Argonaut - The Kinetic (Part I)

Chapter 5 - Judge Jury...

Chapter Five – Judge Jury…

20th Dec 11:44 AM

Serena led me to the seventh seat, lowering a locking mechanism around me that would keep me in place during the descent before she secured herself. As Nathaniel and Elena strapped in I waited, wondering why we would need such drastic measures for securing ourselves.

I waited for a few moments before thinking out to Serena, ‘when is it going to start?’

She didn’t reply, but I knew she had heard me. I could feel something from her, was it laughter? Oh damn…

I braced a moment too late. With no warning the Argos suddenly lurched sharply to the side, from what I could tell we were corkscrewing towards the ground. As I became weightless I found a new appreciation for the bar that held me in my seat.

‘Serena!’ I mentally shouted, I didn’t want to risk opening my mouth. ‘Why are we going so fast towards the ground?’ 

She didn’t answer me; all I could hear in my mind was her childlike giggling. As we spun down I wondered if we had enough time to pull up.

‘She’s not going to pull up!’ Serena’s voice shouted gleefully.

My mind froze. If she didn’t pull up we’d be smashed to smithereens, I didn’t feel like dying today.

’We’re not over land David’ Serena’s thoughts called to me, ‘we’re over water!’

That didn’t do anything to make me feel any better.

‘Let me show you’ I could hear her over roar of the Argos’s engines.

I tried to relax but it wasn’t easy, a vague image began to come through to me from Serena. Water extended in every direction for as far as the eye could see, I was in the middle of some vast ocean. There was no land around me; there was just the intense blue. From deep in the depths something colossal rose, it was easily half a kilometre across and oddly circular.

As it drew closer I could see it more clearly, the great mass looked metallic from my position above the calm waves. But as it breached the surface the ocean began to boil; as it came out of the water and into the air I realised what it was. It was a massive pipe.

The end of the vast pipe was sealed with what looked like a huge valve. As I watched a deep roaring filled the air and the end of the pipe began to shudder. It opened slowly as a black plane that looked impossibly tiny rocketed down towards it. The plane, which I realised was the Argos, shot through the opening and down into the pipe. The vision ended with the pipe slowly sealing back up and sinking back to the depths.

I blinked, back in the chair and racing down. Fear clutched at my heart, I didn’t want to go in that pipe.

‘Do they usually fly like this?’ I thought to Serena.

‘No’ she replied, still laughing ‘usually it’s a lot more stable than this. I guess you must have done something before to piss them off.’ 

‘I wonder what that could have been’ I thought back sarcastically.

‘Don’t take it too hard’ she thought to me, ‘she did this to all of us when we were new, it’s practically a rite of passage.’

‘I’ll pass thanks’ I replied, ‘I like it better when I’m flying.’                     

She was about to reply when we heard the roar. The blood drained out of my face.