nodded and resumed bouncing.

Luke let out a slow sigh and scrutinized me.

"As I'll ever be," he said.

First, I released the spell I'd prepared that would translate everything Mark and Luke heard to English. I also had the teleportation spell most of the way complete. I inputted the final parameters that accounted for our present time and location, took a deep breath and met Mark's eyes. He stopped bouncing and looked back expectantly. I said the final word of the spell.

The sight of our backyard faded from view. For a split moment, I was blind and numb and then my stomach took a small, familiar dive as my body realized that the gravitational pull had suddenly decreased. The cool, dry air met my skin to let me know we had arrived. We were standing right in front of a window on Enlightenment Station.

Mark and Luke stood motionless. I watched their eyes bug out as they realized we'd left our backyard for outer space. Stretched out before them was a vast expanse of blackness dotted by thousands of distant, bright stars. The layer of dust, clouds and atmosphere that normally veiled our view of the night sky was stripped away, leaving before us the crisp, unfiltered majesty of space.

By comparison, the station itself felt small. We were standing in a curved, gray hallway with soft pinkish lights and maroon carpet. Floor to ceiling windows composed the outer wall. The inner wall was smooth and metallic. Automatic doors spaced evenly apart were the only interruptions on the otherwise flawless surface.

Mark leapt into the air, hit the wall and yelled, "I'm in space, baby!" No one can say I didn't know my brother. Thank goodness, we had the hallway to ourselves. Then he turned to me with gratitude edging his smile. "God, this is awesome!"

It didn't seem possible, but his saucer-sized eyes grew even wider as something from his peripheral vision caught his attention. A spaceship was coming in for a landing. He turned to stare.