Scipio looked more unwelcoming in person than it did in holographic form, though that may have been down to the three star destroyers orbiting the planet.
'The name isn't exactly warm and friendly,' hoshi remarked as she stood beside her dresser, getting ready for her shift.
'I don't think they'd greet us with hugs and a box of chocolates, no matter what they're named, Sexy,' Luna replied, then frowned. 'Have you seen my ration box?'
'No, where did you put it last?'
Luna rolled her eyes, but said nothing.
'You probably just left it in the salon,' Hoshi suggested.
'Probably,' Luna's stomach chose that moment to let her know just how stupid a decision that was. She needed to be in peak mental condition today. Starting it starving didn't help. The two women turned to each other, checking each other over. Luna double checked that Hoshi's flight harness was tight, that her emergency life support was working, then nodded, leaning in for a quick kiss. 'Good luck today.'
'Don't need luck,' Hoshi walked over to the door of their shared quarters, keying the door open for Luna. 'I have you watching my back.'
Outside, they parted: Luna to the cockpit, Hoshi to the cargo hold, where she'd board her Z-95.
Luna found Face and Mara in the cockpit. Outside, looking like a slightly larger star in a field of stars, sat the ice planet Scipio. Unseen at this distance were the three star destroyers, circling its equator, equidistant from each other. It was because of those that they had refrained from making an approach over the last few days. The intercomm light flickered, and Face keyed it on.
'Status report?'
'All cleared to go,' said Vix.
Face nodded. 'All go.'
From deeper in the ship, Luna heard several dull thuds as Vix, Garan, Twitch, Kai and Hoshi detached. A moment later Luna saw the Uglies of the first four zoom ahead of them, disappearing to nothingness in the vastness of space. On the radar, Luna watched as Hoshi flew to Mara's Jade Arrow, whose flight computer was currently slaved to the Nest's. The two blips merged into one as Hoshi docked, then flew up and beside the Nest's starboard side as Hoshi lined up the two docking rings, and Face extended the docking tube.
'That's my cue to leave,' Mara nodded to Face, then Luna, as she got out of the co-pilot's seat. 'Good luck.'
'You too,' said the Nexus in unison. A minute later, the Arrow detatched, the ship and Z-95 flying ahead of them, leaving the Nest, more or less, alone.
'It's times like this that I really wish I had Fenn and Zatt,' Face said suddenly.
The names sent a jolt of pain through Luna, though that was mostly down to surprise. 'How so?' she asked warily.
'We could really do with their expertise on masking our run,' he said, then paused, and added ruefully, 'I've really messed things up.'
'Don't say that,' Luna told him at once. 'You've done your best. And like they say at the Academy: no plan survives enemy contact.'
Face snorted. 'Perhaps not. I just...I could have done better. First Rana, then those two,' he let the thought trail off.
Luna felt that she should perhaps change the subject. 'How's Fenn doing?'
'Oh, Doc says they're doing great,' he perked up. 'Tarrik still wants to keep them under, just for now, allow their wounds to heal, give their body time to get over the trauma of it all. But he says that he doesn't want to leave it too long. Something about it being good for patients to be up as soon as possible. It's a balancing act, he said - which is about the only thing I really understood,' Face chuckled.
'See? They'll be up on their feet in no time and we'll be all the better for it,' it was a platitude, but it was all Luna could think of in the moment.
'That we will,' Face agreed. The computer beeped. 'Time to make our approach.'
Luna brought the engines up to full thrust, feeling the G forces tug at her stomach, push her lightly into the chair. Scipio, directly ahead of them, began to grow larger and larger. 'Reaching sensor range,' she said.
'Cut engines,' Face ordered her, then began to flick a multitude of switches, 'cutting power.'
Luna brought the throttle down as quickly as she deemed it safe, then began the abridged shut down sequence. The ship behind her went completely silent. It was an eerie sensation. To be in space but not hear the comforting, continuous thrum of the engine. There was just the sound of gently ticking from rapidly cooling metal. The lights in the cockpit went dark. Everything, everywhere in the Nest was silent. Even Luna and Face held their breaths.
The Nest floated through space at top speed, the planet getting closer and closer. Too close, too large. It filled the void in front of them until it was all they could see. And still, the ship played dead. Flickers of friction flames began licking at the cockpit windows as the ship hit the atmosphere. Sweat prickled out on Luna's forehead, falling into her eyes. She wasn't sure if it was from nerves or the heat. A thousand thoughts raced through her head. The Nexus and their astromechs had all spent hours working to perfect the the approach vector, making sure that they didn't bounce off of the atmosphere, or worse. The First Order would be able to see them coming, of course they could, but without power, without anything to send a signal, they wouldn't look like a ship and, they hoped, be taken as a piece of debris or an asteroid, that would be torn apart and destroyed in the atmosphere. It required exact timing. They had spent countless hours timing it down to the millisecond, but in the moment she doubted everything. Surely there was some simple equation that they had forgotten. Misplaced a decimal point. Not taken their aerodynamic footprint into account. Something that meant that they really would be torn apart and be destroyed in the atmosphere. She reached out to turn on the readout, but Face grabbed her hand, shaking his head. 'Not yet,' he said. His hand was as sweaty as hers. The ship rocked, gently at first, then violently. Without the artificial gravity and inertial compensators, Luna felt so heavy, like her body was crushing itself. She was gritting her teeth so hard she was sure she would break them.
'Now,' Face said, his voice strained.
Luna fought with herself to reach up - or down - to the control panel, to initiate the engine start up sequence. Her fingers worked automatically, and her eyes drifted up to look out of the cockpit. Through the flames, the mountains of the south pole looked uncomfortably large and all too close for her liking. Her fingers tapped on the control board all the quicker. The altimetre readout flickered to life, telling her exactly how close they were to land, and suddenly she wished she hadn't looked. In her mind, she reached for the words that had centred her for years. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. She said it over and over, but then the words morphed. Hoshi - help. The thought comforted her, soothed her. And even though she knew, rationally, that Hoshi could do nothing, when the engines rumbled to life, a little part of her sent thanks to her girlfriend. She could feel the exterior forces ease, felt the ship level out. In moments, everything faded away. The fire outside, the pressure on her body, the silence, the darkness. The ship hovered in space, some several dozen miles in the air. Their radar told them nothing, but that was to be expected. The magnetic field around the pole saw to that. They could see nothing, but then, nothing could see them either. After a few minutes, Luna spotted the Arrow, and then the Z-95, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief. the other Uglies flew up to and about them, all safe and in one piece.
They had made it in.
