Allison took a drink of water from her water bottle and watched Pinto struggling to breathe. She looked at the countdown timer to their destination. It was like a countdown to her doom. They were going to crash. She knew that. It was just a matter of whether they’d walk away from it. The transport’s outer skin had been abused by her reckless escape from Titan and grazes from weapons. Without energy shields the thermal dispersion hull was all they had to survive atmospheric entry. She sighed and took another drink. She looked around. Dimi and Zebra were snuggled together on the floor sleeping. Miles was snoring away. She sat down beside Pinto. They had used every bit of anesthetic they could find to keep him out.
Miles began to stir. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. It was somewhat comical seeing him sprawled over a bed at least one size too small. He stood up and stretched. He motioned with his chin to Pinto. Allison shook her head.
“No change. Good or bad. Hey, we should talk.”
Miles sat down across from her.
“What’s up Allison?”
“You asked me to work as a team and be completely honest with you about how things are going.”
Allison sighed and pointed at the wall screen.
“I was looking things over again. It is really bad. If I try to land this on a planet, we are going to crash.”
Miles grinned.
“You’re a great pilot, you’ll land this thing fine.”
Allison shook her head.
“No, you don’t understand. We are going to crash. There is no avoiding it. The best I can do is try and make it a controlled crash landing.”
Miles leaned closer.
“What is wrong, maybe we can fix it.”
Allison rolled her eyes.
“I may be sixteen but I’m a professional pilot. I know these things. Just take my word for it.”
Miles shook his head.
“Nope. I refuse to believe we’re hooped. What is wrong with the ship?”
Allison sighed and walked over to the wall screen. She pressed the control to open ship diagnostics. She pointed at the screen.
“Hull and thermal protection integrity is down to 18%. We took a grazing hit when we were running that Alliance Blockade. We would want at least 30% to survive atmospheric entry without further damage from heat. The frame is twisted. Once we hit a gravity well it’s not a matter of if the ship will collapse in on itself, but when. We just have to hope it’s after we land.”
She flipped to the next screen.
“Thrustors are done I am running them at max capacity for this FTL jump so we can get Pinto help before he dies. The deceleration which is starting in about five minutes is going to burn them out. We’ll be lucky if they slow us enough to avoid being paste when we hit Sauroid Prime’s atmosphere.”
She moved to the next screen.
“Antigravs, if these were working, we’d be fine, but they took damage from weapons fire and I hit a ship or two in our escape. I can’t even tell if we have any panels left. It just reads Status: Critical. Transport’s manual says that’s less than 50% of the panels active. It was eight. That means we have three or less. We’d need five for them to be useful.”
She swept to the FTL core.
“Not that it matters but the FTL core is going to burn out when we exit FTL, I’m surprised it has lasted this long. Our foam solution sort of worked.”
She swept to the Fusion Core status. She just held her hand towards it. The entire screen was red with several flashing red warnings.
“I don’t even have to say anything about this. Its red, its bad.”
She swept to the last screen it was showing green across the board.
“Our one bit of good news. The hyper-matter waste… sorry FTL byproduct containment is green across the board. Its long burn micro-fusion core is chugging away, and the containment vessel is one hundred percent integrity. That means we could crash into a planet at a fraction of light speed, and it would survive. So, we won’t die because our atoms were suddenly annihilated, aren’t we the lucky ones. Of course, we could get the death penalty for the improper disposal of FTL byproduct, so there’s that.”
Miles shrugged.
“No problem.”
“Come again?”
Miles smiled and stood up.
“No problem, you got this. I’m going to grab a ration pack, you want something?”
Allison blinked in disbelief as the burly black bearded man wandered into the storeroom. Allison followed him.
“Did you hear a word I said? We should throw ourselves at the feet of the System’s Alliance and beg for mercy and hope they can stop us from flying off into space with a tractor beam.”
Miles shook his head.
“You’ll get us down safe. I trust you.”
He leaned down into the cooling unit while Allison stared at him in disbelief. He pulled a few of the MRE’s out and looked them over in turn.
“BMC really hates its employees. These all look like someone puked in a pouch and called it food.”
He shrugged and picked one. He tossed the rest back into the cooling unit. He put the MRE he’d selected into the microwave. He looked at Allison.
“I won’t break anything if I use this right?”
Allison shook her head. He pressed the MRE button and tapped his fingers on the counter. When it came out he picked it up and tossed it from hand to hand.
“Hot… I wonder who decided to attach heat sensors in cybernetics and attach them to our nervous system.”
He finally dropped the pouch. He picked it up and ripped it open and took a bite. He shrugged.
“Not bad, you should have one.”
“How can you eat when I told you, we’re all going to die in a horrible crash?”
Miles took another bite.
“One of two things is going to happen, we crash and burn, or we survive. If it’s the first one I won’t care if I ate. If it’s the second about an hour afterwards, I’m going to say: Gee, I’m glad I had that meal.”
Allison threw her hands up.
“How are you so… positive? You have literally been waiting for twenty plus years for a girl who is by all accounts never coming back.”
Miles took another bite.
“She’s going to be back; Do you know why I know?”
Allison shook her head. He pointed the remainder of his MRE packet at her.
“Because she promised she would be. Hazel never breaks a promise. I will wait until my death bed if I have to, she will come back.”
Allison caught a good whiff of his food. She felt her stomach grumbling. The last thing she had was that really sad burger from Mar’s Burger. She walked to the cooling unit and looked through the selection. Fried Rice and Chicken. She wrinkled her nose it had peas. Chicken Pot pie. That also had peas. Mac and Cheese. She didn’t grab that, not enough protein. Roast chicken and mashed potatoes… and peas. Finally, she found a breakfast burrito. She grabbed one and put it in the microwave. She waited for it to finish. She popped the door open and waited a couple of minutes before pulling it out and tearing open the package. It did not look appetizing at all. She wrinkled her nose and took a bite. She took another bite and ate it quickly. It tasted pretty good.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“See, I bet you feel better.”
Allison nodded. She looked at the sleeping Dimi and Zebra.
“Shouldn’t we include them in the decision?”
Miles shook his head.
“They’ll choose to land, it will just take them a bit to get around to it.”
Allison pointed at Pinto.
“He is not likely to survive. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Miles nodded.
“You don’t become a legend by playing it safe, Allison. I thought you knew that already.”
Allison closed her eyes then looked up at the top of the ship.
“Half of what the President said was complete bullshit.”
Miles shrugged.
“I’m just saying a girl who would detonate a bomb that can blow a planet in half while she’s still in the blast radius, now that’s a girl who knows how to live on the edge.”
Allison frowned.
“Billions of lives were on the line. It’s not the same. This is a meaningless death.”
“Hey, you can surrender to System’s Alliance. I’m sure they’ll let you keep flying starfighters for them after this.”
“You… owe me big time. All of you do. If we survive.”
Miles chuckled.
“True. You got us out of jail. You could have just left with the cargo. I wouldn’t have blamed you either.”
Allison wagged her finger at him.
“If I didn’t have to rescue you idiots, the Ident chit would have worked, and we’d have been there already. I could have avoided this entire nightmare. Which two of you were wanted for what was it… public… incident exposure, whatever?”
Mile’s eyes darted to Dimi and Zebra. Allison gasped.
“Why? How?”
“Well, you see, young lady, when a boy and a girl like each other…”
Miles waved his hand.
“Nah, I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
Allison punched him in the chest.
“Jerk.”
Miles laughed. Allison walked away giving him the finger without looking in his direction. She slipped into the pilot’s seat and started a system check. She knew what it was going to say, but the routine made her feel better. She started preparing the ship for atmospheric entry. She checked the water reserves. They had almost full tanks. She decided she’d dump anything volatile, except the antimatter before they hit atmosphere.
She swept her hands across the controls, swiping through the list of all the commands she could issue. She saw water temperature as a setting. She smiled and moved it all the way down to near zero. She then checked the fusion reactor coolant levels; They were nearly full. She moved the commands to dump water and reactor coolant to her control surface. She found the command to do an emergency kill on the reactor, she added that to her control surface. She found the dump reactant command buttons and added them as well.
She switched to her AR HUD and started running reentry simulations based on the ship’s mass and shape. She had it run a hundred attempts. Then she added in using the near zero kelvin fusion reactor coolant and water to cool the hull at critical points during reentry. That added a whole sixty percent to their survival chances. She looked for optimal hull temperatures to do the dumps. Landing in one piece would highly depend on prevailing winds and air pressure. Neither of which she had any data on. Allison looked at the countdown timer. Fifteen minutes until they crashed.
Miles came in and sat in the co-pilot’s seat.
“Have Pinto secured. Dimi and Zebra are strapped in. Dimi refused to be up here, so you’re stuck with me. How’s it looking?”
“I think I can get us into the lower atmosphere without burning up. The rest.”
Allison shrugged.
“Depends on the weather.”
Miles glanced at her.
“The weather?”
Allison motioned to the front of the transport.
“This thing isn’t exactly aerodynamic. If winds are high enough and there is enough air pressure, we might be able to glide a bit. Like a really big, ugly kite.”
“Kite? What’s that?”
“You know, you attach fabric to sticks and put them on string. Let it float on the wind?”
Miles snapped his fingers.
“Hey like that Ben Franklin guy. Cool. How do you know about them?”
Allison looked at him in disbelief.
“I grew up on a colony, no dome. Have you ever seen a real sky?”
Miles shrugged.
“Nah.”
Allison looked down at her control panel then back at him.
“They’re big. Try not to pee yourself when you look up. Or like when I’m landing.”
Miles laughed then he got a serious look on his face.
“Hey, in case we don’t make it, I just want to say, Hazel, her stepmom and her mom would love that you got their apartment. You’re their kind of person.”
Allison blushed, then looked at him.
“Wait, Hazel had two moms?”
“Yep, Enid Aurelius and Amee Jace. Power couple. One was the Vampire Empress and the other was the fricking president of an intergalactic power. Visiting her house was always the worst.”
Allison gave him a strange look. Then she shook her head. Nah, no way the president could be infested with nanites, she’d have been caught fast. She laughed and shook her head again. Miles pointed to the countdown.
“Hey, what’s so funny? Make me laugh before I die horribly, come on.”
Allison waved her hand.
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on, share it with the class.”
Allison bit her lower lip.
“I’ve been told my biological parents were two women. I’m half vampire. It’s stupid. No way I’m the daughter of the Dark Mother and the last President. Ridiculous. I’d be living in some penthouse with round-the-clock guards. Just stupid teenage girl fantasy.”
The timer started flashing. The transport tore out of hyperspace, and she started dumping reactant almost immediately. She hit the retro thrustors. She got no response. She hadn’t been expecting any. She hit comms.
“Mayday, mayday, this is BMC Cargo Transport Tango-9-Bravo-Charlie-3-4, our thrustors are inoperable, our antigrav system is compromised and we have an injured crew member on board. We are unable to decelerate under our own power. We are going to use the atmosphere to reduce our velocity. I repeat mayday, mayday.”
Allison set the message to repeat. The main thrustors were completely done. She still had maneuvering thrustors. She started using them to angle the transport for reentry. Miles grabbed onto his control panel. The ship slammed into the atmosphere. Hull integrity alerts started flashing on her HUD. She ignored them. It was too late now. Pieces were starting to fly off and the ship was creaking. She waited until the hull temperature was showing critical and dumped the fusion reactor coolant. Thermal warnings stopped flashing. The ship started to heat up again, she waited until she dare not wait any longer and dumped the water supply.
She looked at the altimeter and airspeed readouts. Things were not going well, they still had way too much airspeed. The ship would not survive the crash. The view port cracked when the ship creaked and shuddered again. Rain started slashing at the view port. Water started leaking in through the cracks and the compromised hull. Allison looked over at Miles and shook her head. He nodded.
“We gave it our best shot.”
Allison nodded. She was looking at the ship’s limited topographical scan readouts. If she couldn’t save them, she could at least avoid killing anyone else. She hit the maneuvering thrustors to align them with the shadow rift. More pieces flew off the transport. She closed her eyes and gave one last desperate prayer to whoever would listen. She opened her eyes when she heard the rain stop and the ship stop creaking. A shimmering bubble had engulfed the transport. She heard Bits voice come through comms.
“What is it with you and destroying ships you’re still in?”
Allison cheered. The transport covered by Bits extended shields smashed through several hundred-foot-wide trees and came to rest near the edge of the temple grounds. Half a kilometer ahead of them, the Temple of the Universe rose above the jungle. Bit landed beside the grounded transport. Allison unstrapped herself and tugged on Miles’s arm.
“Let’s go. Bit can get Pinto to the station.”
Miles rushed after Allison. The transport was in ruins. Wires and fallen debris hung from the top of the transport. It was twisted in the middle. Dimi was helping Zebra out of her seat. Both had more cuts and bruises than they had before. Dimi grabbed Allison’s arms and shook her.
“You crazy girl! I thought we was dead! You did it!”
Allison held up her hands.
“Celebrate later. Right now, we need to get Pinto into my fighter, get the cargo to the temple and away from this thing before System’s Alliance responds.”
Dimi nodded. Allison motioned for Miles. He helped her pick up Pinto. He was still breathing, but he was struggling. The pair carried Pinto to Bit who opened the cockpit. Allison and Miles struggled to get Pinto into the cockpit. Allison patted Bit’s black liquid metal skin.
“Bit, please get him to the station.”
She swept her scans of Pinto at Bit. Bit responded.
“I’ll take care of it. Don’t go anywhere while I’m gone.”
Allison hopped down and backed away. Bit lifted off and went ballistic. Miles looked around and then let loose a loud cheer. By this time a group of Sauroids and Humans in priestess robes were converging on them. They wordlessly rushed forward to help Dimi and Allison carry the heavy iron cylinder and crate towards the temple.
*****
Olga glanced back at the temple and shook her head. She’d never been to another solar system before. She ran her hand over the cracked view port of the transport. She was on comms with her benefactor.
“Target has landed. She’s unharmed. She just rushed off with a bunch of the dinosaurs.”
Maria interjected.
“Sauroids.”
Olga climbed into the twisted wreckage. It had already started collapsing in on itself. She poked through the remnants, spotted a pink water bottle and picked it up. She walked up to the cockpit and looked around. She chuckled and picked up a broken data tap. Then she reached under the center console and pulled out the micro-fusion core. She tossed it up and down in her hand as she looked around further.
“Not much here to trace back to her.”
She walked to a console. It still had power somehow. She typed a few commands and the screen started to flicker and then it showed that it was deleting all data. Finally, it counted down to zero and sparks flew from the data storage for the transport.
“Nothing should lead back to the target. Should I return their stuff?”
Maria nodded.
“Go ahead. Eyre wants to speak to her, make sure she answers please.”
Olga chuckled.
“Dah, I have ways of making her talk.”
Maria laughed softly.
“Go easy on her, she’s had a rough day.”
Olga looked around the crashed transport.
“She’s a hell of a pilot though.”
“Please don’t tell her that. She doesn’t need any more ego boosts.”
“See you soon boss.”
Olga ended the call, then walked out of the wreckage and ran into a System’s Alliance Search and Rescue team. Behind which was a System’s Alliance Security Team. She motioned at the transport.
“No one’s on board. Seems like they got away.”
The lieutenant with the Security Team stepped in Olga’s way.
“You can’t just remove evidence from an active crime scene.”
Olga looked down at the water bottle and the tennis ball sized fusion core.
“Oh, these are mine. I like to stay hydrated, and I thought I might be able to get something from the computers. They were all erased and fried. Oh well.”
The lieutenant wasn’t happy with her answer.
“Identify yourself immediately.”
Olga shook her head.
“You do not want me to do that. Because if I do then my boss gets a phone call and then she gets annoyed, then your CO gets chewed out, then you get fired. Possibly arrested for treason… It’s always very messy.”
The lieutenant seemed to be about to double down then one of his subordinates whispered into his ear. He went white. He stepped aside.
“Sorry, ma’am. Uh, what exactly should the report say happened here?”
Olga looked back at the transport.
“BMC was hauling illegal cargo. They dumped it and scuttled the transport. Leaving a canister of FTL By product just sitting here where anyone could get their hands on it. That’s against the law, isn’t it?”
“Understood, ma’am.”
Olga started walking towards the Temple of the Universe tossing Dimi’s missing fusion core up and down as she went.