His Throne

5 - A Long Journey

The plane continues to fly as I have my head back against the seat. It almost felt like we've been flying for hours. Tha is still turned off and Jennifer is texting on her laptop. I took a closer look and I can see that she's messaging James. So, she's his friend just like me. Good thing they have Wi-Fi on every transportation vehicle. A man in his seat behind me is sleeping with his sleeping mask on and I stayed quiet making sure that I don't wake him up. The sound of the camera lens zooming in and out is in my ear as I turned.

"Tha. What time is it? Also, can you turn down your volume? There's some people sleeping here." I whispered.

Tha turns her volume down to a fifteen percent and then replied. "It is 6:24 P.M."

"Okay. Thanks." I nodded, "Jennifer is friends with Dr. James just like me."

"I have seen it. Right now, I am messaging him too, telling him that we are on our way."

I nodded and I turn the television on and watched my favorite show. An automatic trolley is rolling along giving biscuits, peanuts, and beverages to the passengers and she came up to me.

"Would you like something?"

I looked at the snacks and the beverages in the trolley and back to the speaker. "I would like some biscuits and a coke please."

"You need ice in your drink?"

"Yes please."

The trolley gave me a packet of biscuits and a cup of coke.

"Enjoy." It then left.

I open the packet and take out some biscuits.  One sip of coke through my mouth. It's just a midnight snack for me and everyone else. While eating, I turned on my laptop and began reading comic strips about a skeleton. Heck, of course he is my favorite character. An hour and a half had passed and I felt the plane land on the ground and slowed down. It then came into a complete stop as the pilot announced.

"We have now arrived in Orlando, Florida. We hope you enjoy your flight. Please make sure you bring your luggages with you when you exit the plane. Thank you and have a good night."

We all took our luggages out of the overhead bins and walked out of the plane. Jennifer came with us out of the airport and waited for the bus.

Jennifer turns to me. "Alexa?"

"Yeah?"

She thought of what she's gonna say as she adjusts her goggles. "Aren't you afraid of the Moon?"

"No. Not anymore." I shrugged.

The charter bus arrived and I continued as we climbed aboard. "You showed me everything about the Moon in the video."

"I see." Jennifer nodded, "At least I'm going to the Moon too."

We sat down in our seat and the bus pulls away from the airport. It drove out of Orlando and onto the highway. I looked out the window through my goggles and watched the palm trees pass by. It is a long ride until we arrived to Merritt Island and I can see the spaceplane going for a landing in the distance.

The bus stops at the station and we hopped off as Tha is making beeping noises like a morse code. I looked at her for a second and she turns her head left and right at one-hundred eighty degrees. A car came and pulled up in front of us.

Jennifer opened the door to the front passenger seat. "Martin. You're here already. How?"

"Your friend's android texted me while I was in the middle of traffic."

Martin Diallo is a worker who has a short afro hairstyle and a chin strap beard. His job is being at SARO as an astronaut just like me.

"Okay." I then turn to Tha, "Thanks, Tha."

"You're welcome." said Tha.

We hopped into Martin's car and we rode all the way to the Kennedy Space Center. There are so many rockets and other spaceships there as we parked in the parking lot between the Vehicle Assembly Building and the headquarters. We walked over straight to the building and through the entrance and showed our boarding pass. The space suits are white with an airtight zipper in the middle at the front, black sleeves with a SARO logo on the top each, black knee-length boots, black gloves, and four airtight valves at the front; two blue ones at the top and two red ones at the bottom. We put them on before we all hop into the spaceplane. There are ten seats, five on each side, a bathroom at the back, and no windows. The windows in the cockpit are replaced with cameras and monitors.

A crew member pokes his head through the open door. "Anybody all set?"

"Yep." Jennifer nodded.

"Okay. Good luck."

The door closed and the spaceplane moves along until its engines increase force before taking off. The sounds outside get more and more muffled until they're heard from the inside.

Martin looks at the robot and then at me. "Why'd you bring an android with you?"

"Because she always protects me and anyone from any kind of danger." I answered.

"Okay. Well, that's pretty random."

The spacecraft is going so fast that I feel like it took two hours until it stopped. The sound of the airlock hooking up on the doors eochoes through the interior, and then it opens.

"We are now here at space station Columbia 9." the pilot called, "Don't forget to bring your luggage with you and thank you."

We brought our own luggages with us and out of the spaceplane.

The space station is 130 stories high and it has a mix of three styles; Art Deco, Space Age and Scandinavian. It has a cafeteria, the mission control center, cabins, the office, the laboratory, a docking station, the arboretum, the bridge, storage units and four elevators. It's like it's from the 1970s.

We stepped into one of the elevators and went up to the forty-third floor where my cabin is. The whole station has windows and some of them that are facing down and on the floor have automatic shutters each. I sat down on the armchair and looked out the window. I didn't feel any affect on me at all and I can see the surface up close. It looks just like in the video.