“Report!” Alex shouted.
Nobody answered.
His only response was nervous sounds the bridge crew couldn’t stop making. To his left he could hear a human woman struggle to keep her breathing steady. When he looked over to her, he saw her eyes were red as if she had been crying, her forehead dripped with droplets of perspiration. Her hazel brown hair, which looked to have been neatly combed back into a ponytail at one stage now looked like a frizzled mess with stray hairs reaching out in all directions. On both sides of her were two gargoyles, both male, both had similar features except one had skin that was deep purple with blue hues and the other had grey-green skin. And both officers struggled to keep their breathing in control, the purple one couldn’t stop muttering incoherent noises in a quiet tone.
In truth, Alex wasn’t sure what to expect. He was not ignorant of the nature of the neutrino radiation wake that pursued the Atlantis, but in the moment where his heart raced and his thoughts were generated at a faster rate than he could comprehend he wasn’t certain of what to expect once it did hit them. Maybe his vision would go fuzzy or perhaps electrical equipment would start shooting out sparks and arcs of electricity would dance along the surfaces of their keyboards and screens. But nothing did happen.
The Bridge became hazy as smoke from burning appliances slowly accumulated, the air became stale and stuffy. While deckhands and bridge officers coughed and hacked up whatever gunk filled their lungs, Alex looked around until he noticed the faint trails of smoke as it rose and pooled against the ceiling panels. His gaze scanned the panels until he looked up to see the ventilation extractor above him. While still hazy and just barely noticeable it was enough for Alex to see that the smoke was not getting pulled in by the HVAC system. Whether the ventilation in the bridge was faulty or the primary pumps in engineering were, it was too early for him to tell. They had already lost a considerable amount of oxygen from breaches, it slowly started to stand to reason that the life support functions were struggling to keep the internal atmosphere as normal as possible.
His gaze turned to look over Capt. Hammer; though her face remained steeled in its neutral state her knuckles bulged out of her skin as she crushed the metal armrests within her fingers in fear.
“Somebody report in!” He repeated more aggressively than he meant to. “Need a shipwide report!”
The gargoyle who couldn’t stop muttering to himself had snapped out of his stupor long enough to collect his wits. “Radiation wave passed us ten seconds ago.” His voice still came out shaky.
Samantha unbuckled herself out of her chair and circled around until she was behind Alex’s seat and placed her large paw on Alex’s injured shoulder causing him to wince in pain. He knew full well what kind of strength Samantha possessed in her grip, so he was also aware she wasn’t deliberately gripping him with her full might. But she did apply enough pressure to cause intense pain to shoot up through his neck and remind him of the souvenir that Milo had carelessly left him. Not that Samantha could have known about it. In her mind, it seemed like Alex abandoned ship and left his friend to die, and nothing he would say could change her conviction.
“Have we been dosed?” She added, her voice wavering.
A brief delay, each moment that passed brought about a new added layer of anxiety to trouble everyone’s mind. Someone could even be heard quivering as the pressure grew beyond their ability to handle. The same deep purple-blue Gargoyle responded. “Negative, ma’am. The asteroid absorbed it all. We’re clean.”
Both commanding officers eased their bodies simultaneously, letting out a breath that neither knew they were holding. Alex’s gut took a moment longer to cease cramping intensely and let him think clearly.
“Do we have any cameras left near the aliens or did we use them all up?” Alex asked.
He could see in the corner of his eye, Samantha looking at him with an expression that gave him his answer. Only for another bridge officer to confirm it after a short pause. The Lykan captain took two steps ahead and faced Alex.
“That was all of them.” She said. “We have no more missiles or nukes left.”
“Bullets and Gauss rounds?”
Samantha gently shook her head.
Alex uttered his response with the only Draconic swear word he knew how to use properly while he ran a hand over his mouth as he contemplated their situation. No more munitions, their engines were badly damaged, significant damage to structural integrity and multiple compartments depressurised or leaking atmosphere. All they had were their eyes and whatever external cameras that weren’t damaged.
Their situation wasn’t looking good, everyone knew that. But in that instance, he had an idea of what they could do.
“We are gonna have to show our heads and see for ourselves.” Alex said. Already he felt like it was the worst idea.
Samantha’s ears perked up as she heard this. She narrowed her eyes as her jaw slackened to scoff at him. However, she stopped herself just short of doing so. Without any objections, Alex got out of his seat and took five steps ahead until he closed in behind Clemens before addressing him.
“Helm, manoeuvre us just enough to see beyond the rock so we can evaluate the situation. Then we can hide back before they notice us.”
Clemens spun around to make eye contact with his captain. Clemens’ bright blue eyes were filled with disbelief at the order, then his eyes shifted to something behind Alex, which turned out to be Samantha as she then spoke up. “Clemens, use chemical thrusters to push us out of cover. Not to much. We want to be able to hide quickly in case we are going to be discovered.”
“… Aye ma’am.” Clemens said, his voice trembling with uncertainty.
Everyone present kept their gaze affixed to the front of the bridge looking outwards. Alex’s stomach tightened once again as the ship gently glided to the side. Everyone kept their gaze focused on watching the various mountains and craters on the surface sliding past. The edge drew closer until the Atlantis glided through space on inertia. Each second took the Atlantis a few hundred meters closer, each second stretched out and dilated to the point that Alex could have sworn each one was at least a minute long. The edge of the asteroid slid across the bridge and was replaced with the blackness of space.
Blue ribbons of ionised plasma stretched out and arced from a central focal point of a cloud of the superheated plasma. Bright specks of orange was speckled throughout the cloud. The blue haze made any attempts to visually inspect the region challenging, several asteroids that were close to the centre glowed with warm orange tones. Some were bright enough to be mistaken for orange stars in the distance were it not for their ovoid shapes.
“No way those fuckin’ gits survived.” Clemens said through gritted teeth.
“Don’t jinx us, Clemens.” Samantha said.
“Lets bet on it then; they survive and I’ll let you, Corvette Captain Hammer, give me a good nip on the arm. Full lycanthropy, consequence-free transmutation, no charges.”
She chuckled as did a few others on the bridge. Everyone could tell he was joking. An attempt to lighten the mood and keep everyone’s nerves calm and collected. Though Alex had to wonder if he wasn’t, sure he was a bit quick to act before thinking and was willing to do anything on a dare, but would he really want to undergo TM?
“Ma’am, I have visual feed on the impact coordinates.” A human officer said.
Samantha gestured to put it up on the window in front of everyone. She started towards it then stopped as she got close to Alex. The bright blue haze permeated the entirety of the screen, dozens of asteroids glowed brightly. Those that weren’t superheated by the plasmatic efflux were thrust aside with great force and shattered into over a thousand pebble-sized bright hot projectiles ready to pelt the Atlantis and render her dead in the proverbial water.
Clemens stood up out of his chair, his arms threw themselves up while he groaned loudly. “Oh, fuck off!”
The glass window was obstructed as a projection zoomed in on the focal point of their nuclear assault. Radiation disrupted the signal on the monitor as it flickered but not too greatly to disrupt the signal. However, in that instance, everyone present was wishing it had obscured the alien ship better. The vessel spun dangerously on its central axis, its hull glowed just like the asteroids nearby, massive chunks of its hull were gone, internal structural supports jutted out with white-hot tips, and massive plumes of moisture and atmosphere were sucked out. Upon leaving the safety of the alien vessel, the atmosphere ignited upon contact with the plasma and it acted nearly like a thruster that was forcing the vessel further and further into a locked high-G spin.
“Hey Clemens, where do you want me to bite you?” Samantha coyly smirked.
He shot a glance over to her with a threatening glare then spoke through gritted teeth. “Oh, I know where you can bite me.”
“Does anybody know how we are going to finish these fuckers off when we have no munitions, no radio to call for help and no reinforcements that know of our situation?” Alex asked.
Samantha placed one hand on her hips and pointed at the display with the other. “Looks like we won’t have to do much; we just wait for their atmosphere to leak out and suffocate the crew. We go home, get some time off and have our ship repaired. Job done.”
Alex shook his head at the naivety of his Lykan counterpart. “Just one of those things survived on a depressurized freighter for weeks with nothing to eat.” He said with a raised finger. “When they boarded the Phoenix I tried to subdue one with a rigged gravity plate to crush it under its own exoskeleton and it was still standing. Barely, but only still. Whether they can still breathe or not isn’t a factor I am willing to count on.”
The crew looked at each other with quizzical looks, then simultaneously refocused on the monitor. A sense of malaise was shared among the bridge crew.
“Wait.” Clemens said so suddenly that it made Alex jump. “Hammer, is this ship equipped with magnetic tow cables?”
“M-magnetic tow- what?”
Alex crossed his arms across his chest, and with a raised eyebrow he kept a close watch to see where the conversation was going.
Just where the Hell are you going with this?
After adjusting his posture so he could face the two commanding officers better while he elaborated on where he was going with this. Already Alex could see the gears in his head turning. “This is a mid-range Nova class Corvette. Now, the Nova class wasn’t built from the ground up like normal. The designers just took the decommissioned fleet of Oberth class patrol boats and stretched out their chassis, threw on some larger engines and some more weapons and called it a new design. But they did leave the tow cables on the Nova class.”
Samantha shrugged. “Yeah, so what does this have to do with our little predicament?”
Suddenly it clicked inside Alex’s mind.
“We could drag the remains of the ship and slam it against one of these asteroids! If they are unable to stop their spin then they’d be helpless against being thrown on a collision course.”
Clemens snapped his fingers. “Exactly!”
Samantha grinned proudly then ordered Clemens to fire up the engines, followed by giving the order to prepare the tow cables. The whole process took nearly ten minutes to prepare, the engines hummed to life once again, and reports came in from all over the ship with updates on the repairs to the Atlantis. Benner had messaged Samantha that he was able to stabilise the reactor as best he could. Followed by the advice of keeping the ship from sustaining further damage as soon as possible.
If they were lucky to make it that far that is.
While he closely monitored Clemens and relayed information to him from the navigation computer, Samantha called out for him. He turned to face her to see what it was that she wanted. “What is it, Captain Hammer?”
Her lips curled upward ever so slightly to form a grin that she tried to suppress. “Captain Rowan, would you kindly man the tow cable’s operator station?”
There was no reason for her to be so formal with him. They were both the same rank, he had more experience than her, he has superiority over her in that regard. Granted the vessel belonged to her and therefore she had the utmost say. But even still, Alex found the formality to be quite unusual as she politely ordered him to man the station. It had only taken him a second for him to figure it out; she wasn’t ordering him as captain of this ship. She was offering him the chance to get revenge, to make things right, and he was going to take it.
He nodded in response.
Unbeknownst to him, his lip started to smirk just as Samantha’s had as he made his way over to a vacant workstation that she had set up to operate as the tow cable operator. Upon sitting down, he casted Samantha a quick glance, it was only for the briefest moment but Alex could have sworn he saw something that resembled an apologetic glint in Samantha’s eye. Perhaps it was her showing guilt for her earlier outburst, an apology that was born out of an understanding of their current situation, that it wasn’t really his fault he lost the Phoenix and his best friend.
He began a systems check on the cannon and workstation system before strapping himself in to the chair. Samantha wasted no time ordering Clemens to take the Atlantis out of hiding and on an intercept course with the aliens. The ship shook and rattled as the engines fired, beams of reinforced steel croaked under duress that would not have been considered problematic under any other circumstance. He felt his stomach shift first before his body jerked to the side by the force of the engines.
His terminal screen showed a targeting system set up with the software for the magnetic grapplers booting up. But aside from the targeting interface he couldn’t see anything.
“Deploy grappler cannon, Captain.” Samantha ordered.
Oh, of course. That’s why he didn’t see anything.
Alex tapped on the screen to deploy the canno and the camera went from black to blinding white as it lowered and appeared out from under the ventral hull of the Atlantis. He was able to zoom in on the screen until he had located the alien vessel. It still looked just as before with a haze of blue plasma surrounding a stretched-out, hourglass-looking ship that spun awkwardly and with increasing pace as its atmosphere worked against the occupants.
He looked back to Samantha. “Grappler cannon deployed, ma’am.”
The path to the aliens seemed more straightforward than Alex recalled it being when they retreated from them. Nevertheless, he kept his targeting reticule on the least moving part of the alien vessel which had been the very centre of the ship. They dodged through a dozen asteroids before hiding behind one large enough to hide the Atlantis but now it seemed like a linear path had been cleared for them from the sheer force of the nukes.
“Get ready to fire.” Samantha said.
Three kilometres of cables was all they had. The distance between them closed, each second that passed the Atlantis had covered a few kilometres worth of distance, tension among the crew was felt and Alex felt his lower gut painfully twist itself into a knot inside him. The anticipation was forcing his hands to jitter while they gripped the grappler’s control stick. Thankfully the screen didn’t jitter.
Less than fifty kilometres away the Atlantis closed in on the kill. On both his sides Alex kept tabs on the remaining sensory equipment onboard the Atlantis in case the aliens were faking their distress. What a way to lure your opponents into a sense of confidence, what better way to convince your opponent you’re vulnerable than by placing yourself and your crew in a dangerous and compromising manoeuvre that runs the high risk of doing your enemy’s job for them? Granted, their hardiness and relentlessness was an admiring trait and they seemed to be capable and intelligent enough if they were able to pursue the Atlantis and launch assaults. But to deliberately place yourself and ship in a compromising position and hope that your enemy would take the bait, was borderline risky at best.
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Twenty kilometres now. Alex checked his aim, took in a deep breath and steadied his hands.
Then with a guttural growl followed by a ferocious bellow escaping her muzzle Samantha had shouted. “FIRE!”
Lightening shot through his arms and into his fingertips causing him to squeeze the trigger on the control throttle. The monitor beeped in response and Alex saw the grappler fire its cables towards the alien ship. His heart pounded in his chest as he watched them cable whizz out of the barrels and the grapplers grow ever more distant.
Ten seconds went by, then another beep from the display monitor sounded off. The grapplers made contact with the hull and the connection was secured. Alex’s heart had almost leapt out of his throat with triumph, he couldn’t help but punch the air in quiet celebration. But his celebration didn’t go alone. Several small whoops and claps of barely restrained jubilation was shared around by the other members present on the bridge.
“Ensign Clemens,” Samantha, while sounding pleased with herself as she addressed him. “Find us a large rock to introduce these bastards too.”
“With pleasure, ma’am.” Clemens said with the most enthusiasm Alex has ever heard from the pilot.
“Captain Rowan,” Samantha continued. “Prepare to cut the tow cables on my mark.”
Alex barely hid his smirk after hearing that.
His stomach shifted as the Atlantis rolled to its left and adjusted its heading. The Atlantis’ inertia pulled Alex forward as something held the ship back, Clemens compensated by pushing the acceleration throttle further away from him. In response the sound of the engines humming grew louder as they expelled more power. Alex inspected his terminal to see the cables holding the alien ship slowly shook as the tension dramatically increased.
“Clemens, ease up on the engines. We’re burning too hot!” Samantha said.
Clemens acknowledged.
Nevertheless, Alex kept an eye on the grappler cannon’s camera, his eye was drawn to something shimmering on the screen, he leaned in closer to the monitor and saw one of the cables shifting.
Weird, is that grappler coming loose?
He scrolled on the display to zoom in on where the cables had impacted, the picture quality was fuzzy from all the radiation and damaged wiring throughout the ship but he was sure that something was going on with the cable. He checked the grappler’s status and it reported back that it still maintained a solid connection to the vessel. At least that would rule out that it was about to come off. The cable shook once again, this time more exaggerated than before. It left no room for doubt that something was interfering with it. After a brief second, the cable stopped shaking and went still like its parallel counterpart only for it to shake again as though someone on the other end was grabbing the entire tow cable and wobbling it.
Alex continued to scrutinise the cannon's camera feed when he spotted something on the cable; a large black mass with an hourglass body shape with sharp edges and long spindly limbs crawled up along the cable. Its front two limbs which protruded from its chest cavity held onto the cable while another set of incredibly long, bony limbs reached out ahead of it while dragging itself up along the cable which had caused it to shake as it had.
The alien creature raised its front two spindly limbs again and pulled itself forward until it was out of the shadow of the Atlantis casted over it; It had looked like the insect creatures he had seen before on the Krath’let and on the Phoenix, only this one looked much larger, almost as large as a wedge tail shuttle. It had two sets of front limbs, each tipped with two interlocking digits. The larger set reared up like an aggressive spider before swiftly coming down on the tow cable; the smaller set of limbs came out from the underneath the torso armour and had maintained a close firm grip on the cable when the larger set was raised. Its legs, at least the parts that Alex could see were more elongated and bulkier than any of its lethal appendages.
His jaw went slack as he stared at the screen.
“Captain Rowan, prepare to cut the cable.” Samantha instructed.
She made him jump in his seat, she didn’t know about the creature coming towards them.
“Capt. Hammer,” He called out, eyes remaining glued to the screen. “They’re trying to climb through the cable!”
“Shit… SHIT! “ She cursed as she slammed her fist into the armrest. “Then cut the cable on my mark. Clemens get us towards to that asteroid bearing at thirty degrees starboard, positive elevation seventy degrees.”
The ship turned slightly then the inertia settled itself into a steady direction. Alex opened the grapplers settings and readied the option for the cable to be severed. His fingers shook as he watched the taut cable shake from the force of the massive creature inching closer towards them. The true size of the large mass of chitin armour and lethal appendages was exaggerated even further when he spotted smaller, familiar creatures scurrying along the cable next to the larger creature. What was this behemoth? An organic tank, some kind of heavy unit, perhaps even a specialised creature designed for dealing with lots of resistance? No, it couldn’t be if there was only one and the entire crew was abandoning their ship. Then that must mean…
“Now Rowan!” Samantha shouted. “Cut the cable!”
And he did. The screen beeped in response and a text box appeared with the words Tow Cable Severed on it.
His view on the monitor showed the cable idly drifting away from the grappler cannon, the Atlatnis adjusted its heading but the trajectory of the creatures remained on their current doomed path towards destruction. By the time the Atlantis had come about and changed their heading, he had already looked away from the monitor. Content with the knowledge that their existence was over.
He looked ahead to see the pristine untouched planet in the distance, its beautiful shades of yellow and green and red looked serene even from a distance. The vast swaths of dull grey blue oceans and lakes didn’t appeal to him in the way that those of Albali would for him, but nevertheless looked calm and still.
Alex released a breath he had been holding on to, his lower gut slowly unclenched itself once more, allowing him to arch his back up against his chair's lumbar support and let his arms fall to the floor. For the most part, his mind was finally put at ease. The crew he lost, his friend, his ship, all those lives aboard Capricorn Fleet had now been avenged. Yet, the part of him that wasn’t at ease couldn’t be so easily satisfied and he found himself trying to figure out why.
They were defeated, their ship helplessly drifting towards a large boulder. It felt too easy. As if he had needed to work harder to achieve this to make it properly right. His conscious telling him this victory had come at a price too costly for his own liking and that he was going to need more to pay it back.
He looked around the bridge to see the joyous and celebratory expressions of the crew high-fiving one another and clapping victoriously. Nobody was checking their stations, they thought they wouldn’t need to. Which is also why they were surprised when they heard a loud metallic bang. Everyone froze, a slight look of shock on their expressions and in some cases; confusion. Nobody had heard a sound like that before and it was the least of their worries, just as everyone took the time to start moving back to their stations after their victory celebration they were thrown about the bridge. An explosion that sounded like thunder banging right next to their ear drums left a deafening ring in Alex’s ears for a few seconds. He regained his senses to see the bridge in darkness with the exception of brief red flashes from the emergency lighting and the light reflecting off whatever was in front of the windows. First, it was Savannah, then it was the glittering speckled remains of one of its moons then Savannah once again.
Alex pulled himself up to inspect his terminal and access the damage control screen; It displayed an outline of all the damaged parts of the Atlantis in red. One such component was their main portside thruster and the surrounding area of the vessel. Significant, bordering on catastrophic damage had rendered the ship at only 16% operational. Inertia glided the Atlantis in a tight spin that made Alex feel his stomach roll around in his body, sickening him as his stomach tried to go up his throat, then brought back down almost immediately, then the cycle repeated once again.
“Report!” Said Samantha shocked.
“Helm control unresponsive, we’re locked in a tight roll!” Clemens said after pressing random buttons along his control panels.
“Stabilise us and put us in a steady orbit!”
Another explosion rocked the ship. Only this time it had thrown the ship sideways as it now rolled on a strange angle.
Clemens slammed his tightened fists on the console. “Dammit, that was the hydrazine ballast! Chemical thrusters have no fuel left. I’m not getting any response from primary engines or rocket thrusters!”
“What happened!?” Samantha growled.
Alex could hear her anger seething through her sharp teeth.
Without wasting any more time, Alex began scrolling through the camera’s that were facing stern, then winded the footage back to before the explosion. He winded it back to three minutes ago; where the field of asteroids grew small, a small light of golden energy shimmered amid the bright grey rocks. Immediately, without any warning the hull adjacent to the portside engine erupted into a hailstorm of metal shrapnel before the golden light in the distance fired its energy weapon at the Port engine, causing it to erupt into a brief ball of fire and slag. A brief moment later and another explosion erupted from the rear compartment. This time the explosion was magnitudes larger than whatever had just collided with the ship and in effect, destroyed the camera Alex was watching through.
Of course the bastards just had to get one last move on us!
Samantha coordinated with D.C teams in a desperate bid to fix the damage, judging from what he just witnessed there was no feasible way they were going to achieve that. She had also tried to contact Benner in the Engine Room but she got no response.
“Hammer to Engine Room, respond! Benner do you copy?” She let the question hang in the air for a moment.
“Internal sensors in the Engine Room are gone. Nearby sensors show significant damage to internal hull, rapid loss of atmo.” A Lykan female with dark brown fur spoke.
Samantha sighed exasperatingly. Even if Alex wasn’t looking directly at her he could tell she was rubbing the bridge between her eyes in frustration.
“Emergency bulkheads sealed almost immediately,” The lykan continued. “I don’t think anybody survived.”
Gone. All those people; Benner, who else was left from his own crew. Trapped and frightened as they couldn’t escape the resultant explosion from the engine. His heart ached with a pang of guilt at their losses, it became a numbing sensation, a phenomenon that scared Alex more than the creatures themselves. He turned away from his monitor and looked out at the sliding vista across the bridge windows. By now the world of Savannah had grown significantly larger than before. Clemens took notice of this and had begun to interact with his controls in a desperate plea to provoke some kind of reaction from any of the propulsion systems.
“Ensign Clemens…” Samantha said concernedly.
He waved his right hand dismissively “Yeah yeah, I know I know. I’m working on it.”
Perhaps one of the dumbest things Alex could have thought of doing at the time was unbuckling himself and talking to Samantha. But that is exactly what he did. As he made his way over to her, she snapped her head over towards his direction as he approached, for a moment she even had an expression that similarly said “What the hell are you doing, get back in your seat!” The sickening roll of his stomach and constantly shifting gravity made his form list side to side as though he was about to collapse to the ground.
“Sam,” Alex began. “ We’re caught in the gravitational well of the planet. We need to evacuate while we can.” He gestured with his outwards toward the spinning view of the planet and the shrinking remnants of the moon.
Samantha shook her head. “We can’t, half the lifeboats are destroyed and I cannot begin to guess just how many of them still have a functional ejection mechanism. Even if I gave the order we wouldn’t be able to evacuate a third of the crew.”
“Wha- So you are gonna just let us all die?” He balked. Then he scanned the remaining bridge crew and asked aloud. “Does anybody have any word on the nearby Draconic patrol!?”
Several officers looked at each other before looking at Alex and Samantha and shook their heads.
“Negative sirs, long range is gone. Short range I cannot tell if it too has been destroyed or we aren’t getting anything.” A nervous voice replied that Alex couldn’t differentiate between a male or a female officer.
Just then, a dull whirring sound could be heard amidst the chorus of panicked officers and alarms continuously ringing. Followed by a loud metallic thud then a whoop from Clemens. Alex and Samantha looked over to see him still working his controls as he laughed to himself.
“I got it!” Clemens gleefully shouted. “I’ve regained control of central and starboard engines.”
“Stabilise us Clemens!”
“Yeah, no shit!” Clemens said with a strained voice. “I’ve only got one working wing and not enough time to steady us.”
Wasting very little time, Clemens immediately grabbed the throttles with both hands and pulled the stick to the side as hard as he could. A muffled rumble could be heard from behind them and the sound of metal shuttering and creaking against the forces being placed upon them filled the bridge.
Alex felt something press into his shoulder, sharp points focusing their pressure along the site of his bite wound shot through his neck and forced him to grind his teeth together and hiss in pain in an effort to hide his pain. His knees ached and croaked in protest fiercely under the strain of additional weight that became heavier than they could tolerate as their spin steadily increased their gravitational pull.
Samantha made a swift gesture to the chair that sat adjacent to hers. “Better sit down, captain.”
Once he sat down in the dirtied leather padded chair he felt his joints give off a sigh of relief, the life-support module attached to his back begun to weigh him down and add extra weight to his shoulders. This in turn had made his wound sting more sharply than he could tolerate in the moment without compromising his focus.
Clemens continued his fervent endeavour as he toggled the control throttles around to manipulate the engines before running his bony fingers through his raven black hair and grabbing a clump of hair firmly in frustration. He did this multiple times within the span of a few minutes that it had eventually resulted in his once sharp appearance becoming more dishevelled and stressed.
The planet made another pass through their viewscreen, only this time they were close enough for Alex to make out the individual mountain ranges and small rivers snaking through the golden fields in much greater clarity than before.
A small alarm trilled but nobody paid it no mind. Truthfully nobody could care as it didn’t really matter at this point anymore. But what came as a shock to the commanding officers was that Clemens was the only one who bothered to investigate. He looked away briefly, his mouth moved, silentlyand muttered to himself.
“I don’t believe it…Perfect!” he said strangely without a hint of sarcasm, but genuine delight.
“Report!” Samantha demanded.
“Our ballast of heated hydrogen gas from the engines is full, if you can believe it. If I can time it right I might even be able to use it as a source of thrust! But one of you’s is going to have to control the release valve and expel the gas on my mark!”
Samantha deftly pulled out the arm rest mounted display case attached to her chair and pulled up the screen. After a few swipes followed by a flick of her index finger to scroll down the screen stopped to look back at her helmsman. During that time Alex had reached over and around to find the buckles to his seat and fastened them once they were secured and tightened. And in doing so had found that the central buckle started to weigh more heavily than it ought to.
“Ready on your word, Mr. Clemens.”
The young, brazen pilot from Manchester didn’t respond immediately. He looked around for a moment and took the time to assess his readings. In that instant, Alex had kept his grip on the seat, the leather croaking under the stress which was merely an indicator of the stresses everybody else was going through.
“NOW!” Clemens shouted.
Samantha tapped her screen reflexively before Clemens had even finished saying the word. In that instant, two things had happened that were of note; The first was he could hear the sound of the gas being expelled out through the pipes as a muffled whooshing sound. The second was the increased weight being placed upon him. His shoulders were weighed down, pain shooting up through his nerves, his chest cavity tightened around his delicate organs making it hard for him to breathe. Around his heart he felt a momentary throb that gripped his chest came and went with each beat of the delicate organ. The pain and aches he felt throughout his whole body, both a blessing and curse had kept him distracted from thinking of anything else.
The stars spun slowly, twinkling from distances incalculably far away and possibly dead for many years were able to remain visible to the crew for longer. Next was the moon, or at least the shattered remains of one of them came into view. It’s morbid terrifying aura could only remind him of the dangerous cat and mouse game they had played with these creatures and the remains of them splattered against the surface of one substantially sized asteroid. But even that too rolled out of view and gave room for more stars to be seen. Good riddance to the faux, baleful field of glittering rocks that hid their dreaded secret in the night sky of Savannah.
Bright blue light slowly crept in; rising from above the keel of the ship like a sun of sky blue light dawning, the blinding curvature of the atmosphere rose up and ceased its roll. The land down below looked so clear and undisturbed beneath the cloud layer. Untouched from modern civilisation, preserved in its natural state. To the top left of their view, towards the snow-capped mountain ranges crawled a billowing storm with dark grey cotton-looking clouds and intermittent flashes rolling over the jagged, craggy peaks of the mountains. Rivers snaked their way throughout the lands connecting lakes to the oceans, lakes to other lakes like veins of a larger organism circulating blood for the necessary survival of the whole ecosystem.
The whooshing sound of heat waste being purged through vents grew quieter until it turned into a wheezing sound which stopped after a few seconds.
“Excess hydrogen heat waste has been purged,” Samantha reported, her voice sounded deflated like she had finally given up hope.
She sighed resignedly. Only the sounds of metal creaking and functional systems were left.
Clemens’ shoulders drooped, his posture eased up and allowed his hands to slide from the controls and down to the side of his chair. Then he stood up from his chair pursed his hands on his hips and arched his pelvis forward. From doing so he had broken the silent ambience when he let out a groan. There, he stood front and centre at the view in front of them, the vast landscapes slowly drifted to the left at a barely noticeable pace.
“Well guys and gals…” Clemens said. “I have some good news and bad news.”
“Mr. Clemens, I order you to not have any bad news.” Alex groaned while rubbing his eyes.
“Good news is: we are along a steady trajectory and no longer spinning. Bad news? We are on a steady trajectory to the ground.”
Alex slowly lifted his head up to look at the pilot. His expression both conveyed concern and disbelief. “What do you- what are you saying, Zach?”
“Yeah…” He started rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “ Thing is I barely have any response from the thrust vanes and we have no gas for Attitude control systems. I can keep us steady on a straight path but the path is currently somewhere to the left of those mountains down there and that’s about it. I could be able to redirect the thrust to slow our re-entry but if I do it too fast or too soon we’ll drop out of the sky like a ton of bricks. Or we may end up bouncing off of the atmosphere.”
The ship shuddered in response, for a moment it seemed like even the Atlantis didn’t favour the outcomes Clemens had just said. But the shuddering increased in intensity and volume, a few small bumps could be felt, nothing but mild jostles and shakes that could be felt through the floor.
Clemens made his way back to his terminal. Then leaned over to the navigator’s workstation before retracting his upper body back into his seat. As he did so the ship gave off another bump that was more forceful than before. In fact, it was forceful enough that a ceiling panel was shaken loose and fell to the ground.
Samantha reached for the radio unit above her and pulled on the microphone speaker, setting it to broadcast all over the ship.
“All hands all hands, this is your captain speaking; brace yourselves for re-entry we may be looking at a rough ride and even rougher landing. Strap yourselves in tight and find something to help shield yourselves from the turbulence.”
After hanging the microphone back to the radio unit the vibrations in the walls and floor continued to rattle with increasing intensity. The sound of faint whooshing sounds could be heard from the walls while small wisps of moisture and air passed through any part of the Atlantis’s hull that stuck out which had created trails of moisture.
Inertial stabilisers were able to keep the G-forces at bay until now as Alex started to feel the tightening pressure on his chest. Before he would be overcome by the exceptional forces he tapped on his Wrist-Pad to engage his helmet. He felt the signature pinch on the back of his neck as it unfolded from its compartment behind his head and assembled itself around him until it had finally manipulated the face plating over his face and clicking in place to create an airtight seal with his helmet ring. The gap inside felt a little claustrophobic before his helmet visor adjusted itself and initialized his heads-up display.
He heard small clicking sounds to his right and saw Samantha had done the same thing. Her elongated helmet looked back at him and gave a slight nod.
When he looked ahead, Clemens had grabbed the throttles with both hands and began adjusting their remaining engines. The view of the landscape ahead of them, or was it below them now? Either way, it had all shifted as Clemens had the keel pointing towards the far side of the planet, the binary stars and their contrasting colours blinded Alex for a moment before his helmet automatically engaged the sun filter, allowing him to see clearer without the glare.
Trails of water vapour formed, and several small pieces of the hull were ripped off by the sheer force of atmospheric drag. He kept his cool as the ship swerved from side to side but kept its course steady under the careful, steady hand of the best pilot Alex could ever ask for. Gravity steadily pressed on his chest; each rib had become a spindly finger that groped his lungs in a firm grip.
The vista slowly curved downward, bright sunlight gleaming off the ocean filled the bridge and the bright sunlit lands occupied the view. Alarms were slowly drowned out by the roar of flames igniting off the prow, metal shuddered and groaned under extreme duress. The central buckle weight situated under his navel grew exponentially, what had started out as a small weight held in his lap soon turned into a tonne of bricks pressed on his belly, pressing in against his gut and lower intestine, squeezing the contents and cutting off blood flow. But to Alex, the pain that took prevalence over all else was the strain on his heart followed by the pressure applied to his forehead
Aches and pains filled the inside of the tightening grip in his chest, his jaws clenched with the force to grind steel into a fine powder as his skin was pulled back.
Flames suddenly erupted around the Atlantis igniting it into a fiery display of bright orange light that obscured all windows. It wasn’t long before the excessive heat that assaulted the tempered glass took its toll and the once transparent panels steadily developed spots of black scorch marks that grew to encompass the glass in its entirety. In fact, Alex was certain Clemens couldn’t see outside either and was instead flying using his gut as some primitive form of a gyroscope.
When he tried to look over to Samantha he had found it difficult to even move his eyes and it was then that he noticed the encroaching blackness surrounding his peripherals. On top of that, for the last ten seconds, he realised he had been holding his breath as the pressure applied to his body started to affect him.
Alex began a series of clenching individual muscle groups in his body in a desperate bid to manually circulate blood throughout his body, followed by pursing his lips and forcing the air out of his lungs.
His internal organs squeezed and pressed themselves up against his spine while simultaneously beginning to crawl upwards until it felt as if his stomach about to leap out of his throat. With his ascending organs, amid the uncomfortable sensation it gave Alex, he surmised the Atlantis’ re-entry was beginning to incline more towards the ground. But they couldn’t be, they still had their inertia carrying them into the atmosphere, sure they were slowing down… even if to them and observers on the ground wouldn’t believe to be the case.
Due to the restrictions, Alex couldn’t risk moving any of his limbs lest he dislocate them. Instead, in tandem with focusing on pumping his blood slowly throughout his body and whistling to force his body to breathe, he worked on the calculations in his head. If he were to assume the Atlantis was indeed starting to steepen its trajectory then the most likely reason wasn’t their acceleration or greater gravitational pull from the planet below them. Perhaps the atmosphere was denser than Terra was and it was applying more drag than he initially believed. Which might also explain why he was experiencing more G-forces than he predicted.
The re-entry burn roared and rumbled all around him, the walls reverberating, shielding the occupants from the true extent of the sound. His vision barely allowed sight to be registered, with the scorched windows all around the bridge it was next to impossible to see outside. But he was certain that the flames of re-entry were dwindling down. Natural sunlight seeped in as beams of light through whatever spots of glass remained untouched by scorching.
Clemens flipped a switch on the nearby console and the remaining blast shields descended. Projections appeared over the shield where their cameras were functioning which had created a crude, geometric depiction of the landscape and obstacles ahead of them.
The depictions of mountains rapidly approached. Alex worked hard to keep his focus, his vision grew blurry, breathing became more challenging even as he forced his breath. The voice of someone shouting could be made but not by who. Darkness closed in, colour faded from view while the pressure in his eyes felt like someone was jamming their thumbs into his sockets. All the while his capacity for rational thinking dwindled as the whine of their plummet towards the planet grew deafening.
Turbulence rocked the tattered remains of the Atlantis more violently. Metal groaned and shrieked as it was ripped off the hull. His seat jerked him upwards so suddenly that he hadn’t had the time to process it before he felt a dull sensation impacting against the side of his head. Pain had erupted from his temple but at the same time it was but a numb impact that seemed negligible. His willpower slowly slipping from his grasp.
The last thing Alex saw before his vision had left him immersed in darkness was the sight of the ground rapidly approaching them through the projection. And only a brief moment later he fell unconscious and let his body go limp.