Renegade Star (Vol 1)

Chapter 15: A Guide to Surviving a Desert Planet With Your Worst Enemy

Content warning: fear, injury, slight gore, mention of death/mortality, scifi weaponry

The transport screamed through the atmosphere. Flaming from the wings and tail, it would have struck a magnificent sight were it and its occupants not hurtling towards their nearly imminent doom. The transport shuddered, plates of metal flaking off of its hull and tumbling into the wind like scraps of paper. The temperature inside climbed higher and higher, becoming nearly unbearable as the outer hull began to incinerate. The transport was a blender and Brooke and Jax were the rocks it was about to turn into a delicious, gravelly smoothie.

Brooke yanked the throttles up, desperate to avoid the almost certain vaporization of their vehicle. Both the engines and shields had failed, leaving them with little protection from the rising temperatures and no way of pulling out the descent. Brooke's efforts were futile; there was no avoiding a crash. They careened towards the barren surface; only scathing rocks and dust to soften their impact.

Brooke abandoned the controls and stumbled to the back of the transport, head spinning. There was no preventing the crash, nothing to break the impact, assuming they didn't burn up during entry. Death was likely. Living was uncertain. Outlook grim, Brooke thought.

She grabbed a metal bar welded into the wall of the cargo hold. There was nothing to do but hang on and hope for the best. Jax staggered into the cargo hold a second after her, taking a hold of a handlebar by the doorway and pressing herself against the wall. They locked eyes for a second and Jax gave her a small nod. Perhaps an, 'It was nice working with you,' or an 'I wish I'd known you better,' or maybe even a 'Sorry you're not dying with someone else.'

Brooke squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the sweet embrace of death. The shuddering of the hull reached a crescendo, rattling loose metal plates and unsecured wing flaps, and then, suddenly, stopped completely. There was a moment, a wonderful, beautiful moment, of pure stillness. It was as if they were floating. Brooke briefly wondered if the transport was being carried up to heaven. Assuming they had made it into heaven. But the bliss was short-lived.

The ship shook violently. Brooke's world turned upside down, right side up, and inside out. Her back hit the wall, then her head, her shoulder, and then seemingly every other inch of her body. Perhaps She would not be so merciful. Something thick and wet oozed down her forehead, smearing into her eyebrow. She felt the rumble and creak of the hull reberate through bone, muscle, tissue. Her teeth vibrated in her skull like homemade maracas. It was going to rip her apart. It was going to stretch her limbs to their breaking point, crack her teeth, snap her vertebrae--Death was coming for her alive and She would not be so merciful.

A violent shudder and one final tremer and then the ship stilled. Everything was silent. The acrid smell of burnt wiring filling the air, sharp and pungent-- a much welcome reminder of life. A thick cloud of electrical smoke slunk into the back of the transport, settling wearily against the walls and leaning into the floor.

Brooke dragged herself off the floor- or rather off the wall as the shuttle had ended up mostly sideways. Her body ached and cried out, every bone rebelling, pleading with her to remain strewn on the floor. Still, her mind won, and she pulled herself up, clawing up the wall and onto her feet. She coughed, the force of it causing her entire body to contract. Her ribs and back ached with it and she spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. She wiped her mouth on her shirt, leaving a brilliant aquamarine smear.

Brooke stumbled to the front of the cargo hold, bracing herself on the edge of the doorway to the cockpit. She paused and then stepped through the doorway, having to lift her feet over one side of the wall and then duck underneath the other. She stumbled as she did so, her weight still not quite centered in her body, ankles wobbling under the pressure.