A broad smile covered his face. "Can we get a round of applause, people? That's what I thought!" Chris laughed, putting the camera back on its stand. "Thank you, thank you, no, really, thank you, I couldn't have done it without your support." He bowed dramatically.

"On a serious note though... look around. He took the camera off the standard again and slowly motioned it in a circle. "Launch site: finished. It took me a bit longer than I had originally planned, but there was a slight miscalculation with the angle of the tower supporting the missile, so I had to fix that..." He walked to the table he had put there earlier and grabbed a chair to sit on.

"I'm basically ready now. Or well, the preparations are ready. I don't think I'll ever be. All those years... all those years and it's going to depend on the few hours, on the few minutes up there. Maybe even seconds. Somewhat depressing to think about, you know? Was every step along the road necessary? More importantly, is it even going to pay off? I don't know. And I won't know until I get up there and do it." He scratched his nose.

"I've set the date. I'm going in a week. I've packed every piece of equipment I could ever need. C-7 and C-8 are going with me. The departure and travel to the destination are done mostly on automatic pilot... The last hours of the trip I'll manually check every step along the way. Especially the part when the WHM is going to arrive. The assembly... the calculations should be flawless." He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Whatever's going to end up happening, I hope I'm ready for it. That's all I can say it this point. I hope I'm going to pull through. If I do..." he paused.

"There are many questions left unanswered. I worry that even if I survive, they'll remain unanswered. There's something about that planet. Why Earth? Why the time stop? Who, more importantly, why?" He softly chewed on his lower lip.

"A week. I hope that in a week from now, I'm alive, I'm on Earth, and all these questions are answered. Optimistic, I know. But now... I just have to have faith, you know? Believe." He scratched his eyebrow.

"One week. All or nothing. Even though I'm scared as hell, I can't wait. It's what this has all been about. Every hour of work has built up to this. I'm almost ready. There's... there's just one more thing I have to do before I go."