the comfort of the patients came before their own needs or fears. Tarla took a deep breath and forced herself to keep talking to Willie. She wasn't sure which one of them needed her fabricated story more, but it didn't matter.
A second explosion of light and sound seemed greater than the first and this time, the plane made another sudden drop in altitude as well. Voices raised throughout the cabin, some with worry, others in anger over the crew's ineptitude. She heard one man question why the pilot wasn't taking them above the storm if he couldn't get around it and she began wondering the same thing.
"I have to go check on something, Willie. I'll be right back, so don't you go wandering off anywhere."
Struggling against the vibrating and pitching of the plane, she made her way to the cockpit and yanked open the door. The frantic dialogue of the crew and the way the pilot was straining at the control wheel increased her anxiety. Pulling the door closed and bracing herself against its frame, she tried to guess what was going on without disturbing anyone.
The sky before them appeared to be an ocean of rolling, pewter-colored clouds, sporadically illuminated by jagged streaks of light. The continuous rumble of thunder no longer seemed to have a beginning or end.
"Can't you take us above this?" Tarla shouted.
Without turning around to her, the pilot yelled back. "What the hell do you think we're trying to do? Just get back there and buckle yourself in! Damn!" He pounded his fist against the altimeter.
Tarla's gaze fell to the control panel and she saw the reason the pilot was swearing. Some of the indicator hands were spinning madly while other controls seemed to have stopped functioning completely. What in God's name was happening?
She was about to obey the pilot's order when the thunderous rumble around them rose to a deafening roar and the vibration became so violent, she was positive the plane would be pulled apart any moment. Sheer terror now kept her standing there, clinging to the back of the navigator's seat.
All of a sudden the clouds began to part and roll to the sides as if an unseen hand was opening a pathway for the plane. There was light beyond the clouds and, the wider the gap grew, the brighter the light became, until there was a hole in the sky big enough for the aircraft to fly through, but the light was nearly blinding in intensity.
As if someone flipped a switch, the vibrating abruptly stopped and the plane picked up speed with a tremendous jerk.
"Full flaps!" The pilot shouted. "Reduce power! We've got to slow this mother down."
Nothing the crew did seemed to make any difference. Tarla found herself pinned against the cockpit door and comprehended that the increased gravitational pull meant they were going faster and faster toward the light.
She watched the navigator fight the g-force to bring his hand up to his forehead then make the sign of the cross. A hundred different thoughts tried to form at once in her mind but only one was coherent.
After surviving the third world war, they were all going to die anyway.
Chapter 2
Innerworld, Planet Terra (Earth)
"Governor Romulus here." It felt like he'd been waiting for this call from Outerworld Monitor Control for days instead of hours.
"The team has completed all scans. There is not a single trace of evidence remaining. The aircraft and all its passengers were being tracked one second and gone the next. It definitely was not a result of the conflict. No country involved has the technology to accomplish such a total erasure."
"Were the coordinates confirmed?"
"Yes, sir. Directly above our tunnel off the coast of China but nothing took place on our end to cause it."
Twelve powerful magnetic fields had been used to create tunnels in and out of Innerworld, the Noronian colony in the center of Terra. Occasionally an Outerworld vessel was in the path when the doorway opened, but apparently that had not been the case this time.
"I was
A second explosion of light and sound seemed greater than the first and this time, the plane made another sudden drop in altitude as well. Voices raised throughout the cabin, some with worry, others in anger over the crew's ineptitude. She heard one man question why the pilot wasn't taking them above the storm if he couldn't get around it and she began wondering the same thing.
"I have to go check on something, Willie. I'll be right back, so don't you go wandering off anywhere."
Struggling against the vibrating and pitching of the plane, she made her way to the cockpit and yanked open the door. The frantic dialogue of the crew and the way the pilot was straining at the control wheel increased her anxiety. Pulling the door closed and bracing herself against its frame, she tried to guess what was going on without disturbing anyone.
The sky before them appeared to be an ocean of rolling, pewter-colored clouds, sporadically illuminated by jagged streaks of light. The continuous rumble of thunder no longer seemed to have a beginning or end.
"Can't you take us above this?" Tarla shouted.
Without turning around to her, the pilot yelled back. "What the hell do you think we're trying to do? Just get back there and buckle yourself in! Damn!" He pounded his fist against the altimeter.
Tarla's gaze fell to the control panel and she saw the reason the pilot was swearing. Some of the indicator hands were spinning madly while other controls seemed to have stopped functioning completely. What in God's name was happening?
She was about to obey the pilot's order when the thunderous rumble around them rose to a deafening roar and the vibration became so violent, she was positive the plane would be pulled apart any moment. Sheer terror now kept her standing there, clinging to the back of the navigator's seat.
All of a sudden the clouds began to part and roll to the sides as if an unseen hand was opening a pathway for the plane. There was light beyond the clouds and, the wider the gap grew, the brighter the light became, until there was a hole in the sky big enough for the aircraft to fly through, but the light was nearly blinding in intensity.
As if someone flipped a switch, the vibrating abruptly stopped and the plane picked up speed with a tremendous jerk.
"Full flaps!" The pilot shouted. "Reduce power! We've got to slow this mother down."
Nothing the crew did seemed to make any difference. Tarla found herself pinned against the cockpit door and comprehended that the increased gravitational pull meant they were going faster and faster toward the light.
She watched the navigator fight the g-force to bring his hand up to his forehead then make the sign of the cross. A hundred different thoughts tried to form at once in her mind but only one was coherent.
After surviving the third world war, they were all going to die anyway.
Chapter 2
Innerworld, Planet Terra (Earth)
"Governor Romulus here." It felt like he'd been waiting for this call from Outerworld Monitor Control for days instead of hours.
"The team has completed all scans. There is not a single trace of evidence remaining. The aircraft and all its passengers were being tracked one second and gone the next. It definitely was not a result of the conflict. No country involved has the technology to accomplish such a total erasure."
"Were the coordinates confirmed?"
"Yes, sir. Directly above our tunnel off the coast of China but nothing took place on our end to cause it."
Twelve powerful magnetic fields had been used to create tunnels in and out of Innerworld, the Noronian colony in the center of Terra. Occasionally an Outerworld vessel was in the path when the doorway opened, but apparently that had not been the case this time.
"I was
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