Disclaimer: Metroid is Nintendo's, not mine
Samus Aran continued the losing battle with the ship's controls, trying to keep the thing on course towards the reassuring bulk of Earth. She was becoming rapidly aware that calling what she was now trying to steer a 'ship' was a major stretch. Blinking and buzzing, a dozen alarms were going off all at the same time. Shields, weapons, everything, in fact, except one of the two engines had either been blown off or had fused into a useless lump. On top off all this, she was exhausted and frightened and angry at the X, the Metroids, the Federation, and the universe in general. A particularly urgent beep provoked from her a groan. Her suit was rapidly running out of intravenous painkillers, which meant that the dull ache of her probably-broken right leg was going to get much worse pretty soon.
A tinny voice rang over her suit's shortwave radio, the only communication device that still worked, claiming to be from Airspace Control.
"Unidentified craft," it said calmly as Samus' ship came tearing into the atmosphere. "Please activate your ship's identity transponder. We are having trouble verifying your ship license."
"I can't!" Samus shouted, all protocol forgotten in the severity of the situation. "The transponder has been destroyed! Clear landing strip 4! This is an EMERGENCY!"
Airspace control said nothing for a long moment. Samus felt the ship speed up as a brake flap gave with a depressing metallic ping.
"Negative, unidentified craft," came the reply. "Landing strip is only for Capital and Omnicapital class starships. Visual conformation claims that your craft is a light freighter. Again, please activate your ship transponder and we will assign you a platform,"
"It's destroyed," Samus snarled. Her vision was bordered with red as fury charged up from her stomach in great spasms. "Why don't I activate the auxiliary? Because that's destroyed! And my port engine! And most of my brakes! I'm tired, hungry, wounded, terrified and if you don't clear me for landing on that damned strip I'll do my very best to slam this damned ship into your damned control tower!"
As she tried to wretch breath from the grease rich air, the operator was curiously silent for a moment.
"You are cleared for landing strip 4, unidentified craft."
"Thank you," Samus said before switching off the radio.
The only other coherent being in the ship spoke at this point.
"That was bit harsh," Adam's voice came from her helmet earphone.
In response, Samus grunted and finally saw landing strip 4 as the clouds exploded away. Her eyesight, focused by fear, could just make out the tiny spots frantically trying to move various crates from the strip.
"Are we going to make it?" Adam asked. "We're going too fast."
"Probably not," Samus snapped. "So let me fly."
Adam stayed silent as Samus, her brow into a determined, grim V, staring at the rapidly approaching ground. She had about a minute left before she was just a layer of grease on the concrete. Her brain finally kicked into action. The engine was too damaged, what she needed was a rapid dispersal of force. She checked the control panel. The port engine was useless, but the reactor was still diverting its chunk of power. There's the answer, she thought.
"Shift all the energy to the starboard engine," she barked, trying to stabilize the flight path.
"But that might cause the engines to explode!" Adam said urgently. "They are too damaged!"
Luckily, Adam had no physical body, so he was spared one of Samus' very intimidating glares.
"Just do it!" she howled as the strip bore closer. The engine, already loud to begin with, began to roar in protest as factory safeties were being melted. The words "Caution: Danger of System Collapse" flashed on the engine control panel. To trigger the reaction, Samus would have to throttle the system to max. Her metal-gloved finger brushed against the booster toggle. Ah…
Samus jammed the control stick to the right and cut the power for an instant. The landscape wheeled away and the craft turned 180 degrees. She lingered for only a second, watching the parts of the ship drift away. She gunned the engine.
The roaring beginning again, Samus almost blacked out as the tremendous g-forces slammed her back into her seat. The altitude indicator was the only thing that held what little attention she had left in her, and terror galvanized her. A little more, a little more…
She pressed the booster button…
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From outside, the view was breathtaking. Samus's craft was dwarfed by the strip, which was designed for the sorts of ships that leaders fly around in, with crews of a few thousand. Those close enough to see, however, still remember the sight. The little spot of blackened steel wheeled around frantically and came at the landing strip backwards, the one good engine burning with great intensity. This course of action slowed the craft a great amount, but that wasn't the most amazing part. Literally ten feet from the strip, the entire rear end of the ship blew up, sending molten chunks of metal in every direction. The flame extended no less than a hundred yards, the searing whiteness of the focused force lasting for a split second. Ahead, the ship, dwarfed by the size of the explosion, had stopped heading backwards. In fact, it had been blown a thousand yards ahead, but only fifty more yards higher into the air, and the corpse of the ship spun with illusory peace towards the ground, landing with a thud that could be heard clearly from the main control tower, two miles away
From Samus's point of view, the entire fiasco was shockingly calming. In the moment that the engine went critical, everything slowed down, stretching seconds into minutes. The explosion was of the sort that overrode every sense. The sound was so loud and so quick that Samus didn't even hear more than a dull whomph from somewhere in the bowels of the craft, and then the entire world went white. The last thing she remembered thinking before surrendering to the light was, I'm going to die…and I don't care…
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Hey, I finished earlier than I thought!
Thanks for reading,
-Donutmaster