“God dammit,” Jaidyn growled before taking a swig of his whiskey, “They’ve been going over and over it all day.” Everyone in Smudy’s, a local dive in Tribeca, Manhattan, had been crammed around the bar, watching the newscast for hours. “It’s not going to change a thing to keep talking about it.” Jaidyn had watched along with everyone else when the news first broke.
“The object will impact the Earth at roughly a 90 degree angle,” had been the first phrase Jaidyn had heard local news anchor, Tom Landry, say. Then as he had turned to face the screen that protruded out of the wall over the selection of top-shelf scotch, Tom had dropped the really hard hitting info. “Every life on Earth will likely be extinguished when the asteroid makes contact.”
Jaidyn’s mouth went dry at those words, and he wet it again with his drink. “Every life extinguished?” Jaidyn had leapt to the edge of the bar. “What the hell?”
That was hours ago, around 5pm. Since then the place had erupted with people crowding around the bar, gawking at the screen.
“They’ve been going over it all goddamn day.” Jaidyn wasn’t watching the TV anymore. He was sulking with his back to the bar. “There’s nothing left to do,” Jaidyn threw his glass against the wall. It shattered. His whiskey covered the poster promoting tonight’s canceled UFC title fight. The promoter in the picture, one of those bikini clad, sign-holding girls, now had booze dripping down her barely covered tits. Or had that been there already?
“Watch it!” yelled the bartender, a cliché, skin-headed, stump of a man named Chauncey. Jaidyn spun to face him, enraged, but Chauncy looked ready to go. “Get the fuck out.”
"What!?" Jaidyn shot back at the bartender. "Man. Just let me drink." Jaidyn pulled out a 50 dollar bill out of his wallet, and tossed it on the counter.
Chauncy sighed, and picked up the money. He grabbed another glass, and placed it in front of his customer. Then he threw the money back at Jaidyn. "What the hell am I supposed to do with it this?" He said. "It’s the end of the damned world.” As he spoke he turned and grabbed a nice single-malt scotch from the shelf. “Keep your money,” he said as he began to pour.
Jaidyn grabbed the flat-screens remote control from off of the bar, and grunted. He pointed it at the TV and jammed his sausage-like finger into the button marked “Volume +,” turning up the news. He picked up the glass that Chauncey had finished filling with ice and a 21-year Balvenie Portwood. "I'm not going home to my bitch girlfriend. She can rot,” Jaidyn snarled. “I'm staying right here."
Chauncy just shook his head. He took a swig from the bottle of scotch, as a man who had been standing with his wife and freaking out only moments earlier, leaned hard over the bar. The volume on the newscast increased. “An impact from an asteroid of this size, about 5 miles in diameter, will utterly devastate the earth’s climate and ecology, making it inhospitable for human life.” The man’s wife, Hanna, had also been listening and gripped his arm like a vise.
“5 miles in diameter,” she said. The woman looked up at her slightly taller husband she asked, “James. Is that big for an asteroid?”
“That’s what I’m wondering,” James answered. He squinted at the screen, trying to read the tiny numbers that were flying across the ticker at the bottom. “100 teratons…12.7 km/sec…87 degrees,” he read aloud. “Holy shit,” he said, pulling Hanna closer.
“In 1978,” the news anchor continued, “it was discovered that a similarly sized asteroid had made landfall in Mexico some 65 million years ago.” The anchor was replaced by a graphic of the coastline in Mexico. It was labeled, “Yucatan Peninsula.” “The Chicxulub crater,“ continued the anchor from out of sight, “is 110 miles across.” A red circle popped up over a large section of the northern coast of the peninsula. “As you can see the crater is huge.”
“What are they trying to do?” Someone was yelling from the back of the bar. “Scare us to death?” they asked, “Cuz it’s working!” A lot of people began to laugh, or cry, or shout at the comment.
It was possible that someone somewhere wasn’t scared to death about what was going to happen, but that person sure as hell wasn’t in this bar.
The newscaster quickly raised his hand up to the earpiece in his right ear and listened intently for a few seconds while looking down through the mahogany desk. He looked up and continued. “Colossal shockwaves will most likely trigger global earthquakes, and mega tsunamis…” He paused, and loosening his tie, swallowed hard and continued, “Mega tsunamis up to 2 miles high.”
He stared straight at the camera trying not to lose his composure. It was hard for him to read all of this like a puppet, without thinking about his own mortality. His right eye twitched. “A cloud of superheated dust, ash and steam will spread out from the crater in all directions at massive speeds.”
James had heard enough. Putting his hands on his wife’s shoulders, he turned her towards him and said, “I know Caroline Thurman."
…………………………………………….
Hanna had been watching the news for longer than her husband. She had noticed the crowd at Smudy’s, which had been spilling out onto the street, as she was passing the bar on her way home from the office. “What's going on?” She had wandered into the bar and asked the first person she came across, a middle-aged man with short brown hair, who was watching the news as if his life had depended on it.
The man had looked at her with disbelief in his eyes. “An asteroid or some shit is going to crash into Iceland,” he said, “and everybody is going to fucking die!” It didn’t hit her at first. She just looked at the man, a comprehension dawning that was about to destroy her world. The man was fairly freaking out, one moment pacing back and forth, the next jumping up and down.
“Wait.” The woman couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “An asteroid?” she asked. The man was clearly distraught so she decided to stop and watch the news feed for herself.
“Scientists had somehow,” the news anchor had said, “not been able to see the asteroid sooner, because its’ path took it directly between the Earth and the Sun.” The anchor paused and shuffled the pile of papers in front of him before continuing. “Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kirsanov made this statement regarding the UADG… The United Asteroid Defense Grid, earlier today.” The newscaster turned to face a camera to his right, and a video of an interview with the Russian bureaucrat began playing over him.
“Our long range defense systems have failed us,” the tall Russian with the grey beard had begun. “The rocket clusters were entirely absorbed by the asteroid.” Dmitry was standing behind a podium that he was using to prop himself up, as if he were losing strength in his legs. “Our last chance to stop it will be at 6am tomorrow morning just before enters the Earth’s atmosphere.” He was beginning to stammer, his words tripped out of his mouth like clumsy clowns from a tiny car. He mumbled, “but there is little chance of stopping it,” before nearly collapsing in front of the assembled news teams.
The video ended. The news anchor reappeared. “Scientists have calculated that the object, which has an estimated mass of nearly a trillion kilograms, is roughly the size of the one responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, and much of life on earth, 65 million years ago.”
She had used her cell phone to call her husband right after hearing that, and he had left the bank immediately and met her in the bar. The two had been watching the news together ever since he’d arrived.
…………………………………………….
“Ok they say this thing is going to destroy everything on Earth so listen,” James turned to face his wife, “Hanna,” he said. “I know Caroline Thurman.”
Hanna pulled herself from the TV screen. “What? You know who?”
“Caroline Thurman.” He grabbed Hanna by the shoulders, forcing her to look him in his eyes. “The billionaire with the spaceship who charges people for rides into space.”
Hanna forced herself out of his grip which was beginning to hurt. “What do you mean you know Caroline Thurman?” She was getting annoyed. “How?” she asked. “And what the hell is this about a spaceship?”
“I met her at the company Christmas party that you refused to go to last year.” His tone started off as condescending before becoming a little guilty. “She owns a hedge fund that the bank manages,” his words were coming fast now, and Hanna had to focus to keep up.
“A hedge fund?” she’d asked. “Hold on.” Hanna was trying to slow James down.
“No listen.” Her husband was not going to be slowed. “There is a spaceship." He said it matter-of-factly, like the news anchor that had just told them all they were going to die. There's just no way, no time to break the ice sometimes. “It’s just a plane really, but it can practically fly into orbit,” James continued. “She does tours with it.”
“Ok,” shot back Hanna, “What exactly is your point?”
“We steal it,” James said.
Hanna was shocked. Her husband had always been a pretty rational guy, and she couldn’t believe she was thinking it, but it seemed like he was losing it right in front of her. “What do mean we steal it? We just walk up and fly it away?” Hanna went on sarcastically. Making sure her husband didn’t have a chance to respond. “Oh yeah,” she argued crossing her arms, “Do you have your pilot license? You have flight training?”
Taking one last look into her husband’s pleading, but determined eyes, she turned her own eyes to the floor and took a deep breathe. She finally conceded. “How would we even fly it if we managed to steal it?”
James had been ready for that question, “It basically flies itself!” He seemed excited about the idea now, “She told me that the pilot just pretty much sit there, and the computer does all the work!” James was really excited now, and it was starting to scare Hanna. “They’re just there in case something goes wrong!” he shouted.
“Calm down,” Hanna began to reason with him. “There is no way it can be that simple,” she said, letting out a huge sigh. “Besides, even if it does fly itself how do we know it’s fueled up and ready to go?!”
This kind of talk was just depressing Hanna. She knew she was about to die, and talking about trying to escape was just more confirmation of it. All of the sudden she didn’t really feel like talking anymore. She felt like she might cry if she had to hear another word of it. She burst into tears.
“Don’t cry!” James rushed to hold her in his arms. He cradled her head and brushed her soft, brown hair away from her tear soaked face. “Look, I can get us in! She gave me an access card at the party.” James’s last few words trailed off. He hadn’t wanted to mention too much about his and Caroline’s relationship, and he’d just slipped a little, but he thought "Fuck it. It's the end of the world." He looked down at her and thought that through the sobbing, she had probably not noticed anyway. He went on. “What other shot do we have? They said that going underground wouldn’t make a difference.”
Hanna stopped crying, and looked up at James with puffy eyes. “We’re going to die,” she said.
“Well if we’re going to die,” James started, “then at least we could try to survive!” He turned and, taking his wife’s hand in his, he began to run home. She let him take her, and together they sprinted to their apartment, 2 blocks away. James turned and yelled to Hanna as they approached the flat, “Take what you want!” “It won’t really matter,” he thought to himself as he flung open the door. In one motion he snatched the car keys off of the hanger around the corner in the kitchen, and flung his briefcase onto the living room floor. He started back out to check the car when then the idea of freezing in space chilled him, “Grab Blankets!” he shouted after his wife.
Hanna was in a daze. She’d allowed herself to be drug home with the intent of trying to steal a spaceship. For what reason they were entertaining this idea she didn’t know, but she knew there was no real reason not to try anything at this point so, “screw it,” she thought. She followed James into the house and stopped just past kitchen.
“Grab blankets!” she’d heard James yell, but she didn’t know why she should.
She took a gym bag, and two fleece blankets out of the hallway closet. She stuffed the blankets into the bag, and whirled around 180 degrees. “What should I take?” she wondered.
For a moment, who knows how long, Hanna looked frantically around, not seeing anything important. There wasn’t really much to see. The apartment was spotless. She and James had just entertained guests the night before, and had spent the better part of that afternoon making it presentable. Now as she looked around her living room she realized that all of the things that she and James had worked so hard for, for the past 12 years, were just made worthless. Her heart sank once more as the finality of what was going to happen hit her again.
She stumbled forward, momentarily losing herself, but her hand landed on the kitchen counter and she steadied her weight. She looked down at her hand and sitting on the counter (right where she had left it the night before) was the photo album of her and James’s wedding. She had been reminiscing about the wedding with her friends after dinner, over coffee. They had laughed about that day, the best day of Hanna’s life. It now would surely be the best day in what was her considerably shortened life. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered and carefully placed the album in the gym bag.
“Car's ready!” James shouted. They both got in the car and James drove off. He explained that the asteroid was set to hit at 6 a.m. It was midnight which gave them 5 hours to get air-born, and get high enough to hopefully not be affected by the asteroid’s impact.
If they left now, by the time they reached Caroline Thurman’s private airfield, which was 3 hours away, they would have 2 hours to get off the ground. “We’ll have to stop for gas somewhere on the way,” James said, looking at his fuel gauge. He turned on the news app on his smartphone, which had automatically synced with the car's computer. The 24-hour news coverage of what was being referred to as the “Impact Event” came streaming out of the car’s speakers. “Only 6 hours until impact.” The reporter sounded eerily calm for the nature of what she was reporting. “Please do not panic. Stay in your homes.”
“Are you serious?” James asked. “’Stay in your fucking homes,’ is that the best they can do? Screw them.” James was getting mad now, and muttering to himself while pushing the car hard onto the freeway, but Hanna let the words flow over her like a hot bath, and closed herself off to the world.
“6 hours until the end of my life,” was all she could think.
…………………………………………….
They reached the air-field at 4 am. It was an hour later than James had planned on arriving, but the traffic had been outrageous, and they’d sat in line for gas for 45 minutes. It seemed that every single last person within earshot of the news had said “Screw you” to the idea of staying home, and fled out of the city. James was still muttering. He was saying things like, “In the city or out of the city, it doesn’t matter,” and, “We only have two hours until it hits,” when he drove into the parking lot.
James used the security card that Caroline had given him at the first gate. They were now right next to the runway, and he stopped the car. In front of them was a large security fence, about 10 feet tall, and made of metal wire. Through the fence Hanna could just make out the outline of a large, yellow hanger on the other side of the runway. To their right was the com tower, and there was a break in the fence to accommodate the road that led up to it, but a gate blocked the way.
“We have to get through that gate,” James said to Hanna while pointing to their right. “From the tower it’s a straight shot across the tarmac to the hanger were the space plane is,” and he added, “We can do it.” He tried to sound positive with hopes that it would raise Hanna’s spirits. It didn’t.
Hanna was pissed at the world. She was pissed at God. She was pissed at the universe. Her life was being cut short and she hadn’t even had a chance to start a family yet. She would never forgive God for that. Not that she would be around to hold grudges in a couple of hours. James pulled the car around and pointed it at the gate.
“My card only works at the first gate, the one we came through back there.” He gestured over his shoulder, back toward the road. Hanna looked at James for a moment, seeing in an instant everything she loved about him. All of it was so easy for her to see on his face. He was the man she had forced to marry her, and all of these years later they could still read each other’s minds.
“Go!” Hanna thought. She squeezed James’ hand and he crushed the gas pedal to the floor. Hanna wasn’t prepared for the violence of the collision with the gate, but her husband never faltered, and they sailed past the twisted and strewn metal. In a few seconds they were flying across the runway at over 100 mph.
James skidded to a halt when they arrived at the hanger door. He wasn’t surprised to see that it was already open. They opened the car’s doors, and Hanna, still clutching the gym bag, began to step towards the opening in the hanger. She could just make out the bright white vessel. It looked pretty typical for an aircraft, she thought. It even had the name, “Khaos,” painted in blue across its’ nose, to the left of the crew entry door.
The ship was definitely not a space shuttle like NASA uses. Rather than 4 or 5 large rectangular windshields for the pilot to look out of, like on an average passenger plane, several large and small circular view ports graced the hull instead. Hanna was now noticing that this was no ordinary aircraft, and she wondered if it could really fly to the edge of space.
It was obvious that they had made it just in time. People were swarming around the ship, preparing it for launch, and Caroline Thurman was running full speed straight at them.
“James!” Caroline was sprinting across the hanger floor, and Hanna realized that she indeed recognized this billionaire woman. She had read an article about her in a magazine a few years ago. There had been a sort of heroic picture of Ms. Thurman, standing tall in front of the Atlas statue at Rockefeller Center. Below the picture had been some line about whether private citizens should be allowed to make ships capable of space travel, something like, “Is it ok to empower citizens with the sort of technology normally reserved for government agencies like NASA, and the military? “ The article brought up questions like, “should the government lock down its’ airspace?, “ and, “is this a slippery slope towards chaos?”
One man interviewed for the article had said the government shouldn’t allow it, because “the next thing you know one of these things is gonna crash and get a lot of people killed,” and that, “the government should start regulating this kind of thing before it gets out of hand.”
Mrs. Thurman had stood strong in the face of all of the accusations, asserting that she had a right to do her business in any way that she pleased, so long as she isn’t breaking the law or hurting anybody. “And no, we have never lost a ship,” she’d said, “going into sub-orbital space is safer than flying from China to New York.”
At the time Hanna had applauded the woman for standing up for her beliefs, and having the balls to essentially tell the sensationalist media to go to hell. She had admired her. Now that Hanna was standing right in front of Caroline Thurman she was even more impressed. Caroline was tall for a woman, probably 6' 1" or 6' 2", in her early 40's and in great shape. For a second Hanna forgot about the end of the world, and thought about James and this woman together. It made her a little jealous. But there was no time, or room for those kinds of emotions in her anymore, and the feeling left almost as immediately as it had come.
“We are getting the hell out of here in 20 minutes… you two coming?” Caroline didn’t mince words.
“I’m sorry,” James stammered, “Hanna, this is Caroline Thurman.” Hanna took her hand, and smiling, squeezed it tightly.
“Hanna.” Ms. Thurman said. “Call me Caroline.”
“Thank you so much!” Hanna tried to make her tone sound as thankful as her words, but she couldn’t. James was stuttering slightly, and seemed a bit shaky, but he also managed out his thanks.
“Look, just get on board.” Caroline was clearly too busy to talk. “I don’t know how you knew we were going up,” she said, whisking her hair from her eyes. “You got here just in time.”
The wind was picking up now. James took a deep breath of it, smelling the fresh air for one last time. In an instant his childhood rushed back to him. There were so many sensations that he had experienced as a child that had stayed with him. “Still smells the same,” he thought, and took another deep breath as he looked up into the clear, starry night sky. He exhaled away the past, and remembering his future, turned to try and tug Hanna’s hand, but she was already moving further into the hanger.
She was starting to break into a sprint. “Let’s get the hell on that plane!” James chased after her doing his best to keep up.
…………………………………………….
Caroline leapt up the ladder to the flight deck, covering the 7 steps in 2 hops. "All set!" she shouted to the flight crew. “Get her in the air!”
A crew member named Lisa showed Hanna and James to their seats and helped them correctly adjust the 5-point harnesses that would be required when the Khaos' booster rockets propelled them at ridiculous speeds into the stratosphere.
Caroline sat down next to Hanna, and brushed off Lisa's help. She'd been to this dog and pony show before.
“We can sustain near orbital flight for about 3 minutes,” Caroline said. James and Hanna looked at each other. So many emotions were running through their minds. 10 minutes ago they had both felt relieved to have made it onboard the ship. They had even allowed themselves to be fooled into believing that they had just been completely saved from disaster. Caroline’s words however, had destroyed their sense of security.
“Only 3 minutes,” James gasped, and he wrapped his arms around his shivering wife. Hanna gripped his hands so tightly that neither of them could really feel anything.
Hanna looked at Caroline, and managed to say through her chattering teeth, “Thank you,” she stammered, "so much.”
Caroline replied jokingly, “You know normally I charge $200,000 per person for this ride.” She put her hand on top of Hanna’s. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll stay up longer if we can.” Caroline tried to smile, but she found that now she couldn’t, and her eyes were fixed on some faraway point through the floor, probably on the other side of the world.
“This flight is GOING to be pretty fucking short if we don’t hurry up!” One of the other passengers, who Hanna recognized, was Jonah French a small time software developer in the 1980’s who’d created a global empire worth billions. “Plus there is no guarantee we won’t be incinerated on impact anyway.”
Jonah had contributed a significant amount of money towards the “Khaos” project, but was by no means a partner. Caroline stated flatly, “You’d rather I left you here to find out?”
Caroline squeezed Hanna’s hand, and winked at her. Somehow Hanna knew that this woman didn’t bluff. French grumbled to himself, and looked away. He apparently did not think Caroline was bluffing either.
There were 5 passengers in total, including James, and Hanna. The fifth was a young girl, who Hanna had only just noticed, sitting quietly in the seat on the other side of Caroline. The girl was tightly clutching a small brown teddy bear. Hanna looked at her for a few seconds, and thought about how short her life was going to be. “Poor girl," she whispered, "you'll miss out on so much.” Hanna had spoken the words softly, not really directed towards anyone, but her savior had noticed.
Caroline took her hand away from Hanna’s at the words, and her skin went pale. For a moment she looked as though her tough demeanor might crack. She said, “Her name’s Emma. I… adopted her 2 years ago.” She bent over and kissed the little girl on the top of her head, and now tears began to openly flow. “She was my little brother Matthew’s,” she choked, “pancreatic cancer.” Hanna fought to hold back her own tears. “Emma was only 3.”
Hanna looked once more with sympathy at the little girl. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be 5 and know you were about to die, like with all of those child cancer patients who never really got the chance to live. The idea forced the thought of her own mortality to once again come crashing back. She leaned her head onto James’s shoulder, and began to quietly weep.
…………………………………………….
“Ok listen up!” As the craft’s jet engines began to wind up a voice came ringing through the passenger compartment. It was Lisa’s. She was standing in front of everyone with a microphone in her hand. “We’re rolling out now. Please stay in your seats until we’ve reached suborbital altitude!”
“Suborbital altitude...” Hanna ran back over the words in her mind. Then it dawned on her. Shouldn’t they be wearing space suits or something like the astronauts about to launch in NASA’s shuttle? She was about to say something about it to James, as Khaos began to roll out of the hanger, when Jonah shouted out over the sound of the engines.
“So this cabin is pressurized right?” Jonah had a habit of throwing money at pet projects that he knew very little or nothing about. Lisa had taken her seat next to him, and answered his question with a canned passenger briefing response.
“That’s right. The passenger compartment and flight deck are fully pressurized, but,” she hesitated, “we won’t be at max altitude for very long.”
It was interesting to James how calmly the flight attendant was addressing the issue. “Training,” he thought, “even at the brink of disaster it comes to you like a honed reflex.”
Lisa continued. “At 60,000 feet, about 60 minutes into the flight, the primary booster rockets will accelerate the ship up to the apogee, 62 miles above the surface of the Earth.” She paused for effect, “To the edge of space.”
Emma seemed to be interested in what Lisa was saying. “Will we fly away and never come back?” She asked her question in an innocent way that only a child could ask it.
Lisa wasn’t sure how to respond. She wasn’t used to briefing 5 year olds. Usually she was busy entertaining millionaire businessmen who were as interested in looking down her shirt as out the window.
Caroline looked down at her niece, and assuredly said, “Don’t worry. We won’t fly away.” She brushed the girl’s hair out of her face, and patted her teddy on the head. “We’ll just be really high.”
Lisa’s chimed in. “The Earth is so large that it keeps smaller objects from falling away from it,” she paused to think for a second then added, “like when you drop a ball and it falls to the ground. It doesn’t go flying into space because the Earth is so large.” She smiled gently at Emma. “We’re just like the ball.” She had meant it to come out sounding sweet, but under the circumstances it just came out flat.
Emma, who had been sullenly looking at her teddy until her question, seemed to change somehow. "But I want to fly away," she stated, looking at Caroline. "If we don't we'll die too."
Caroline suddenly felt very sad and lonely. She had had discussions about death with Emma before. It was always difficult for her to talk about it with someone so young, but her only niece had already seen, and been through so much. Caroline started to say something, she didn't know what, but thankfully someone interrupted her.
James was pressing against his harness trying to see Caroline around Hanna. He was holding the passenger briefing card that was located underneath all of the seats in the passenger compartment. The card was laminated, and had a picture of the spaceship below the words, “The Future is Bright!” James was pointing at the word below the graphic. “Khaos,” appeared in large letters. "What made you decide to name the ship Khaos?” he asked.
Caroline had named the ship after the Greek god Khaos. Khaos was the god that had come before all others of Greek mythology, and its' name had literally meant "the gap between Heaven and Earth." Now that "gap" was Caroline’s playground. “It seemed like a fitting name,” she said.
Caroline explained the name to everyone after which Jonah mumbled something. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead with an already soaked rag that he kept in his shirt pocket, and gave a guttural "humph". “It’s like you were planning for something like this,” he said. “Crazy bitch.”
Jonah had certainly not meant for that last part to be audible, and for all intentions and purposes it wasn’t, but Caroline could easily read his lips.
She let out a laugh, and actually did not mind the insult. "I am a crazy bitch," she scoffed as she smiled. "How do you think I got here?"
Everyone was sitting quietly when Caroline finally sighed and caught Hanna’s eye. She managed a smile. Hanna smiled back. Suddenly, Hanna felt drawn to this powerful woman who she had only just met. She was about Hanna's age, but she was so charismatic, confident, and smart. “It’s too bad we won’t be around for much longer,” she thought. “We might have been good friends.”
The aircraft suddenly stopped, and the pilot’s voice came over the loud speaker. “Excuse me Mrs. Thurman, but we are ready for takeoff.” The passengers shifted in their seats, and simultaneously they gripped tightly onto their restraint harnesses.
“Do it!” Caroline shouted as she grabbed Emma's hand.
There was an eerie silence as the pilot’s re-checked everything one last time, and then the voice in the loudspeaker returned. “TRT standing takeoff.” The ship shook as the wake from the almost full throttle engines coursed over the thin metal hull. The pilot held the brakes while he waited for the engines to attain the desired thrust rating. “15…20…time. Go.” They lurched forward. The whole plane shuddered as it began what would likely be its final trip down the runway.
Hanna struggled in vain to pull herself even closer to James as their backs were pressed firmly into the seats. She shut her eyes against the rush of fear that engulfed her, and just as she was thinking they would certainly run out of runway, the nose of the aircraft tilted up and the shuddering ceased. They were off the ground.
A clunking noise from beneath the plane told the passengers that the pilot had raised the landing gear. “Flaps up,” said the voice from the speaker. "Clean machine." They had taken off just minutes before 5am.
Hanna looked out of the window to James' left at the world she knew she would probably never return to. It was still dark. A flat black landscape extended to the horizon. It was dotted with tiny white lights. They were at 2000 feet, and climbing fast. "60 minutes, and 60,000 feet until booster ignition," said the pilot.
…………………………………………….
Other than the drone of the aircrafts twin jet engines, the next 60 minutes went by quietly. A faint sob could just barely be heard from time to time as they rose higher and higher above an Earth that most likely none of them would ever set foot on again.
James had his right arm around Hanna who had been resting her head on his shoulder. Emma had been fiddling with her teddy bear for the better part of the flight. A pink ribbon was fastened around its neck with a neatly tied bow that the little girl threaded through her fingers. She stared down, absorbed in a feeling of loss that was much different, much more animalistic, than the cerebral one that was tearing the adults apart.
Caroline had been sitting with her head against the headrest, incessantly tapping her feet to some song that no one would ever hear again. Tilting her head forward she opened her eyes. She looked around the cabin of her half a billion dollar plane, and for the first time in years allowed herself to appreciate the magnitude of her accomplishment. "I never even came close to imagining this when I was her age," she thought as her eyes fell back on Emma.
The pilot’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. "We are now crossing 50,000 feet.” Everyone sat up a bit straighter and looked around. There was a crackle and the pilot continued, “Ten minutes until primary booster ignition."
"Mrs. Thurman," the voice said as Khaos leveled off, "could you please come to the flight deck?"
Caroline said something like, “I hate it when people make demands in the form of a question,” and made her way to the front of the plane. She came back a short time later with a ghastly look on her face. "The asteroid," she said choking on the words. She turned back to the flight deck and said, "Come see."
James and Hanna looked wide eyed at each other and began undoing their harnesses, while Jonah who had turned white as a ghost, struggled with his restraints. Emma stayed in her seat, and Lisa looked like she was napping (she wasn't).
On the small and now very crowded flight deck of the Khaos, the band of refugees squished together and craned their necks to see the view out of one of the portholes in the front of the craft.
At first Hanna couldn’t make the asteroid out. “This apocalypse," she thought, “this destroyer of worlds." She looked at James and said, “We won’t even see it coming.”
Just then the radio cracked again, “T-minus 30 seconds to joint strike. All airborne vessels stay clear of target entry location,” said the woman’s commanding voice.
“Joint strike?!” exclaimed James. “Wait. What the hell is going on?” James was holding onto the inside of the hull with his left hand and had his other arm tightly wrapped around Hanna.
Caroline was standing to James’ left and put her had on his. “Our last stand,” she said, as their eyes met.
James looked longingly into Caroline’s eyes, and squeezed her hand. There was so much that he wanted to say to her. There was so much he knew he should say. This morning he was thinking about leaving Hanna for the beautiful, billionaire fling, and now here he was again with her body pressed up against his.
“There it is!” shouted Jonah, squinting through his glasses. He pointed frantically out of his view port. Caroline, James, and Hanna squeezed even closer together as they all struggled to see out of the window at once.
Caroline was the next to see it, followed by Hanna. James still couldn’t find it, but suddenly became aware that his body was being pressed tightly from either side by Caroline on his left, and Hanna on his right. His head swam with fantasies, and just when he thought he might explode, he saw it.
It looked tiny from their perspective; a quarter inch dot over the horizon, illuminated by the almost risen sun. It appeared to them to move slowly, but it would impact Earth at over 28,000 mph. They watched in awe as sunlight shimmered off of its’ shiny surface.
“That tiny object is the reason for this one-way trip to hell that they we are all now a part of,” thought Hanna.
The joint strike coordinator spoke one last time, saying "3...2...1..." It was as if she was counting down to the end of the world. "FIRE!”
Everyone huddling around the 20-inch round view port stopped breathing. Moments passed. It felt like they were waiting for an eternity hoping it would work, hoping not to die. The first rocket’s warhead detonated on impact with the asteroid and exploded. A blinding flash forced everybody to cover their eyes in unison.
The pilot, who was wearing some sort of eye protection, was already banking the plane to the right, turning it in the other direction. “Everyone in your seats!” he commanded. “Buckle up! We go in 10!”
The pilot began counting down to zero as Jonah threw himself into his seat struggling, once again, with his restraints. James and Hanna were dropping in into their own seats and helping each other get strapped in. Caroline bent down and quickly checked Emma’s harness before sliding back into the seat next to her. “2...1. Here we go!”
The pilot snapped open the red safety cover on a toggle switch entitled, "Booster," and flipped the switch.
Caroline managed to fasten the buckle on her harness just before the booster ignited. Thousands of pounds of extra thrust rushed from the newly christened “Spark V” hybrid rocket, instantly pressing everyone’s backs into their seats. A rush of sound, like that of a hundred freight trains, enveloped everyone inside the cabin. It was the loudest thing most of them had ever heard.
For an instant, Hanna couldn’t catch her breathe. It felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. Finally she forced her chest muscles to expand, making just enough room for her lungs to inhale. It seemed like an eternity that she couldn’t breathe! As she continued to breathe under extreme effort, she wondered how James was doing, but because of the pressure from the rockets, she couldn’t turn her head to look. All she could do was sit there wondering if they were escaping the end of the world, or if they were being engulfed by it.
Caroline had a similar experience at first, but managed to catch her breathe more quickly. “Emma!” she cried. “Oh god what have I gotten you into!” She struggled to turn her head, managing to barely tilt it. Every muscle in her neck was screaming. She could just make out Emma’s small frame out of the corner of her eye, but couldn’t tell how she was doing. She shut her eyes tight and prayed.
Jonah was still unable to breathe but not because of the pressure on his chest. He had struggled to get properly back into his restraints before the booster rocket ignited, and instead had gotten his right hand tangled in the webbing. He swore and pulled with all of his strength against the harness in which he was now tangled, like a fly in a spider web.
When the massive jolt of thrust from the rockets had thrown everyone else back hard into their seats, Jonah was not prepared. He slid up the back of the seat, his hand still tangled. Unable to stop himself against the power of the rocket, his legs flew up over his head. It felt like the harness was going to cut clean through his wrist, and in a last ditch effort to save his hand, Jonah pulled with all of his strength. His hand came free. For the briefest of moments, the synapses in Jonah French's mind began telling him that he was ok, that he’d done it. Then his head hit the wall hard, behind his seat, and he thought no more. Jonah’s neck was broken.
No one had witnessed Jonah’s struggle for survival. All eyes had been pressed tightly against the pressure and the fear.
The rocket burned for almost 75 seconds before finally expending its’ fuel. Khaos was now rocketing skywards at over 2000 mph, and already about 180,000 feet over the Earth. She would double that distance before her upward acceleration would equal that of gravity’s pull, and she would start the journey back toward the earth.
After another minute the pilot’s voice rang out over the intercom, “This is it,” he said. “We should be reaching apogee in a moment.”
“What does that mean?” James asked.
“It means our space flight is halfway over,” Caroline replied as she rushed to check on Emma. “Thank God,” she sighed. Emma was fine. She was looking up at Caroline and actually smiling! “You liked that did you?” Caroline asked laughing. She actually allowed herself to laugh too.
Hanna could feel the ship slowing as it neared the apex of its’ flight. All at once she squeezed James’s hand as hard as she could, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. Then it happened. Khaos had reached the boundary of her kingdom. The ship seemed to hang in space as if the rules of the universe, the laws of physics, had ceased to exist.
They were weightless.
For a moment James thought he might vomit during what felt like the flipping around of his stomach. He felt Hanna’s hand squeeze his tightly as she also fought back the urge to wretch. Luckily the feeling was fleeting.
James thought he saw Jonah getting out his restraints and decided to do the same. “This is amazing,” he said to not really anyone at all, as he floated up from his seat.
Caroline said, “We should have about 3-4 minutes of weightlessness before we start heading back,” she stopped. She also thought she had seen Jonah getting up and moving around, but she now realized she had been wrong.
Emma screamed.
Jonah's body had flown across the aisle and bounced off of the wall. Now it was floating across the cabin right at Emma, who was still restrained in her seat by her harness. Jonah’s gaping mouth was held in a position of shock. In his eyes were the shadows of death.
“Oh my god!” was all Hanna could say as Caroline gripped her loose harness and kicked up her feet, connecting with Jonah’s shoulder. The force pushed Caroline back into her seat, and sent Jonah heading back in the other direction.
“James!” Hanna shouted.
James was now floating helplessly in the middle of the aisle and he tried to stop Jonah’s body. He thought he’d use his weight to catch, and hold Jonah, but being weightless made it impossible to stand his ground. The full heft of Jonah’s considerable weight crashed down onto James, pinning him momentarily against the wall.
James finally managed to get out from under the Jonah and strapped his limp body back into his seat. He moved away from the spot, brushing and slapping at his shirt where the dead man had touched him. He needed to get the feeling of death off of him.
Lisa, who had been sitting dutifully in her seat so far for the entire flight, had started screaming just after Emma. She had had her eyes closed like everyone else for the last few minutes. Now she was breaking down into hysterics at the sight of the corpse strapped in next to her.
Once more, the pilot’s voice boomed throughout the cabin over the intercom. “Mrs. Thurman,” he began, “Ca...Caroline.” The voice sounded shaky this time. Hanna remembered the asteroid they were all escaping from. “You’d better get up here.”
Emma was sobbing into her teddy bear and Caroline hated to leave her. “Damn it,” she said under her breathe, and she pushed off with her feet on the seat cushion, sending herself floating towards the flight deck.
“What’s wrong,” she asked, as she approached the pilot’s seat. She pushed off of the ceiling with her hands which swung her feet back under her. She steadied herself behind the pilot using one of the hand holds on the wall.
The pilot didn’t speak, instead choosing to nod in the direction of the window to his left. Caroline looked out the window, but couldn’t see a thing.
“I don’t see anything,” she said. “How high up are we?”
The pilot raised the sun visor on his helmet and turned to look at her. “We are currently at 360,000 feet and falling,” he replied after a brief glance at his digital altimeter, “but that’s not the issue.”
Hanna, James, and Lisa had gotten Emma, who was now quietly sobbing, out of her restraints and were half-floating, half-standing behind Caroline, crowding around the view ports, and trying to see out.
“Did the asteroid hit?” Hanna asked
“That is the problem,” continued the pilot. He now turned to face everyone at once. “From what I can tell the asteroid hit shortly after we ignited our booster rockets.” He looked down at the radio and said, “I heard the radio go dark.”
Again they all focused their gazes out the port holes, where there was nothing to see but clouds.
“All I can see are these damn clouds,” growled James. He swiped at his view port as if to clear the condensation.
“Those aren’t clouds,” the pilot said. He took a deep breath and continued. “The highest clouds in the sky are typically only a couple of miles over the Earth,” he turned and pointed out the nearest window. “Look carefully,” he said.
Hanna was straining to see what he was talking about. “Not clouds?” she said. “What then…” her voice trailed off.
Caroline had seen it as soon as she’d looked again. “What the hell is that?” she asked. The “clouds” didn’t look quite like normal clouds; they were more hazy, and brown. “Is that dust?” she asked, but nobody answered. She was almost sure now that what they were looking at was a thick layer of dust, probably kicked up by the asteroid when it made land fall. But there was something else. “Wind?” she finally asked. Then she said it resolutely. “That’s wind.”
She pushed back, astonished at the revelation. What on any other trip would normally be an amazing view of the Earth from space, the kind of view worth paying $200,000 dollars to see firsthand, was a dense yellow haze that swirled and sped by beneath them at a rate unlike anything she had ever seen.
“Fuck,” Caroline said defeated. “We are heading right back into it.” They had come so far, even to edge of space, to escape the asteroid. Maybe they were the only ones left. Or maybe there were others like them that had tried to run and were now seeing exactly what they were seeing. Either way it was the end.
“That wind is too fast!” Hanna exclaimed, turning to Caroline. “If we go back through that…” she trailed off.
“The ship will be ripped apart,” finished Caroline, “and that will be the end.”
For her entire life Caroline Thurman had been achieving the goals that she set out to achieve. When she had started her business they had said she would fail, but she didn’t. She succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. She had conquered the world of business, and risen to the top of the pyramid while crushing the men who looked down on her because she was a woman. When they had scoffed at the idea of her building a private spaceship, and flying clients nearly into orbit, Caroline had worked twice as hard to make her dream a reality. Now here she was in that very ship, floating weightlessly some 60 miles above the Earth. Here she was with the most important job in the world to do, to protect Emma, and she was powerless to do anything at all.
She thought of Turgenev’s nihilistic, genius Bazarov dying in his bed of typhoid. All of his immense potential wasted by a tiny cut on the finger. “Figures,” she said sullenly.
Just then the ship lurched forward and everyone’s feet hit the ground. “Oh my god,” someone said. Everyone looked around at everyone else. It was as if they all had thought the same thing at the same time. “We’re going down.”
The pilot jumped back to the controls. “We’re going to pull some G’s!” he said, then turning to face everyone one last time, “Strap in if you want to live.” He was half joking as he said it, but “Who knows?” he said, “maybe we’ll make it.”