LUCAS''S P.O.V.


    Slowly, I wake up after being hit by my helmet.


    My vision, still fuzzy, makes it hard for me to see what I''m doing.


    “...how long was I out?” I ask, turning my head over to Avera.


    “15 minutes” She responds, “Are you alright?”


    Finally coming to my senses, I realize I''m not alright. My hand, which took part of the impact, is probably broken. the side of my head took the rest of the impact.


    “I''ve got a real bad headache…” I say, putting my good hand on my head.


    “What about everyone else?” I ask optimistically.


    Avera shudders a little bit, it''s odd for someone with her experience to do that.


    “Scott,” she says, “he''s dead.”


    “Oh..” I say with pain, “What''s Michael''s status?”


    Avera looks back behind her, “He''s unconscious.” She says, “Vita has him stabilized.”


    “Fuck” I say under my breath.


    Our flight engineer is dead, and my best friend is about to join him.


    Looking out the cracked window ahead of me, I''ve noticed we''ve stopped spinning. Avera must have done that while I was out.


    Garrett floats up to me and Avera''s seat. “We need to land, Michael won''t survive much longer up here.” He says with a straightforward tone.


    “We won''t survive re entry.” Avera snaps back, almost angry.


    Garrett protests, “Well at the rate we are losing coolant and Hydraulics, re entry won''t even be possible.” He continues, “Right now we still have a chance, a chance to save Michael and ourselves.”


    Then I noticed something on my flight display. We weren''t in an orbit anymore. We were slowly falling to the planet. At the rate we were going, we would be hitting the atmosphere soon. I would use the thrusters to extend our orbit, but that would most likely just blow us up if they are damaged.


    I turn to Avera, “We don''t have a choice,” I tell her, “our orbit is decaying, we were slowed down after we hit the debris.”


    “How much time?” She says


    Looking back at the monitor, we don''t have long. “5 minutes, 7 at most.”


    “Alright.” She says, keeping her composure.


    “Garrett,” she calls, “Get Lucas''s hand bandaged. After that, prepare the cabin for re-entry.”


    Garrett floats back up to my seat with some bandages. He begins to dress up my hand, that may I''m less likely to mess it up any further.


    His hands are a dark dark red, covered in bits of blood. I cant help but stare with concern.


    “It''s going to be okay,” he tries to say reassuringly.


    “What''s the use,” I tell him, “We are all going to be dead within 30 minutes anyway.”


    “Don''t say that-” he stops, “We will make it, we will for Scott''s sake.”


    Garrett finishes up bandaging my hand and pulls himself away back towards the rear of the cockpit.


    I begin to unbuckle my harness, “I need to go back and help,” I say.


    Avera puts her hand out and stops me, “You don''t want to see it back there. Just stay up here and focus on getting us on the ground, ‘kay?”


    “Yeah…” I responded.


    She leans over to the side of her seat and pulls out a small checklist book.


    “Okay uhm, this is practically useless now. Half our systems are damaged and this doesn''t tell us squat.”This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    “What''s the good news?” I ask.


    “As you said earlier, the heat shield is intact and we do have enough Hydraulic pressure to use our flight surfaces.”


    “What about ground control?” I ask, “don''t they know anything?”


    Avera turns her head back towards me, “We still have no contact with them. If anything, I don''t think we will be anytime soon.”


    “...all alone.” I murmur to myself.


    “Huh?” Asks avera.


    “We are all alone up here. No help from anyone.”


    Avera sighs at this, “What we have is a crew of some of the smartest protogens. That''s what we have and it''s what we must use.”


    “In that case, let''s defy the odds.”


    Avera Nods in agreement. “Let''s get to work.”


    5 minutes Later; 1 minute until re-entry.


    “Is everyone buckled up back there?” Avera says through the intercom.


    “We are good back here,” garrett replies, “We don''t know how much longer Michael has though”.


    I swallow, “alright.”


    Shortly after we enter the dark side of the planet. The interior goes dark, only illuminated by various panels and buttons.


    “Looks like we are landing in the dark,” Avera says.


    Re entering the atmosphere in the dark isn''t normally a problem, but we have no contact with ground control and no choice of where we will be landing.


    The EX-5 begins its re-entry. Wisps of plasma flies over the windscreen, as we start to rip through air particles. At our current nose up attitude, we wouldn''t be able to see where we where going. It truly was a blind descent.


    The craft begins to rattle as it encounters more air resistance in the atmosphere.


    The wisps of plasma grow larger and darker, turning into large bright orange streaks. It becomes harder to breathe as the G-forces increase.


    This phase of descent doesn''t last very long, but it''s incredibly dangerous and intense.


    Please hold together… Please.


    “Hows the wing-” Avera gasps, straining her voice.


    “it''s staying on” I reply back to her.


    “Good, good.” She says relieved.


    A couple minutes go by as we continue to rip through the upper atmosphere. As we slow down and get lower, the plasma surrounding the EX-5 lessens. This would normally be accompanied by the reestablishing of communication with ground control. Except nobody on board was expecting to hear back from ground after everything that has happened.


    As we leave the dangers of hitting the atmosphere and going through the hottest part of re entry, we find ourselves looking at new dangers.


    Where are we going to land.


    Not only where are we going to land, but how are we going to land in the middle of the night, likely without a runway.


    “Where are we?” I ask, turning to Avera.


    She leans forward to look out of the windscreen, “I can''t tell, do you see anything out on your side?”


    I do the same as her and come up with the same results, “I Can''t tell either..”


    She continues to look out the window, “Wait! I see some lights-”


    “Huh” I respond, trying to find what she is seeing.


    “It''s real far off from us, at our 11 o''clock.” She says.


    “Can we make it to there?” I ask her.


    “I don''t think so, and I wouldn''t want to land in the middle of a populated area.” She says


    “Is there anywhere to land in front of us?” I say looking forward over the EX-5''s nose.


    “I still can''t tell,” she says, “We are still very high up.”


    This isn''t great news. We still need to find some place to land, even if it''s pitch black outside.


    “The only place I see to land is a dark patch up ahead..” Avera reports to me, “We need to slow down immediately if want to land there.”


    “speed brakes?” I ask her.


    “More than that.” she says.


    “Okay then.” I reply back.


    The EX-5 when it lands, it goes incredibly fast. Because of this, it also has many ways to slow down. Speed brakes can be used to slow down quickly. If that doesn''t work you can use flaps, which also helps with lift. Lowering the gear also does a great deal to slow you down. And if you are in a pinch, there is a drag chute that can be deployed during landing.


    I lean forward and use my inly good hand tk pull a small lever towards me, “Speed breaks deployed”


    Then I switch my attention to the gear lever, and I pull it down as well. Only 2 of the 3 landing gear bogies deploy though.


    “Nose gear isn''t lowering..” Avera says, concerned with it.


    Matching her concern, the flight computer shows a message, “raise gear, speed unsafe”


    “What''s our speed?” I ask avera.


    “350 knots and slowing, but the gear is going to break off” she replies back. (350 knots=400mph, 650 kmh)


    Just a little longer and we''ll be down.


    “3,000 meters” she calls out.


    Passing through 10,000 ft, it was becoming a little easier to tell where we where landing. It looked to be a large field that was backed by an even larger wooded area.


    As we got lower and slower, the nose gear finally went down and locked. This was of course a good thing, but we were still going too fast.


    Passing through 5,000 feet/1,500 meters we were still screaming past a speed of 200 knots.


    “Final approach” Avera says through the intercom.


    “We are still going too fast” She says


    “Well we can''t do anything about that, we don''t have the altitude for it” I tell her.


    Quickly we go through 2,000 feet, still going fast.


    At our current glide angle, we weren''t going to hit the field. We were going for the trees.


    “We are not making it!,” I say through the intercom.


    “BRACE!” Avera yells.


    Avera puts one of her hands out in front of her on the console, while I do the same with my bandaged hand. It''s not comfortable but I have to keep my other hand on the side stick.


    “The drag chute! Deploy it, deploy it!” I yell at Avera.


    With her free hand she reaches up and deploys the chute.


    With a fwoop, the drag chute opens.


    We pass straight over the field we were supposed to land in. I notice a house that was in the middle of the field. All I could see was its outline reflected in the moonlight.


    Putting my attention back in front of me, all there is is a bunch of trees.


    Pak- Bwam!


    Just as we experienced with the space debris, the impacting of trees reverberates through the fuselage


    The EX-5 begins to dig into the trees, cutting through them like a blunt knife. We continue through the trees for a good distance. I can feel the drag chute as it gets shredded by the tree limbs.


    We begin to slow through the trees. I feel a distinctive thud as we hit the ground, still going through various trees.


    One of the wings must have dipped into the ground because we started to skid at an angle.


    The EX-5 finally stops, giving up it''s battle against the trees.


    Everything once again goes silent as I try to catch my breath.


    “You did it lucas…” Avera says, out of breath as well.


    “We are okay back here,” Vita says through the intercom, “are you guys ok?”


    “Yeah” I say.


    “Shutdown checklist” Avera says, already going through and flipping off switches.


    I turn off the batteries,coolant and other various systems.


    “Alright let''s get out of here,” I say as I unbuckle my harness.


    Pushing myself up from my seat using my good hand, I turn around to walk to the back of the cockpit. The sight that lied before me made me stop where I was.


    Everything was stained red. The floor, the walls, everything. Only now did I notice the smell of blood.


    “N- no no!” I say, as I rush toward where everyone else was.


    Vita''s white fur was no longer white. most of her visible fur was stained dark red as well. Michael who was still in his seat was covered in his blood as well. Half of his body it seemed like was covered in bandages.


    “What.. where is Scott?” I ask trembling.


    “His body ..is in the airlock” Garrett says in a heavy tone.


    Avera comes up behind me, “We need to get out of Here. That''s our current priority.”


    “Agreed,” Vita says as she unbuckles Michael from his seat.


    Avera turns to the emergency exit located on the side of the cockpit wall. It''s a small square door that releases with explosive bolts.


    Avera arms the door and hits a button next to it.


    Bang!


    The door blows off the fuselage and lands a distance away.


    A small slide inflates after the door detaches, allowing quick degress of the EX-5. Avera gestures for me to go down, which I agree to do hesitantly.


    I go down the slide and hit the ground stumbling.


    I''m followed by Garret. He hits the ground and turns back. Then Michael went down. Garrett caught him and (mostly) stopped him.


    Then Vita went down and landed without issue. Avera, being the commander, was the last to leave. She began her trip down the slide and hit the ground with a thud.


    “I grabbed some of the emergency sidearms.” Says avera, handing out small pistols to everyone.


    Vita, kneeling next to Michael, looks up towards everyone. “We need to get Michael proper medical help.. He won''t survive much longer out here”


    “You heard her,” Avera says, “our fight for survival has just begun.”