CHAPTER THREE
Jack wasn't prone to rash decisions, but this one had to be made. Jack grabbed Trez by the shoulder and spoke through gritted teeth, "Follow… that… pod. Understand?!" Without waiting for an answer, he snatched the passenger comm out of Trez's trembling hands. "Hang on, everyone! This is gonna get MESSY!" he declared into it, hearing his voice echoing throughout the fuselage. He quickly disconnected the comm and, upon seeing Trez paralyzed with shock, he slugged him in the shoulder, "What are you DOING, pilot? Get this thing moving or that pod is toast!" To prove his point, he looked outside and saw the malfunctioning pod plummeting toward Benning, leaving a trail of sparks behind it. Shakily, Trez shoved the throttle full blast, jerking the ship forward so fast that Jack's face was smashed against the glass of the cockpit. Rocketing toward the pod at nearly FTL speeds, Jack pried his face off the windshield and peered out the side window just in time to watch Arcturus Station, his second home, erupt into a shower of flames and explode.
The collective gasps from the other few passengers indicated they had seen it too. Luckily, nobody went catatonic, or the situation would have escalated quite quickly. One or two of them fainted straightaway. The rest huddled under their seats, clearly unsure of what to do. That was the issue. Now that the Reapers were here, was there ANYONE who wasn't unsure of what to do? Jack was no politician, but he had a nasty feeling in his gut that unless the Council was planning on talking the Reapers to death, the galaxy was standing less of a chance with every passing minute.
"Uh, pal? With the black hair and the two omni-tools? You might wanna come an' see this…" Trez beckoned Jack over to the cockpit windshield. Jack watched, reeling with shock, as the escape pod continued its erratic descent toward Benning's surface. It was creeping ever closer to its imminent crash. Jack, for lack of a better solution, slugged Trez in the arm.
"Then get going, idiot! I'm not planning on sitting around while you let innocent people die!" Jack yelled. Trez blinked with uncertainty.
"But… I don't think the ship can take it! We're putting too much stress on 'er system!" Trez hollered back. In frustration, Jack stomped his foot with such an echoing sound that the passengers in the cabin collectively cringed.
"I don't care! That's my cousin in there, and whether you like it or not, we're saving him! Now move it, or you're going to find out what I do when persuasion isn't an option!"
"Uh… Um… Yes, sir! Right away, sir!" Trez clutched the throttle and shoved it as far as it could go, straight into FTL speeds, and the gap between the pod and the passenger liner began closing up nicely. Of course, the sudden acceleration knocked Jack's face into the windshield for the second time, and this time it refused to come off. The stars in the distance turned into streaks across the sky, and a glimmer of hope began to return to Jack. Suddenly, Trez's face turned whiter than a Scorpion pistol. "Your cousin's pod! It's fallin' apart!" Trez shouted, panicking and hitting buttons in a desperate attempt to do something. But Trez, as it turns out, was absolutely right. The ship shuddered once and abrubtly stopped, flinging Jack backward into the ship's hull. There was nothing left they could do for Kyle and his fellow troops.
Jack braced himself to watch Kyle die. Instead, a strong biotic field erupted around the pod, holding it together. Jack silently cheered, keeping his fingers crossed for another miracle. But that type of luck could never last, and Jack figured that out firsthand when he saw the escape pod violently slam into Benning's surface.