Chapter 6: turbulence
The shuttle shook with fury as the flames engulfed the outer hull. It drove through the atmosphere in only a few seconds, and the shaking stopped. From the surface of the planet the shuttle could be seen streaking across the sky like some kind of meteor. Vaughn held onto the straps that held him in with dear life. He could not judge how fast he was falling, but he was falling very, very fast. The synthetic felt weightless for the duration of the fall, something that both scared, and excited him. He slammed back down to his seat when the heavy thruster kicked in on the bottom of the pod. They shot their rocket streams at full burn and the decent began to slow. Suddenly alarms started to go off all around him. Flashing symbols alerted him to something he could not understand. The pod began to shake again and a loud whining sound overpowered even the roar of the thrusters. Just then a monumental explosion rocked the pod. One of the thrusters exploded, sending the shuttle spinning violently out of control. The automated systems tried to compensate, but the force of the explosion was too much. It spiraled down to the surface of the jungle planet, leaving a thick trail of smoke behind. Vaughn held on for dear life and hoped that this was another test. The shuttle was now again engulfed in flames. It shot down to the planet and slammed down hard into a clearing with high grass. The ground shook and mud and grass flew from the impact site. Unknown animals scurried around just beyond sight in the dense foliage. The heap of shuttle pod smoked thick and black as a panel jerked, them flew off as the synthetic man trapped inside kicked it out and crawled out of the wreckage.
Vaughn coughed and spit up a little blood as he stumbled away from the heap of hot metal. He dropped to his knees and choked up some more blood, then rolled to his back and took a deep breath. "Well, at least I didn't fall out of the sky or anything..." he was glad that he could still manage a since of humor despite his situation. Vaughn lay there for maybe two minutes until he regained his composure. He slowly staggered to his feet surveyed his surroundings. He was in a clearing of knee high grass, dense jungle all around him. The shuttle pod that he had come down in was now a smoldering heap of metal. The wet grass around it burning slightly, sending up small streams of smoke. A thin layer of fog floated just above the grass, not quite thick enough to hide what was underneath? Vaughn couldn't see more than about five feet into the foliage, something that unsettled him a bit. He still wondered if this was another test, but was doubtful that something like this could be planned so well. Vaughn's thoughts were quickly answered as some of the foliage brushed aside and the fog wrapped itself around a pair of invisible legs.