Chariot 3: Conception
Chapter 5 – Expelled

Chariot 3 was hurtled from the black hole at an enormous speed towards the blue planet below them. Her dark, polished gray disc-shaped body was spinning, flashing its red, amber and purple bottom lights on all directions.

“Current speed: 550,000 miles per hour. The ship`s trajectory is estimated to cease in approximately 15 minutes. Captain, the SD interface is not operational, linear motor is irresponsive and the antimatter is unstable.” Sissy blasted into his mind.

“Sissy, is it how you say that we`re about to crash into pieces?” V-Nus mumbled as he suddenly opened his eyes.

“Steady Captain! This isn`t my first crash…and I certainly hope it won`t be my last.” The just awaken Co-pilot pondered he should rethink his phrase but it was far too late.

Captain Shoffer wondered what the Martian really meant as he listened to his confident words.

V-Nus had no time to waste. “Switching to manual controls. Activating aft magnetic impulse. Directing ballast energy to aft. Sissy, level the disc to 45 degrees up line in…3, 2, 1, now!”

They had just reached the planet`s atmosphere.

The space disc stopped spinning and was falling with its bridge faced up towards the sky. For their sake, the two pilots could not see land, but they could feel it, rapidly getting closer as they moved through the clouds within the bright sky.

“Chariot 3, we need any propulsion you can give us right now or this mission will be over, and so will we!” The Captain`s voice sounded even thicker as he started to wonder that perhaps that was the last order he would ever give.

His brown-grayish and round bald head was oily and bright with the dense sweat running down his forehead towards his big oval eyes that had no brows to stop it. He was not blinking, he was not breathing, all he could do was to think.

“Faith V-Nus. Use the power of your mind. We need to initiate the linear motor and the magnetic impulse to push us up or we will crash!”

V-Nus grinded his teeth with all his energy as the tension involved his body while he tried to save the ship.

In the meantime, Chariot 3 was inadvertently utilizing all the ship`s remaining reserve energy to merge the graphene solution tanks from the Inter Deck to increase the size of her magnetic pole, and hopefully, the linear motor capacity.

“Captain, all propulsion lights are off, reserve energy is gone and systems are not operational. We`ve lost control.” V-Nus reported the far from positive news.

It was then that Chariot 3 interrupted them “Gentlemen, I trust that you will be satisfied to learn that I managed to perform a few improvements in our propulsion systems....”

After a brief pause, Sissy continued to talk “…preparing to unlock magnetic impulse updates in 3, 2, 1.”

Chariot 3 was no more than 600 feet from the ground when the ship`s magnetic pole inverted its gravitational force. The magnetic impulse lifted them up over 11 miles in less than a couple of seconds.

“Well done.” The Captain thanked V-Nus and Sissy with half of an unnoticed smile featured on his face.

Captain Shoffer and V-Nus first looked at each other with relief, and then back over their shoulders where they found Flumen and Cai Yiu still asleep. They turned their heads back and briefly opened and then closed their lips, the Nibirian way of expressing a sarcastic disapproval.

Chariot 3 had reached its maximum altitude after the impulse. “Sissy, we are ready to fly whenever you are.” Said Shoffer, sparing sarcasm just before the ship started to fall again.

Sissy`s voice penetrated their minds. “Captain, the linear motor is partially operational, but I need more time. I recommend that we land as soon as possible.”

Captain Shoffer thanked her in his mind and thought, “time is something we do not have at the moment”.

“V-Nus, replace a safe place for us to hide in the clouds. I do not wish to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves.”

As the Captain smoothly – under the circumstances – descended Chariot 3, V-Nus rapidly scanned the planet looking for landing options. “Captain, we need to reduce our speed. There`s a perfect location with a large concentration of clouds 15 miles ahead.”

Chariot 3 efficiently hovered to the patch of clouds while sunlight came through the portholes positioned at the height of their heads, and then stopped a few hundreds of meters above the ground.

“Sorry Captain, I hope I did not miss much.” Cai Yiu`s words were sincere as he stretched his athletic body and scratched his ordinarily bald head while he looked at the Captain with his small eyes, bizarrely covered with the morbid looking lenses. Highly commended, Cai Yiu Hun was only 17 when he joined the Nibirian Space Agency to become an armory and weapons specialist.

Not wishing to raise any concern about the events that had just occurred, Captain Shoffer kept it short. “Cai Yiu, I am glad you are awake. No, you have not missed much. Please ensure that Flumen is up and ready.”

“We got sucked into the black hole, almost crashed the ship, and now we don`t have any clue where we are. I hope you had a good sleep!” V-Nus voiced himself, far incapable of being as euphemistic as his Captain was.

As Chariot 3 stopped in mid-air, Captain Shoffer, V-Nus and Cai Yiu Hun disconnected themselves from their seats, stood on their feet and stretched their legs. A clear projection of the outside brought back the awkward feeling of floating again. Chariot 3`s bulkheads were no longer visible to their eyes, except the thin lines of structure that provided them with a mere idea of the bridge` structure.

The crewmates cleared their minds and even though they tried to look at different directions, their eyes were all drawn to the same thing: the beauty of the dark blue river below them, with its waters slowly flowing south, surrounded by an arid and earthy landscape. Below them, lied a tiny green vegetation, pretty enough to catch their attention.

Inclining his head to the right, almost touching the shoulder with his ear, somehow trying to get a different perspective of what he was seeing, V-Nus brought them all back to reality “Where are we?”

Having just awoken, Flumen could not avoid keeping his lips together, feeling surprisingly fortunate with what he was seeing. “The question my dearest friend: It is not where, but when?”