ON: YSS Freedom
Hit after hit slammed into Freedom, as the outnumbered gunship dove towards the surface of a forested world below, striking deep. The upper decks were burning, decompressed, or both. Passengers' screams filled the cargo bay...
Feeling the ship lurch and the inertial systems fail at the same time as the lights went out and the emergency lights kicked on. Yaiba grabbed onto one of the SCC?s in the bay, and thought, The ship is falling. This is so not good. The Freedom must have been hit critically. We?re falling so we must be heading to a planet surface. If we stay on board we?ll be splattered on the forward bulkheads when we hit. We need to get off before we hit. Yaiba looked to see if there were any other soldiers in the bay.
"I got no contact with the captain," Kimball-hei shouted over the chaos. The blonde cargo specialist slammed down the sound-powered telephone. "How bad is the damage? Is engineering controlling the ship? I think we should consider loading the passengers in the shuttles, so they have more protection and can evac the ship if needed." The man went to inspect the cargo elevator. "The way up is...sealed by blast shutters..."
"Everyone please stay calm!" Hiyori commanded, straining to sound calm herself. Her mind raced trying to think of what they could possibly do, but the escape pods were all on the bridge, and if the damage reports were correct, there was no way to get there, if it even still existed at all. The Nito-Heisho looked to the other crewmembers in the cargo hold and nodded to the Cargo Specialist. "Alright people," she addressed the civ
"Alright people," she addressed the civilians again, "let's stay calm and head toward the nearest shuttle."
Marcus shouldered his bag trying to stay stable and calm in the growing chaos that was withing the cargo bay. Even with the commanding voice of the Star army personnel he couldn't help but feel like they were all about to die and he was sure that others felt the same. Still he followed instructions to the best of his ability. At least for now.
Another massive explosion rocked the ship, sending every slamming into bulkheads and cargo. The ship's lights flickered out, only to be replaced by red emergency lights. Some smoke was coming from the ventilation system and internal gravity went offline...
Marcus managed to grab onto the wall as he was violently tossed by the explosion and the loss of gravity. He could only watch as people were tossed like rag dolls. He was barely maintaining his grip when he felt one of the other passengers latch onto him. He could hold himself, but with two his grip was starting to slip.
A nine-year-old boy tried his best to keep his balance, but lost it when the ship's gravity went out. The noises and explosions threatened him with sensory overload as he smashed his hands over his ears. a wild-eyed look on his face. Slipping, he was slammed into a corner.
Kaede lifted herself from the floor, having been knocked back by the last in a series of substantial impacts on the dyeing Freedom. She quickly moved over to one of the consoles against the wall in engineering to see what was the toll of the latest series of attacks from the pursuing vessels. She quickly typing in a command for it to display the damage portions of the ship, its response was not in the least bit reassuring.
"Shit," she muttered, grabbing for one of the emergency phones against the wall. If Engineering wasn't able to reach MEGAMI it meant that the main data trunks had been severed. In the best case scenario , she mused. If control was down on the ship, their wasn?t going to be much they could do to save the ship in battle, but duty demanded she, as the senior engineer, inform the Captain of this new development. Assuming they hadn?t already discovered it.
?Bridge, this is Engineering. It is looking like the data trunks to the lower decks have been heavily damaged, if not wo?,? she paused as the computer voice interrupted her.
?Unable to connect with Bridge comm. system. No connection found?
Kaede paused for a second, it had certainly become worse. If the bridge was still in working order at least the emergency comms should have been able to reach it. That failure hinted at some heavy damage to the upper decks. Cursing again under her breath she grabbed the repair kit she had been using and moved towards the back of Engineering, intent on getting to one of the lifts. She had to find out what was going on in the rest of the ship, assuming their was a rest of the ship.
In the lifts, Kaede found Kimball-hei about to unseal a blast shutter. She spotted a blinking "FIRE HAZARD" on the panel that Kimball hadn't noticed. Too many fire drills had made him lazy about checking the doors...
Hiyori tried to steady herself, wishing she had the more competent gravity manipulation abilities of a neko at the moment. It flung her right into a panel that made her eyes go wide with panic. "Kimball-hei! Don't! Don't open that door!" she called out to the Cargo Specialist. "There's a fire hazard alarm!" With no shuttles and no escape pods, there was only one choice left. They were going to have to jump. "We're going to need to jump out," Hiyori announced grimly.
"Oh shit," Kimball cursed, backing off from the blast shutter. He stared at the readout. The temperature was off the scale. "Man, the only way out is..." he trailed off, looking toward the rear ramp.
Marcus felt the thing under his grip starting to move under his and the other guy's combined weight. He blinked as he looked and realized that he had grabbed onto a handle of some sort. But he wasn't quite sure what the handle was for.
Yaiba spotting the child made her way over and picked up the child. "Are you injured? Where is your parental unit?" Still holding the child by the back of his shirt, she made her way over to the nearest damage control station. Not much here to work with. she thought.
The neko-eared Yamataian started to pull out the parachutes and hand them around. "Everyone! Get into a vehicle or a cargo container. Star Army personnell will be attaching these parachutes and we're going to glide down to the planet once we're close enough to make a safe drop. Hurry, but be careful. If everyone stays calm, we should all make it out just fine." She tried not to wince as the final words left her lips. Hiyori wasn't sure there'd be enough room for everyone, but she went to work anyway, hopping on to one of the trucks and attaching a chute, getting it ready to make a trip out into the open sky.
The civilians struggled and writhed in mid-air. Many didn't know how to move in zero-gravity; other were busy barfing. Meanwhile, the ship plummeted towards the planet, slowed only by the ship's external anti-gravity emitters on its underside...but they were not being controlled by anyone. The ship would reach the surface in less than a minute now.
Kimball grabbed a parachute from the bay wall, shot over to the STV and expertly attached it. "Good to go..." He turned to Marcus. "Whoa, don't touch th..."
The handle finally gave and the man that had been holding Marcus went flying off. Marcus managed to remain holding on though. The latch on the hatch popped open and inside were several supply kits.
Yaiba was not sure who was calling the shots, didn't matter to her at the moment. Grabbing one of the portable generators she moved over to the the nearest vehicle a light duty truck, and put the child in the passenger seat. "Strap yourself in." Safe drop? We don't even know what kind of planet we are falling towards. she thought. She put the generator in the back and prepared to gather other things now that she had both hands free.
The boy was near catatonic, but managed to do as he was told.
Natale Ameli was wide-eyed with terror as she clutched the nearest thing that had a parachute attached. As soon as the ship had failed, she had followed the orders of the nearest person in charge. She wasn't screaming like the rest of them; she was too afraid to scream.
Next, Kimball-hei attached a parachute to a create of rations. "Shit," he muttered, as he thought about how desperate the situation was. Next, Kimball went to the emergency release handle for the door. "Is everybody ready?" he asked. They didn't have long.
Kaede had been about to yell at Kimball but Hiyori was quicker. That?s that then, she thought. With the tunnels blocked by fire and it becoming increasingly probably that the MEGAMI and command crew had either perished or been rendered inoperative their only choice was to abandon ship. Saving the Freedom would not be possible.
She took one final look through the engineering hatch to make sure no one was being left behind before following Kimball and Hiyori back to the cargo bay. She took in the sight before her, panicked civilians hurriedly packing on the few vehicles, the remaining Star Army personnel securing the drop chutes onto them.
?Attention Peopl!,? she barked, her voice amplified by her helmets emitters,? We are abandoning ship in hostile space. Grab what survival equipment you can before the drop!? A quite beep from her communicator followed the orders.
She then hurried over to the panel that Marcus had opened, grabbing several of the survival kits before running to the STV to hand them off to the civilians already strapping in.
Marcus moved to one of the vehicles about to be dropped, grabbing one of the supply kits before climbing into a cramp space on the back of the truck. He looked around desperately for something to anchor himself in. Finally taking off his belt and using that to strap himself on with the belt around his arm and an anchor point on the truck.
Natale snatched one of the kits, and pressed it to her chest, and with shaking hands, clipped herself into the STV. Tears streaming down her face, she closed her eyes and curled herself as much into a ball as her position would afford.
Yaiba grabbed the hand held plamsa cutter and caster tape dispensers, and dragged the Portable Repair Kit to one of the vehicles. The cutter she figured could be useful, and the repair kit. Well there was no telling how long they would be on the ground. She quickly taped the repair kit to the side of the truck so as to not take a space in the bed from a person. She grabbed some of the Survival kits and carried them back towards the truck handing them to any civilian she saw who didn't have one and kept one for herself. We need to get these people out. How long does it take for a ship to fall to the ground? she wondered.
A final killing blow from the NMX ships above sliced the Freedom in half. The forward section of the ship disintegrated, while the cargo section and wings spun towards the ground, seconds away from impact. The force of the explosion caused Kimball to accidentally pull the emergency release. The rear ramp dropped open, revealing flicking flames and pitch black darkness beyond. The wind was deafening and too powerful to fight. Kimball was sucked out of the bay immediately.
Hourai was frantically moving about trying to help wherever she could, though her fright was being quite the hinderance. Especially once she knew the upper decks were toast. She should be dead. The medical center was gone, or in flames. She was a medic. And yet, she wasn't a corpse, or dust, in the med. center. In her arm was her only true personal effect, her doll named Alice. Another bit of luck kept her prized possession with her. She moved about the cargo, making sure to grab whatever medical supplies she could get, loading it with the other supplies. The medic knew what was going to need every bit of it.
Knowing they?re time was quickly running out Kaede glanced around for anything else that might be of use she spotted the crate holding one of the portable shelters. She yelled for one of the other Star Army crewmen to help her get it to the vehicles. It proved surprisingly easy to move in the zero gravity and they were able to get it to one of the trucks rapidly. She quickly latched it onto the frame though there wasn?t any time to properly tie it down. They would just have to hope it would stay put. As they would quite a lot of things in this drop.
?Everyone, we need to go NOW,? she bellowed. Just then the killing shot struck, tearing the Freedom. She could see the sky and earth pin wheeling from both ends of the cargo bay.
Holding on to the frame of the vehicle with a death grip she yelled at the driver telepathically,? GET US OUT OF HERE!?
Since Hourai wasn't hanging on to anything, she was the next to fly out of the falling ship.
Marcus saw someone flying past him and reached out with his hand. Grabbing the person's arm.
The driver of the truck Marcus was in started gunning it. Sending the truck out of the back of the space ship and into open air where the chute deployed
The driver of the STV did the same seeing the first truck go.
Not even bothering to nod, the driver slammed their foot down onto the acceleration pedal. Along with the force of the Freedoms spin it sent the truck hurtling out into open space. It cart wheeled through the air for a second before stabilizing into a lazy spin, the parachute automatically deploying shortly after. Kaede grunted in pain as the sharp jerk slammed her into the trucks body but her she managed to keep her hand hold.
Finally finding her voice, Natale screamed. Completely drowned out by the sound of the wind rushing around the STV, Natale screamed anyway, not caring if she was heard. The jerk of the deploying parachute cut short her scream, but she kept her eyes shut, afraid of what they would see.
Clenching her eyes shut as she was sent flying out, Hourai was expecting to be plummeting. But, instead, she felt a hand around her arm. She looked up to the person, a bit stunned, before saying "Thank you," though it was lost in the wind. Hopefully they could read lips. The next thing she knew was that she was falling out of the ship again, as she grabbed on and clung tightly to the man's arm.
When things unbelievably got worse, Yaiba hauled herself into the truck she had been loading, and strapped herself in as she kicked it into gear. "Hell of a way to make an arrival..." she yelled going out the back.
The parachute on the truck opened up with a loud snap and suddenly everything was quiet as the ship continued without it. The darkness kept them from seeing other people and boxes falling nearby. Below, there was nothing but darkness as far as they could see, save for what looked like a bonfire in the distance.
Marcus unfortunately was unable to read lips at the point that Hourai was mouthing thank you because the arm that he had belted to the truck he was in had dislocated at the shoulder. Fortunatly when he had anchored himself it hadn't been his grip that was holding him in but the belt tightening around his arm. He hauled Hourai into his small, cramped spot in the truck with his still good arm and some effort while the vehicle floated down to the earth.
As the spinning slowed Kaede watched the burning wreck of the Freedom barrel off into the distance, its glowing bulk slowly disappearing as the truck fell into the fog obscuring the ground below. As her eyes adjusted to the lower visibility, she could just see a pin-prick of heat off to the horizon.
Looking away from the view outside the trucks window she turned to the other people in the vehicle. ?How is everyone doing?,? she said from the drivers seat, looking for any injuries.
Hourai clung tightly to Marcus in a one armed hug, her other clinging to her doll. She really must have just used up a lifetime's worth of luck in the past few minutes. Alternatively, she would've just used up at least two of her nine lives, if not more. Anyway, she was seriously frightened, breathing in short, panic-filled, gasps.
The remains of the freedom slammed into a nearby river delta at several times the speed of sound, sending up a fiery plume of smoke and a loud shockwave. They could see the brief flash of the blast in the distances.
Her eyes clenched firmly shut, Natale responded with a squeak that might have been am "I'm ok."
Her small body was shivering with adrenaline that had been coursing through her moments before. A small glimmer of hope shone in her eyes, she might actually live.
"Hey, you ok?" Marcus managed to say in a pained voice to Hourai.
Yaiba switched the vehicle off as they swung beneath the parachute, "You okay kid? she said looking at the child. "What's your name by the way? Mine is Yaiba. It is probably going to be a bumpy landing, not likely we're going to land in a nice grassy field."
A quick nod came from the medic. Hourai visibly shuddered as she took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves, though it didn't do much good. "Th- an- k you," she sputtered out.
No one spoke for second, the quite a dramatic change from the clamor a few seconds ago. Then Natale began to scream. Putting her face into a warm expression, the stress of the last few hours of hide-and-seek with the Mishhu fleet had taken its toll, Kaede tried to comfort the woman,? It going to be all right. We managed to get out of the ship before it struck that was the hard part.? She patted the woman?s shoulder before turning back to the windshield, and the unknown expanse of cool, dark jungle below.
?That was the hard part,? she told herself. Hoping it would be true.
Marcus managed to chuckle. "Fucking hell of a ride, hope I never have to go through that again."
Hit after hit slammed into Freedom, as the outnumbered gunship dove towards the surface of a forested world below, striking deep. The upper decks were burning, decompressed, or both. Passengers' screams filled the cargo bay...
Feeling the ship lurch and the inertial systems fail at the same time as the lights went out and the emergency lights kicked on. Yaiba grabbed onto one of the SCC?s in the bay, and thought, The ship is falling. This is so not good. The Freedom must have been hit critically. We?re falling so we must be heading to a planet surface. If we stay on board we?ll be splattered on the forward bulkheads when we hit. We need to get off before we hit. Yaiba looked to see if there were any other soldiers in the bay.
"I got no contact with the captain," Kimball-hei shouted over the chaos. The blonde cargo specialist slammed down the sound-powered telephone. "How bad is the damage? Is engineering controlling the ship? I think we should consider loading the passengers in the shuttles, so they have more protection and can evac the ship if needed." The man went to inspect the cargo elevator. "The way up is...sealed by blast shutters..."
"Everyone please stay calm!" Hiyori commanded, straining to sound calm herself. Her mind raced trying to think of what they could possibly do, but the escape pods were all on the bridge, and if the damage reports were correct, there was no way to get there, if it even still existed at all. The Nito-Heisho looked to the other crewmembers in the cargo hold and nodded to the Cargo Specialist. "Alright people," she addressed the civ
"Alright people," she addressed the civilians again, "let's stay calm and head toward the nearest shuttle."
Marcus shouldered his bag trying to stay stable and calm in the growing chaos that was withing the cargo bay. Even with the commanding voice of the Star army personnel he couldn't help but feel like they were all about to die and he was sure that others felt the same. Still he followed instructions to the best of his ability. At least for now.
Another massive explosion rocked the ship, sending every slamming into bulkheads and cargo. The ship's lights flickered out, only to be replaced by red emergency lights. Some smoke was coming from the ventilation system and internal gravity went offline...
Marcus managed to grab onto the wall as he was violently tossed by the explosion and the loss of gravity. He could only watch as people were tossed like rag dolls. He was barely maintaining his grip when he felt one of the other passengers latch onto him. He could hold himself, but with two his grip was starting to slip.
A nine-year-old boy tried his best to keep his balance, but lost it when the ship's gravity went out. The noises and explosions threatened him with sensory overload as he smashed his hands over his ears. a wild-eyed look on his face. Slipping, he was slammed into a corner.
Kaede lifted herself from the floor, having been knocked back by the last in a series of substantial impacts on the dyeing Freedom. She quickly moved over to one of the consoles against the wall in engineering to see what was the toll of the latest series of attacks from the pursuing vessels. She quickly typing in a command for it to display the damage portions of the ship, its response was not in the least bit reassuring.
Code:
Unable to process command.
This terminal is unable to contact the MEGAMI control node. System not found."Shit," she muttered, grabbing for one of the emergency phones against the wall. If Engineering wasn't able to reach MEGAMI it meant that the main data trunks had been severed. In the best case scenario , she mused. If control was down on the ship, their wasn?t going to be much they could do to save the ship in battle, but duty demanded she, as the senior engineer, inform the Captain of this new development. Assuming they hadn?t already discovered it.
?Bridge, this is Engineering. It is looking like the data trunks to the lower decks have been heavily damaged, if not wo?,? she paused as the computer voice interrupted her.
?Unable to connect with Bridge comm. system. No connection found?
Kaede paused for a second, it had certainly become worse. If the bridge was still in working order at least the emergency comms should have been able to reach it. That failure hinted at some heavy damage to the upper decks. Cursing again under her breath she grabbed the repair kit she had been using and moved towards the back of Engineering, intent on getting to one of the lifts. She had to find out what was going on in the rest of the ship, assuming their was a rest of the ship.
In the lifts, Kaede found Kimball-hei about to unseal a blast shutter. She spotted a blinking "FIRE HAZARD" on the panel that Kimball hadn't noticed. Too many fire drills had made him lazy about checking the doors...
Hiyori tried to steady herself, wishing she had the more competent gravity manipulation abilities of a neko at the moment. It flung her right into a panel that made her eyes go wide with panic. "Kimball-hei! Don't! Don't open that door!" she called out to the Cargo Specialist. "There's a fire hazard alarm!" With no shuttles and no escape pods, there was only one choice left. They were going to have to jump. "We're going to need to jump out," Hiyori announced grimly.
"Oh shit," Kimball cursed, backing off from the blast shutter. He stared at the readout. The temperature was off the scale. "Man, the only way out is..." he trailed off, looking toward the rear ramp.
Marcus felt the thing under his grip starting to move under his and the other guy's combined weight. He blinked as he looked and realized that he had grabbed onto a handle of some sort. But he wasn't quite sure what the handle was for.
Yaiba spotting the child made her way over and picked up the child. "Are you injured? Where is your parental unit?" Still holding the child by the back of his shirt, she made her way over to the nearest damage control station. Not much here to work with. she thought.
The neko-eared Yamataian started to pull out the parachutes and hand them around. "Everyone! Get into a vehicle or a cargo container. Star Army personnell will be attaching these parachutes and we're going to glide down to the planet once we're close enough to make a safe drop. Hurry, but be careful. If everyone stays calm, we should all make it out just fine." She tried not to wince as the final words left her lips. Hiyori wasn't sure there'd be enough room for everyone, but she went to work anyway, hopping on to one of the trucks and attaching a chute, getting it ready to make a trip out into the open sky.
The civilians struggled and writhed in mid-air. Many didn't know how to move in zero-gravity; other were busy barfing. Meanwhile, the ship plummeted towards the planet, slowed only by the ship's external anti-gravity emitters on its underside...but they were not being controlled by anyone. The ship would reach the surface in less than a minute now.
Kimball grabbed a parachute from the bay wall, shot over to the STV and expertly attached it. "Good to go..." He turned to Marcus. "Whoa, don't touch th..."
The handle finally gave and the man that had been holding Marcus went flying off. Marcus managed to remain holding on though. The latch on the hatch popped open and inside were several supply kits.
Yaiba was not sure who was calling the shots, didn't matter to her at the moment. Grabbing one of the portable generators she moved over to the the nearest vehicle a light duty truck, and put the child in the passenger seat. "Strap yourself in." Safe drop? We don't even know what kind of planet we are falling towards. she thought. She put the generator in the back and prepared to gather other things now that she had both hands free.
The boy was near catatonic, but managed to do as he was told.
Natale Ameli was wide-eyed with terror as she clutched the nearest thing that had a parachute attached. As soon as the ship had failed, she had followed the orders of the nearest person in charge. She wasn't screaming like the rest of them; she was too afraid to scream.
Next, Kimball-hei attached a parachute to a create of rations. "Shit," he muttered, as he thought about how desperate the situation was. Next, Kimball went to the emergency release handle for the door. "Is everybody ready?" he asked. They didn't have long.
Kaede had been about to yell at Kimball but Hiyori was quicker. That?s that then, she thought. With the tunnels blocked by fire and it becoming increasingly probably that the MEGAMI and command crew had either perished or been rendered inoperative their only choice was to abandon ship. Saving the Freedom would not be possible.
She took one final look through the engineering hatch to make sure no one was being left behind before following Kimball and Hiyori back to the cargo bay. She took in the sight before her, panicked civilians hurriedly packing on the few vehicles, the remaining Star Army personnel securing the drop chutes onto them.
?Attention Peopl!,? she barked, her voice amplified by her helmets emitters,? We are abandoning ship in hostile space. Grab what survival equipment you can before the drop!? A quite beep from her communicator followed the orders.
Code:
Logged:
YSS Freedom NG-X1-411
Abandon Ship Order Given
21:47:43
Acting Authority: Taii Arai Kaede (ret)She then hurried over to the panel that Marcus had opened, grabbing several of the survival kits before running to the STV to hand them off to the civilians already strapping in.
Marcus moved to one of the vehicles about to be dropped, grabbing one of the supply kits before climbing into a cramp space on the back of the truck. He looked around desperately for something to anchor himself in. Finally taking off his belt and using that to strap himself on with the belt around his arm and an anchor point on the truck.
Natale snatched one of the kits, and pressed it to her chest, and with shaking hands, clipped herself into the STV. Tears streaming down her face, she closed her eyes and curled herself as much into a ball as her position would afford.
Yaiba grabbed the hand held plamsa cutter and caster tape dispensers, and dragged the Portable Repair Kit to one of the vehicles. The cutter she figured could be useful, and the repair kit. Well there was no telling how long they would be on the ground. She quickly taped the repair kit to the side of the truck so as to not take a space in the bed from a person. She grabbed some of the Survival kits and carried them back towards the truck handing them to any civilian she saw who didn't have one and kept one for herself. We need to get these people out. How long does it take for a ship to fall to the ground? she wondered.
A final killing blow from the NMX ships above sliced the Freedom in half. The forward section of the ship disintegrated, while the cargo section and wings spun towards the ground, seconds away from impact. The force of the explosion caused Kimball to accidentally pull the emergency release. The rear ramp dropped open, revealing flicking flames and pitch black darkness beyond. The wind was deafening and too powerful to fight. Kimball was sucked out of the bay immediately.
Hourai was frantically moving about trying to help wherever she could, though her fright was being quite the hinderance. Especially once she knew the upper decks were toast. She should be dead. The medical center was gone, or in flames. She was a medic. And yet, she wasn't a corpse, or dust, in the med. center. In her arm was her only true personal effect, her doll named Alice. Another bit of luck kept her prized possession with her. She moved about the cargo, making sure to grab whatever medical supplies she could get, loading it with the other supplies. The medic knew what was going to need every bit of it.
Knowing they?re time was quickly running out Kaede glanced around for anything else that might be of use she spotted the crate holding one of the portable shelters. She yelled for one of the other Star Army crewmen to help her get it to the vehicles. It proved surprisingly easy to move in the zero gravity and they were able to get it to one of the trucks rapidly. She quickly latched it onto the frame though there wasn?t any time to properly tie it down. They would just have to hope it would stay put. As they would quite a lot of things in this drop.
?Everyone, we need to go NOW,? she bellowed. Just then the killing shot struck, tearing the Freedom. She could see the sky and earth pin wheeling from both ends of the cargo bay.
Holding on to the frame of the vehicle with a death grip she yelled at the driver telepathically,? GET US OUT OF HERE!?
Since Hourai wasn't hanging on to anything, she was the next to fly out of the falling ship.
Marcus saw someone flying past him and reached out with his hand. Grabbing the person's arm.
The driver of the truck Marcus was in started gunning it. Sending the truck out of the back of the space ship and into open air where the chute deployed
The driver of the STV did the same seeing the first truck go.
Not even bothering to nod, the driver slammed their foot down onto the acceleration pedal. Along with the force of the Freedoms spin it sent the truck hurtling out into open space. It cart wheeled through the air for a second before stabilizing into a lazy spin, the parachute automatically deploying shortly after. Kaede grunted in pain as the sharp jerk slammed her into the trucks body but her she managed to keep her hand hold.
Finally finding her voice, Natale screamed. Completely drowned out by the sound of the wind rushing around the STV, Natale screamed anyway, not caring if she was heard. The jerk of the deploying parachute cut short her scream, but she kept her eyes shut, afraid of what they would see.
Clenching her eyes shut as she was sent flying out, Hourai was expecting to be plummeting. But, instead, she felt a hand around her arm. She looked up to the person, a bit stunned, before saying "Thank you," though it was lost in the wind. Hopefully they could read lips. The next thing she knew was that she was falling out of the ship again, as she grabbed on and clung tightly to the man's arm.
When things unbelievably got worse, Yaiba hauled herself into the truck she had been loading, and strapped herself in as she kicked it into gear. "Hell of a way to make an arrival..." she yelled going out the back.
The parachute on the truck opened up with a loud snap and suddenly everything was quiet as the ship continued without it. The darkness kept them from seeing other people and boxes falling nearby. Below, there was nothing but darkness as far as they could see, save for what looked like a bonfire in the distance.
Marcus unfortunately was unable to read lips at the point that Hourai was mouthing thank you because the arm that he had belted to the truck he was in had dislocated at the shoulder. Fortunatly when he had anchored himself it hadn't been his grip that was holding him in but the belt tightening around his arm. He hauled Hourai into his small, cramped spot in the truck with his still good arm and some effort while the vehicle floated down to the earth.
As the spinning slowed Kaede watched the burning wreck of the Freedom barrel off into the distance, its glowing bulk slowly disappearing as the truck fell into the fog obscuring the ground below. As her eyes adjusted to the lower visibility, she could just see a pin-prick of heat off to the horizon.
Looking away from the view outside the trucks window she turned to the other people in the vehicle. ?How is everyone doing?,? she said from the drivers seat, looking for any injuries.
Hourai clung tightly to Marcus in a one armed hug, her other clinging to her doll. She really must have just used up a lifetime's worth of luck in the past few minutes. Alternatively, she would've just used up at least two of her nine lives, if not more. Anyway, she was seriously frightened, breathing in short, panic-filled, gasps.
The remains of the freedom slammed into a nearby river delta at several times the speed of sound, sending up a fiery plume of smoke and a loud shockwave. They could see the brief flash of the blast in the distances.
Her eyes clenched firmly shut, Natale responded with a squeak that might have been am "I'm ok."
Her small body was shivering with adrenaline that had been coursing through her moments before. A small glimmer of hope shone in her eyes, she might actually live.
"Hey, you ok?" Marcus managed to say in a pained voice to Hourai.
Yaiba switched the vehicle off as they swung beneath the parachute, "You okay kid? she said looking at the child. "What's your name by the way? Mine is Yaiba. It is probably going to be a bumpy landing, not likely we're going to land in a nice grassy field."
A quick nod came from the medic. Hourai visibly shuddered as she took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves, though it didn't do much good. "Th- an- k you," she sputtered out.
No one spoke for second, the quite a dramatic change from the clamor a few seconds ago. Then Natale began to scream. Putting her face into a warm expression, the stress of the last few hours of hide-and-seek with the Mishhu fleet had taken its toll, Kaede tried to comfort the woman,? It going to be all right. We managed to get out of the ship before it struck that was the hard part.? She patted the woman?s shoulder before turning back to the windshield, and the unknown expanse of cool, dark jungle below.
?That was the hard part,? she told herself. Hoping it would be true.
Marcus managed to chuckle. "Fucking hell of a ride, hope I never have to go through that again."
