Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, obviously.
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Chapter 5: Rough Landing
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The Lambda-class shuttle kept spinning slightly until Kylo Ren managed to plot a stable course on the planet's orbit. A gargantuan pile of debris drifted alongside the small craft, its pieces dashing past the fragile ship and heading to be burnt in the atmosphere. Sooner or later, one of the fragments would hit the shuttle. Everyone seemed to know it, but avoided speaking up, as though mere mention of the danger would jinx it.
Commander Hux massaged his aching temples as he saw a pair of frozen stormtroopers glide across the space right out the window. He was responsible for these men and he failed them. Biting at his lower lip, he glanced up at the remaining members of his crew. Kylo Ren and Phasma sat by the consoles, composed and seemingly emotionless, but the other two... Tarkin was pale like a stormtrooper's armor and so was Doctor Calway. Even though the temperature in the shuttle was back to normal, they couldn't stop tremble.
"We'll make it, won't we?" Tarkin whispered hopefully.
Calway reached out to squeeze her palm reassuringly. "Of course," he answered her.
Phasma cleared her throat. "I wouldn't be so sure about that," she said and shifted in her chair so that she could see Hux. "Commander, we have a fuel leak and the propulsion is damaged."
Three deep wrinkles appeared on Hux's forehead. He was no star craft engineer, but even he had an inkling what it meant. "No light speed then." Thoughtfully, he scratched his hairless chin. "Is it possible for us to land?"
Instead of answering, Phasma let out a whistling noise, something between a reluctant sigh and a sound of panic. She raised her head to gaze on the ceiling and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure," she admitted.
"We'll land. That is, I'll land." Suddenly, Kylo Ren spoke. Unwavering confidence rang in his voice and a spark of hope lit his dark eyes. One corner of his lips curled up in a crooked smile. "It may be a rough landing though."
Hux stiffened upon the words. If Kylo Ren called a landing rough, it might mean only one thing… A droplet of cold sweat traveled down his temple and dripped onto his collar. "You want to crash land the shuttle." He realized.
"What?" Tarkin's high-pitched voice disturbed the silence. Her blue eyes bulged so much, as if they were about to pop out of the sockets. "You must be joking, it's too dangerous!" She shook her head in disbelief.
Calway swallowed a lump in his throat. "Isn't there a safer way?" he asked faintly.
Hux tapped his fingers against the armrest, thinking. Normally, he'd turn such a risky idea down. However, the circumstances called for unusual solutions; the resistance's reinforcements would show up any minute. The First Order might beat them, though…
Suddenly, something flashed outside the window, flying dangerously close to the shuttle. A split second later, the small craft was hit and knocked off the low orbit. All five of Hux's crew were seated and strapped, thankfully, so they didn't land flattened across the ceiling, when the shuttle shook violently. The view out the window got blurry as the little ship spun uncontrollably after the impact.
"What has happened?" Hux demanded.
Phasma kept hitting buttons on the console and staring at the display. "We got hit by something, a piece of debris probably," she said fairly calmly. Her composure was short-lived, however, and ended when she spotted some disturbing data. Alarmed, she exclaimed, "Oh no… the life support is damaged!"
Hux tilted his head, listening to a whizzing sound, which sounded a lot like the air escaping into the cold vacuum of space."Can we fix it?" He asked.
Phasma shook her head. "Not without an engineer or an astrodroid." She proceeded with tempering with the systems and extracting more data. "At this rate, we'll ran out of oxygen in about twenty minutes."
While Phasma was delivering the catastrophic news, Kylo Ren went ahead with flipping switches and pulling levers. At first, his actions seemed harmless, until he gripped the steer and punched one of the buttons. He triggered the maneuvering thrusters, which sent the shuttle into an abrupt leap right between two huge pieces of debris. On its way, the craft's stabilizer grazed the space junk and broke off.
Hux dug his fingers into his armrests so forcefully that his knuckles went white. "Kylo Ren, may I ask you what are you doing?" he demanded harshly, glaring at Snoke's young apprentice.
Kylo Ren didn't bother to even look over his shoulder. He merely muttered under his breath, barely loud enough for Hux to hear, "Landing before I suffocate."
Before Hux could scold Kylo Ren for making decisions without consultation, Tarkin leant forward in her chair. "You know what?" she spoke up with a trembling voice. With her skinniness and pale as she was right now, she looked like a ghost. "I'd rather die quickly in a shuttle crash than slowly asphyxiate."
"May the Force be with us," Calway added and assumed the crash landing position, bent over with his head between his knees.
"Looks like you've been outvoted, commander," Phasma commented nonchalantly.
Hux gritted his teeth. "We don't have democracy in the First Order," he hissed through the clenched teeth, but his statement fell on the deaf ears.
Soon, he felt the shuttle accelerating as Kylo Ren guided it toward the planet. Along the way, smaller pieces of debris bounced off the craft, but the sturdy hull somehow withstood the hits. It got shaky when the landing approach was initiated and the shuttle entered the atmosphere. Quickly, it got unbearably hot and it was difficult to hear anything over the deafening rattling of the ship. Nonetheless, Hux's sensitive hearing picked up a bunch of alarming noises that sounded an awful lot like parts of the craft falling off. Despite Kylo Ren's earnest efforts, the shuttle tilted, coming down at a wrong angle. If it continues like this, it will be crushed upon impact with the ground.
"Steady the shuttle!" Hux yelled to Kylo Ren, outshouting the noise.
Kylo Ren held the steers in an iron grip, tugging it, but nothing changed. The shuttle kept spinning. Then, Hux smelled smoke, as though something was burning. Before he could warn his crew, the pilot consol before Phasma and Snoke's apprentice blew up. The detonation was small, barely managing to smoke Kylo Ren's eyebrows, but enough to fry the display. While the shuttle kept descending, Phasma dealt with the fire by extinguishing it with her black mantel. Vigorously, she smacked the fabric against the smoking console. Next to her, Kylo Ren used a hem of his cape to smother sparks that landed on his lap and were about to set fire to his crotch.
"Well, we're done for," Tarkin whispered in a deadpan voice devoid of all hope. She leant back, crossed her arms on her chest and closed her eyes. Her position was eerily similar to one of a corpse on bier, awaiting cremation.
"Let us not panic just yet," Hux said to raise her morale, but he didn't really believe that. Helplessly, he watched the shuttle approach the thick layer of clouds and eventually plunge into them. Knowing that the impact was imminent, he called to Kylo Ren, "Can we slow the descent or do anything?"
"No!" Kylo Ren shouted back.
Hux nodded, acknowledging the grim information. He cleared his throat and commanded, "Brace for the impact!"
Just as the words rolled off his tongue, the shuttle emerged from the clouds. Ahead, a green field extended as far as the eye could see. When the craft got closer, Hux saw that they were above a lush jungle, filled with trees almost as high as the buildings on Coruscant. Some of the treetops vanished in the clouds, other were dangerously close…
Tarkin's terrified shriek rang in Hux's ears, as the shuttle crashed into one of the umbrella-like trees. The window held, but a net of cracks covered it, extending. Almost right away, the spacecraft hit more of the vegetation, smashing through the bark and thick branches, surely leaving a path of destruction behind it. Leaves and small animals kept crashing into the window, causing ghastly smears on the glass. The net of cracks grew, threatening to break the integrity of the shuttle.
Hux felt his back hurt as it got flattened against the backseat and rattled about. His teeth chattered so much that it was a miracle that his jaw didn't just break off. Barely, he restrained the horrid nausea, which made his stomach feel like a barrel of explosives. He fixed his gaze on the window and the view beneath it, pleading for the insane ride to halt.
The shuttle started to slow down gradually, after it eradicated a good portion of the forest. Soon, when the velocity dropped, the spacecraft lost its power of a speeding projectile. A collision with a particularly thick trunk sent the shuttle bouncing back to the side, falling on more branches. Hux heard himself scream as the ship made its way down. The parachute ejected, but it didn't do any good in the dense forest, it didn't even open. Instead, it got caught in the branches and tore, slowing the shuttle a little, but not sufficiently. It would be a hard landing, hard enough to have Hux and the rest splatter upon impact.
"I'm sorry grandpa!" Tarkin yelled, right before the shuttle hit the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited to die in the crash.
Hux felt an abrupt jerking upon the impact. His seatbelts barely held his body as the enormous g-force threw him forward. For a split second, he hang on the safety straps that dug into his shoulders and stomach. Then, he got plastered against his chair again, the back of his head banging against the headrest. Immediately, dizziness overtook him, making his vision fuzzy and senses dulled. Annoying, persistent ringing in his ears got louder, preventing Hux from discerning the other sounds. Barely, he registered the back of the shuttle lower to the ground. Confused and nauseous, he gawked about.
Takin and Phasma were limp in their chairs; he couldn't even tell if they were still alive. Doctor Calway turned his head to stare back at Hux and kept saying something. His lips moved, but the ringing in Hux's ears was too intense to make out what he was trying to convey. Frantically, the chubby medic pointed his finger at the front window.
Before the commander looked in that direction, he felt something gooey touch his feet, slimy and wet. He felt it all over his toes, then it reached his ankles and crept up his calves. Slowly because of his aching neck, Hux stared down. His blue eyes widened as he saw muddy bog water on the shuttle's floor, it's lever rising steadily. Now he understood what Calway wanted to tell him. Suddenly much more focused, he looked up at the front window to discover that the glass pane was gone. Sharp pieces of glass stuck out from the frame, but the rest lay scattered on the floor, now covered by the dirty swamp water, which was pouring inside. Dense, brownish liquid seeped over the console straight onto Phasma's bucket helmet and Kylo Ren's face.
Coughing and spitting, Kylo Ren wrestled with his seatbelt. Finally, he whipped out his lightsaber and cut the straps off. His wet cloaked glued to his legs, heavy and obscuring his movements. Wading in the knee-deep water, he reached Phasma and cut her seatbelt off.
"Thanks," Phasma uttered. She had to prop herself against the pilot console while getting up from her chair. Her sturdy armor seemed to hold her upright, for she swayed from side to side slightly as she went to free Hux.
Water already reached his lap when Phasma shot the straps off with her blaster. Hux gasped, startled, and shuddered. She could have blasted my head off. Frantically, he shook the remnants of the straps off his shoulders and pulled himself up.
"Calway, Tarkin, are you fine?" Hux eyed his subordinates, who were getting freed by Phasma just now.
Tarkin, miraculously without even a single bruise or scratch on her, jumped to her feet energetically. "Surprisingly, I'm alright." She smiled unsurely and checked if her grandfather's medal was still safely stashed under her uniform. Relieved, she breathed out and helped Calway get up. "Come on, doc, the shuttle is sinking."
Calway nodded, struggling to move forward in the waist-deep, murky water. "My late grandma must be watching over us," he said. "If we crashed into something else than a bog, we'd be done for. All in all, we're lucky buggers."
"Lucky?" Hux repeated dryly as he limped to the smashed window. "Over sixty thousand of good men and women died during the last hour and you call us lucky?" He glared at Calway, making the doctor lower his head and hunch his back. Hux gritted his teeth and fixed his gaze on the way out from the sinking shuttle.
Kylo Ren already crawled outside, closely followed by Calway and Tarkin. The skinny spy officer climbed onto the console and reached out to pull the doctor up.
Hux clearly felt aching in his foot, but he kept fighting against the rising water level. Suddenly, he felt a shiver go down his spine, as though something was amiss. Much too quickly for his hurting neck, he turned around to stare at the thrashed, empty compartment. "Phasma?" he called, not seeing her anywhere.
Tarkin froze and her hold on Calway loosened. The doctor's palm slipped out of hers and he plopped into the water, vanishing under the surface for a while. Tarkin didn't even spare a glance at him though. She paled and gawked ahead. "Phasma?" she coughed out quietly, before she jumped into water, frantically searching for the missing officer.
Hux bit his lower lip and joined her. "Don't stand there, Calway!" he yelled and leant forward, blindly looking for Phasma by flailing his arms in the water. The sound of slashing accompanied him as he stumbled upon something with his foot. A chair? Hux furrowed his brows and took a deep breath, before diving.
The water was more like a gruel than a liquid, which made his movements even slower. He reached out and felt out the object. Its surface was smooth like metal and the shape… It was Phasma! Hux almost released air from his lungs upon the discovery. He grabbed her as firmly as he could and hauled her up.
"Tarkin, help me!" he cried out once his mouth was above the surface. A bit of the stinky goo got to his mouth and he could taste its foul flavor. Disgusted, he spat it out, right atop Phasma's helmet.
"Hurry up commander." Tarkin ducked under Phasma's arm so that she could support the limp trooper. "The shuttle will be under water in no time."
Hux nodded, acknowledging her words, and pushed forward. Phasma and her armor were unbelievably heavy to carry. He had to use all his strength to keep the unconscious sergeant's head above the water as he was hauling her to safety. With Calway's aid, he and Tarkin dragged Phasma onto the console and then through the empty window frame. The level of adrenaline in Hux's system was still high and he was bewildered, so he barely felt a shard of glass graze his thigh and pierce it like a big needle.
By the time Hux and his crew scrambled outside, only the tip of the spacecraft floated above the surface. As it turned out, the shuttle had landed precisely in the middle of a small pool surrounded by stone-hard root system. For a moment, the commander wondered how would they swim to shore in the thick bog water, but help was on the way.
"Grab it." Kylo Ren tossed them a bunch of lianas, which he had tied to a tree's trunk.
"Appreciated." Hux caught the lianas and tied one of them around Phasma's chest tightly. He raised his head and nodded to Kylo Ren before he pushed the knocked out trooper into the bog.
Kylo Ren set his legs apart, making sure his stance was firm and steady. Quickly, he pulled at the liana, towing Phasma to the shore. For a moment, she vanished under the surface, and Hux held his breath. He was able to breathe out with relief when she emerged and got hauled to safety by Kylo Ren.
"You're next, Tarkin." Hux helped her tie the liana under her shoulders and turned to do the same to Calway. He lifted one of the makeshift roped and was about to put it around the doctor, when the plump man lifted his hand in a protest.
Calway shook his head. "I'm going after you, commander," he stated in a startlingly firm tone, so different from his usual babbling.
"As a commander, I won't evacuate before my subordinate." Hux narrowed his eyes.
"As a doctor, I won't let a wounded stay behind me." Calway pointed his finger down, at Hux's leg.
The commander looked down and with a certain surprise, he discovered that he was injured. Blood seeped out of his thigh, mixing with the brownish bog water. When he shifted his weight to the wounded limb, he felt pain spreading all over his leg. He gasped, startled by its intensity. "Alright, we'll do it your way, Calway," he uttered through the clenched teeth and tied the rope around himself. Trying to ignore the pain, he leapt forward to the swamp and started pulling at the liana.
Kylo Ren got him out of the bog quickly, and Calway joined not long after. Exhausted and injured, Hux slumped to a wide root which engulfed the pool of water. Wiping the muddy liquid off his face, he stared at the Lambda-class shuttle in front of him. Most of it sunk already, save the stub of the flight stabilizer.
"This day just gets better and better," Hux commented, watching the shuttle vanish under the water's surface.
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Author's Note:
Thanks for reading! It would be amazing if you let me know in comments how did you like the story.
Also, the story is going for a hiatus.