spears of Uu'kata (CLEAN(ish) Version)

Chapter 55 - What We Believed

"What the fuck," Ben wheezed as the ship went from a dangerous spin in weightlessness, to a dangerous spin with a hard-as-fuck gravitational pull. He could feel it dragging them down and it was all he could do to grip tightly to the gun he'd run dry to keep from having his mech's face smashed against the bulkhead.

The engine whined and the hum of the atmospheric wings extending was interrupted by a deep grinding that ended suddenly with the distinct sound of metal being ripped away. The comms turned to loud popping and crackling sounds in his ears.

"Deploying impact foam! We're going down!" Charlotte yelled through the static.

"Shiiiiiit," Anerudo drew out as bright blue foam bloomed and swelled throughout the transport, hardening and freezing them all in place.

"Awesome!" Annie laughed.

Ben wondered how that drunk-ass bitch was still conscious. Not that it mattered. They were all going to die.

***

Charlotte gritted her teeth and uttered a wordless battle cry against the spin of the transport as she fought to straighten them out. She was so exhausted her vision was hazy but she wouldn't let herself pass out. She couldn't.

Several of the exterior sensors were gone so there were black spots in her vision, but she could see blue sky, sunlight, dark gray clouds, blue sky, sunlight, dark gray clouds as the sickening spin increased.

Her stomach flipped and flopped and she fought the urge to puke while her brain struggled to make sense of the visual input. Alarms blared and the heads-up display showed her everything that was wrong with the transport. Which... was a lot.

Another second and she was spinning within the clouds themselves and lightning crashed around her.

"Come on, come on! Please!" she begged as she fired starboard thrusters downward in an attempt to level the transport with only one wing.

Her people were as safe as they could be, encased in impact-absorbing foam. She just had to land them without obliterating them in the process but she had to get them out of the spin.

Charlotte cycled the engines and hit the thrusters again. Nothing. She redirected the direction of all the thrusters on the ship and hit them.

The transport jerked, and the spin slowed.

"Yes, yes, yes!" she exclaimed, cutting the thrusters on the port side where the ship still had one wing. She kept the thrusters on the other side going, though they were running low on fuel and wouldn't last long.

She cleared the clouds to see... water.

"No! No, no, no!" she mumbled, looking around.

There!

She spotted the great plateau and angled for it, heart pounding. Her palms were sweaty and she still thought she might puke and pass out but she had to at least get them on the ground first, if the fuel would last.

***

Boom!

Ahnekk dropped the blade he'd been twirling in his fingers and looked up as though he could see through the stone ceiling. The quartermaster stopped droning on about supplies.

"Are you expecting someone?" he asked Tlornden, who lounged in on a couch by the fire.

The Tilith captain was already on his feet.

"No," he said, pulling a device from his pocket.

Ahnekk raced for the doors to the balcony, followed closely by Tlornden.