Chapter 2: The Drop Ship
"Come on, River, wake up," a voice says, as a hand taps the side of my face. My head jerks up, my eyes opening. "There you are," Finn smiles, crouched down in front of me. "Welcome back to the world."
I blink, rubbing my eyes, as realization of what must have happened slowly rises. "They knocked me out? That's rude."
"Yeah, very," Finn chuckles.
"Get back in your seat, guys!" Clarke, daughter of the man who discovered the flaw in the life-support, says. I look around, and realize we're already in the drop ship. Almost everyone is strapped in to their seats. Except for Finn, who's holding himself in place by gripping the arms of my chair, and a few other boys who are just floating in the anti-gravity air.
Clarke, of course, goes ignored. "You okay?" Finn asks me.
"Yeah," I nod after taking a quick mental check. No pain, dizziness, or nausea though, so I must still be in one whole piece. For now. "Yeah, I'm okay."
"Good," Finn nods. "Now what the hell are you doing here?"
I smirk, "Come on, Finn, you didn't really think I'd let you losers have all the fun on the Ground without me, did you?"
Before Finn can respond, the TV screen on the wall flickers on and Chancellor Jaha's voice fills the room. Finn stays where he is in front of me, anchored down by his grip, but we both, along with everyone else, turn our attention to the screen.
"Prisoners of The Ark, here me now," his recorded video messages says. "You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."
"Your dad is a dick, Wells!" someone says.
"Wells?" I wonder, looking around. Sure enough, there he is, having gotten a seat beside his former best friend, Clarke Reynolds. No wonder the Chancellor looked so stressed before. His goody-goody son had just been arrested.
Chancellor Jaha's image continues, "Those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean. The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather-" My head snaps up. "-was a military base built within a mountain. it was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain 300 people for up to two years. Mount Weather is life. You must locate those supplies immediately. Your one responsibility is to stay alive."
The drop ship lurches violently, and Finn drops from the air, landing clumsily in front of me. I laugh, "Graceful."
"Shut up," he mutters, sitting up.
"Stay in your seats," Clarke barks out. The drop ship's still shaking, hard enough that for a split second I have the thought that it's going to shake apart. Finn keeps his grip on the arms of my seat tight enough that his knuckles are white.
"Retrorockets ought to have fired by now," Wells says.
"Okay. Everything on this ship is a hundred years old, right? Just give it a second," Clarke says, her voice shaking just slightly from her panic.
"If we die in here, just so you know, I'm totally blaming you," Finn says to me.
I snort, "Right, we're going to crash and die just because I got myself on the drop ship last minute."
"Clarke, there's something I have to tell you," Wells says from a little ways down the row and across the aisle. "I'm sorry I got your father arrested."
"Don't you talk about my father," Clarke snaps at him.
"If we don't die, I think Clarke's going to kill Wells," I comment. Finn lets out a nervous laugh. I don't think I've ever seen Finn this nervous. It's kinda funny.
"Please, I can't die knowing that you hate me," Wells pleads.
"They didn't arrest my father, Wells. They executed him. I do hate you."
Before anything else can be said, the crash comes. My hands automatically snap out to grab Finn by the shoulders of his shirt to hold him in place, as people shout and scream and the drop ship lurches to such a violent stop that I would have been thrown out of my seat if I hadn't been strapped in, and Finn would have been launched away and possibly killed on impact if he wasn't gripping the arms of my seat and I wasn't gripping the shoulders of his shirt.
Then everything's silent. "Listen," a familiar voice says. "No machine hum."
"Whoa," another familiar voice says. "That's a first."
I let out a short, relieved laugh. I survived, Finn survived, Monty and Jasper survived. They don't know I'm here yet, and I don't know where Bellamy and Octavia and Murphy are, but I'm just praying that they survived too.
"You okay?" I ask Finn.
"Yeah," he says, letting out his own relieved laugh. "Come on, pixie, let's get you up." He starts to unbuckle my seat, but I slap his hands away and do it myself, making him chuckle as he stands up.
"River?" Jasper says. He and Monty are already unbuckled, and rushing over to me. I'm barely standing before I'm surrounded by the two of them hugging me.
"What are you doing here?!" Monty asks.
"Same thing you are, apparently," I grin at them both. "Scoping out the Ground."
"Whatever," Jasper shakes his head. "I'm just glad you're here."
"Yeah, totally," Monty agrees, grinning.
"The outer door is on the lower level," someone says.
"Let's get out of here," I grin at Monty, Jasper and Finn. "Let's go to the Ground."
"No, we can't just open the doors," Clarke argues as everyone moves to the lower level.
"Hey, just back it up, guys," I recognize Bellamy's voice from near the door.
I whistle, "Yo Blake!"
Bellamy looks up in surprise, and I stand on the closest seat to wave at him. His eyes are wide, but then he closes them for a second and swears, "Seriously, River?"
"Gods, don't sound so relieved I survived the crash-landing," I roll my eyes.
"Stop!" Clarke calls as Bellamy, shaking his head, turns back to the door. "The air could be toxic!"
"If the air is toxic, we're all dead anyway," Bellamy points out as I weasel my way closer to him. Finn, Jasper and Monty are right behind me.
"Bellamy?" another familiar voice says, and Octavia pushes through the crowd to appear in front of us. But she's oblivious to me right now, focused on her brother.
"My God, look how big you are," Bellamy comments, hugging his sister.
"What the hell are you wearing? A guard's uniform?" she questions, looking him up and down.
"I borrowed it to get on the drop ship." Dear gods, did he shoot someone too? "Someone has got to keep an eye on you," he chuckles. "Both of you, apparently," he casts a pointed glance at me, and I smirk.
"Oh my God, River!" Octavia swallows me in a hug next. She's only a few inches taller than me, thankfully.
"Where's your wristband?" Clarke asks.
"Do you mind?" Octavia almost snaps at her. "I haven't seen my best friend and brother in a year."
"No one has a brother," someone says.
"That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor," someone else realizes.
Octavia immediately turns to lunge, but Bellamy knows his sister well, and grabs her arm to stop her before she can attack. "Octavia, Octavia, no. Let's give them something else to remember you by."
"Yeah?" she turns on him. "Like what?"
"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years," he throws the door open.