Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight
For a second, Connor was sure he was going to be thrown against a shuttle wall. The air in his helmet was thin and hot, tainted with his own saliva, coppery as if from blood.
Maybe he’d bitten his tongue in the chaos.
But he would be fine. His armor was built to absorb the sort of impact the fall would cause. That didn’t mean it would be pleasant.
Then the shuttle dropped out from under him with a groaning of the frame, and he found himself floating over the bench rather than falling.
Which meant the rockets were off, and the shuttle was falling.
Of course, that was only a temporary delay from the impact. Eventually, the shuttle would regain thrust and would stop falling as fast as he was.
He reached out, trying to maneuver himself over the right side aisle.
Selen looked up, surprisingly calm. “What—?”
Before he could ask her if she noticed the absence of the rockets’ thrusting, violent shaking threw everyone against their harness. The curve in the ceiling that Connor had been reaching for twisted away, then slapped against his palm, sending him toward the left aisle.
Yemi’s voice crackled to life in Connor’s helmet. “Yemi tries to bring rocket to firing. Fuel indicates rocket is empty.”
All right. That was a problem
Another breakdown, although Connor hoped it was a faulty indicator rather than a real fuel issue. Alarms should have gone off if they were actually leaking fuel, and they wouldn’t have launched without a full tank.
Or at least that was what the rational voice in Connor’s head said.
Until he heard the panic in Martienne’s voice. “The indicator, it now says we have lost most of our fuel. The console is not reliable.”
Now they had a problem, and it was a lot worse than him crashing to the floor.
Once again, the shuttle shuddered.
He tried to push off from the left side wall, only to fall toward the cockpit. Through the window, a kaleidoscope of nightmarish greens and blues spun and twisted as the pilots fought against the tons of shuttle, the winds, and the increasing speed.
Then Connor banged into the corner of the bench, then against the back of Yemi’s chair.
At least the floor was in reach!
Connor grabbed the back of the co-pilot seat and pushed off until his bench seat harness smacked against his helmet’s faceplate. He grabbed at the harness, missed, then caught it with a booted toe.
Selen’s voice was a crackling growl. “This is your stupid engineer’s doing.”
“Not the time to argue.”
He pulled himself in by doing a crunch, then hooked the harness with a swipe of his hand.
That was enough to anchor him and draw him in to his seat.
Mosiah actually helped, tugging Connor close and slapping the harness into place.
But there was no time to relax or even to thank the old man, because the rumble of the shuttle engines and the roar of rockets resumed.
Martinete’s voice once again crackled in Connor’s helmet. “We must burn fuel to try to land now. Prepare yourselves.”
The only preparation anyone could make was to wrap up their harness.
If the shuttle impacted into a mountain, they would die.
If the shuttle splashed into an ocean, they would die.
Survival relied upon a pretty straightforward proposition: set down in some sort of clearing.
Would the pilots even be able to find one? In the momentary view Connor had, everything had looked like lush jungle or seas.
Still, he wrapped his arms around the harness and squeezed.
A soft vibration transitioned to rattling, then to violent shaking.
Somewhere, a soft hiss sounded, and Connor realized it was coming over the helmet speakers. The hissing grew louder, then another rumble shook the shuttle, throwing him toward the cockpit.
Maneuvering thrusters. The hiss had been some sort of feedback from activating them.
Now they dropped, his stomach flying up into his throat. He almost gagged.
But the shuttle crashed against the ground with a terrific screech of metal and popping of ceramic and composite materials.
Lights flickered, then went out.
The spacecraft shifted, groaned, then settled.
Connor popped his harness and pushed up, twisting to get a look at everyone. “Rudy—!”
“Working on it.” The sergeant was a little slow gaining his feet, but he made his way down the left aisle, mirroring Connor down the right.
They both helped everyone out of their harnesses and checked on them.
Selen was okay but furious.
The twins were shaken but unharmed.
Mosiah was having trouble breathing—it was nothing.
Drew… She was shaking her head, crying.
He connected to her. “You okay?”
“This wasn’t my fault. Connor, I swear, I don’t know what’s going on—”
“Are you okay?”
“I—” She sucked in a desparate, haggard breath. “Yes.”
“Survival first. We work out the rest later.”
Selen was over his shoulder, glaring down at the engineer.
Connor pulled the captain aside. “Not now, all right? We’ve got too much crap going on.”
“We leave her here. It’s as simple as that.”
“We don’t do any such thing. Team survival. That’s all we care about now.”
People were unstrapping supply containers and shoving them aside to get to the exit. Connor helped, then led the way out.
He radioed back to Drew. “Let’s get a damage assessment.”
Selen hung by the ramp as it stuttered during its telescoping slide toward what looked like a gray-green mossy ground cover. Connor confirmed the air quality reading with the airlock sensors, then pulled his helmet off.
The air was hot and humid. There was a dankness to it like an old, forgotten cellar, thick with a rotting undertone that left the impression of a collapsing ecosystem.
In the distance, thick green, triangular sheets rippled and twisted in a wind he couldn’t feel, and meters-long shadows fell across alien mounds that could just as easily be mineral as organic.
Connor dropped to the ground, letting his knees absorb the energy from a higher gravity fall. It was just another ache among thousands.
He helped Drew down and nodded her toward the vehicle nose. “We’re going to want to check the—”
His voice was drowned out by the engineer’s scream.
And he understood why.
Dark green ichor dripped from the vehicle underside. The landing gear he’d jerked his head toward was buried in the thorax of some sort of bug that had to be at least five meters long and a couple meters high. A dozen tree-trunk-thick legs twitched in the mossy carpet, still coming to terms with their owner’s death.
Far away, in the shadows of the strange leaves, a chittering sound rose—sad and threatening.
Connor licked his lips. “I hope we brought enough ammunition.”