We were nearing launch time again. We were counting down the last 10 minutes as the computer system worked its way through the last of the operations. Due to the time of day, we had to change the angle of the road to match the path of the asteroid. The captain was sitting nervously in the craft on the pad.
We really didn't know how this was going to go. I had assumed this machine had been used to transport people off of this planet, but I didn't know that for sure. We were all concerned that the craft would make it to the destination but the captain might die from the journey. We didn't really know what happened to the molecules are they were disassembled and resembled elsewhere. For all we knew DNA was too complicated to put back together again. But we tried not to focus on that.
2 minutes to go. In some ways preparation had been much easier than the previous attempt. I had gained experience, and it was helpful to have the crew to help me ready the equipment.
30 seconds to go. As far as we could tell everything was working. The arches were fully charged, prepared to hurl the craft at the sphere.
We radioed the captain to see if he was ready. He said no, but he was going to do it anyway.
The craft was propelled down the roadway and was followed by a brief flash of light.
The craft was gone.
