Author's Note: Hi everyone. Me again. Does anyone read these? I'm not so sure you do. Anyway, two more after this. I'm thinking of getting them all done in one shot and then just uploading them randomly throughout the week. No guarantee. It's 8:49pm right now, and I'm incredibly tired. Don't really feel like writing, but I do it anyway simply because writer's instinct calls when willing inspiration does not. I have to write to keep myself busy lest I result to doing homework instead. And that isn't very fun.
Anyway, here is chapter eighteen.
[Hugs Serge]
Almost done, Sergie!
Serge: I'm getting a restraining order against you.
But...but...but....
Serge: Leave me alone!
~
Chapter Eighteen
Healing the Earth
~
Virgil
Virgil drifted like a dead stone through the material of the Earth's outer core. She was powerless. Nothing more than another piece of matter drifting through her heated molten magma. But inside, six people were waiting. Waiting for an end that they had known all along would come.
"One minute to the first detonation." Beck stated, looking idly at her watch. Everyone was sitting in their original seats now. Iverson was at Beck's left hand side. Behind her sat Josh, hands double bandaged and fingers wrapped lightly so as to still provide minor movement. At Josh's left was Serge, sweating and hazy eyed. Behind Serge sat a barely conscience Zimsky, and at his right hand sat a sullen Braz. He petted his ship idly, happy and proud that she had performed so well for them for this long. He was sorry to say goodbye to her. Almost. "And twelve until the blast hits us."
Josh sighed, his fingers playing with the bandages wrapped around his arms.
"I was hoping we'd suffocate to death first."
Some of them smiled in the mock humor that the young man tried to express.
~
On the furthest side of the inner core, the first nuke went off. The process to breath life back into the planet had begun.
~
The Emergency Support System Monitor began to buzz warningly. The temperature had reached one hundred and twenty two point zero six degrees. A critical point for those inside. It really wasn't that bad, Josh believed, considering that just a few inches past the unobtainium shield around them the temperature was well over nine thousand degrees.
Everyone did what they could to try and ignore the incessant alarm that warned them of their imminent doom. Zimsky was nearly sleeping, Serge following after. Braz had his forehead rested in his right hand, his eyes closed. He spoke a silent prayer that no one heard, but everyone trusted in.
Iverson's breath steadied as he drifted, or tried to drift, into a blissful, dreamless sleep. Beck and Josh did what they could to relax, their hearts beating too furiously with fear to try and rest in their last minutes.
But suddenly, something struck Josh as awkward. He had learned in the three months they had taken to built this ship everything he could about it.
He looked up at the tungsten-titanium matrix model that Braz had hung up on the ceiling of the cockpit in Virgil. He'd been right to assume it looked like a rear view mirror decoration in a car. It had served as such throughout most of the journey. But sight of that model suddenly inspired Josh to make a daring move. One that promised a chance for survival not only for Earth, but for the heroes who had been sent to sacrifice their lives as her savior.
Sitting up in a hurry, he stared straight into the center of the model, desperately trying to make his eyes focus. A spark in his brain ignited, and the ultimate plan for survival formed in his head.
"Beck." he gasped, sitting up. He rushed to her seat and shook her awake. "Beck. Beck. What could you do if I got you enough power to fire the impeller? Maybe not the laser but the impeller?"
She eyed him suspiciously. This seemed like a desperate attempt to be busy.
"What? From where?"
"The heat of the core." he replied in exhausted joy. "It's nine thousand degrees. Unobtainium converts heat to energy. So this whole damn ship is like a big, old solar panel!" Braz looked up in interest. Josh had something. "Come on, I need your help."
Serge and the others watched as they left. Braz bit his lip and followed, eager to see what the young man had cooked up.
~
The second nuke went off. Earth was steadily coming back to life. But Virgil's time was running out.
~
Deep Earth Control
"Number Two's going!" one of the board readers cried out in joy.
"Come on. Come on."
Stickley wasn't watching the core churning. Her eyes were focused on the motionless signal on the other side of the explosion. Why weren't they moving?
~
Virgil
Beck, Josh, and Braz worked frantically within the depths of Virgil's engineering compartment. They were basically reforming her entire structure. They were diverting all her power to one main source, and the was the absorption of the heat from the core into the ship. There time was running out, but if they worked quickly enough, they just might have a change.
~
The third nuke blew. The core started to shoot flares and heat up some more as the magma began to churn beneath, over, and around Virgil's surface. Things were heating up, but time was still running out.
~
"For here...in the great...infinite...unknowable...man can come to know....the most important thing of all....himself."
Zimsky sighed and drifted into a dark sleep. Serge lifted his head. Zimsky's incessant muttering was what had been keeping him conscious all this time. The fact that it had now stopped was not only a problem for him, but unnerving for Zimsky's sake.
Clumsily he lifted himself from his chair and leaned over Zimsky.
"Zimsky? Zimsky wake up!" he shook the old man. "Zimsky?"
"We need to hurry." Iverson breathed from his seat. Serge looked up with a frown. "Or we're not going to have enough time."
The Frenchman frowned. He had all the faith in the world in Josh, but some things could not be beaten. Serge typically didn't believe in fate, but he knew that some things were unbeatable. Josh was smart, he was determined, he was young and strong. All the things a kid like him should and needed to be. But he wasn't God, and he couldn't beat all the world working against him.
At least, Serge didn't think so.
~
The fourth nuke went off, and not too far after, the fifth. A reaction occurred, and suddenly the molten magma began to churn. It was spinning slow at first, but soon picked up speed as the mass of the liquid metal elements began to push against each other, causing the churning to gain more and more speed by the second. A reaction began, and nature finished the course. The core was rotating again. Earth was reborn.
~
Deep Earth Control
The core-based satellite image revealed this to everyone on the surface world who had taken part in this project.
"WE'VE GOT FULL ROTATION!!!" Someone screamed from the boards below. Papers and pens and hats flew in the air, falling back to the ground with no one caring about them. Embraces where shared, tears were shed, and a full celebration was in order.
"It's turning!"
"All right!"
Even Stickley clapped and cheered, but the sheer spark in her eye told them that this was not over yet. Their crew still needed to get back alive.
~
Virgil
The war wasn't over for those above or below.
Beck hammered at the last cable, trying desperately to break it free.
"C'mon Beck, where is it?" Josh yelled impatiently. Finally the damn thing came lose. She threw it to Braz who moved with admirable grace to reach the back panel where Josh was welding everything together. His brain was addled by the theory of this working, he simply trusted that Josh's theory was correct. "Come on. Come on, hurry up. Is that the last one?"
"Yeah." Braz answered. Beck waited, then when she got the signal, bolted back to the cockpit. Serge was in his seat, vividly awake now. Iverson was shifting a bit here and there, but Zimsky was completely out of it. She hoped he was okay.
Soon after her came Josh, and at last Braz. They looked around, waiting.
"Give it a couple seconds." said Josh.
"What's happening?" Serge asked.
"Shh." Braz demanded. They all waited, weary for any sort of change. Finally, a humming reached their ears, and the lights of the corridor behind them illuminated one by one. The computers flickered on and the controls began to beep and buzz as they should. But the brightest lights came from the eyes of the crew members as life breathed back into the ship once more. Serge jumped from his seat and embraced Josh with happy tears in his eyes. He then moved to embrace Serge. Beck bent over to hug Iverson who was already pressing and maneuvering controls. Images of the core shot back up onto the surveillance screens. Hope was rekindled, and life restored. They were going to make it after all!
"It worked!" Josh laughed in disbelief. He turned to embrace Beck, but instead met her full on the lips. Neither one of them cared that the others were watching, nor acknowledged the knowing smiles between the three conscious crew members.
It's about time. Serge thought with a chuckle.
"All right you two, let's get moving." Iverson stated. Josh plopped down happily in his seat along with the others. Braz made sure Zimsky was harnessed and then buckled himself up into his seat.
~
A giant energy bubble began to form in the Earth's core from the last detonation. As it neared Virgil, her propeller began to spin at immeasurable speeds. Iverson and Beck steered her toward their original entrance, praying for an easy path home.
~
"Get ready to pull a few G's." Iverson warned the crew. All braced themselves for the ride of their lives. The second, since they had breached the Earth's crust.
~
Instantaneously, Virgil was flung forward. She hurdles through the air at hundreds of miles per second, but did not stop there.
~
"Four hundred and twenty knots." Beck read.
"This is more like it." Iverson smiled.
"Four forty."
~
Deep Earth Control
The base began to shake and tremor with an unnerving strength. Nothing fell or collapsed, but it was enough to make everyone nervous.
"So, Rat, what's the center of this quake?" Purcell asked bitterly.
"It's everywhere!" Rat stood and answered with eagerness and amazement. "It's one giant shockwave! The planet's healing itself!"
~
Virgil
"At this speed we're going to be home in a third of the time." Josh stated as they flew through the mantle.
~
Paris, France
The streets of Paris shook beneath the shoppers and tourists that stood enjoying themselves beneath the shadows of the Eiffel Tower. All eyes looked up to see massive storm clouds forming, and then suddenly dissolving. No one could explain it, it was a frightening and yet mysteriously relieving experience.
~
Saudi Arabia
The deserts danced and shifted from the giant shock wave that moved the floor beneath it. Two weary travelers watched in awe and fear as the sands slithered like serpents toward and then away from them. The healing process was spreading. Earth was catching up with her overdue schedule.
~
Virgil
Now that she was smaller, Virgil was much easier to maneuver. Her turns were quicker and more precise, and her driving was much more accurate. Iverson smiled. This wasn't so bad.
"As long as we can surf these magma flows we'll be okay." Beck stated to the crew. "Let's just pray we don't run into any dead ends, or we're going to miss those lasers." Josh looked up at her seat with slight trepidation.
Suddenly they reached a fork in the road.
"Okay, Navigator. Which way?" Iverson came in.
"We've got greater fluid density on the left." he added a smile. "Go with the flow."
"Uh-huh." Iverson did just that.
~
Deep Earth Control
The signal was now reading from the Mantle, beeping fast.
"Bill, where are they headed?" Stickley called from her position on the board.
"Looks like she found a space between some tectonic plates somewhere near Hawaii."
Stick smiled. Everything was going good.
~
Virgil
"When I get back I'm taking a vacation." Braz gritted his teeth firmly.
"Where are you going?" Serge asked with an interested smile.
"I don't know. The Caribbean, Bahamas...or maybe even Hawaii."
"Well if you get lucky maybe that's where we'll come up at."
Braz smiled.
"An immediate vacation. Sounds nice."
Serge pushed his bottom lip forward in consideration, nodded and shrugged his shoulders.
"Can't complain."
"No, no I can't." Josh agreed.
~
"Josh?" Iverson sounded concerned.
"Yeah?"
"They're closing in on us too fast, I don't know if we can..."
"We've got it." Iverson stated.
~
Deep Earth Control
SIGNAL LOST flashed across the screen. Bill, solemn and disappointed, turned his saddened gaze to Stickley.
"Um...w-we lost them, Stick, and I..." he turned, unable to meet her eyes.
Stickley through off her headset communicators and turned her gaze away.
After all that, they'd lost everyone.
Author's Note: Oh don't start fussing you know they really didn't! This happened in the movie. Don't flip, everyone will be okay. Yes even the unconscious Zimsky. ^_^ Ciao, mes amis. Two more chapters left.
