“Let’s go!” Joseph barked loudly at the two stragglers.

  Wasting no time on anything as pointless as a response, they both sprinted toward the deputy and the open hatch. As soon as they were all inside, Foster accepted his satchel back from a distraught looking Joseph, who just pressed himself against the farthest wall and crossed his arms menacingly across his chest.

  “What’s his problem?” Justine asked, trying to soak in everything she could about the air lock as it raced toward the top of the vehicle.

  Like the transportation tube, the air lock was almost the same in compartment size and overall control systems. One could even say that they were mirror images of each other except for the color of the materials used.

  In fact, the only difference she could see between the two conveyances was the air lock had no observation port to look out through.

  “He just missed you guys,” Hoover responded jokingly to her question. “He kept begging me not to leave you.”

  “Not to leave?!!!” Completely exhausted and fed up with the A.I.’s bullshit, Joseph ripped his earpiece out, slammed the thing onto the floor, and tried his best to smash the device into a million pieces against the metal floor. An impossible endeavor given the device was constructed from the same material as the tablet.

  In fact, someone three hundred pounds, wearing steel-toed shoes, could hop up and down on that thing for hours and they wouldn’t even make a scratch. Still, just the act of jumping up and down for a couple seconds seemed more than enough to calm him down.

  “How big is this ship?” Justine asked, choosing to ignore his temper tantrum.

  “Here are the most recent plans.” Foster already had his tablet out with a set of schematics pulsating brightly in holographic form. From what she could see, the craft consisted of four large rocket boosters attached to an elongated fuselage. Barely a rectangle with slightly rounded edges, the middle section made up most of the craft’s bulk.

  While at its peak, sat a noticeably small, rounded cockpit section labeled by Hoover with the hilarious moniker of DRIVER’S SEAT.

  “It’s kind of ugly,” Justine complained out loud, even though she had to admit the design screamed power and speed. “But I guess all you need is power when you’re trying to escape a black hole.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “That would be an understatement.” Foster said as he pointed to their current position on the hologram.

  Suddenly focused, all three watched as a pulsating dot climbed higher along the small projection of the ship. Eventually, they drew closer to what could only be the command deck. Breathlessly, everyone waited for the doors to open on what Justine prayed was at least a kick ass bridge.

  But instead of a dramatic door slide like in all the movies and TV shows, the whole thing came to a sudden stop. Then, a series of four previously hidden lights above the doorframe began to blink in rhythmic succession. Caught off guard by their unexpected appearance, two of the elevators’ occupants gasped.

  The third did not.

  “Don’t panic.” Joseph cautioned them with a smirk. Then, before anyone could respond to his wholly weird response, the first light went out. As it extinguished, the floor shifted ever so slightly under their feet.

  “What was that?” Justine asked, putting her hand up against the wall to steady herself. “Are we moving again?”

  “You got me.” Unaware of what was currently going on, Foster looked to Joseph for advice. “Are we moving again?”

  “No,” the alien responded with a laugh. “We’re not moving. The airlock just isn’t properly aligned with the command deck yet.”

  Justine and Foster furrowed their eyebrows and looked utterly perplexed at his explanation. Still, he continued. “When we got onto the elevator, our orientation was right side up. The escape vehicle’s orientation is exactly ninety degrees opposite of that.”

  Neither seemed to know what he was getting at, and their incompetence in the matter made a small part of his heart soar. He happily moved behind the confused travelers.

  “The airlock is swiveling into the correct orientation for the bridge. It does that with a form of positional gravity.” Joseph looked up at the lights blinking above the door. “The second light is about to fizzle out. When the third light does the same, try and aim your puke toward the front of the elevator.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Justine asked, trying very hard to ignore the ominous gurgles coming from her stomach. But before Foster could say anything, the second light blinked out, and the third one started to flash threateningly.

  “I think we should aim for the corners.” Foster said in a tone of sullen acceptance.

  “Aim for the corners?” She did not like the casualness in which Foster made that suggestion. Or the foreboding outcome his words seemed to convey.

  “Yeah,” the scientist bent over slightly at the waist and made sure to tighten his grip on the satchel. “Otherwise, we’ll have to walk through it on the way out.”

  “Walk through what exactly?”

  Her words reminded Joseph of someone standing outside a haunted house in the middle of the night under a full moon. They knew something awful was about to happen to them. They just didn’t know exactly what.

  So, he proceeded to give her the same advice he received the first time he went through something similar on the Forge. “The remnants of a meal you should have waited until the end of your shift to eat.”

  Without any further explanation. The third light over the hatch went completely out. And true to his words, their stomachs plummeted what felt like a thousand feet toward an incredible explosion of sickness.