Hamartia

Hamartia - Part 2

"That's not gone well!" Ty shouted over the roar of Hamartia's failing engine.

Mikaela frantically pushed the buttons that gave her manual flight control. Everything around her was a frenzy of blinking warning lights. The harsh BLARK BLARK BLARK of the warning siren pierced her ears. Through the viewport, she could see they were thundering toward some unknown planet. The Hamartia was off axis, spinning wildly.

"I have to cut the train!" she shouted as the ship shrieked in pain.

She turned and punched in a code to slam the door behind them closed, cutting off the command pod from the rest of the Hamartia and the ice train. An ear piercing hiss preceded a loud clunk as the command pod rocketed forward.

"Full disconnect!" she shouted over the raucous clamor. "We're free!"

More warning lights and sirens erupted as hot flames licked over the window, signaling they'd entered the first layers of the planet's atmosphere.

"Now what?" Ty shouted.

"Now we fall gracefully."

They blazed through the upper layers of atmosphere, finally bursting through thick clouds to find a vibrant blue green planet.

"Mik—"

Ty's voice was cut off by the noise of yet more warning sirens. Gravity sensors. This planet felt strong. Mikaela could feel it's gravity tugging at her bones, sucking her into the chair, straight down to the planet's core. They'd need the aid of exosuits just to move around once they landed.

"Where the hell are we?" she shouted.

He scanned the read outs on several screens directly in front of his seat.

"Planet 3A," he said. "3A-RTH"

Mikaela mumbled half a dozen words and phrases that would make her uptight mother-in-law blush. The classification RTH stood for Reptilian, Terran, and Habitable. The terran and habitable designations were very good things. It meant Ty and Mikaela could land and wouldn't need life support to go outside the ship and complete repairs. The reptilian part, though, was a nuisance at best and life threatening at worst.

Mikaela hated reptile planets. All that scaly skin, clawing, and gnashing of teeth.

"Ten degrees right," Ty shouted. "Suitable FLZ."

FLZ — Flat Landing Zone.

"Got it," Mikaela screamed through gritted teeth. The flight controls felt like some sort of barely leashed wild thing, bucking and pulling against her straining arms. She fought to hold them steady, her knuckles clenched white.

The ship shuddered hard just before the engine failed completely. "Hold on!" Mikaela shouted. "Brace for impact!"

Mikaela yanked herhands from the controls, crisscrossing her arms over her chest and tucked herchin down. She clamped her eyes shut as the ship careened into the local floraand then the ground. The impact shattered through Mikaela's body, tinyexplosions rocketing up and down her spine. The ship jerked left as it hitsomething hard, then flipped on its roof, before finally shuddering to a stop.