SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

LOST IN SPACE

"Can you avoid it?" the pilot inquired without neglecting the board. "Or destroy it?"

Our speed decreased perceptively.

"We'd just tried it*," the Major responded. "There are only a few minutes to a frontal collision of 40 thousand miles per hour..."

You didn't have to be a genius to infer that the impact would release energy of hundreds of thousands of megatons...

"Impact area?" Lucas wanted to know.

"60 square miles in an area that includes Mama Bat's crater."

"Okay," the pilot agreed to it and slanted the ship completely. "Let's wait outside with the SVM."

We were going toward a narrow fissure in the wall.

"Cross your fingers," the Major hollered.

Through the windows you could see a swarm of missiles heading toward us.

"Fingers are crossed."

We went into the crack. The fuselage bumped fiercely against the craggy walls and we started to advance among a fantastic spluttering.

"They're following us!" Darwin was heard saying. "They're still after us!"

Lucas inclined the rudder. The Pterodactyl shot into another direction. I knew it was upwards, toward the surface.

"Stars!" I yelled excited. "Stars!"

We were going up vertically between strong jolts.

"The ship has gone mad!" Darwin yelled.

"We're bouncing!"

Lucas was trying to grasp the rudder. It seemed an unhinged compass...

"It is remassifying!" I shouted. "The ship is gaining mass!"

At that instant, the pilot's strength yielded before a tremendous obstacle coming out from the walls.

"Be careful!" I reacted too late.

The wing had bumped against something. We started to rotate at a smashing velocity. The ship was out of control. All the utterances were reduced to choked outcries. Blue sparks were passing by the windows.

Suddenly, the shaking was gone and the sparks disappeared.

The terrible thrust was still on.

Stars showed up, merging with a black background. Then, the shiny moon's craters went away. After that, the stars.

We gyrated without opposition, like a maddened gyroscope...

Each turn was driving us further away...and smashing us more...it was such pressure that I almost couldn't breath.

I was going to pass out.

One more time I stood firm. Summoning up my courage I managed to take a big puff in, whereas my popped out eyes found a huge Vampire leaving the moon. In the following instant, a gigantic mass passed by crushing another ship that had just loomed through a cleft.

The asteroid, I thought, crashed.

The moon was wrapped in some sort of blue static...

"Help me with the lever," Lucas whispered. "Stretch your foot..."

I looked at my feet once again.

"The left one," Lucas explained. "Hurry... up...pull..."

I stretched out my foot and making a superhuman effort I moved it to the left, under the board. I stuck in the tip of my boot and pulled.

The revolution speed decreased.

It ceased completely after a while. The ship was stabilized.

Thousands of stars now appeared through the small windows shining quietly in the infinite blackness of space.

I was still breathing heavily and a cold sweat ran all over my body. I closed my eyes.

*Maneuvering a sphere with a diameter of 2,173 miles and to veer it away from the impact line, using a bunch of rockets, would not have been an easy task.