Nightfall

“Mach Seven to Pilot One. What is your position over.”

“My position is…” I couldn’t say over the noise. I wheeled around.

“As if a cyborg girl like you knows any science!” yelled Jude his usually immaculate ponytail undone in the heat of the cabin. There were four bucket seats, equipped with seat belts and gravity locks. Which were two red dials on either end of the seat to adjust gravity.

“I’m an engineer as well as a mechanic, butthole!” said Lana, sparks appearing in her hazel eyes.

“C’mon, Lana, why don’t we just…” said Bartholomew as he wrapped his big arms around Lana’s tall fit form.

“You can’t do a thing to me, cyborg,” replied Jude as he gulped down a beer.

“I can put my boot in your holy ass! No one has to tell,” muttered Lana and Bartholomew laughed

“Guys? Can you tone it down?” I said.

Jude choked on his beer. “Wait til we land then you’ll be sorry!”

“As if we’re scared,” Batholomew snorted and leaned down to kiss Lana.

“Oh, that’s nasty! How can you kiss that thing?”

Bartholomew wiggled his eyebrows and scooped Lana to his perfect form. He was my cousin but we looked nothing alike.

He was a perfect human with violet eyes that marked one as such. Bartholomew was genetically enhanced to be faster, stronger, and smarter. Perfect. I was...spots... I mean I was covered in brown patches of discolored skin. I was the least from perfect, and everyone here knew it. I was also the lead commander on this mission.

“C-Cadets! I need to check in with our mission’s chief and I can’t with this noise,” I stuttered. Being assertive was not a part of my usual repertoire. I was shaken from my happy place by Jude. “Hurry it up!” he whined, slurping the last of his beer.

Trust me if I could I would! I’m blaming Starboard control when this mission goes to shit.

I gave a feeble smile and turned around to face the computer. At least it was good to fly again. After the last inspection, I was found to not be the ideal pilot model. What it really was was skepticism that a nineteen-year-old could fly like a professional. I knew how to defend myself as well as any pilot. I learned fastest by doing. There was plenty of doing in combat.

“Pilot one to Mach Seven it’s a little rowdy in here otherwise we’re fine,” I replied sighing as the volume augmented again.

“Sounds like a real party.”

You have no idea.

Outside the stars twinkled as we flew on towards our destination...a black hole.

I straightened in my chair as space lightened and there it was Atlas 142. The swirling disk around the black hole glowed with all colors under the blue spectrum, but the hole itself devoured light. The computer had placed it in the center of all the chaos moving left at a few miles per hour. Some black holes were stationary. This one was not. It was likely to enter new space in a few minutes. It would be taking passengers along.

“Everyone ready?” I asked stopping the Rider for an instant and even then we were slowly creeping towards the black hole’s accretion disk. I wheeled around to face them, “Put on your suits please, and stick the mouthpiece in when I say to, not before, not after. Exactly when I say,” the others nodded and I faced the front, taking in the readings.

“Mach Seven here we go.”

“Roger that, Pilot One. Godspeed.”

The silver suits every one was wearing, including me, were supposed to negate the sensations of being spaghettified by the black hole. It was as if you were being squeezed and pulled at the same time through a straw as the name implied. A sensation I never wanted to feel again. It had come to star in my worst nightmares. The kind you never forget and the ones that push you forward in life waiting for the worst to happen. The pilot modules for black hole training were very realistic. It was a good thing for them that I passed those honestly, with hard work and back-breaking practice hours instead of paying my way in.

“Well, are we going in?” asked Lana, who was shaking in her seat, and staring at the one wonder of space we still knew very little of.

I shook slightly from the uncertainty and adrenaline and pulled the gears. “If all of you are ready, yes,” I said as I turned on the gravity-lightening effects and prepared to enter the black hole. The computer scanned for the mouth while it read the immensity of the accretion disk. It was a small black hole about five tons bigger than the sun. We were avoiding the testing of the Rider with a bigger and older black hole since our graviton metal hadn’t been made for such power.

Today was the first test for the Rider. Built in the shape of a bullet, for aerodynamic speed, it had two wings that popped out the sides for more movement. They were hidden now. It also had its own dorsal fin as we called it. A top wing in the shape of a whale’s dorsal fin, in case we lost balance. Inside the cabin was sweltering and the silver suits weren’t helping. Designated much like a plane’s interior mixed with a car’s, and you had the rider’s interior makeup. I steered straight toward Atlas142.

We felt it as gravity snapped us up from our orbit and added us to the accretion disk. That’s when things got wild, as I flipped the engines on this baby on, and began pulling from the gravity of the black hole itself. It was like being in a level hundred hurricane as the solar winds buffeted at us. I popped out the wings and slid through the winds much like a baseball catcher does to reach bases. It put us directly in front of the black hole. This close you could ascertain a shape swallowing all this space debris. It was colorless, but not soundless, as the winds swirled around us, howling the last death. That was our destination. The event horizon. I shifted gears and turned a right, missing a large piece of meteorite by a few seconds.

Where we were headed we needed to be as intact as we could. Not that I was risking everyone’s life by flying into UFOs.

“Shit,” I muttered as asteroid debris flew by and pelted us. They sounded like gunshots hitting the hull.

Jude jumped in his chair. Get us through Matt!” he screamed.

“I’m trying,” I grunted, spinning the steering controls.

Thwank!

I watched as the door short-circuited trapping us in here for who knows how long. I would have to show some unwarranted skills in order for us to escape from this cabin. Worse it was linked to our oxygen. Whoever thought of having outside controls should be quartered. The Rider made a light buzzing sound and I slowed down.

W-Why are we slowing? We were almost space dust cuz!” shouted Bartholomew and I cringed.

“I-I’m easing up. W-We’re almost there. Please insert your mouthpiece and remain as still as possible. We’re about to enter the event horizon,” I said. This was it everyone was holding their breaths as we passed the event horizon. The last place light ever touched these monsters. I was a nervous wreck. My knees thumped against the steering panel and the gears. My hands shook and I fisted them in my lap for a moment. I was soaked in sweat from top to bottom.

This is it! The moment you’ve been training for. Do not screw up!

Hours of my constant failures played over in my psyche as if they too knew the real me, the screw-up murdering bandit. I shook my head and faced the front with eager eyes. We were going through. It was my first time flying through a real black hole and I stared in awe at the infinite space awaiting us. It was dark, piercing dark then all around us there was flowing light and suddenly we were traveling through an interstellar gateway. We reached speeds of light-years and the Rider shook with the force of it. It wasn’t made for this and for an instant, I thought of us coming apart at the seams. We all hung by our seatbelts suspended in midair with the speed. All I could do now was look pretty. The Rider shook and everyone fell to their seats as I resumed command of the Rider. We were spat into another universe.