Beyond Sol

Chapter 20.

Alright! This isn't special! It's a simple one day mission to acquire Uranium!" I shout, the Spectrums heat shield slowly chilling down, starting to glide with contrails slipping off from Ring 2.
"Carter we have a flock of unidentified flying objects ahead. Biological. Really just small birds. Any problems?" Eliza calls.
"Negative, proceed course to surface."
"Affirmative, Coords locked in. AETHER is bringing us down. Be advised AETHER is giving type two warning. He's requesting a course change." Amelia examines her screen.
"We'll be fine. It's a bird against a multi billion dollar vehicle." I repeat.
"Whatever you say." Green objects whizzed by, presumably the 'birds.' A clunk fired through the ship. It went quiet. "What?-" Amelia opened her mouth before a shriek echoed shipwide. The alarm sounded, followed by the monitors flashing. "ENGINE FAILURE." AETHER screamed. "ENG 4 OFFLINE." The screen chimed.
"ENG 2 OFFLINE." It chimed again. "Shit, Shit, Shit." I whisper to myself, running over the controls. I flip the engine shutdown switch but to no avail.
"ASYMMETRICAL THRUST OUTPUT" Red text lights up on the screen. The Spectrum started to roll to the right, turning it into a dive bomber. "ENGINE FLAMEOUT" Flames stuttered out the back of the engines, jolting the Spectrum back and forth.
"Carter!" Muhammed yells, the Spectrum starting to dive. I yanked back on the stick, the Spectrum climbing again.
"Climbing!" I shout, the Spectrum rattling like a salt shaker. "ENG 3 OFFLINE" Not good. Spectrum can fly on two engines minimum. Or, well that's what we think. We only carry three of our 12 initial fuel tanks for weight redundancy and, landing. Us by default are way too heavy to land safely or lift off from just about any planet. And now that we're down to one of our conventional/Ion engine hybrids our weight is too great. The Altimeter indicated our drop in altitude. I took a quick glance at our engine configuration. Two, three and four displayed a red colour filled in the circle. Engine one, (Top left) started flashing yellow.
Text inside a small two centimetre cage lit up in red, "FIRE." Above in white, against the black backdrop read "ENG 1." We went quiet, a small tense moment. The Engine Configuration now showed all engines down.
"Shutting off fuel to engine one, prepare to dump!" Amelia shouted over the blast of the air that deafened the vehicle.
"Dump?! A fuel dump!?" Muhammed responds, his voice scratching the air as the restraints practically strangled him, his body trying to move forward, out of the seat.
"She's right! If we wanna glide this thing we gotta lighten her up! Initiating dump!" I shout, I reach my hand up, the sudden blow of G's pushed my hand back, behind the seat. I eventually gathered the courage to try again, chucking my arm up towards the fuel dump button, which read, "FLL DMP." Really? Really NASA? You couldn't add two more letters? Wow.
The fuel dump hatch unlatched itself from the fuel tanks, a sudden radioactive mix of liquid uranium started to be sucked through the small feeding tube. The tube was only 2 MM in diameter, yet the amount going through the tube could blow a block of houses to bits.
AETHER, being well, AETHER engaged the alert mode. Of course, a large fuel dump whilst having an engine flameout on all four? What could go wrong?
"AETHER, what's the situation!" Eliza yells, her arms starting to wave up, instead of infront of her.
"Centre of mass has shifted to the bow side, and the Spectrum is expected to enter a freefall spin." I figured. The propulsion from the escaping fuel followed with the shift of mass would've caused a never ending "Front flip." 
"Okay, RCS thrusters! Flaps! Everything we got!" I yell, flipping and switching the multiple "Propulsion" switches. The gaseous uranium oxide pushed the bridge down and down.
"Carter we can't pull out of this! We have to abandon ship!" Amelia shouts, blood spilling around the bridge, suddenly being pushed against the windows. The hull groaned and creaked under the immense pressure, structural failure alarms and warnings blaring, I, struggling to keep my eyes open.
A shatter of glass, metal ripping and tearing. The monitor then displayed a diagram of the Spectrum. The greenhouse module went from a grey outline to flashing red.
D E P R E S S U R I Z A T I O N, S E C T O R   A
The emergency oxygen valves opened on our suits, supplying us with fresh oxygen and nitrogen. "No! We are not abandoning ship! We can pull out! Engine one and three are still spinning!"
"Super cool! But we can't start them when we're still spinning!" Muhammed yells.
"Watch and learn!" I switched to RCS (Reaction Control System) the small jets firing to life. The ship went from a front flip type spin to a linear tumble. It soon stabilised to a freefall. AETHER pitched up before I manually re-booted engines one and three.
They sputtered, attempting to push out anything. Before the burners finally ignited. The small flow of gaseous uranium lit, accelerating the Spectrum up to Mach four.
The ship then slowed again to land, "Nice and smooth." The gear deployed, skidding out rock and smoke as it touched and grazed the surface. The ground was cracked sandstone, Jagged mountains swaying along the horizon. The rear parachute began to slow us, almost bringing the nose up. The back wheel skidded and slided, its grip deteriorating.
"Carter we're sliding!" Amelia shouted out, holding on for dear life. I jolted the stick side to side to attempt to stay centre.
"Workin' on it!" The velocity gauge slowly ticked down, although it was measured in Mach, so it was hard to tell how fast we were actually going. And after th torture we've put the ship through, it most likely wasn't entirely accurate. "I'm gonna pull a little drift manoeuvre!"
"Carter no!-" Muhammed was cut off, I, yanking the stick to the right. The ship trying to roll over. Yet our weight imbalance kept it straight up. The drag and friction slowed us drastically until we fully stopped.
"Dumbassery at its finest." Amelia and Eliza agreed in unison.
"Okay uh- I want everyone on damage eval. We need to be airworthy as soon as possible! Oh, and the greenhouse is shattered. So like- Just jump down?" Eliza and Amelia rushed off, whilst Muhammed waited.
"You know that...thing that we agreed was impossible?"
"Project Aurora? Yeah it was never put into action though." I tone out quietly.
"It launches in days. They have hundreds of ships, they're going to war with the Aesos. The Event Horizon is with them. Two teams. They're gonna corner every ship and rip them apart. They're gonna have battleships, heavy cruisers, they're killing the species off."
"Count us in. These bitches deserve to die."
"Rightt. Once we're airworthy we cruise for around a month to B. And then we wait for the Aurora team to arrive. I'll notify the others."
"Kay. I'll get us running as fast as possible."

The few hundred carriers, cruisers, submarines, and such were rolled out onto a large pad, a couple square kilometres of paved concrete. Hundreds of marshallers kept the ships in order and kept them in their correct position.
The submarines were loaded into cargo crafts, the facility was practically New York City airport. Tens of thousands of military personnel lining up in "gates," and "sections." Water vapour and expended hydrogen hissed out the engines
"Ships one through sixty two are a go for launch. Liftoff in T-10 Minutes. Ships sixty three through one hundred twenty five are finishing their go/no-go. All crew before ships one hundred eighty nine through two hundred fifty one are expected to be boarded."
Scott took a sip of his coffee in the control room. It was a simple concrete room, resembling a large cruise ship control's room. It had one large window that overlooked the whole tarmac. Underneath the room was the facility where the ships were being rolled out. Mike stood next to him, leaning against the railing.
"It's one hell of a operation." Mike sighed, wondering what was even happening at this point.
"I remember when the Spectrum was once called the greatest ship of all time. And then it set sail to the stars. And its the farthest ship ever travelled. We installed the emergency weapon systems in that miniscule chance they needed them. And now...it's keeping our crew alive," Scott let out, a steep voice.
"Yep. And now Project Aurora. The most expensive op ever."
"Ship's one through sixty two prepare for engine ignition." The ships used four hydrogen based engines. It acted as a VTOL. Two on each side. One in the front, one in the back on each side.
Every ship had the same appearance on the outside for the most part. Wings over top, like a DASH-8. A light black colour scheme. A bridge in the front. Its hull is shaped as if it was a C-5 Galaxy. Except a tad more compact and a longer hull.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five." The announcer hushed over the P.A. "Engine ignition." Sixty two ships' engines lit up. Six rows of ten ships. Their wings are just metres apart. It was barely visible from the control room, where Scott and Mike stood. Although it was more of an overlooking box.
"Rock and roll." Scott shook his head to the right momentarily. 'Thunderstruck' queued up over the PA.
"Ships sixty three through three hundred forty two have been cleared for launch early. All personnel are loaded. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, engine ignition." The engines from two hundred and eighty ships were blinding. It was a shockwave. Yet the PA still was louder, the moment still continuing to feel badass.
Three hundred and forty two ships rose from the ground. Eventually, thirty metres off the ground the pitched up, switching to the forward engine position.
The thirty-five rows of aircraft re organized themselves into a straight vertical line. "Increase to one hundred percent throttle. Push out of the atmosphere. We're not just grazing space here folks." The announcer radioed to the convoy.
"Increasing to full." Jayden. B called out. He was the team leader, also the backup commander for the Beyond Sol mission if something were to happen. The convoy outshined the sun temporarily for any observers on the ground. "Goodbye Mars." He announced again, before muting and continuing to orbit.
"Godspeed to Project Aurora and to save our Beyond Sol crew." The announcer hushed one last time before signing off.