Ch2: Hey. I guess the last chapter wasn't too bad, its just hard starting out with nothing to build off of. But enough of my whining, that's not why you're here. Getting to the MOST important part of any story…THE READERS!
Luna264: His name is not the strangest thing about him, as you will see. Trust me. And I appreciate you saying this is a good story already. Let's hope it stays that way.
sparklespepper: Thanks for your support. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update this story. It shouldn't take to long to get a new chapter up (hopefully).
LANA 8D: "these kinda beginnings"? I can't help but wonder what kind of beginning your refering too. But thanks for the vote of confidence. As pertaining to when the Loonatics will "come into" my story you may be somewhat…disappointed, but not too much. I can't say much or it may spoil the story.
Anyway, there will be a little swearing in here, so be aware of that. Now lets just get going.
EDIT: I added in some stuff that I was going to put into a new chapter, but figured that it would just get redundant, and I tweaked some other parts (mostly the ending) all in the hopes of makeing it better. Did it work (actually, now that I think about it I don't think you can comment on the same chapter twice, so if you have something really want to say to me you can just PM me)? By the way... LANA 8D: "what i meant was when you start a story with Your OC only." Riiiiiight…hold onto that thought for a few more chapters.
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"What do you mean problem?" Polk growled at the two pilots. "I specifically asked if you too were expecting any problems…"
"Well we weren't expecting anything like this to happen. There was a…a chance that something would…" Harrison tried to explain himself to the passengers, but trailed off shortly after he started.
"That doesn't matter now." Polk said, trying to maintain a hold on his anger. "Just tell us what the problem is."
"Somethings wrong with the engine." McKinley stated simply. As she said this the lights started to flicker on and off more rapidly.
"That's it? You don't even know what's wrong do you?" Tyler practically shouted. He wasn't as good at keeping a hold on his anger as Polk.
"Alright look," McKinley said, "none of us are even supposeta' to be here ok. This ship's engine has been acting up for weeks and nobody could figure out what was wrong. They said the only people who may have been able to figure it out were on the prison station. They were going to just have them come down planet-side and fix it, but then Mr. St. John started causing trouble and made all the prison officials wet themselves. So then someone had the bright idea to transport the potentially dangerous criminal to the maximum security space prison, which houses the most skilled mechanics in the whole prison system, on the shuttle with a faulty engine."
So they were trying to 'kill two birds with one stone', the third passenger thought as he listened to the pilot's explanation. "This whole assignment was set up last minuet?" he asked no one in particular.
"That would explain why there's only me and you here to guard the prisoner, and why they had to call you in for support." Polk said, indicating to the third passenger. "Normally we would have five or six people for a transfer to a maximum security facility."
"That's all well and good but it doesn't explain what's wrong with the engine or what you're going to do to fix it." Tyler added hotly.
"We can't really fix it in the middle of space." Harrison said as he kept scanning digital readouts of the ships status with his eyes.
"He's right. The most we can do is just try to manage the ship." McKinley said as she tried to regain some of the confidence she had lost with her passengers.
Tyler was not going to make it easy. "And what if you can't 'manage' it?"
McKinley scowled, "If push comes to shove I'll have to kill the engine completely, activate the emergency distress beacon and wait for someone to pick us up. But I'm not very anxious to let it come to that."
As she spoke the ship began to lurch and rock violently. "The thrusters are getting out of control. They're firing off and shutting down individually." Harrison said as he looked at an image showing him this on the control panel in front of him.
"Damn, Ok you three sit down and buckle up. This is going to be a little rough." McKinley was pleased to hear the sound of buckles being fastened from behind her. Nice to know they're listening to me.
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"This is unbelievable." Tyler said crossly a few minuets after McKinley had told them to buckle up for the rough ride ahead. "They decide that our lives are worth risking because they're scared of some inmate!" Tyler was practically fuming at this point. "Unbelievable!"
"Settle down Tyler!" Polk shouted back at him. He's probably just scared, hell; so am I, but showing him that wont help anything. Got to stay calm…at least for his sake, Polk thought as he looked over at Tyler. They had known each other for long enough for him to be able to see through Tyler's anger. "Just calm down: every thing will be fine." he said with as much certainty as he could muster. He saw Tyler nod slightly and look down into his lap. Polk nodded as well; then looked to his right at the third passenger. "How are you doing?" he asked.
The third passenger gave a weak smile, "This isn't the first time I've been in a dangerous situation." he said. This was true: he did a lot of dangerous things with his team on an almost daily basis; even so he still felt a little nervous. He wasn't afraid of dieing, he managed to survive every hazardous situation without any permanent harm coming to him; it was just hard to overcome that natural instinct to avoid danger. He glanced back over to where Johnny was, and was, once again, surprised by what he saw. Despite the increasingly forceful rocking of ship, he had not moved at all. He continued to lay on his back with his head resting on his arms; staring at the ceiling with no visible apprehension about what was happening what so ever, he almost looks amused in fact, he thought judjing by the small smirk on his face. Perhaps he could not hear what McKinley had said and, there for, does not understand the danger we all could be in. No, the shaking would most likely indicate something is wrong. I suppose he must be at peace with everything in his life to so calm. Lucky man.
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"Alright Harrison what's our status?" McKinleyasked as she began the process of getting things under control.
"Like I said, out thrusters are out-of-sync, our internal heat levels are rising rapidly, and our energy output levels are spiking and dipping sporadically; *1 taking our acceleration rate along for the ride." He said all this in a quick and slightly panicky tone as he saw the flashing warning lights filling his vision.
McKinley herself was feeling a little shaken. Come on, she thought, pull it together McKinley. Got to stay calm. "Settle down Harrison," she tried to calm her jittery co-pilot, "just take a deep breath and stay with me. I'm going to need you focused." She saw him take the deep breath and then nod to her. "Good, now you open up all the thermal shields and hopefully the vacuum outside will help cool us down. I'm going to scale the throttle back and see if that stabilizes things." Before she had even finished giving out her instructions she was already at work, and Harrison followed suit. They worked diligently for a few tense moments of relative silence (it was becoming difficult to manipulate the controls with the ship's violent movements). Just ease the throttle back…nice…and…slow, McKinley thought as she pulled the leaver that controlled their speed back toward herself; seeing the digital numerals changing as she did so. 50…40…30…20: she glanced over at another small screen and saw the wavy lines beginning to settle down. "Power and acceleration are leveling out. How are we doing on heat Harrison?" she asked as she looked over to him.
"It's still in the danger area but it stopped rising." he replied with some relief audible in his voice. "I think we did it."
Unfortunately, after he said this McKinley saw warning lights going off again. What!, she mentally shouted as she witnessed the power levels and throttle increasing on their own. 30, 40, 50, 70, 90, and the numbers continued to clime. She sighed heavily in defeat. "That's it. Cut the fuel lines Harrison. We're going to have to go with plan B."
Harrison nodded somberly, then looked for the appropriate switch that would block the flow of fuel to the engine; hopefully shutting it down. He finally found the proper switch and used it. He waited for a moment, but there was no change. He flipped it back and forth but had the same result. "It's not responding! The circuits must be fried!" he said, again the panic growing up in him.
"Son of a bitch! Someone will have to use the manual cut off leaver." McKinley shouted so everyone could hear her now.
"I'll do it!" Harrison said as he began to unbuckle himself from the seat.
"No Harrison! I need you hear to help me with this." McKinley said as she grabbed his arm and made him stop moving.
"I'll do it!" Polk said as he unfastened his own safety belt. "What does it look like?" he asked as he struggled to stay on his feet with the ship jolting him back and forth.
"It's a red and yellow leaver on the corner of the ceiling; above you and to your right." McKinley answered. "Make sure you pull it all the way down toward you." She added this extra bit of information to make sure no mistakes were made.
Polk looked around for a second and saw the leaver. He made his way over to it as quickly as he could and reached up to grab it. He clutched it tightly and pulled it down toward him, but it was stuck. "Come on you..." he growled as he pulled harder on it. Finally it released, but something no one could have predicted happened. As he finished pulling it, a small explosion occurred; sending bits of metal flying out. The passengers in the back then saw Polk's body get thrown to the ground by a particularly hard jolt of the ship.
As soon as Tyler's senses recovered from the explosion and saw Polk fall to the floor, he cried out his name. Quickly unbuckling himself he lunged over to where Polk's body lay. With the lights continuing to fail it was becoming hard to see, so it wasn't until Tyler had turned Polk's body over that he saw a small, jagged hole in the center of his forehead from which blood was leaking out. "Polk…Polk...no...no..." Tyler began repeating this to himself as he held the lifeless body. The third passenger also crouched down next to him. He had intended to offer some assistance, but now it was obvious there was nothing anyone could do for him.
"What's going on back there?" McKinley asked as she couldn't look away from the controls.
"Officer Polk is…dead. There was an explosion and he was killed by a piece of shrapnel," the third passenger answered for Tyler, since he wasn't really capable right now. Once again his gaze was drawn over to Johnny (if only so he wouldn't have to look at the sad and disturbing sight before him). Now he saw him sitting up and looking out at them with an expression of, sadness? he thought.
"Oh fantastic! God damn it." McKinley cursed.
"I don't know what just happened but that explosion just made all the thrusters light up together. Plus now we're losing fuel at twice the normal rate, and I think we have a hull breach." Harrison said as he saw several new warning lights turn on.
"Those are the least of our worries right now!" McKinley shouted as she looked over to Harrison with an extremely bleak look in her eyes. "If we don't change our course soon…we're going to crash right into the station."
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*1: So this is how I'm going to do my story notes here. I'm trying to use more diverse punctuation in this story. If you notice any mistakes I would like to hear about it.
Dramatic wasn't it? I thought so, but it's kind of short. Just bear with me for a while ok. I just hope it wasn't boring for anyone. Anyway I would like to see some new reviews please. So long.