Setting Fire to the Stars (a MM Sci-Fi Romance)

Chapter 22: Crash

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Lauren
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To say that our landing had been a complete disaster was an understatement. White knuckling the ship's controllers, I attempted to steer us towards the large blue planet. Symbols of an alien language scrawled across the digital display in front of my eyes. The shaking of the ship caused my teeth to rattle away in my skull.

Don't crash.
Don't crash.
Do. Not. Crash.

The mantra repeated in my head as my hands gripped the joysticks for dear life. I could do this. We just had to make it to the ground.

"Ugh!" My head was abruptly smacked against the dash, our ship sent catapulting forward but the impact. All my weight was forced onto the controls, the ship pushed into a sharp nosedive. Stars spun like a cyclone as we rolled.

"Pull up!" Synth shouted, clutching her chest restraints.

Gritting my teeth, I yanked back on the control sticks with all my strength. The ship groaned at the sudden change before eventually leveling out with a wobble. Several of the beeps from the alarms had stopped, save for one. A glowing diagram of the spacecraft emerged on the screen in front of me as a red light on the dash blinked urgently. The cabin shuddered with a mechanical wail as we took additional fire. When tapping on the flashing light did nothing, I hastily turned to my far more experienced co-pilot. "Synth, what is that?"

Synth scowled, hastily tapping a couple of glowing symbols on the screen. "Stars, they are targeting our ESG."

"Our what now?"

"External Shield Generator."

"That doesn't sound good," I surmised.

"It is not," Synth reached across the dash, her fingers moving rapidly over the emblems. "I have to reboot the system before we break through the planet's atmosphere."

"What happens if you can't fix it?" I asked, my fingers numb from the jittery controllers.

"We blow up."

"Wonderful." Swallowing thickly, I found myself gripping the joysticks like a lifeline. As our ship hurtled towards Earth, I noticed that the cockpit was growing increasingly warm. A bead of sweat descended down my cheek and I cursed under my breath at the suffocating heat. "Why is it so hot in here?"

"When they damaged our shields, they also knocked out our internal climate regulator. Without the ESG, the air particules in between the ship's oridian layers will continue to overheat the manifolds—"

"English, please!"

"If I cannot get our shields back online soon, we will combust," Synth explained with a serious expression. "In short, it is about to get very hot in here."

Her statement proved to be right in the money. The air soon became so hot and stuffy that I struggled to breathe. It was like being trapped in a hot spring, except that this one had deadly consequences. Alarm bells rang throughout the cockpit, signaling that the integrity of our ship was in distress. The shaking of the craft increased dangerously, like we were driving on an extremely bumpy road. I struggled to keep a grip on the controls, my palms slick with sweat.