A Study In Solar

Crash Landing

By Trynia Merin


Hand over hand he climbed, pushing his feet against the back of the chairs, and window frames. His cane hooked through the light fixture right beside the cabin door, which was now at an eighty-degree slope up from them. "I STRONGLY suggest you climb onto my back, and get onto my shoulders so we can escape this infernal cabin… before we get concussions from the debris!"

"Fine!" Lestrade shouted as she let him pull her past him, and he knelt down to help her onto his knee and shoulder anchoring himself with the cane. She stood on his bent knee; bracing one hand on his shoulder and reaching up to grasp the door handle and turn it. The door swung inward, startling her as it slammed momentarily into the wet bar immediately to the left. She almost toppled from where Holmes was kneeling, gritting his teeth, and caught the edge of the doorframe with her gloved right hand.

"I suggest you make haste," he grunted.

"I'm not THAT heavy, buster," she snapped back.

Just then she felt his left hand and shoulder push up hard, and she shot through the cabin door into the chamber just before the flight deck. Here there were seats that were folded to the wall, with belts and oxygen tanks set up. Masks had dropped from the survival kits concealed behind mahogany panels. Setting her foot on the wall, which was the floor now, she reached down to grasp Holmes' hand and pull up. He grunted as he scrambled beside her, and leaned his cane down to pull the door handle up and snap the door shut again.

"So we don't unceremoniously end up down there again," he said, locking it firmly behind them. Lestrade stood on the door, and leaned over to press the com panel just along the 'wall. Stabbing the button she shouted, "Hey, this is Inspector Lestrade, what in the absolute zero is going on here?"

"Inspector! Glad you're all right."

"If you call being banged around like ripe fruit all right," Holmes muttered. "Is it the stabilizers?"

"Yes Mr. Holmes!" shouted the captain's voice. "We're loosing altitude, and falling into the gravity well of Mars. We had to avoid crashing into Phobos."

"Can't you stabilize and switch to manual?" Holmes shouted.

"No can do. You and the inspector had best buckle into that fold down seats and strap in. This baby is going to crash… there's nothing we can do but keep her nose up and pray we can land safely without burning up in the atmosphere."

"Now wait!" Lestrade shouted.

"Captains orders! Strap in and hang on!" he shouted.

"Zed, how are we going to get to those seats… we need to fold one down… and it's up THERE?"

Holmes grabbed the table, and set it down on the wall which was their floor. He climbed up onto it, and stood up, but the fold down seat was just out of reach. Lestrade glanced around the cabin, but noticed there was only one crash seat, the one on the far wall, which was almost eleven feet up in what was now a ceiling.

"Holmes, now it's YOUR turn for a leg up," Lestrade said, as she saw him motion to her to get on the table.

"Don't be ridiculous!" he said. "I'll be all right. You take the seat."

"Shut up and get on my shoulders NOW, Holmes," Lestrade shouted. "That's an ORDER!"

"Now just a moment!" Holmes protested.

"Shut it mister," she snapped, and leaned down. Holmes sighed and stepped onto her shoulder, and reached up to the catch that held the seat. With a click it folded down, and the belts dangled just within his reach.

"Confound it… I don't see how?"

"I'm using my own eyes and brains!" she shouted as she boosted him up. "Hook your arms through those two straps, and belt yourself in! Then pull me up!"

Holmes felt Lestrade push up against his feet till his bottom was on the seat and his back was up against the backrest. He slipped his arms through the shoulder harness, and hooked his cane as he braced his leg against the oxygen tank that was in the wall nearby. HE reached down, and pulled Lestrade up. She grabbed the cane he hooked around one of the handles in the wall, and fortuitously the ship pitched again, sending her to the side. The ceiling was now the far wall, and she pushed against him.

Holmes passed her the end of the seat belt and she clicked it around both of them, seated firmly in his lap. Her hands gripped the shoulder straps and she felt his arms clasp around her waist from behind. Through the seat and the wall the same shuddering overtook Holmes and Lestrade, belted into the emergency crash seat. Glancing past Lestrade's shoulder Holmes could see the expanse of red blowing up till it was almost concave. A pull from behind weighed him down, and the window began to glow red faintly.

A light mist undulated on the glass, and Lestrade felt sweat beading all over her and between her body and Holmes behind her. Although in his lap was a place that she had sometimes dreamed would be interesting, this hardly helped reassure her that they might burn up as the cherry red aura flared orange, and then white hot. The queasiness in his stomach returned and Holmes gritted his teeth and held Lestrade close, feeling her body shaking in his arms. Her hands tightened over his, gripping like death.

"We're going to die," she whispered. "Oh god… just like my brother died."

"Lestrade?" he whispered, feeling the tremors rocking them in their seat ever more. Faints whistling like a teakettle boiling over hissed in his ears, and he heard it crescendo into a scream and then drop octaves into a roar.

"We've hit the atmosphere, but we're going too fast," she gasped, gritting her teeth and staring out the window. Lumps of light streaked past, and rolled along the window like mercury that Holmes used to play with in his lab in Baker Street two hundred years ago.

"Stiff upper lip!" he gritted in her ear, her hands squeezing the circulation from his fingers.

"Sherlock we're going to die!" she gasped. He caught her use of his first name, and knew she was terrified. Her brother came to mind. And the fear of crashing was not unrelated, and his deductive mind spun on overdrive fitting the pieces together.

"Beth, brave heart," he whispered. "Where there's life there's hope… don't give up until the last."

The words seemed empty, but he knew that he had to say something as he felt her shaking there, pinned between the weight of her body and the seat behind him. Beth's teeth chattered and he heard a soft whimper come from her lips. Slowly the Inspector was coming apart before his eyes as the ground grew features of dunes and pink swirling clouds, and they were falling into a world.

Sherlock remembered reading the pulp magazines by Edgar Rice Boroughs in his later age, and even the works of H.G. Wells, which he considered an odd curiosity. Horror and sensation were all he read; not much interested in the classics. For him it was fascinating to see the swirling clouds jetting past and the spinning of the ground as a flash of pink sky tumbled and rotated to the ground, and then the sky spun past, making him giddy.

"Goodbye Sherlock," she whispered. "I'm sorry it had to end this way."

"None of that!" he scolded her sharply.

But Lestrade couldn't hear him, because her head fell limp against his shoulder as she mercifully blacked out. Holmes sighed with relief and held her close, drawing strength from the physical closeness as the unknown intruded even on his sense of logic and control. There came another jarring and a loud scraping with the ceiling turning to wall, and clouds of dust outside when he felt the whole micro world of the ship become tipsy turvey. His head shot forward and whipped back, and a Roman candle exploded at the base of his cranium. Darkness soon emerged as he followed Lestrade into it.


Lestrade wondered why her head was pounding, and was glad that everything had gone quiet. Her heavy eyelids seemed to creak open, and a pinkish blur swirled into lines and angles. Outside she could see sky and sand, with scattered rocks. She was still breathing and glad of it too. Her whole body ached, but she slowly moved, trying to get up. Something was holding her down, and she glanced down at the belts strapping around her shoulders and hips. Under her she felt warmth and firmness, and remembered whose lap she was sitting in.

"Holmes… we're alive… we crashed," she got out as she unclipped the seat belt and staggered to stand. She caught herself on the ledge around one of the thick windows. No answer in the silence. Trying her wrist COM she punched buttons. Nothing. A channel was open, indicated by the flickering green screen but there was no response.

"Holmes?" she asked as she turned and saw him with his head leaned to one side, and his lips were a curious shade of blue. She grasped his arms and shook him, repeating his name.

"Sherlock… wake up," she nudged him again.

His skin was pale, and she lifted her hand to his mouth, and felt nothing. Quickly she probed his body up and down with careful touches and listened at his chest. A faint but steady beat was present, but very slow. A shock surged in her body, and she grabbed him and dragged him to lie on the flattest surface, the floor.

Her hand pressed against his forehead and her other against his chin to tilt up his face and open the airway. She grabbed the tie and loosened it with the top button, tapping him and shaking him. How cold he felt, Lestrade thought, and she felt sick inside. It couldn't be, could it? Not while she could do something, she decided, pinching off his nose and opening his mouth. Taking a deep breath she sealed her mouth to his and exhaled, feeling a strange thrill at the touch of her lips to his, cold though they were.

"C'mon Holmes, breathe!" she urged, and then gave another breath to him. Her hand probed his neck and felt a thready pulse. Still nothing, as she continued for what seemed like a dizzying period of time.

"Don't do this, you can't do this. Don't die on me, damn it!" she yelled at him. "I didn't bring you back to have you do this… not now!"

Again she filled his chest with air, stinging moisture in her eyes that blurred her vision. Something moved under her, and his breath surged back into her mouth. She quickly leaned back, heart pounding in fear that he'd realize how close she had been, and how silly it was to worry about their invisible lines now. His body jarred and she heard a loud cough. His eyes fluttered and he gave a low moan.

"Oh don't do that again!" she cried as she pressed her head to his chest and slid her arm under his neck.

"Lestrade… may I ask… why I'm on the floor… although… I can guess… the answer…" he coughed, blinking up at her.

"Oh zed, you scared me to death," she gasped, griping his shoulder tightly.

"Lestrade," he whispered, raising his hand to touch her cheek lightly. "I told you… we'd make it."

"Oh shut up, you," she laughed, wiping at her eyes and hoping he didn't notice the tears.