by Juniper Gray
[ Delta-niner-niner this is Jetty —
] Where the fucking shit is it coming from?
[—what is your situation, over?
] We're hit! We're hit! Sustained fire, starboard side; can't tell if it's orbital or planetary! We're venting atmosphere, pressure dropping in all sectors...one payload terminated!
[ What is the status of the five remaining, over?
] Oh fuck, oh fuck we're ripped to shreds...
[ Delta-niner-niner what is the status of the five remaining units, over?
] Still alive. Breach in unit one, coupling link's shot through between three and four. We're losing altitude, please advise, over!
] Jetty this is delta-niner-niner, losing altitude and need urgent assistance, over.
[ This is Jetty. Your re-entry angle is too shallow, you must adjust by ten degrees to avoid burning up, over.
] We can't, our foils are destroyed!
[ Are you still receiving fire?
] Negative!
[ Are you able to launch units four to six, over?
] Affirmative, what is your advice on our re-entry angle, over?
[ Delta-niner-niner you will jettison units four to six, over.
] It is our understanding that will make our re-entry angle shallower, over.
] Jetty, this is delta-niner-niner, please respond, over.
[ That is correct. You will jettison units four to six, over.
] Repeat, if we do that, we will burn up in the upper atmosphere, over!
[ That is correct. You are ordered to jettison units four to six, over.
] Fuck you! Fuck! You!
[ Delta-niner-niner this is Jetty Command, the success of this mission is paramount to security in this sector. You will follow orders and release units four, five, six, over.
[ Delta-niner-niner this is Jetty, respond, over.
[ Delta-niner-niner this is Jetty, respond, over.
[ Initiating override sequence; forced jettison of SAR combat units Four through Six, effective in 3,2,1,
* * * *
Therse woke, drowsy at first, to a shrill noise he couldn't place. It was oscillating, blaring, resounding inside his head, poking at his brains like a spiked ball had become stuck in there and was rattling off the walls of his skull. His surroundings, whatever those were, were shaking violently even though he was held fast.
The blaring noise was the fighter module's alarm. The whole craft was dark, and vibrating as though it could come apart at any moment. Red and amber flashing warnings spilled across his visor display too fast for him to even read them.
He was having trouble piecing together what had gotten him here in the first place. It was as though his memories were made of mist—they had become intangible; wispy and uncertain as he sifted through them, and the harder he looked, the brighter he shone the torch, the less he could see. It began to come back to him—he recalled something about a top-secret mission to eliminate a raider base, about being selected for it because he was one of the best fighter pilots in the system, going on sims alone. And now he was in an actual jet module, experiencing operational flight for the first time, and it was clear something had gone horribly wrong.
Why the mission was covert hadn't made sense to him at the time, and it made even less to him now—they hadn't been ordered to do anything outside the usual scope for dealing with raiders, they were just going for the standard scoop and drop; the only thing out of the ordinary was that one of the sector's rebel leaders was reported to be hiding out here. Perhaps there was a Navy informant and things had to be dealt with as swiftly and silently as possible.
But none of this explained why he'd been unconscious, why his fighter was about to come apart at the seams, or why there was no contact with either the recon vessel that was supposed to drop them or Jetty. He gave up trying, remembering they were to hold radio silence until the mission was complete anyway.
One thing he did know: the shuddering was bad. He could be in the upper atmosphere already, descending on Yemis and not even be aware of it. He cursed himself for his slow, woolen mind and began absorbing, linking his mind to that of the fighter's low-level AI as quickly as possible. He went up through the various levels of integration simply by thinking himself deeper into the AI's consciousness, until finally he could see what was going on outside through all of its sensory arrays.
He felt the pit of his stomach drop away at the sight of the blue-green orb nearly filling his perspective, Yemis rising calmly, silently to meet him.
He was in the planet's atmosphere and falling fast. He realized one of the most insistent warnings on his visor was counting down to impact: three minutes and thirty-two seconds until he was just a bleak stain on the planet's lush scenery.
This was nothing like in the sims, even the worst ones where your death was imminent and the situation was designed cruelly so that you would always fail, always end up as nothing more than a drifting blast radius on the skein of space; even then you always had a thread holding you back safely in reality, and you knew you wouldn't come to any actual harm.
But here if he didn't do something fast, he was going to die. A sharp prick in the soft tissues of his arm and he snapped fully awake, coursing with the cocktail of adrenaline and whatever other stimulants the suit had injected into him.
He deployed some of the module's fins, hoping to slow his descent, and it worked for a time; the readings on his velocity meter dropping slightly until the fins tore off and he sped up again. He cursed bitterly, dragging over the drugged confines of his thick mind for possible solutions, trying to ignore the sheer terror gripping his gut as he hurtled towards the planet's surface.
He knew the module. All he had to do was think things through calmly, methodically. He was trained for the unexpected. This was just like any other situational puzzle and needed to be solved with the same mixture of inspiration and intuition he was so well-known for.
He checked the module's systems and found that the fighter was still in its dormant transport state—a smooth, featureless ellipse. Fighters were kept that way for ease of dropping from orbit to atmosphere without losing vital pieces, but it looked like something had gone wrong during the drop. His angle was all wrong, his descent far too fast, but the fighter was still completely intact, which meant he stood a chance of surviving.
The next problem was how to go about deploying the rest of the fighter body—wings and tail and streamlining were all housed in the chassis of the ellipse, but his experience with the fins told him he was dropping too fast and if he sprang the whole lot they'd just burn up in the same way.
He needed a way to slow himself enough that he could deploy safely, but he couldn't think of anything. The fins were gone. Safety chutes would be useless at this velocity. Nothing he could think of stood a remote chance of working. Unless...
He initiated the sequence for deploying the wings, but told the module to hand over manual control of the process to him. Gradually, steadily, he eased out the wings on either side, hoping with all that he had that this would work.
It had to; the planet filled his vision now.
He almost cried with relief when his velocity began to stabilize. Flicking the wings out immediately would almost certainly have destroyed them. But he was gradually slowing, inching the wings out and steadily taking control back.
There was an explosion above him, taking him by gut-wrenching surprise, displayed on the screen with an aura of orange and gold. The module told him in polite blue-text that what now remained had been one of the other units.
Then it suddenly hit him that he had no idea where the others were. There should have been six of them falling together, in formation, preparing to swoop in and strike the base, but the rest were nowhere to be seen. He told the module to track the signatures of any Navy craft in the vicinity. It found only one, about a kilometer off to his starboard side.
Something had gone horribly wrong. The module couldn't locate any other vessels besides that one, but th
ere was plenty of low-orbiting debris scattered in the upper atmosphere.
There was a life sign in the other unit, but it was weak.
And then he remembered.
Genham had been one of the other five pilots.
He hated how much the thought affected him, that Genham might be dead. That right now he might be strewn in a million different pieces over the planet's orbital field, his end so sudden and brutal. He also hated how the module could show him explicitly how he was reacting, forcing him to face up to it.
Why the fuck did it matter if the bastard was dead anyway? Therse hated him more than anything, so good riddance.
But still, he found he couldn't help but hope that the only remaining module carried the rude piece-of-shit son-of-a-bitch he detested so deeply rather than one of the unknown pilots who'd been assigned along with them. To hope he'd survived, to even be interested in the possibility of him making it alive was more than Genham deserved by any stretch of the imagination.
Therse watched the unit closely all the same, circled by a red indicator on the module's interface telling him it was falling much too fast. It was pulling away from him as his craft began to slow, hurtling at a ridiculous velocity, beginning to pitch and turn in the atmosphere due to unequal resistances over the hull.
He decided to break radio silence and signaled the module, but there was no response. Then something tore from the other module, ripped away and disintegrated in the atmosphere like it was made of glitter. Therse bitterly hoped that hadn't been the vessel's fuselage. He was in enough trouble as it was without spending what could be his precious last moments worrying about someone else, but somehow he couldn't just let it go. The other module was in a bad way, with no sign of recovery. Therse knew he at least had a chance.
He tried again to get through, sending out a cross-bandwidth signal to the unit's AI to see if he could patch through and take control of that, too, but to no avail. The module was a dead duck, careening hopelessly towards Yemis with a half-dead pilot inside.
Therse swore and hammered against the harness, his stress neurotransmitter levels shooting through the roof. All he could do was sit there and watch as the thing prepared to smash into the planet. It was just a speck now, and he had problems of his own.
His unit's descent was slowing, but he didn't have overall control. He was still going to crash. He adjusted the position of the module, the craft slowly complying to his commands under the sheer force of atmospheric resistance until it was belly-down to the planet's surface, the exposure of a larger surface area shaving off a precious little bit more of his velocity. Now he just had to hope for a soft landing.
He willed the pilot of the other unit to find a way, willed him to wake up and take control and save himself, but nothing changed, and it just kept on falling faster as Therse himself slowed. If Genham wasn't already dead, and he was in there, Therse was about to watch his brutal end.
He plotted its trajectory in his mind. They were both headed for the depths of the jungle—at his speed he might make it, the trees might cushion the impact enough if he tried to land as broad-sided as possible, but the other pilot didn't stand a chance. Then as he watched the ground come up to meet them, he noticed a slim possibility of survival appear—a lake. Wide and blue, expanding out underneath the other unit, almost like a glove spreading to catch it; he saw the impact, the displacement of water that followed it, and felt utter relief—now he just had to make it himself.
He felt the pit of his stomach drop away as the ground rushed upwards, the smudge of green and brown resolving with terrifying speed into the recognizable shapes of tree-tops.
Less than five seconds to impact.
He tensed in the harness and screwed his eyes shut, wanting to use what could be his last moments contemplating something profound, but nothing was forthcoming amongst the panic.
The first impact forced the breath out of him, the smack of the module into the ground sending his body into numbing shock as the restraints designed to keep him safe battered and bruised his soft flesh. Sheer terror gripped him whole, convincing him the world was about to collapse in around him, making him expect every moment to be his last, awaiting the terrible pain of the module crushing in around him, snapping his bones like twigs and squashing him until he burst open.
But the vibrations settled, the shuddering slowed, and then everything was still around him. He cracked open one eye, then opened them both, gasping for air after realizing he'd been holding his breath.
Everything around him was a wreck, the screen bent and buckled in front of him, wires and tubes and electrical units detached and dangling around him like streamers, but somehow the outer structure of the module had held. He laid his head back against the harness, about ready to cry with relief.
He remembered the other unit and panic filled him up again. He desorbed and wrenched himself free of the harness. The module door hissed open but didn't go anywhere, blocked by things on the outside. He knew he was being reckless, not checking the gas composition of the atmosphere first, but right now he didn't care. It was breathable, and that was all that mattered. He needed to get to the other module.
He rammed his shoulder into the door, shoving at it in sheer desperation until whatever was on the other side finally relented and let him free, tumbling out into the churned, broken earth. He paid his surroundings little attention, clambering over them, slipping and falling and scrambling down the mess of dirt and trees and foliage towards the marker showing on his little visor.
As he neared the lake everything became sodden and squelching beneath his feet, drenched from the water displacement that had followed the module impact, branches and loose debris piled up everywhere, left dammed up against the huge protruding tree roots as the waters had receded. He broke the cover of the jungle and splashed out into the lake itself, wading in deep with frustrating slowness, then breaking into a swim, diving down in the direction of the marker.
He spotted the module, down in the depths, a crater surrounding the impact site. The air-inflated buffers had deployed and now drifted, emptied, around the ovuloid shape like ghostly apparitions. The unit looked intact, at least from the outside. Inside could be a different matter altogether.
He wriggled his way back to the surface, toward the light, as fast as possible and heaved in a huge breath, flipping over and diving again, propelling himself back down. He shoved at the massive deflated balloons, wafting them out of the way and reaching for the module's door. The door panel was broken, but that came as no surprise. Therse dug his fingers into the emergency handle holster and pulled with every ounce of strength he could muster, using his legs on the module's hull for leverage, his muscles screaming in protest until finally the seal broke. Trapped air bubbled past him out of the cavity as he swung the door fully open.
Inside, Gen was drifting peacefully in the harness.
Therse felt a surge of relief flood through him, though now wasn't the time to stop and think about why. Sure, Gen had made it down in one piece, but there was no guarantee he was even still alive. The module was twisted and buckled inside, and it was a miracle Gen hadn't been crushed entirely. He grabbed the knife from his boot and set about cutting Gen free from the wires and straps that held him in place.
And then he noticed.
Gen's leg was trapped under a part of the module that had crumpled inwards. He followed the leg down with his hand, trying to feel if there was a way to pull it out, locking his fingers under Gen's foot and pulling as hard as he dare, lungs bursting, gritting his teeth as he finally worked it free. Blood poured from a gash on Gen's leg, clouding the water with thick red. The sight stirred an uncomfortable and long repressed memory, and he felt it slither black and terrible across his consciousness.
He looked to Gen's face, eyes closed and at peace, hair haloed around his face.
Just like his mother had been, in the bath when he'd found her.
He blinked and shook himself free of it, grabbed Gen around the waist an
d pushed himself towards the open door, then swimming out, up, as fast as was possible, lungs screaming for air until finally he breached the surface, gasping, water streaming down over his face. He held Gen tight and kept his chin above the lake, swimming backwards with him, a growing panic in his chest that Gen needed to breathe and couldn't.
Therse hefted him onto the sandy bank of the slightly-drained lake, choking out water and gasping for air as he dragged himself out alongside. Gen just lay there, still, limp. Therse grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him desperately, searching his slack face for signs of life, not knowing what else to do. He tilted Gen's body so he was face down and patted his back vigorously. Gen awoke with a start, coughing up lake so violently he nearly vomited. Therse kept a hand at his shoulder, waiting for him to calm down, trying to ignore the flush of relief near overwhelming him.
Then he looked down. Gen's leg was a bloodied mess around the ankle.
Regaining control of his racking cough, spitting, probably to get the foul taste out of his mouth, Gen seemed to realize that he wasn't where he thought he ought to be. He noticed the grip on his shoulder and spun around, wincing as the motion sent pain shooting up his leg. Therse pulled back and they stared at one another for a moment.
“What the hell happened?” Gen said, glaring at Therse with great suspicion and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
“No idea. When I woke up we were already falling,” Therse told him, looking around the still lake. “We're the only ones who survived it.” Gen just stared at him. “The others must have burned up in re-entry. I...I watched one of them explode in the upper atmosphere.” He glanced down at Gen's leg and swallowed, reaching to peel back the suit around it. “We need to get that splinted or something.”
Gen brushed him off. “Fuck off, I'm fine.”
“Some thanks I get for saving your fucking life, bastard.”
“Well, if you were doing it for thanks you needn't have bothered at all,” Gen spat, rolling himself over onto the grassy verge just above the bank and sitting up.
Therse ground his teeth. Even now Gen was determined to be an asshole. “Doesn't change the fact that we're in this situation now,” he said. “I need to check my ship, salvage what I can if it's a wreck.”
