Raven
Re-entry was a bitch.
Flames licked outside the rocket's windows, the atmosphere burning against them as they forced their way back to the ground. The rocket rocked back and forth, struggling to cope.
Well, what did she expect a hundred plus year old rocket to do on re-entry?
Raven gritted her teeth, fingers clenching tightly around the manual control stick. It wasn't quite time to kick it into gear yet – not until they cleared another few thousand feet.
Behind her, her friends clutched their secure seatbelt straps (at least she hoped they were secure enough). The very thought of them, putting their trust in her to get them safely back to the ground, was enough to spur her into action. Her left hand flicked the switch that controlled the thrusters, deactivating them as gravity caught up. She wouldn't need the back thrusters again – just the front ones, the ones that should lesson impact to the ground.
Should.
'Hope you're ready for a bit of a tumble!' she called through the communications system in her helmet. All she heard in response were snorts, most evidently the scepticism in Murphy's and the panic in Echo's. 'The ground isn't going to go nicely on us.'
'As long as it doesn't kill us, I think we'll be good.'
Raven barked out a laugh. 'Not planning on dying on my way back to Earth, Blake, you can be sure about that.'
She could imagine the wry smile on Bellamy's face without looking. The one that didn't quite reach his eyes, and hadn't for about six years.
Six years. They were supposed to have gone down after five. The year's delay was potentially costly – but it had been necessary. Difficult, with a lack of supplies, but necessary.
Her eyes dashed over the various dials and displays in front of her. Ten thousand feet … seven thousand … five thousand feet until she needed to flick from autopilot. Deep breaths, Reyes. You can do this.
Four thousand. Three. Two thousand.
'Switching to manual controls.' She secured her grip around the controller with her right hand, and flipped the lever on the autopilot. The light turned off, confirming she was now solely in control of a hundred year old rocket contained in a fireball.
No pressure.
The coordinates she'd pre-programmed into the navigation remaining a flashing dot on screen, growing bigger as the rocket fell closer to the surface. She was about seven degrees off target – seven degrees that, if she didn't carefully correct, would leave them two, maybe three hundred miles away from their destination when they landed.
With a delicate hand, she nudged the stick slightly to the left, increasing the degree of their decline. The dial in front of her showed the amendment. Four degrees out. Three.
She could deal with three. Three degrees would be perhaps an hour's walk. Maybe not ideal, but manageable. For most of them, anyway. She might struggle a little with her leg brace, and Murphy might struggle supporting the extra weight of Emori, but they could do it.
The ground loomed closer, and her hand moved towards the parachute deployment system. She'd need to activate that, and then switch the forward thrusters in quick succession. If she didn't, they'd hit the ground too hard and at the wrong angle.
And like she'd just told Bellamy, she wasn't going to die on the way back to Earth. Not after six years of dreaming of stepping back out onto the ground, to walk through the forests and wade through the rivers … if they were any forests and rivers left.
Her eyes flicked to the cameras, before returning to the controls – but then she looked up again in surprise. 'Holy shit,' she whispered, forgetting about the microphone connecting her to her friends.
'Raven?'
'Bellamy … there's a valley. A green valley, looks untouched by Praimfaya.' She could hear the awe in her words. 'I can't change course now, can't land us near it.'
There was a pause while Bellamy considered her words. None of her other friends interrupted the silence. 'We stick to the plan. It means nothing for now. Get us as close to Polis, to the bunker, as you can. Once we catch up with everyone else we'll set out to get to the valley.'
'Yes sir.' If Raven had a free hand to salute with, she probably would. Six years in space hadn't quite gotten rid of the sass inside her. She wasn't sure anything ever could, not if having lived with the other six for that long hadn't succeeded. 'Hold on guys, I'm about to launch the parachute and it will be a hell of a jolt.'
'Oh god.' Harper's soft voice was easy to miss, but Raven picked it up. With her own wry smile, she pushed the release button.
She hadn't been lying to them that there would be a jolt, but it was much more than she'd expected when it came. She'd only descended to Earth once before, ironically in another hundred year old rocket that she'd had to make so many adjustments to, but the jolt hadn't been that severe …
Her eyes roamed over the dials even as she activated the forward thrusters. No errors, no problems reporting on screen …
'Shit!'
If you've read any of my other work, of course I'm going to leave it on an evil part. But I do have more written. Both before and after this scene (but the before needs a helluva lot more work and will eventually be its own story).
Tears x