by Nora Lane
“Suit systems confirmed a Go, Director Chu.”
She looked at me.
“Ms. Gabarro, confirm Go or No-Go.”
“Yea,” I said, “I think so. Feels weird.”
She waited. The barest dip of a frown crept across her mouth. She didn’t like maybes. She made that clear this morning. The mission was a Go or a No Go. Not a Maybe Go.
“Yes,” I said. “Go.”
She smiled and nodded.
She pointed to a digital counter in the center of the dash. Twenty minutes, thirty one seconds. The seconds spun down uncomfortably fast.
“If all systems continue Go,” she said, “launch will be in…”
She paused with her finger on the display. The seconds flew by.
“T minus twenty minutes.”
She gave me the thumbs up. I tried to return the gesture through the thick suit and gloves.
“Have fun, Ms. Gabarro,” she said. “Many envy your position.”
“Thank you for everything.”
“That’s my job,” she said and then added, “It’s been a pleasure.”
She turned to leave and then paused.
“One thing,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Tell the boss if we’re going to work through lunch, the least he could do is buy us a sandwich,” she said with a grin. She winked and stepped out of the hatch.
She looked through the open hatch and nodded. A serious look on her face.
“Cosmo, seal and pressurize the cabin,” she said.
“Confirm, seal and pressurize the cabin,” it said.
The door slid shut and a moment later the hiss of pressurized air filled the cabin.
“Cabin sealed and pressurized.”
I never saw her again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“T minus sixty seconds,” Chu’s voice echoed in the suit’s comms. “Cosmo, stay off comms unless otherwise requested.”
“Yes, Director Chu.”
“Don’t be hard on him, Nancy.”
“Noah? We’re about to launch for Christ sake. If you say another word, I’ll scrub this mission.”
The world quaked like I’d chosen to hike across the San Andreas on the day the big one hit. The shaking blurred the cabin. The countdown timer split into three copies of itself. All of them unreadable.
The orange juice in my belly sloshed and splashed in a sickening way. I should’ve eaten something at breakfast. The suit stank like a hospital hallway. I grunted on my exhales, practicing the high g technique Chu taught me. It was supposed to keep you from passing out.
Which was weird because the rocket hadn’t launched yet and I already felt close to shutting down.
“Slow your respiration, Ms. Gabarro,” Chu’s voice echoed in my ear. “Mr. Sinclair would be displeased with an abort sequence.”
Her voice sounded far away, like it came through a tunnel before it hit my consciousness. Something told me I should reply, but it was hard to find the words.
“Ms. Gabarro, if you don’t slow down your breathing, I’ll have to abort. Respond!”
The crack in her voice snapped me back into the moment. I took a slow, deep breath.
Keep it together Cora.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Better,” she said, “but only a little. I want to see your vitals stabilized.”
I measured my breaths and my brain slipped back into my body. I gritted my teeth to keep them from chattering.
“Keep that up,” she said. “T minus thirty-one seconds. Cargo is Go.”
“Can you please come up with another word for me?” I said.
“Livestock?”
“No,” I said.
“Payload?”
“Better,” I said, “but only a little.”
Chu laughed in the comm and then cut herself off.
“Cosmo, confirm Go for launch.”
“All systems Go for launch, Director Chu.”
“T minus six seconds.”
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
“T minus zero. Lift-off.”
On the sixth Oh shit, an invisible hand slammed into my chest. My body crushed into the padded chair and my lower back noticed the padding there could be thicker.
I gripped my hands together and tried to keep my arms from tearing off. The shaking was overwhelming. My brain rattled in its cage.
It was too much.
More than I could take.
I tiptoed at the limit of what my body could handle.
And then my stomach dropped out.
I clamped my throat shut and grunted out an exhale. Some remote corner of my brain registered that the grunting seemed to help. Seemed to take the insane edge off the utterly terrifying.
Chu said it helped. I was supposed to be doing it. I focused and grunted out every exhale.
The sensation of forward movement crept into the intense quaking. The ship must be starting to climb. The hint of forward movement lingered in the background. The world being torn asunder didn’t leave much room for subtler phenomena.
It must be just pushing off, building the momentum to really get going. Any second now I’d leave the surface behind.
Please let it be any second now.
The vibration chafed my nipples on the tight cotton bra. One of the more minor miseries on the list.
I grunted with every exhale like a proud mother bringing a baby into the world.
Would I ever know that particular joy and pain?
No. Besides, I’d never knowingly pass on these defective genes. The only thing worse than going through it myself would be to watch a loved one go through it, knowing it was my fault.
“Eighty-two seconds Mission Elapsed Time,” Chu’s voice echoed. “Altitude forty thousand and climbing.”
“What?” I said.
No way. I was already higher than most commercial planes flew!
Insane.
The quaking eventually subsided. The hand on my chest did not. The insanity of the situation hit me. This was happening. Me. Cora the Explorer. Astronaut to the stars.
This was big.
It qualified. I ran through the rolodex of every crazy thing I’d done. Jumped off that cliff in Cabo, half-drunk and all-stupid. I hit the water with my legs bent. The impact slapped the back of my legs like a concrete paddle. The huge purple-blue bruises lasted for a month. Tried to tip a cow that turned out to be a bull. I still had the shirt with the giant hole gored out where its horn just missed my belly. It had a giant orange stain where I puked all over myself after getting away. That was insane. There were others.
But nothing like this.
All those things happened on planet Earth. The planet I was now leaving. Let me cut to the chase. There was nothing more insane than leaving your planet for the first time.
I looked around. The wall of data in front of me had merged into a single version of itself. I looked at the digital counter and realized it was now counting up.
I survived!
Was surviving, at least.
Hadn’t died yet! I could say that. I went through a body checklist, wiggling and clenching joints and muscles, testing if everything made it through in one piece. This wasn’t so bad. Sure for awhile there, it seemed like my body was ripping apart like a cheap Chinese doll. But after that, it wasn’t so bad. Like going up a roller coaster that never ended.
Not bad at all.
“Eight minutes MET,” Chu said. “Commence main engine cutoff.”
The acceleration stopped and I fell into the belt restraints.
Then the weightlessness hit.
And I vomited. In my mouth.
CHAPTER NINE
I clamped my lips shut. The only thing worse than the acid burn in my throat would be having that same burn in my eyes after it splashed off the visor.
“Welcome to space, Ms. Gabarro,” Chu said.
“You stole my line Director Chu,” Noah said. “Not cool. And I don’t appreciate being put in a corne
r.”
“Transferring comms to Orbital One. Mr. Sinclair, you may commence your babbling.”
“Thank you, Director Chu,” he said. “You’re the right woman for the job.”
“You keep telling me that, Kennedy Center Out.”
“Director Chu,one last thing,” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“Sandwiches for everyone. Charge it to the company. Get extra chips if you want.”
“You are too kind, sir.”
“You keep telling me that,” he said.
Chu’s laugh ended abruptly as she cut comms.
I choked down the yuck in my mouth.
“It appears I’ve intruded on a domestic squabble,” I said.
Noah chuckled.
“Like we’ve been married thirty years. She’s amazing. Everything you could want in a grumpy old wife.”
“Kennedy Space Center is still monitoring comms, Mr. Sinclair,” Chu said.
“You know I love you,” he said.
“Save the flattery for girls nearer your own age.”
“Yes, ma'am. Ms. Gabarro, don’t mind Director Chu. She means well. And we both know she doesn’t settle for sandwiches.”
“Forty-six minutes to dock, Noah.” Cosmo said. “All probabilities within specified parameters.”
“Thank you Cos. Keep her safe,” he said. “Ms. Gabarro, please excuse me. I have some tidying to do. It isn’t every day I receive a house guest. Especially one so attractive as you.”
“Inappropriate, Mr. Sin—“
“Call me Noah. I insist. I look forward to meeting you in person, Cora.”
“Ms. Gabarro is fine. And I look forward to meeting you too.”
“That goes without saying,” he said.
Cocky bastard.
“Then it should have been left unsaid.”
“No one likes a smart ass, Ms. Gabarro,” he said, “unless it comes wrapped in a round package like yours.”
“Inappropriate, Mr. Sinclair,” I said.
He seriously had a thing for my butt. It was hard to not to notice. I should keep it professional. I shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t make my heart skip a beat.
But it did.
Next stop, Orbital One. And my first flesh to flesh encounter with the richest recluse on Earth. Strike that. The richest recluse 300 miles above Earth. Strike that. The richest, sexiest recluse 300 miles above Earth.
Assuming he wasn’t a brain in a floating mason jar. Assuming there wasn’t anything else he wasn’t telling me.
This was seriously the interview of a lifetime. Be that lifetime long or short.
This was big.
So big I had to wonder why he chose me. What did he have to say that was so important that he broke ten years of silence? Every single person on Earth wanted the answer to that question.
And I was the one who was going to find out. Something big was happening. I knew that.
But it was hard to stay focused on the facts when he kept making it so obvious that he had a thing for my butt.
END OF PART 1
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About the Author
Nora Lane dreams of exploring beyond the wonderful home we call Earth. For now she lives on our planet, and shares a home with her wonderful husband, children, and two dogs that act more like alien overlords than obedient mutts.
She writes science fiction romance about what could, and likely will, happen as humanity continues to push beyond the confines of our ancestral home. If she's not writing, she can usually be found reading or dreaming of other worlds, usually ones with hot alien races that love human women!
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