Twin Earth

Chapter 18

I was crushed into my seat as the pod thrusted upwards, out through the tunnel ahead and towards the sky above, but strangely there was not a single sound from underneath us except for the intense rattling of our seats.

Slowly moving my head against the pressure of the g-force, I peered sideways out of the window and watched as the rain lashed down, immediately being blown away from the force of the wind outside. The jungle and the facility below were quickly disappearing from view as we entered the tumultuous cloud cover of the remnants of the hurricane, but then everything stalled just as we reached the clear blue skies above the storm.

"What's happening?" Rachel asked with a hint of terror in her voice.

"Prepare for entering plasma sequence two, over," the same crackly voice from before announced over the communication system.

"Can you confirm what the hell that is, over?" I replied, looking back at Rachel with probably just as much terror.

"Just sit tight, over," the voice replied.

"What are we doing?" Rachel mouthed to me nervously.

Just as we were about to lose momentum and fall back down to Earth with a crash, the craft thrusted upwards once again, this time with more force than before and an ear-piercing scream emanated from the slipstream outside. I closed my eyes and wished I could close my ears too as I struggled to remain composed. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as the pressure on my body increased. Then the pod stalled once again, causing me to wheeze out loud as we lurched forward in our seats.

"This is fucking horrible," I moaned, wiping at the window, which had begun to frost up on the outside in some vain hope of clearing it from the inside. I couldn't see anything other than what looked like the sun setting on the horizon in the distance.

"Prepare for final plasma sequence in three, two, one..." the voice continued, but I missed his final words because the pod was once again thrusted upwards, this time with even more force. I could barely breathe under the pressure and squeezing my eyes shut I held on to my seat belt, waiting for it to be over.

Then everything stopped. The cabin was no longer vibrating uncontrollably and opening my eyes I stared out at the darkness beyond. I released my hands from their tight grip and tried to re-focus my eyes to the lack of light. There was nothing but black and a billion stars, and the arc of the milky-way sat proudly in the middle in all its glory.

"Wow," I whispered softly.

Then I realised we were weightless. It was a strange sensation and not one I had felt for a long time, not since the plane we had used to prepare for it in, but somehow it seemed more intense this time. A pen tied to the side of the screen in front of us was now drifting in front of my eyes and even my tongue seemed to float inside my mouth, so much so that for a while I struggled to speak.

"Escape sequence complete. You are now clear for mission dark matter, congratulations! Over," a familiar voice cheered over the comms.

"James? Is that you? Over," I asked, clearing my throat.

"Sure is. Everything okay? Over,"

"We're alive. I guess that's a start, over" I mumbled.

"Well done guys. The ionohex has successfully launched, over," Trevor announced.

Regaining my senses, I clicked a few necessary buttons and checked our navigational systems to make sure we were on course to the moon.

"You okay?" I asked, turning to look at Rachel.

"My head hurts."

"It'll settle down."

"I think I passed out."