The Thing in the vents that eats people

9

My foot is mostly grown back by the time I get to the flight deck. Weaver is floating there, in a cloud of his own blood, not bothering to strap in as he rapidly pushes a variety of controls. The cat is zipped up in his flight jacket.
"Are you okay?" I ask, wincing as I feel the pain and strain on his heart. I put a hand on his back, lowering his pulse and channelling blood away from the injuries so he doesn't bleed more than he has to.
"I'm fucking wonderful, Candy, thank you so much for asking," his voice his heavy with sarcasm. "The big chap fancied cat for lunch. I cut the tentacle but it's the damned slime. Hazard of being flesh and bone. But that's super irrelevant considering we are probably going to die."
"It'll be in—in ten minutes—-less," I look at the various flashing lights and warning signals, "What's your plan?"
"So before I say it—I also hate it—,"
"Just tell me, we've still got people aboard," I sigh, looking around the trashed flight deck, "What happened to the crew?"
"Big chap, while you were getting people into the store rooms. I was coming down to take over but it wanted the damned cat," he scoffs, "Slowed me down. I went back to check on you, saw you in the airlock, came up with a not so great plan—,"
"Which is?" I sigh.
"I'm landing us. Fuck everything, I'm landing us on a Goldilocks planet," he says, "We've got one, I can take us down in ten minutes. It's outer rim so it's primitive—,"
"Yeah and they said they couldn't support a Kestryl containment and denied us landing," I frown.
"We're not going to have a Kestryl when I take us down," he says, tapping another few controls. He's overriding heat shields. "I'm going to ride us as long as I can in the atmosphere, burn it up. Then bring us down in the forest someplace."
"Won't the whole ship catch on fire?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"Can everyone inside survive that?"
"I don't know."
"Right, do it then," I say, wrapping my arms around his chest to stop the bleeding, "Come here. I'm a doctor."
"You are fucking NOT."
"Close as you're gonna get," I mutter. Hopefully we'll die and he'll never figure out what I did. I knit as much as I can of the tissue back together, cradling him in my arms and letting his pulse strengthen again, but keeping it level as he begins to panic.
"ORPHEUS 7 MISSION COMAND REQUESTS THAT YOU CEASE YOUR DESCENT." the radio crackles to life.
"Negative, we got a situation here," Weaver pants.
"THERE IS NO KESTRYL CONTAINMENT TEAM. IF YOU LAND YOU AND YOUR CREW WILL BE IMMEDIATELY EXTERMINATED BY MISSLE."
"There won't be one when we land, I promise, kind busy here," he says.
"ORPHEUS 7 HAULT YOUR DESCENT."
"Ah, no," he punches the radio.
"They can't exterminate us if we don't have a Kestryl," I say, but it's mostly to myself.
"We're coming in," he says as tentacles slaps across the windows.
And sure enough we are. Zooming towards and blue planet, coming down way too fast, and way too hard. The tentacle slaps the glass, cracking it.
And we hit atmosphere.
Weaver clenches his teeth as he pulls us up, to keep us in the burning hot zone just above the planet's surface.
We are engulfed in flame and I feel my skin bubble as the temperature shoots well above normal levels. Weaver gasps, drenched in sweat, as the flames lick the ship, his knuckles tight on the steering column as he tries to hold us careening around the planet, burning up in the atmosphere.
He does it as long as any of us can withstand, then we are descending, so rapidly his own blood fills with air pockets. I do my best to lower his heart rate so it hurts less but that's about all I can do. I gasp myself, never having experienced the pressure of an atmosphere or gravity.
And we are going down, down, spinning above trees until, and I don't know how he sees it, Weaver brings us down in a lake, skidding across the surface before running aground the shore.
We are both on the ground at this point, tugged down by gravity. Weaver gets up, and takes my arm to tug me up.
I'm weak. I can't feel my limbs, my own heart is slamming in my chest. I look down and see blood pooling on my hands. So this is why they didn't think I'd survive in gravity.
"I'm so sorry," I say, and then I fall. He catches me a moment before I hit the ground, so at least I slip away in his arms.

The End