“Thank you, Carl.” Sawyer smacked a panel on his right, setting the cargo door on its slow retreat into place.
Sawyer heard the door clang into place as he reached the steps, taking them two and three at a time in his rush to reach the bridge. Wil just finished packing the last of his tools and supplies into a crate beneath the steps he’d cleared when Sawyer reached him. “Where’s Carl?” Sawyer shook his head in response to Wil’s question.
Sawyer’s steps faltered as the ship shuddered with the force of its thrusters’ final preparation. He regained his footing, the commotion of his misstep drawing Maverick’s attention. The boy glanced beyond Sawyer, watching Wil enter the bridge and staring back expectantly for another figure to enter. His face trembled as realization set in, turning to Sawyer for confirmation of his suspicions. “He’s not coming.”
“The roof access doors have to be opened manually. If we shut down the thrusters to land, we won’t be able to take off before dawn.” Sawyer spoke softly as Maverick swiped at his moist eyes and turned away.
“Then, we should go.” Maverick whispered, but made no move to take control of the flight system.
“Mav? We need to go.” Wil commented gently as Maverick’s hands hovered over the controls.
Sawyer and Wil exchanged glances, both men understanding the boy’s reluctance; neither wanted the guilt of leaving the man behind, but they couldn’t allow Maverick to live with the act. Wil moved to the pilot’s chair, regarding Maverick empathetically as he claimed the controls. “Mav? It’s alright, I’ve got it.”
“I can do it,” Maverick whispered the statement without confidence, making no move to retrieve the controls from Wil.
Sawyer sat in the vacant Captain’s chair, fastening the five-point harness around himself as Wil and Maverick did in their pilot and co-pilot chairs. The ship shuddered and skipped, her engines and thrusters stretching muscles unused for decades. Anastasis lifted from the ground, scraping through to opened roof and into the night sky. Maverick sobbed softly as the doors sprang closed behind them – the clatter shaking the ship with its finality.
They hovered – staring down at the building they’d abandoned – none of them wanting the guilt of making the final call to leave a man behind. Maverick looked to Sawyer pleadingly, his eyes begging for something his big brother couldn’t provide. With a heaviness he knew would last the rest of his days, Sawyer claimed the responsibility; “Wil, get us out of here.”
“Yes, sir,” Wil spoke with a relieved glance over his shoulder before turning to Maverick. “Let’s see if Carl is the genius you say he is.”
It was the first time Wil spoke Carl’s name without the ‘Crazy’ before it and Sawyer sensed its significance. Maverick met Wil’s gaze with tears streaking down his face; “He is.”
Sawyer’s head was flung back as Wil took control of the helm, sending the Anastasis hurtling toward the burning remains of their compound. “Wil, what are you doing?” Sawyer’s voice grew in tone and volume as they flew toward the burned out remains of the headquarter building.
“Woohoo!” Wil shouted as they crashed through the last standing walls of the main building, coming out the other side in a rain of sparking aluminum and glass.
“Do you know how to fly this thing?” Sawyer asked, feeling the question was left unasked in error before they lifted off.
“Normally, I’d lie and say yes, but considering we just flew through a building,” Wil steered them through another building, this one untouched before their arrival. He cleared his throat before finishing his thought. “Make that two buildings. I assume you already know the answer to that question.”
“Do you want me to do it?” Maverick offered, his hands braced on his own panel as he stared – wide-eyed – out the window in front of them.
“No, no, I got this. I, got, this,” Wil growled as he pulled up on the stick, avoiding a collision with a third building. “There she goes!”
“You got it?” Maverick asked, turning an incredulous look toward the man at his side.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Wil chuckled, rubbing a hand over his jaw sheepishly. “It’s just like driving one of the original shuttles. You know, how the controls always stick a bit at first?”
“We need to get higher.” Wil pulled back on the controls in response to Sawyer’s statement.
Sawyer’s head spun in response to the thinning air – every breath shallow and halting. The engines groaned, the thrusters sputtered and flared, and the hull bucked and shuddered. The atmosphere became unbearable – too heavy, too light, too loud, too quiet, too rough, too smooth – and then a disturbing, unnatural silence. The approaching sunrise burst through the clouds, turning the sky blue before the Anastasis raised into the black. The orange orb glared at the ascension of their craft, blinding them with its unfiltered brilliance until their eyes adjusted to the contrast.
“Sunrise.” Wil whispered in awe of the sight.
They reached the upper layers of atmosphere; land and space merged as one, making time and place meaningless. The void glittered with silver beacons of light, bursting with promise of new, uncharted worlds. The Terran Space Station – its central core a mass of lights with a ring of solid, metal around her middle – spun in slow, steady circles, dividing the Anastasis from the verse beyond.
With no sound in space to emphasize the event, the sudden venting of light from the station felt anticlimactic; it was a silent stream of fire, no more meaningful to those onboard than if they lit a fire to entertain or keep warm. The flare’s true purpose wouldn’t be felt by any watching from
