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How long has it been since I saw any action? Danny thought to himself, the so called void of space shifting past the window in clouds of dust and ice. The planet’s surface took up most of what could be seen in the front cameras, what Danny figured was its ozone layer a deep shade of green.
That distress call doesn’t count, right? I mean down in the dirt and the mud and the weeds. Years, has to be.
His last deployment had been in-system, a quick op on Mars, only two weeks. Guard detail, escorting some big shot scientists to a recently completed research outpost on the edge of the ice fields, something about trying to understand if there had ever been life there, searching for microorganisms below the crust. Complete ambush. They hadn’t even made the surface before Earth-Centralists overtook them, firing missiles at them from low orbit.
It’d been a bad day, in Danny’s opinion. One he didn’t like remembering. So it soured his mood dramatically when the incoming torpedos reminded him of it.
“[error/error], we have incoming!” the Pilot shouted, but Danny only caught half of it. The translators still didn’t cover alien profanity very well, but he got the gist as the same. It was too far to his seat with his team, and the pilot’s evasive maneuvers were throwing off the shuttles equilibrium, so Danny decided to strap into the copilots seat.
“Chief, what the fuck is happening?” Homet shouted over comms, in almost perfect human English. In other circumstances, Danny would’ve laughed at how used to human speech his friend had become, but right then it barely registered.
“Everybody strap in, now!” Danny called back. “Some asshole out there is taking pot shots at us!”
“Chief Ducane, two more incoming!” The Pilot called, frantically hitting buttons and adjusting course. “I don’t think we can avoid both!”
“Just get us in the atmosphere so we don’t die immediately!” Danny ordered. He gripped his communicator in his hand. “Mayday mayday, this is Security Chief Ducane, we are under attack enroute to the surface and taking fire! Send backup immediately!”
“Fuck!” Danny cursed. “Can you hear me Noah? Respond!”
“We’re being jammed, sir!” The pilot called out.
“Noah you better get your asses down here on the fucking double after we crash!”
“We’re gonna crash, Chief?” Hayte startled.
“Everybody hold on!” Danny didn’t get a chance to answer as the nose of the shuttle hit atmosphere. He didn’t want to bite his tongue off. Suddenly everything shifted from the blackest night to blinding day, like the sun was in the shuttle with them. The heat and the friction from the belly of the shuttle skimming off the atmosphere sent the small ship into tremors. Danny grit his teeth and locked up, white knuckled, eyes screwed shut.
“Can we do anything about the shaking?!”
“I can’t engage the stabilizers without losing speed, Chief!” The pilot answered. “The missiles are going to hit us, I’m just trying to get us as close to the surface as possible to avoid casualties!”
Finally the brightness faded, and Danny could open his eyes.
“Is there anything we can do?”
“The shields can negate one of them, but only one. When I say, sir, hit that button, and it’ll divert all shielding to the rear. Maybe stopping the first will let us get down low enough to land before the second hits.”
The button in question was already flashing. Very helpful, Danny thought.
“Okay, ready when you are!” Danny braced himself and held a hand over the button. The pilot started their countdown.
Danny slammed his balled fist down on the button. Even over the roar of atmospheric entry he heard the hum of the shield generator at maximum capacity.
Then the control console in front of him sparked a few times before shutting down completely. The hull shook as the first torpedo hit the shields and fried them, sending a concussive wave through the shuttle. The front view port cracked and warped as the whole of the shuttle lurched sideways. Danny was certain of whiplash, but adrenaline was keeping him going at this point. Out the corner of his eyes through the window he could see chunks of burning ship, blown off from the blast, hurtling away from them.
“Cabin integrity compromised Chief!” The pilot, not for the first time, sounded scared. It wasn’t helping.
“Ducane!” It was Homet. Danny tried to look back at him. The soldier was saluting him.
“It’s been a pleasure, Chief!”
Homet was smiling as the second torpedo struck, blowing the shuttle in half. The passenger end of the shuttle was simply ripped away in the flash, like it was evaporated out of Danny’s sight. A blink and it was gone. He didn’t scream or cry, or do much of anything aside from cling to his seat with all his might as the nose end of the shuttle flew burning across the surface.
Then everything went dark.
The first thing Danny Ducane noticed was the taste of copper in his mouth. After everything, he’d bitten his tongue anyway.
“Damnit,” he slurred, lolling the long aaa sound out of his mouth like bile.
Something else groaned beside him, someone else reaching out and over to him. Danny tried his best to rub the burning ash out of his eyes before realizing they were already open, just filled with black spots.
Concussion, check, he thought slowly. Gotta get one of the girls to check me out later. The uhhhhh people fixer one. Jane? That one I think.
Thinking was slow, and more painful than he remembered. The groaning beside him was getting louder. Slowly, so slowly, checking all the while for anything that could be broken, Danny turned his head to the side.
Just as surprising, maybe even more so, the pilot had survived the crash as well, but there was a length of metal strut impaling him to the seat through his abdomen.
“God damnit,” Danny cursed. The groaning stopped. The pilot turned his head weakly and looked his way. One of his eyes was swollen shut. Danny unbuckled and tried to sit up, slipping back into the chair again when his arms gave out. He’d try again in a minute or two.
“You know, if we survive this, I’ll buy you a drink buddy.”
The pilot looked at him for a moment more before his head fell back. Danny couldn’t tell if he was dead or just unconscious. He’d check on that in a minute too. Right then, he followed the pilot’s lead and slipped back into unconsciousness.
_to be continued in part 6.5_
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