1. Road to the Stars

1. Road to the Stars

 

            Mercedes moved swiftly and quietly through the rows of space planes. A flashlight was her only guide; the hangar was draped in darkness.

            She passed by several different space planes  as she looked for hers. Each was a different color, name and model,  proclaiming the uniqueness characters and hearts of their pilots : A blue ship: 'The Orbit Machine'.

A black one, 'Raven'.

 'Star', yellow and blue.

            But just as instantly as she saw them, they vanished into the dark as Mercedes searched for her own ship among them.

            Soon it emerged out of the dark. There it was, right where she had left it last.

             'Le Mer Opale' was painted on the side of the light blue ship, underneath the cockpit. The script was elegant, with a wave cresting over it.

            “The Opal Sea.” She said the name out loud as she touched the side lightly.

 “I've missed you.”

            She pulled a small device from the pocket of her flight suit, pressed a button. The window covering the cockpit slid open, the door moving behind the cockpit of the plane on small rails.

            It was a finely crafted machine. It's light blue color accentuated the grace of it's shape, a curved tube ending in the front with an aerodynamic point. The wings were folded to the side of the plane, making it look like an arrow's shaft or a dart rather than the war machine that it was.

            Mercedes silently climbed into the cockpit of her plane, settling into the seat quickly of her surroundings. Stuck to the silent screens was a sticky note.

           

            “You suck! You lost the bet, so where's my money for the date? Never mind. Watch your ship from now on. You might find a few marks here and there.”

 

            -Harrison

             She smiled, pocketed the note, and grabbed her helmet from under the seat.

            With her head safely protected, she touched one of the dark, silent touch screens before her. It glowed to life, a cursor blinking. Her fingers drew the code: her father's name. Her fingers trembled like they always did.

            As the code was drawn, the space plane's engine hummed to life, loud in the quiet room. Compared with a car or a train, it was nearly silent.

            Mercedes breathed deeply, an attempt to surpress the shudders that wracked her body.

            Six screens powered on, one by one. Speed; Pressure and Temperature; Orbital Positioning System; Power levels; the ship's angle to earth display, and radiation levels. An seventh on the far right of the control desk remained dark.

            A sigh of relief pushed out of Mercedes. Everything as planned.

            She magnetized her seat and belted herself in. She normalized the temperature and pressure inside. A wing status check. Everything was golden. Everything as planned.

            On the central screen appeared a prompt, “Take control of the reigns now.”

            From alcoves on either side of her seat, Mercedes procured small, wireless remote controls. As she gripped them, the ship's engine clicked into electrical gear, waiting for the electricity from Mercedes' neurons to flow; neuron to remote, remote to radio wave, and radio wave into the response systems that would propel the ship forward. Her hands continued to shake

            Mercedes then pressed one last button on the console before her, and the cockpit window above her slid shut.

            Then, responding to a simple thought from her, the ship slid forward. Mercedes electrochemical system did the work.

            It crawled slowly forward, silent as a cat in the night.

            A three hundred yard square space was set for launching the marvelous machines whenever the need arose.

            The need was here. It was what made Mercedes heart leap.

           

            She took a deep breath in the darkness.

Everything as planned.

With the rows of space planes behind her and a door three hundred feet in front of her, she pressed a button on the console.

            “God. I love doing this at night.” She said, her heart beating quickly as the door opened slowly.

            After an seemingly an aeon of waiting, the door finished moving. It beckoned the adventurer and her space plane.

            Mercedes urged the plane forward, slowly at first, then she began to pick up speed. To 30 miles an hour-to 50 Miles per hour: as she approached the doorway. Up to 70 miles an hour-up to 90. The engines growled, reveling in their power.

            Mercedes blasted through the doorway and up the concrete ramp that led outside, for the hangar was underground.

            The distance closed quickly and Mercedes blasted out of the ground, over the wide open countryside at a frightening speed.

 Up up up the space plane went, with it's pilot in the ecstasy of flight:

            “I am alive!” She screamed.

            Climbing, climbing, Mercedes screaming, screaming at the utter beauty of the sensation of going up against gravity in the night.

            Le Mer Opale and leveled out at five-thousand feet above the dark ground below. Awe replaced overworked nerve as the bright heavens revealed their magical kaleidoscope to Mercedes.

            “God...” Thought Mercedes.

            The galaxy that stretched above her was the Xerxesol galaxy. As she rode, the Bleeding Nebula bled into her heart with it's color: red giants, red dwarves, and a red expanse of dust and rock.

            “It always lives to its name...” Mercedes thought, as if in a dream.

            The sky above the dark surface was so magnificent; it seemed like a lover that you were so familiar with, but you never quite saw enough of them to make them completely yours. Thus was the numerous number of stars.

            Seemingly making inorganic matter organic were the constellations: the shapes in the sky. Apollo, Tyson, O'Neal. Named after great men from a far away country.

            As Mercedes flew, each lamp shouted as violently as the last. Tears ran down Mercedes' face as the stars clarity and vision broke her heart for the millionth time.

            “They're so bright...the ground is lost in their brilliance! I have to get lost in them!”

            She angled the plane upward quickly, until the dark ground fled away and the jewels greeted her.

            Only for a moment, Mercedes reached her hand up toward the stars as her plane climbed up against an inevitable drop.

            Up, up, up she went, faced with a myriad of faces made of crystal photons.

            “It's like being in my dreams...” she murmured. The stars illuminated her face, as well as the ship’s red warning light that it would soon stop ascending and fall.

            And it did.

            The lighted dreams fell away as the dark returned. The distance meter showed:

            5400...5300...5200...5100...5000

            “Only four hundred feet...so sad. No higher on our own?” She said out loud as the ship righted itself.

            The ship was now flying back the way it had come.

            Still trembling, Mercedes reached forward and pressed a button on the control panel to release her seat's magnetism. She stretched, and looked at the Orbital Positioning System. The numbers changed constantly.

            She reached forward again and pressed a command. A set of lights came on outside the ships hull, lighting up twenty feet in front of the ship.

            “It's so difficult to do this at night.” Mercedes said. She dropped the remotes and stood up in the cockpit. She quickly picked up the remotes and reactivated the magnetism on the seat, pinning her feet down. Her head touched the glass above her.

            Everything as planned.

            Shaking, Mercedes pushed a button on the console, and the glass slid back. Mercedes fought the wind back, trying to gain balance. She claimed the victory.

             Her upper body outside of the plane, her shirt blowing around at 70 miles an hour, Mercedes breathed in the night air.

            The night air that would have torn her eyes out had she not had goggles over them.

            She looked at the console below her. The OPS was approaching the location to dive. But not yet. Indeed, when the plane reached a proper place in the air where it could dive back into the garage, an alarm would sound.

            The night continued to fly by, roughly. Everything as planned.

            And the dive co-ordinates came closer. But not yet.

            Mercedes gazed up and said loudly to the stars,

           “Maybe it's just cause I'm afraid, but seems like you guys don't like it when I do this, do ya?”

            And the diamonds in the sky winked their silent disdain for the terrible risk that she was about to take.

             Her Co-ordinates were closer. But not yet.

            Mercedes' had red hair. It was long, and flew out from underneath her helmet, like a shimmering trail of blood.

             Her Co-ordinates were so very close...but not yet.

            Mercedes closed her eyes. She tuned her ears to the sound of the preset system that would tell her when she had reached the proper location. Everything as planned.

           

            not...

            not...

            not...

            not...

            not...   

            whoop! The aircraft suddenly dived towards the ground at the same angle that it had rushed up from it.

            Mercedes smiled she felt the darkness and the wind around her. She knew that even though she couldn't see, the tactical data in the Positioning System would dive at the exact angle and at the exact right location to put Le Mer Opale into the tunnel without a scratch.

            The feet closed fast.

            3000...2800...2600...

            The air pressure changed as she flew down down down...

            2400...2200...2000...

            The stars shone behind her as the dark ground came quickly

            1600...1200 feet...

            Then it hit her. The thought.

            “I'll be ripped in half!”

            The top of the tunnel cleared the top of the space plane by a foot. Mercedes had two and a half feet of soft flesh above it.

            She pulled against the air to duck back in.

            1000...600...

            A fantastic struggle.

            400 feet.

            Bloody red hair splattered behind her head.

            200 feet at 70 miles an hour

            In a flash the feet fell by. No more time than it takes to blink, breath or bleed.

            24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17

            Mercedes screamed.

            16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

            The force that almost killed her saved her life. Gravity pulled her inside the ship as her hair touched the top of the tunnel.

            The plane slowed as it felt the change in air pressure inside the tunnel.

Mercedes sat and gawked at the control panel in front of her. Her whole body revulsed. Her stomach heaved, limbs pulsed. Her head ached.
            Just like it was designed to do, the plane came to a stop inside the hangar.

            Nothing else had changed but Mercedes. The other space planes still stood, silent. The hangar remained dark.
            “Everything's the same but me...a small human...”

            Mercedes parked the space plane. She shut everything down: all the sensors, all the data, all the controls. She closed up the cockpit, and the plane lay still, undamaged.

            “A piece of fiberglass and steel.”
            She made her way back down the dark hallways, towards her barracks. She quietly slipped into the room and lay in her bunk, not bothering to undress. She still trembled at the thought of her near gory-end.

            The soldier in the top bunk snored loudly above her.
            Eventually, her thoughts lost the war to her warm pillow.

            “It feels nice when you're glad to be alive...”

            She pulled the blanket up to her chin, sank her head deeper into her downy comfort, and drifted into her dreams...they nearly overtook her...as a sweet lullaby would take a child...

 

            “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” an earpiercing alarm rang out through the barracks.