Karta´s Promise

The silver skin split as the crew slipped from the giant pod into the endless sea of space.  Karta glanced back to see her Seahawk’s silver body crumple and shrink away. She gazed to the heavens.  No longer framed through her orbicruiser’s window, the spatial landscape swelled into all of her being. Galaxies of reds and blues loomed in the shimmering space like jewels being born. Upward and at one o’clock - the swirling blues, greens and whites of mother earth caught her breath momentarily.  Her son Joshua turned four today.  She promised she’d be home to light his candles; her gift was already tied in a bright blue bow and on the table of their North Dakota prairie home. 

 
 Her crew dangling in space, already at task lifted their oversized gloves and with great gentleness rested their hands on the giant tumbling black box, their only salvage, but a crucial one, the ships uranium energy pack.  Hopefully it would revive the last limping orbicruiser of the fleet, the Jasper already on its way to rescue them.

 
 As the box tumbled they toppled gently with it then righted themselves.  For an instant it hung motionless then suddenly began to tremble- their hands vibrating. “She’s going to blow...” shrieked Karta.  Boom! Reds, blues flared.   Their bodies darted about like fireworks. Karta sucked in a deep breath, little life support left.   Her body gyrating toward earth, oceans, mountains, prairies whirled in magnificent splendor before her eyes. Joshua, home, broken promises, unspoken words thumped in her heart. The earth’s force was already grabbing her.

 
From a star lit porch on the North Dakota prairie, Joshua pointed upward, “ Wow, look, Dad!” A star blazed reds and golds across the heavens.

 

• Autorensteckbrief von Janice Abel
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