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window. The blue of the sky began to recede, first becoming an indigo before finally giving way to black.
    Suddenly, the engines stopped. It took Craig a moment to accept that the silence wasn’t simply the result of the engines having been switched off; it was the silence of space that was so unsettling. There was no more shimmering and shuddering of the fuselage through turbulence, no more sounds of wind drag stressing the wings. SpaceShip3 was now living up to its name, a ship in space, the truly endless ocean of blackness enveloping Craig for the first time in his life.
    “You’re an astronaut now, Doc,” Commander Wilson observed, his tone cheerful. Craig looked up to see his commander unstrapping from his seat at the front of the cabin and floating free in the microgravity of sub-orbit. “Congratulations.”
    Craig wanted to reply, but there were no sufficient words. Instead, his breath caught in his mouth. He hurriedly unbuckled his own seatbelt and stepped up quickly, amazed that the floor didn’t welcome him as it had every other moment of his life. Instead, it let him go, his body floating freely through the cabin. “My God,” he whispered.
    “Boys, remove the seats,” Wilson ordered the rest of the team. Each of them, already unharnessed and floating through the cabin, began detaching the seats from the floor of the ship. “Doc, you’re with me. It’s time you got briefed.”

7
    “Twenty-three hours, twelve minutes, and...” Wilson checked the time readout on his aug glasses. “...and thirty seconds ago, the USS Independence fired a Trident 2 missile toward Shenzhen, which is, as you now know, our drop point.”
    Craig swallowed hard when he heard his fears confirmed. “Holy hell. Trident 2s are equipped with sixteen separate warheads.” Sam was right , he thought. They’re going to drop me right into nuclear fallout.
    “That’s right,” Wilson replied. The screen at the front of the ship showed a top view map of the missile’s trajectory. “It split into sixteen, with one warhead hitting its true target and the other fifteen forming a perimeter 200 miles in diameter—basically, the manmade gates of Hell.”
    “What was the true target?”
    “Hopefully, the Chinese A.I. mainframe.”
    Craig was silent for a moment. “Holy hell.”
    “You said that already,” Wilson replied with a grin as he slapped Craig hard on the back. “This is the big one, Doc, but with all the secrecy beforehand, I’m sure you already had your suspicions.”
    “I did. It’s something else to have it confirmed, however.”
    Wilson nodded, though the muscles near his eyes tightened ever so slightly, making Craig suspect he was being read. “Intelligence believes the A.I. mainframe was located in a bunker about one kilometer below the surface. Our mission is to get in, get boots on the ground, and assess whether or not the strike was effective or ineffective. Basically, to provide ocular proof that the Chinese A.I. threat has been eliminated.”
    “Why can’t that be confirmed with satellites?”
    Wilson turned to the screen and swiped it, bringing up a live satellite image of the east coast of mainland China.
    Craig let out a low whistle in response to seeing the image. A colossal dust cloud larger than the state of Texas had enveloped the area, making it impossible for the satellite to peer through. “Dear Lord. This is...Biblical.”
    “What you are seeing is the result of decades of desertification in China, combined with sixteen nuclear detonations sending yellow dust into the sky. Even with the best resolution in the world, there’s no way we can confirm the kill from space,” Wilson further explained. “The Joint Chiefs don’t trust drones either, and if we don’t get in there and confirm the kill, the Chinese may be able to recover the A.I. or the wreckage and reconstitute somewhere else. As you can see, this mission is as top secret and high priority as they get. If we’re successful, this