SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

THE REAL SPACE RACE

The ship was hit on its sides almost instantly.

"They're shooting at us!" Darwin said. "It's an ambush!"

A distant greenish luminosity passed by the window.

"The SVM!" I exclaimed.

I lost sight of it.

"Don't lose it!" Lucas pleaded.

A force sank us into the seats.

"Let's go after it!"

The spaceship accelerated dreadfully to the stars.

"Where did they go?" the pilot wanted to know and slapped the monitor. "I have no radar!"

Confused, I looked through the end of the side window. The ship was hit and we began to drift.

"They're following us!" Darwin yelled. "They're behind us!"

The clever pilot managed to steady the Pterodactyl in a jiffy.

"Watch the windows!" he ordered. "Do not leave any unguarded!"

Through the lower end of the front window, the gigantic blue sphere appeared: Earth.

A shiny green dot moved on toward that direction...

"The SVM!" I informed. "They're taking it to Earth!"

"More missiles are coming!" Darwin shouted.

The Pterodactyl shifted its course. The crew was thrown to the right and then bounced back to the seats brutally.

"Two missiles less!" the pilot celebrated.

Two lights passed vertically by the front window, disappearing in the infinite space.

After that, the stars began to gyrate. The pilot was pulling the rudder.

"Is there anything behind?"

The Pterodactyl made a huge arch.

"I still can't see," Darwin said. "I don't see anything."

An extraordinary blue sphere covered our horizon.

"Can you see the SVM?" the pilot asked me.

I half closed my eyes.

"There's too much brightness."

"Let's speed up."

The acceleration pressed us against the backs of the seats.

"Why don't you demassify the ship again?" I asked.

Why the hell had he remassified the ship!

"I was running out of battery," the pilot whispered. "The demassification takes a lot of energy..."

The ship decelerated and we were thrown to the front.

When I accommodated myself in my seat, I noticed alarmed how the size of the Earth had increased.

And it kept increasing dramatically...

In order to find something similar to a speedometer I focused my attention on the monitors surrounding the rudder. I found a small screen that contained the overestimated number of 45,000 miles per hour...

We were moving that fast!

"We're going too slowly!" Lucas lamented. "We're going to have to use more battery..."

I gazed up. The huge wingspan of the Vampire could be seen in the horizon. It was no further than a couple of hundred feet away!

The green ball dazzled on the tail.

"Now we'll catch up with it," the pilot announced. "Here we go!"

A new boost buried us in our seats. The Vampire's tail was getting closer awfully fast.

"There are lights at 4:40!" Darwin announced just when the brief impulse ceased. "No!" he corrected himself. "They're opening at 3:15!"

You could see already the fancy Vampire's fuselage ahead. The background was compromised by the shocking terrestrial sphere.

"Keep on updating me!" the pilot asked Darwin. "Don't stop!"

"I don't see them anymore!" my friend whined. "I can't find my glasses!"

The Vampire was getting close. Now it should be barely 300 hundred feet away and slightly under our course.

We were catching up with him...

"Do you know how to fish?" Lucas asked me.

I understood.

"I could try it."

We would take away the SVM with the mechanical arm.

We were getting closer!

Suddenly, there was a horrible tickling in the belly. Our ship was veering! Earth disappeared in the horizon. We were flying away from the Vampire.

I turned around.

"Lucas!"

Lucas had passed out!