The deafening roar of the rockets fills the cabin of the spacecraft, drowning out Damien’s beating heart. His eyes trail to his left towards Anya who was calm and collected in her seats and still monitoring rocket parameters as the ship pushes through the atmosphere. Damien could barely hear Isaac, the crew’s anthropologist and historian’s, scared voice cursing from the row behind him.

Through the front windscreen of the spacecraft, Damien watched the ship cut through the clouds like a knife through butter. As the ship pushes through the clouds the turbulence intensifies, shaking the whole cabin before calming down as they breach the low hanging layer of clouds. Light filled the cabin, and the scenery was a sight to behold. Below the clouds, the air was polluted, and the sky was coloured maroon with radioactive particles, but up here above the clouds the sky looked almost blue. It was just like how he remembered them when he was a child. A few kilometres above them were another cloud layer as well, making it feel like they were in a spiralling cloud tunnel of sorts. The sun was slowly rising over the horizon of the cloud layer, shining brilliantly over this celestial like cloud tunnel.

This breathtaking view only steeled his resolve, when he reaches Kepler-186f, he is going to lead humanity from a different path from those selfish bastards they have left behind.

Before they reached the next cloud layer, a reverberating ‘thunk!’ was heard as the first rocket booster had finally run out of fuel and has detached itself from the craft, falling back down to the earth. After breaching the second cloud layer, the astronauts could see the edge of Earth’s atmosphere, where the blue met black. The streaks of heat caused by friction that was seen at the sides of the windscreen began to die down as temperature the temperature dropped and the also to the lack of particles around the ship to cause friction.

And then it happened, the loss of gravity. As the nose of the spacecraft pushed into this infinite darkness, an odd feeling overcomes the astronauts. Damien watched as his arms that would normally be rested beside him began to slowly rise. He did not make efforts to move them and watched curiously and excitedly as his hands suspended in space. The crew had practiced in the anti-gravity chambers during their training but to experience it in real life blew his mind.

Anya on the other hand had both her hands on the ship’s control system and begins flipping the switch for the radio.

“This is Anya to ground control, we have breached Earth’s atmosphere safely. Initiating A.I. piloting.” She says out in her thick Russian accent, into the radio.

The radio crackles before a static version of Raj’s voice appears through it, “Thank heavens! We will not be able to contact you …. you reach the jump coordinates, so this …. the last time we… You are…. Hope!... Don’t forget … send Christmas cards!”

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It garnered a few chuckles from the crew before the radiation in the atmosphere prevented any further transmission from ground control. The crew knew that this was it, this was their last contact with Earth for a long time, if not, forever.

Nia, the crew’s engineer begins typing into a keyboard in front of her as she begins initiating space travel protocols. A second “thunk!” was heard as the last booster is detached from the spacecraft, followed by a booting jingle of the ship’s systems.

“Hello astronauts! I am ECHO, the ship’s Artificial Intelligence. I have been tasked by creator, Raj, to guide you to the lightspeed jump coordinates. I am also part of the ships framework and contain an extensive database of encyclopaedic knowledge. Feel free to ask me any questions and I will answer to my best ability.”, the robotic but feminine voice fills the cabin room.

The presence of an A.I. garnered some murmurs from behind Damien, both of excitement and uncertainty.

Without wasting time Anya instructs ECHO to begin flight to the jump coordinates and to recalibrate the gravity of the spacecraft. Within a few minutes the odd floating feeling disappears as the astronauts’ arms begin to float down to their armrests. The spacecraft, which was floating in Earth’s orbit, begins to recalibrate its direction, towards the sun. The ship began pushing forward as its engine starts up. Unlike the roar of the external rocket boosters, the ship’s engine exuded a soft low hum.

“Trajectory recalibration completed. Autopilot has been initiated. Estimated arrival at jump coordinates is 13 days 4 hours and 35 minutes. The crew is free to move around the ship as they pleased. I am accessible from any terminal on the ship if required. Have a pleasant flight.”, ECHO voices out, before the seatbelts holding the astronauts click and release them from their chairs.

Damien gets up to look behind him to see the crew begin to stand up and chatting with a silly grin amongst themselves. Everyone was finally releasing the pent-up excitement within them. Even the scared Isaac was looking around and through the windows with curiosity and bewilderment. He looked back to Anya, who has yet to get up from her seat.

“Anya, the rest are going to explore the rest of the ship. You coming?”, Damien asks.

“I… No. I feel much better if I know if someone is in the pilot seat. It feels strange letting the computer do all the work...”, she replies with her eyes trained to the darkness beyond the glass screen.

“Pilot Aya, you do not need to worry about the autopilot system, It has been tried and tested countless of times. I am the amalgamation of 248 failures and 14 successes.” The robotic voice chimed in.

“That… actually worries me even more ECHO” she replies, with a worried smile. “Please Damien, you do not need to worry about me. I like the quiet. If anything, ECHO can keep me company.” She shooed him away with a hand gesture.

Damien nodded and turned to join the rest of the crew in exploring the ship. After a brief tour, with ECHO guiding them through using the ship’s speakers to project its voice, Damien finally crashes into the cubicle named captain’s quarters. It had one bed a desk and a personal bathroom. Meanwhile the rest of the crew had to share their rooms with another crewmate. He pulled out the rubber ball from his backpack and began bouncing it against the wall to calm himself down from the high. He finally did it. He got off Earth. He was going to survive.