by Mel Todd
Of course. It can't be easy, just when I thought we might have a chance.
"Do it. We'll take the risk. Everyone, try to stay calm and keep your breathing regular, and let's hope."
Thelia arched a brow at her but typed multiple commands on the computer. The ship shuddered as if in response and Thelia's shoulders hunched in slightly.
"What was that?"
"The ship is having issues maintaining course and speed. The damage to the engines and guidance systems is extensive." The dark colors of the planet they were approaching disappeared and a schematic of the ship appeared on the screen.
"Well that would have been convenient when we were planning this." Perc muttered.
McKenna glanced over at him, but he seemed calm, strapped into a chair like the rest of them, his arms with tan fur and dark spots dappling them crossed over his chest. He caught her looking at him and winked and she didn't know if she wanted to laugh or throw something at him.
Shaking her head, she looked at all the red on the schematic. "That doesn't look good."
"It is not good, as you say. It is proving difficult. The engines are rapidly losing their ability to control our descent. Is cutting gravity and lights in the rest of the ship acceptable?" Thelia asked, but Mckenna saw her fingers flying across the board as she did.
"Yes. We're strapped in." Before she could finish speaking, her stomach lurched up and her hair floated. She'd never really wanted to be an astronaut, but if the situation wasn't so serious she would have unbuckled and floated around, wanting to play in zero gravity.
~This is neat, too bad it means very bad things,~ she commented after telling the others about the issues with the ship.
~Kenna?~ A soft voice on a private channel said and her heart froze.
~Charley. I heard you've been doing great. Helping lots of people.~ She infused warmth and pride and pushed it down the line.
~Been trying. Gets easier to speak the language after people respond to you.~ His mental voice paused and she waited. ~Are you coming home to me? To Nam and me?~ As his words reached her, she felt Nam get pulled into the conversation with them.
~Oh Charley, Nam,~ her mental voice broke as pain welled up in her and the desire to pull them into her arms and never let them go was a physical force that hammered at her. ~I will do everything in my power to come back to you. I never wanted to leave you behind, but…~ she broke off the thought, frustrated. How did you explain duty to kids who had only ever been abandoned by the rules? How did she explain that no matter how much she loved them, if she let their world die, they died too? That she'd gladly give her life to protect them? All the feelings created a maelstrom in her, then a single thought from Nam pierced it.
~We know,~ the words were followed with their love, their understanding that some prices were paid no matter the cost. But the biggest feeling was their willingness to love her, even knowing they might lose her.
McKenna broke, tears streamed down her face. How did two kids know more than the adults? Be able to understand what she couldn't even begin to articulate? Taking in a shuddering breath, ignoring the confused looks from Thelia and worried ones from Ash and Perc, she created a wave of emotion. With everything in her she, sent her duty, her pride, and most of all her love for the two children. Then in a fraction of a second, she spilt the emotions and sent them to everyone.
JD her brother, the man she loved as if he was family.
Toni, friend, sister, the spark that had brought so much with her.
Jessi and Jamie, the bundles of light and joy that she looked at as part of her family.
Cass, the quiet one who eased her brother and brought gentle humor and strength.
Perc, the strong one, standing there and waiting for her to be ready.
Charley, the child she never thought to have and the boy she loved so fiercely.
Nam, the fragile girl who didn't know how special she was, or how much everyone loved her.
Though they couldn't feel it, she wrapped up Carina, Anne, even Kirk and Rarz in what she felt, what she didn't want to lose, and what she would risk in order to save all the beings on this ship and save their world.
The emotions were sent back multiplied until for a minute, she thought her heart might explode or that she could see the universe. It faded but she could feel the echoes of shock coming from the others.
"Why is there wet stuff coming from your eyes? Are you sick? Diseased?" Thelia's voice pulled her out of the trance she'd been in, but she looked at Perc first. He had a dazed look that matched how she felt. A slow nod at her look and he scrubbed a hand over his face, as if he felt tears he hadn't shed.
Rarz had a look she couldn't decipher.
Awe? Fear? Wonder? What does that look mean on a Drakyn?
"Well? Are you about to die? Or should I kill you to put you out of the pain you feel?" Thelia's voice had an odd mix of emotions in it, and after the overwhelming ones that had surrounded McKenna, it was too much effort to care.
"Do you not cry?"
"Cry?" Thelia savored the word in English as she replaced the ship diagram with images from the sensors and McKenna flinched back as the earth streaked beneath them, flashing from land to water. "If sick, or something is in the eye to generate water, then yes. Are there things in your eyes?"
"Should we be going this fast? Or be this close to the earth?" She couldn't take her eyes from the landscape, the blur of colors that her brain interpreted as land, trees, desert, water, and soil all mixed together. And getting into a discussion with Thelia about love and emotions seemed too sad right now.
"It is a representation, but yes. Our engines are failing faster than expected, so speeds are not as gradual as hoped. Some of the exterior may be damaged by friction, but it should not affect the ship past being able to function."
As if the gods were listening to them a shudder shook the ship, and the doors that they had entered, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, shook, and then slid back open and a wave of smoke filled the room.
"House in ruins," Thelia said in a tone of voice that made it very clear she cussed. McKenna coughed as the smoke swirled around her, and the acrid taste coated her mouth and nose.
"What's," cough cough, "wrong?" She choked out trying to see if anything on her console told her anything. Most of the lights were red and flashing, which told her only that everything was going wrong, which she had already figured out.
"The jump drives ruptured, and are fueling a fire, and things are exploding. I do not know why. There should not be anything there to explode. I am trying to put them out, but there is too much oxygen. My choices are to go up and open up the engine bay to space, or to land and hope we do not die in the process."
Oh shit, the explosives we set are going off. Figures. We’re creating our own problem.
She wanted to scream, but she focused on trying to take shallow breaths and respond. "Are we going to make the coordinates I provided?" McKenna coughed out, the thick smoke creating a coating of soot in her throat.
Thelia hit a few keys, the smoke was so thick only the vivid color of her hair was visible. "Maybe. But slowing down is going to be difficult. What is at the other side of those coordinates? And we will not have the time to make the next few orbits to bleed speed and lower our altitude. I have enough control for one more pass then we will spiral out of control and slam into the planet." Her voice had tightened and dropped a few octaves, every word clipped in precise Elentrin. Even through the translation, the stress all but screamed through her tone.
"I'm not sure, to be honest." She closed her eyes and tried to remember the few pictures she'd seen of White Sands, from old news videos of the space shuttle landing there, back when there was a program. "Lots and lots of sand, it's a national park and has mountains on one side."
"How much sand?" Thelia snapped.
"I don't know, miles and miles?" Though the words that came out of her mouth were the Elentrin equivalent.
"Then we may survive. If you believe in
greater beings, worship them now."
McKenna figured when an alien was telling her to pray, things were not good. Her hair wasn't floating anymore which meant they were close enough to the planet for gravity to pull at them, which mean they were close to crashing.
Without conscious thought she grabbed onto the console, her eyes closed, and she waited, trying not to breathe in the acrid smoke.
~Wefor, I'm glad you found me, no matter how this ends.~
[As am I.] The whisper of a thought made her smile. The smile went into a wince as an explosion rocked the ship, and it shook, whipping her head to one side, though she remained restrained. Then there were sounds so loud she released her death grip on the console to cover her ears, not that it made a difference. Then came a sound like a tin can being crunched but a hundred times worse, mixed with heat and cold, and the world went black.
Chapter 39 - Survivors
Tidal wave warnings have gone up all the over the world. A huge one is currently headed for Sydney and evacuation orders have been issued. Recent reports of waves over two hundred feet high are headed for that area. Other tidal waves are headed for Europe and the east coast, but those are expected to be much smaller, though the waves are still building. The asteroid impact in the Pacific created waves currently hitting Peru that measure twenty feet. If you are in the path, evacuate now! ~TNN Emergency Banner
Dry air, air that pulled the moisture from her lips and blew sand into her mouth, pulled her to consciousness. As she became aware of the world, the pain in her head and body were the first thing that registered. Her head was pounding, with noises, smells, and tastes bombarding her mind, while it felt like she had been beat on with rocks and hammers. Trying to swallow generated no saliva so she forced her eyes open, then immediately shut them as smoke stung and caused them to water, and that moisture evaporated almost instantly.
[McKenna?] The whisper-soft voice of Wefor cut through all the other noise and she realized half of what she heard were voices in her head trying to get her attention. It felt like half the world was yelling her name.
~I'm here. Shush, please.~ Even the mental voices hurt and she needed to figure out what was going on. They fell silent and she inhaled deeply and regretted it as a cough wracked her body and sent pain rippling through her.
[The nanobots are working, you have a broken arm, but it is a simple break so they will heal it. If you can avoid stressing it for a day or two it should be fine. The rest of damage is soft tissue and hurts, but it is not vital. Another few hours and all of it will be repaired. I can suppress the pain, but it is better to feel it, so you know what is injured.]
~It's fine. The air is the worst part.~ She reached for Perc but found his light grey in her mind, but it was the grey of being unconscious, not dead, so she wouldn't panic yet. ~Rarz?~
~I am here, but trapped.~ He sounded funny so she opened her eyes again. The smoke had cleared out a bit and she took in the scene.
While the bridge had not possessed a big window looking out at space like in so many movies, it had apparently been very near the front with only a hull between them and space. That hull had torn, letting in light, air, and sand, and was pulling out the smoke that wreathed up from broken consoles, conduits in the ceiling and the doors behind them. McKenna blinked a few times to get the tears to clear away, and she saw Rarz trapped. It looked like one of the consoles had broken off and managed to pin him to the floor between his chair and his original console, then what looked like a slab of metal had fallen on top of him. Right now she couldn't figure out exactly what she saw, as smoke kept changing it. Perc hung limply in his chair, strapped in and blood running from his nose.
~Is Perc okay?~ Worry coated her thoughts as she tried to figure out how to get the restraints to release her.
[He should be regaining consciousness soon. The reports are that he has a concussion and severe bruising, but nothing that won't be healed with a few hours and some calories. Your damage was greater.]
That reminded McKenna to look at her arm, the one that she could feel pain radiating out from. Looking down, it didn't look broken, which reinforced what Wefor had said. She used her other arm to hit a glowing blue button in the middle of her chest, and the straps disappeared. She stood, woozy for a minute, then turned around, looking for the others. In her head Perc moaned and stirred as she looked for Thelia.
The Elentrin should have been next to her less than five feet away, but where the chair had been was only a jagged end. Looking around she didn't see her. Moving forward carefully, she headed towards Perc. The floor was at an angle that made her footing even more precarious as she reached to Perc. His chair had bent backwards, and he hung from it awkwardly with the restraints. As she reached for him, his eyes opened and bloodshot blue eyes met hers.
"All in all, I don't think I'd like to repeat that." His voice emerged cracked and rough.
"Agreed. Let me get you out." The same blue button glowed on his straps; and she hit it and he fell out of it. "Crap, sorry, sorry."
"Ow." Perc lay there for a moment. "That hurt, but not your fault. I wasn't thinking about the fact they were holding me in either. All good."
She looked around, still trying to locate Thelia, while Perc pushed himself up and stretched. Joints popped and cracked and she flinched, looking at him.
"That feels better. Where are Ash and the woman?"
She fought a smirk at the distaste in his tone, but she turned her head looking. Smoke still obscured some areas and with the torn-up room, she struggled to orient herself to where everything had been.
"I don't see her, but Rarz is over there, he said he was trapped." She pointed to the red and orange scales showing out from the twisted wreck of the console and metal. As they carefully picked their way through the odd wreckage, she kept looking around for the missing two, holding her broken arm tight to her body.
Toni and JD kept up a low-level stream of information in her mind, saying they saw the wreck on the radar. The ship had clipped the Jarilla Mountains and tumbled, slamming into the ground about thirty miles from Holloman Airforce Base and fifteen miles from the White Sands Missile Range post. Help was on the way, but removing the canisters would take a while to get scheduled.
She acknowledged all of this silently. Right now, while it was important, it didn't have much bearing on her actions. It would be at least a half hour before any help got here.
Standing next to Rarz, she saw one of the doors had blown out and slammed into the Drakyn, taking the console off with it and that was what was holding him down. In that position, with his leg trapped, and his body bent over the other console, he couldn't get any leverage.
"And you're sure you're not hurt?" She asked as Perc moved to the other side so he could lever the door off Rarz.
"Minor injuries. They will resolve themselves." His voice sounded muffled from his pinned position and there was a groan of metal and other material as Perc heaved, a grunt of effort coming from him. But the door lifted up and tilted onto one side, falling heavily against the wall.
"That, however, does make breathing much simpler." Rarz reached up and pressed his button and the straps fell. He pushed the remains of the console away from him and stood flexing tail and arms. "I am grateful I did not have my wings present while going through that. Something unwelcome might have happened."
The smoke had almost completely disappeared, and she decided to take that as a good sign. A smear of an odd color leading into the captain's office caught her attention. Frowning, she moved closer. It looked like some type of blood, but with all the different beings, she wasn't sure of everyone's blood color. She followed the trail with her eyes and gasped as she saw a crumpled figure against the far wall.
"Ash!" she cried out and headed towards him as fast as she could without falling. McKenna didn't notice what was on the ground as she knelt beside him, though sharp stabs in her knees told her it hadn't been free of debris. She would deal with that later. He lay there, panting. Harsh breaths were g
oing out, and a wheezing sound and trickle of blood came with each one. The interactive wall glass had shattered and impaled him multiple times where he lay. The broken straps of his harness still clung to him.
"It'll be okay. Give your bots time to heal you."
A broken whistle escaped him, the escaping air form his lungs making it echo through the small room. Perc came and sat down on the other side, carefully moving other debris from him.
~Too late. Dying. I am old, bots are not as virulent as once were. But have two favors to ask. To beg. To plead for.~
Even in her head his voice sounded frail and broken and McKenna blinked rapidly to keep back tears.
~Ask. What are they?~ She kept it public, expecting what he was going to ask.
~Don't give up. Don't let them get away with this. Their entire society is predicated on the idea they must destroy the Drakyn. Stop them. Stop their predation on other species. Don't let their reign of terror continue unchecked. For Alara, my people. Please?~
McKenna didn't know how his mental voice could plead and beg and have the taste of salty tears and bitter herbs. But it did.
~I'll try. I don't know what we can do, but I'll try.~ She promised and hoped there was a way she could keep it. ~And your second request?~
He took another shuddering breath, eyes closing over those strange eyes.
"Ash? Ash!" She panicked as his eyes closed but her yells seemed to register and he opened them back up, cracked white over black peering up at her.
~I am not free yet.~
~What’s the second thing? What can I do?~ She wanted to swallow, but the air in the desert, flowing through the cracks in the ship had pulled every bit of moisture from her. Even her eyes ached between the smoke and the air.
