Wizardness

Everything is hopeless. Fuck it all.
Alarms blared. There’s a hiss of air coming from somewhere in the cabin. Lights were flashing. The planet’s surface was rapidly approaching. The baffling on the nose of the ship was on fire.
Sweat poured down her face. The other two were out cold. It’s up to her. She doesn’t know what to do. They’re all going to die. There’s nothing for it.
She looked at her hands. They were shaking. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The hissing didn’t matter. That’s a problem for after they land. The lights don’t matter. She can see all the information she needed on the console.
The alarm. There are a lot of them. She pulled up the alarm console. Anything with leaks, she ignored. Then she moved on to the one that she could do something about. Speed.
The other two were out, because they were in a spin. Flatten out, then fix the spin. It wasn’t just a spin, though. It was a tumble. Fix the spin then the yaw.
She grabbed the yoke and began to reduce that spin.
She fixed herself to a horizon and worked to force the ship to align to it. Minutes passed. The ship slowly lost its roll. The horizon stayed horizontal. Now it just rotated out the window.
Next, stop the rotation of the horizon. She pressed the pedals, slowing the rotation. This was harder, as one of the engines was blown. She idled the engine and used friction to slow the ship.
Her crew mates began to wake. They’d take over. She knew it. They were still fucked, but at least they knew what they were doing.
“Wha? What’s that noise?” Captain Magna asked.
She grunted in return. Straining to keep the ship under control.
“Holy shit, we’re going to die!” Magna screamed. “What did you do? Carter answer me!”
Carter gritted her teeth, “I’m busy here you asshole. I know we’re going to die. I’d rather do it after we land, though.”
Lt. Soen groaned, “Stop the spinning, holy.” He lurched to his feet, he tried staggering, somewhere. He was almost immediately thrown back into his seat. Which was for the best.
Carter finally stopped the rotation. The ship was slowing, which meant the air was hotter. The belly of the ship was blasting through the planet’s atmosphere. It was a thick atmosphere. A lot more methane in the air than on Earth.
Magna regained his composure, “Let’s get some more speed and get out of this heat. Ease the nose down.”
Carter eased the nose down, struggling. The ship wanted to tumble. Sweat dripped onto her upper lip, she resisted the urge to blow it away.
“Soen, check the engine. Try to figure out what’s going on with it.” Magna ordered.
“That’s her job though,” Soen whined.
Magna fixed him a stern look, “Your job was to get us on the surface safely. She’s doing your job, so do hers. If we land, we will discuss this behavior of yours. We’re WASA, we do what we need to.” Magna shook his head at Soen.
Carter felt the air thicken. Driving the heat back up. “Sir, we will have to deal with this heat at some point. We can’t pick up much more speed. The farther down we go the thicker the air.” She pulled the nose up, bleeding speed, but spiking the heat, immediately. “I’ll bounce up and down, sir. Like a bird.”
She took a breath and set herself to riding that line between heat and speed. She could see smoke trailing behind their ship.
“Sir,” Soen interrupted her thoughts, “The engine isn’t going to be useable. We’ll have to do whatever we need to do with one engine.”
A different pitched alarm spun up. Magna groaned, “Carter, find a place that looks like we might be able to crash our escape pod.”
Carter laughed. There was a hysterical edge to it.
Soen cleared his throat. “Stop it.” Carter continued to laugh. “STOP LAUGHING LIKE THAT!”
As they continue to bounce up and down, they flew over massive clouds of smoke. The clouds had drifted far from the source. There was a strong wind, certainly fueling the fire.
“My god, what is that?” Magna asked.
“Whatever hit us.” Carter stated. She banked as gently as she could at those speeds.
There was a concentrated beam of energy blasting the surface of the planet. Smoke obscured sections of the beam and the surface.
Carter flew them past the beam and pointed the nose of the ship up the path of destruction.
“Only strip of land we might be able to survive impact. Everything else has trees or water.” Carter said. Desperation plain on her face.
Magna nodded, “I don’t like it. We don’t have much choice though, do we?”
Soen was punching some commands on a keyboard. He looked at the other two and grimly nodded. “I’ve got a route entered into the escape pod. Hopefully we’re low enough and slow enough to survive.”
Carter punched some commands into the console while the other two prepped the escape pod.
“Come on Carter.” Magna called over coms.
Carter hit enter on the keyboard, jumped up and sprinted to the pod. She could already feel the ship losing stability.
She dove into the pod. Magna slammed the door close button and the pod ejected from the ship. Carter felt weightless for a moment. She grabbed the seat harness and pulled herself in.
The view from the viewport was already tumbling. She was slammed into the seat as the stabilizing engines kicked on. The horizon settled.
She held on for dear life as the pod navigated the air currents. The smoke was incredibly hot, the pod was drifting on the temperature currents. Eventually it settled over the massive scar on the planet and found a place that was relatively safe to land.
The three crew members pulled themselves out of the ship. Carter collapsed onto the ground. She fell asleep immediately.
She felt a nudge on her side. She sat up. Her suit was covered in soot. The ground was an ashy burnt mess. She blinked and tried to focus on who had kicked her.
“Come on, get up. You’ve slept long enough.” Magna grated. “Help us set up camp.”
She dragged herself to her feet. A massive hab had already been set up. She went and pitched in.
“Near as we can tell,” Soen began, “A solar eclipse caused the focused solar energy to tear grooves into the planet.”
Carter looked at Soen, “What do you mean? Like the moon is a magnifying glass or something?”
Soen only shrugged in response.
Magna gave him a look, “Whatever it is, this isn’t a safe long term location. If it is solar eclipses doing this, then this planet’s ecology developed with that happening. For all we know, there’s a continual solar eclipse moving across the planet. We’re going to have to be careful. We’ll be working in shifts. Carter, you already had your rest, so you’ll be up for the next 16 hour. Soen, your turn to rest.”
Soen grunted and went to his “room” in the hab. Chances were, they’d be hot bunking it. After he was gone, Magna patted Carter on the shoulder. “That was damn good work after we got hit. Soen and I were out for most of it, weren’t we?”
Carter nodded. “Yea, we were all knocked out when we got hit by it.” She blinked and rubbed her eyes. “Sir, I think we flew into the eclipse as it was just starting. I don’t think Soen flew into a laser.”
Magna chuckled, “I don’t think he did either. The thing about eclipses though, they happen when the planet isn’t behind the moon, too. We might not have been able to see it.”
Magna leaned back, “Ultimately, it’s my fault.” He glanced about the hab. “I know you’ve been busy, but I’m sorry about Alex.”
She sat backed stunned. She hadn’t even thought about him, Gerald, or Christine. And those were just the other crew members. She looked up at him, “Shit.”
She rushed out of the hab fell to her knees and cried. She cried so hard she threw up. She held her stomach as she bawled. She wiped her nose then wiped the snot onto her pants. She looked up at the sky. It was dusk now. The stars were coming out.
Alex loved this time of night. Said it was the birth of something different, not the death of the day.
The sky glittered.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at Magna. He spoke softly, “It’s normal. Your reaction. Forgetting about everyone else. You’re not a bad wife.” He looked up at the sky forlornly. “It’s overwhelming. I almost rather I died.” Tears streaked down his face.
“Oh my god, your daughter was one of the passengers.” Carter gasped, all she could smell or taste was ash.