“Attention everybody! This is the captain speaking. Every novice, move to the panic room and initiate emergency protocols! We have entered an asteroids belt and risk being knocked out of our intended course and worse still, get crushed. Therefore, follow the chain of command and pray for the best!”
Almost immediately, there was a flurry of activities within the cabin and everybody rushed down to the panic cabin to follow the instructions given over the PA by the captain. The emergency cabin was filled with lots of anxious and scared novice space shuttle engineers who were trying to brace up to what may either be a disastrous collision or a miraculous escape.
Betty felt her heart leap to her mouth after the captain finished his warning address. This was her first space travel and she was not completely prepared mentally for this. Although she had been told in space engineering school and even during the pre-space travel briefing, she still found this warning catching her unprepared and putting her in an internal frenzy. She had heard stories of disastrous space accidents resulting from collisions with asteroids but she never told she do encounter one of such experience, at least not this early into her space travel career and certainly, not on the first. She hurried into the panic room reserved for novice astronauts and draped on the full emergency gear, sat down and strapped on the safety belt. After strapping the reserve moveable emergency oxygen tank to her side, she fixed the breather to her face and sat tight to see how things will go.
Betty’s passion for astronomy and space travel had began about two decades back when she and her Dad went star gazing during one of their holiday trips to the Nolbus beach. They had taken up a room in one of the hotels built close to the beach. At night, after having their dinner, her father took the high tech telescope he had acquired during the early days of his career as a geographer and places it close to the window, with its top pointing out directly towards the sky. They settled to looking at the sky and the brightly shining moon. Betty was almost at once captivated by the outlines of the features inside the moon. They were beautifully patterned and despite the dark forms of these inlaid shapes, the moon was radiating brilliantly and flooding the whole beach with it soft light.
“Dad, these features in the moon look like humans riding horses” she said at the same time pointing towards the moon the brightly shining moon.
“Yes my little angel. But they are not humans, neither are there any horses on the moon, they are landmark just like our hills and rocks” her father told her.
“Are there no humans up there?” Betty asked looking puzzled.
“Not always. Actually it is kind of dangerous for humans to live up there but the travel there once in a while to study the moon” her father replied.
He took his eyes off the telescope and sipped coffee from a cup placed on a saucer beside where he was sitting.
“I want to go up there too Dad. Why don’t we go and get a plane ticket so we can spend the rest of our vacation there?’ Betty said excitedly. “ I believe it will be fun up there”.
Her father smiled and pulling her close to his bosom he looked her in the eyes.
“We can’t just go up there like that my angel” he said.
“Why? You just said it yourself that humans can travel up there” she asked.
“We will need a special kind of education, a team, a spacecraft and special clothing. The environment there is different from ours and it will be dangerous to travel without all that.” Her father replied her.
Betty was baffled. She could not imagine how such a brilliant body could be dangerous, it looks so pretty and soft, very feminine. Surely, it cannot be entirely harmless.
“How can one get the special education Dad?” Betty asked after a long silence.
“You will have to take your studies very serious and then get enrolled to study space engineering in the university” he told her.
“I want to travel up there, Dad. I will take my studies very serious”. Betty said still gazing up at the moon.
Smiling, her father laid her head on his chest and stroked her hair gently.
“I know you will my angel. You are a very brilliant kid, just like the moon” he said.
And Betty did. Her resolve that night by the telescope went on for years and after her brilliant and outstanding performance in the selection exam and subsequent interview for the BRILL A22HG Space mission, she was selected to be among the engineering crew to go on the mission. Few weeks from the release of the selected names, her age long dream of travelling to the moon was finally on course but here it is, being threatened by a multitude of large looking asteroids, some as huge as buildings, shooting past their spacecraft like magnified monsters.
As the spacecraft went deeper into the dark belt, occasionally drifting from side to side to avoid colliding with the oncoming masses, the chaotic noise in the emergency cabin increased. The warning alarm kept on blaring and the warning light swirling round and round, Betty felt her head swooning and it was the jerks and bumps of the spacecraft that dragged her back to reality.
Above the blaring sound of the alarm and lone shrieks of fellow first timers, Betty could dimly hear the voice of the captain issuing out orders inside the control room. She tried to close her eyes and shut out the ensuing scene and tried thinking of home but with the bumping and blaring mixed with muffled prayers, it was almost impossible to think of anything else other than the situation they were in.
After what seems like eternity, the drifting and bumping suddenly stopped. The noises of fear and muffled prayers inside the cabin gradually died down, in it place, there was anxiety written on the faces of everyone inside the emergency cabin. Betty wished she was out in the control room, there she would know what state there were in. After a couple of minutes wait, they saw the occupants holding their breath; the booming voice of the captain was heard over the PA.
“Attention everyone one. We have safely crossed the asteroids belt and now heading directly towards our destination, the MOON. And with the information on the radar, we will not encounter any more troubles, so sit tight and enjoy the ride!”
Almost immediately, a shout of excitement broke out inside the cabin as it occupants hurriedly unstrapped their safety belts and hugged each other.
Betty closed her eyes and gave a deep sigh. The nightmare is over and her pleasant lifetime dream of reawakened. At last, against all odds she was finally going to set foot on the moon. She looked out the window and saw the huge mass of the brilliant moon glistering up ahead. A huge smile crawled to her face.
“Such a beauty!” she thought.
