‘Damn it!’ the voice swore again. This time she could hear it was the Commander.
‘What’s wrong?’ someone grunted.
‘Engine, I think. We’re burning too much fuel, and we won’t have enough power to break. Perry, what’s happening?’
No one answered the Commander’s question. The edges of Sloane’s vision were beginning to darken, and the pressure against her chest was only getting more intense. She’d never had the proper training to land in one of these pods. She’d only ever being in one of the transport shuttles, where you barely felt the G’s. Her chest was burning, and it was beginning to feel like someone was attempting to rip it open.
She gave the tiniest grunt in pain, but no one would have heard it over the loud rattling that had taken over the small pod. It sounded like sledgehammers were pounding the walls, which really wasn’t promising.
‘Perry?’ the Commander yelled again. Sloane hoped that Perry hadn’t passed out. She felt like she was close enough to doing so herself. The darkness in her vision was closing in.
‘PERRY!’ the Commander roared.
Sloane had a sudden bad feeling. Why wasn’t Perry answering?
She could feel herself slowly losing consciousness. She’d be gone at any second. With her last ounce of strength, she looked down at her chest. The three silver stars that made up the Explorer logo were emblazoned across the top right hand breast of her suit. It was blurry as hell, but it was there. It was the name written below the logo that made her darkly laugh under her struggled breath, as she lost her battle to stay awake.
Her space suit belonged to Perry.
CHAPTER TWO
Sloane was only out for a few seconds, but she struggled to return to wakefulness. Her senses felt dulled and her mind was sluggish to respond. She could hear an irritating beeping noise, similar to her alarm that usually went off in the morning, but it was muted as though she were underwater and listening to a noise blaring from the surface.
Her first instinct was to try and slam her fist against the snooze button, but she attempted to lift her arm and failed. Her eyes slowly fluttered open as her body jolted in reaction to one of the violent shudders that rocked the landing pod.
A blazing inferno raged outside the small window before her and a flashing red emergency light spilled across the inside of the cabin. She had felt foggy before she opened her eyes, but any remnants of her drowsy state disappeared quickly and were replaced by a healthy dose of concern. They were plummeting to their doom, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
‘Why isn’t this over already?’ she thought, wishing she could’ve stayed unconscious for a while longer. She instantly dismissed the thought though. If she was going down, she wanted to face it head on.
Looking at the monitor, it was obvious it was no longer just the engine that had been damaged. Given the way the entire pod was lit up in red on the screen, it pretty well looked like the whole vessel was screwed.
She couldn’t believe that something had gone wrong. She would be no help fixing it either. She didn’t have the slightest clue how these landing pods worked, and it sounded like she’d removed the one person who did.
Now they were all going to die a hellish, fiery death. Great.
The only consolation she could find was that it wasn’t completely her fault. She supposed the dodgy landing pod was, at least partially, to blame. It was doubtful that Perry could’ve fixed it anyway. There was probably no expert alive who’d be able to fix the pod with the whole monitor lit up red and with tight straps and powerful G’s forcing them into stillness.
The Commander swore loudly as the emergency parachute was deployed and the pod jerked backwards. Sloane was thrown against her restraints. Her neck lashed backwards, and she could already feel the days of pain ahead of her from that one reaction.
She found she could breathe easier again, but it didn’t really help. The pod was still tumbling too quickly. She didn’t need to be an expert to know that.
‘Perry, are you back with us?’ the Commander asked.
She held her breath; unable to bring herself to admit he wasn’t there. Her mouth tasted metallic, and she swallowed tightly as she tried to understand the feeling that was mounting in her chest.
‘Damn it, Perry, snap out of it!’
Was it fear? She highly doubted that. She hadn’t felt fear in a decade. Though it had been such a long time since that ill-fated day ten years ago. Maybe she’d forgotten what fear truly felt like?
If they survived, she was going to be sent back to the ship. She’d have to face the Captain, or worse, when the other ships that followed them arrived. But that couldn’t be her concern right now. The longer she continued to stay silent, the less chance they had of survival. It was time the crew knew the truth.
‘Perry’s not here…’ Her voice held a nervous quiver to it that she hadn’t heard in years.
‘Who is that?’
Sloane cleared her throat. ‘It’s Sloane Avery. Perry’s not here,’ she repeated, more firmly this time. Her admission was met with total silence from the rest of the crew. Time itself seemed to stand still as the seconds were drawn out, and Sloane waited for the Commander’s response.
‘Sloane…’ The Commander’s voice caressed her name with a frozen, deadly contempt. ‘What did you do with my pilot?’
Before she could respond, the Commander began issuing instructions to the others. There was so much swearing from the rest of the crew, and if their reactions were anything to go by, without Perry, their landing pod had no chance of making it to Aeris intact.
‘Dean, has the parachute slowed us enough for a safe landing?’
There was a moment of silence before Dean responded.
‘No, Sir. The atmosphere is thinner than expected. There wasn’t enough resistance to slow us down.’
‘Can we fire the reverse thrusters?’ the Commander asked.
‘Not yet, Sir. There’s not enough fuel. We need to save them to fire just before impact.’
The Commander paused before he barked another order. ‘Murphy, deploy the other parachute.’
‘But that will throw us off our trajectory…’
‘Don’t question me, Murphy. Do you want to land or crash?’
‘Land, Sir. Deploying the backup parachute.’
Another parachute shot out from the pod and opened, jerking the shuttle slower again and throwing Sloane’s body forwards. She could almost feel the bruises already forming where the straps held her body in place.
Looking at the monitor in front of her, she could see their altitude and also their velocity. She didn’t know a lot about drop pods, but she could do the calculations. Even after deployment of the second parachute, she knew they were still going way too fast.
The ground was drawing closer at an alarming speed. There was only thirty seconds until impact.
Only thirty seconds until it was all over.
Only thirty seconds until all those years of training came to nothing.
She felt a rush of adrenaline pulsing through her core. It was fear she was feeling, but it wasn’t for her own life. It was fear for the one she was leaving behind—Rowe. What would her sister do if she lost both Sloane and Ash?
Guilt coiled in her stomach. She’d left her behind with the one man she’d spent a lifetime protecting her from: their father.
‘Brace yourselves, gentlemen,’ the Commander said, solemnly.
Sloane didn’t miss the inflection the Commander put on the word, gentlemen. Even in death he would despise her for what she had done, and she didn’t blame him. She’d be infuriated with anyone who recklessly endangered her life too.
Twenty seconds.
Sloane’s mind left the small drop pod as she tried to remember her mother, and how it had been before, when they were all together and happy. Sloane’s memories of her mother were foggy now. She could only remember the day it all ended. The blood she could see through the small gap between the door and the wall. I
t was shockingly red and gathered in thick pools as it slowly ran down the cracks in the hard wooden floor.
Ten seconds.
Sloane had never been one to back down from a fight. It was in times of pressure and danger that she was at her greatest. But she also knew when she was outmatched. She closed her eyes and thought of Rowena’s laugh; of her smile; of the joy she felt when Rowe was happy and safe.
Five seconds. The automatic reverse thrust kicked in, and Sloane clenched her teeth as she was thrown forwards against her restraints one last time.
The landing pod was still falling too fast, and they were going to crash, no doubt about it. Sloane knew they didn’t have a chance. She pulled her arms up against her chest in the brace position.
Three seconds.
Two. Goodbye Rowe.
One…
CHAPTER THREE
When Sloane opened her eyes, she was blinded by darkness. She couldn’t hear anything other than the ringing in her ears, and her whole body felt numb.
For a moment she wondered if she had died, but that idea was quickly dismissed when her ears began to pick up on the sound of someone painfully moaning.
Blinking hard, her eyes began to focus on the chaos she was surrounded by. The cabin was dark, but every few moments the bright red emergency light would flash, lighting it up for a second, before plunging it back into darkness. Looking over to her right, she could see the mechanical wiring had burst out from behind the metal walls and was hanging loose, sparks dangerously flying from the ripped and frayed ends of the wires.
Sloane fumbled with her straps as she tried to open the buckle. She needed to check on the others, and they needed to get out of the wreckage. As she was moving, she did an inventory of her condition. Besides a serious case of whiplash, she appeared to be fine. She had somehow managed to survive.
She pulled her arms free from the restraints and lifted the reflective visor on her helmet, so only the clear glass lens was in place. It helped her see slightly better in the dark cabin, but her vision was still not great.
The man who was strapped in next to Sloane groaned, the sound of his voice making her forget her own injuries.
‘I’m coming,’ she called to him.
She was unsteady as she got up from her seat and felt a wave of dizziness that made her stagger forwards to the wall of the pod. She took a moment to steady herself before daring to move again.
When Sloane turned to look back at the rest of the pod, she gasped. The whole front end had broken away, and there was a gaping hole where one of the walls had once been.
Her attention was quickly diverted though as she heard the groans coming from the man again. She clambered over to him, trying to avoid the live wires that sparked on the ground.
He didn’t appear to have any obvious injuries, but it was impossible to tell while he was wearing his space suit. She glanced down at the insignia across his chest to get his name.
‘Murphy, are you okay?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Murphy, can you hear my voice?’ she said, almost shouting at him through the darkness. Again her question was met with silence. She lifted his reflective visor to see if she could get a response from him. When the emergency light flashed again, she could see his features outlined in the shadowy red light. His eyes were shut, and his forehead was furrowed.
She’d met him a few times on the Explorer before, and he was only a few years older than her, but he looked younger with his face scrunched up in pain. Taking a hold of his arms, she lightly shook them, causing him to groan. ‘Murphy?’
‘Yeah, I’m okay,’ he moaned. His breathing was hard, and he talked like he had been winded, but at least he was awake. His eyes squeezed tighter in a grimace before they slowly opened to look at her. ‘I could do with a strong drink though. How’s everyone else?’
Sloane turned to look at the rest of the craft. No one else had risen from their seat, but sounds were beginning to come from the others.
‘I’ll go check,’ she told Murphy.
She began to move her way around the cabin to see how the others were holding up. Most of the men were a little disorientated, like Murphy, but seemed to be okay. One of the men eased himself up from his seat, and Sloane’s eyes immediately sought out the name stitched into the chest of his suit below the Explorer logo. Before she could read it, he pushed back the reflective visor, and she could clearly see his face.
‘Lieutenant Dean?’ she asked, her eyes widening as she took in his features. He was scowling at her, and the dark glare stunned her into stillness for a moment. Dean was her medic teacher at the Academy. At least, once upon a time he was, when the Academy still existed. They’d always had an easy-going rapport but, from the look he was giving her, things had clearly changed. To everyone on this pod, this planet, she was a problem.
She rushed to his side. ‘Dean, are you okay?’ She tried to help steady him, but he shook her off.
‘I’m fine. I’m the only medical officer on board. This is my job,’ he told her, his stance straightening and his voice holding authority.
She was relieved he wanted to take charge. She was a fighter, not a healer. While her training at the Academy had given her a working knowledge of first-aid, she was much better at injuring someone than fixing them. She followed him around to the front of the pod where the rest of the crew were seated. Her jaw tensed when her eyes landed on the Commander. His head was lying at an unnatural angle, and a steel pipe protruded from his gut.
Dean walked right past him to the man on his other side who was making small whimpering noises.
‘But the Commander…’ Sloane’s words hung unfinished in the air.
‘Murphy is in charge now,’ Dean said, not turning from the man in front of him.
She nodded and proceeded past the Commander to continue to help Dean.
They assessed each individual quickly and methodically. They didn’t have the luxury of time in the wrecked and dangerous pod. Dean was certain in his movements as he checked for responses and assessed injuries. There were two casualties in total: the Commander and another man, who had also died upon impact. There was also one man, named Wilson, who couldn’t feel anything from his waist down. Sloane kept stealing glances back at him. His injuries seemed serious, and they had just crashed on a foreign and uninhabited planet. Would he survive before they could get help from the Explorer?
They arrived back at Murphy, and Dean proceeded to provide his assessment of the crew. Murphy’s eyes widened and then dropped as he was informed of the Commander’s death. His face paled but only for a moment. When he lifted his eyes again they held resolve, and he refused to let the pain he clearly felt rise to the surface.
‘We need to get them out of here,’ Sloane said, speaking up for the first time since Dean gave his report. She’d been eyeing off the exposed cabling, and the sparks emitting from the wires, for the last few minutes and was beginning to worry.
Dean nodded. ‘We shouldn’t move Wilson though. He probably needs surgery, and any movement could make things a lot worse for him. What are your orders, Commander?’ he asked.
Murphy looked uncomfortable at Dean’s use of his new post but quickly moved past it. ‘Let’s get everyone who is able out of here,’ he decided.
The three of them began to evacuate the other crewmembers. Most were capable of walking, but were unsteady and needed guidance to help manoeuvre their way from the pod.
Sloane was so busy helping everyone out of the landing pod, that it wasn’t until she’d brought the last able-bodied man from the ship that she noticed the world they had landed in. She stopped dead in her tracks. She was one of the first people to step onto this planet, and she hadn’t even looked at it.
Although it was night, she could see Aeris was beautiful. Everyone called it the green planet. When you looked down at it from the darkness of space, emerald green was all you could see completely covering the surface of the planet.
Looking at the vibrant fores
t that surrounded her was so different to viewing it from above though. From the Explorer she’d imagined the place would look like home, but it felt nothing like Earth now she was there. Aeris was supposed to have a similar environment to Earth, but from what Sloane could see, the place was completely foreign.
They’d landed in a small, perfectly circular clearing. The area was covered in a thick grass that was so dense and vibrantly green is looked more like moss. It was unusually soft beneath her feet, and Sloane almost seemed to bounce as she walked on it.
Bordering the clearing were the strangest trees Sloane had ever seen. They shot into the sky so high they blocked most of the stars from view, but there were no branches protruding from the tall trunks. Instead, they were covered in huge, unnaturally circular, umbrella-like leaves. The leaves almost glowed in the darkness, and as Sloane focused in on the oddity she realised they had tiny beads of water coating them that glittered in the night. It was like the droplets had captured small sparks of electricity that zapped and sparked from within their liquid shell.
She wished she could feel the air around her. She couldn’t tell if it was hot or cold through her suit, and she wanted to smell her surrounds. She imagined it smelt like a combination of tree sap with a hint of wet, loamy earth.
The darkness wasn’t as total as it was back on Earth. With two vast moons that hovered so close to the planet, lighting up the sky, the night was more similar to dusk than she would’ve expected.
The man next to her sighed. He was obviously as awed by the place as Sloane was. She didn’t have time to appreciate it though; there was still one more man to retrieve, and it wasn’t going to be easy. She glanced back at the pod. Dean was dragging out a bag of supplies he’d managed to salvage from the wreckage.
‘Dean, are you ready to get Wilson?’ she called to him.
‘I’ll be a few minutes, Sloane. We can’t get him out without something to carry him on.’
She didn’t want to wait a second, let alone minutes. She wanted to get Wilson out of that death trap, but she daren’t try without Dean there to help.
In Ice We Burn (The Liftsal Guardians Book 1) Page 2
