The Protogen Generation

Blind descent

LUCAS'S P.O.V.

Slowly, I wake up after being hit by my helmet.

My vision, still fuzzy, makes it hard for me to see what I'm doing.

“...how long was I out?” I ask, turning my head over to Avera.

“15 minutes” She responds, “Are you alright?”

Finally coming to my senses, I realize I'm not alright. My hand, which took part of the impact, is probably broken. the side of my head took the rest of the impact. 

“I've got a real bad headache…” I say, putting my good hand on my head.

“What about everyone else?” I ask optimistically.

Avera shudders a little bit, it's odd for someone with her experience to do that.

“Scott,” she says, “he's dead.”

“Oh..” I say with pain, “What's Michael's status?”

Avera looks back behind her, “He's unconscious.” She says, “Vita has him stabilized.”

“Fuck” I say under my breath.

Our flight engineer is dead, and my best friend is about to join him.

Looking out the cracked window ahead of me, I've noticed we've stopped spinning. Avera must have done that while I was out.

Garrett floats up to me and Avera's seat. “We need to land, Michael won't survive much longer up here.” He says with a straightforward tone.

“We won't survive re entry.” Avera snaps back, almost angry.

Garrett protests, “Well at the rate we are losing coolant and Hydraulics, re entry won't even be possible.” He continues, “Right now we still have a chance, a chance to save Michael and ourselves.”

Then I noticed something on my flight display. We weren't in an orbit anymore. We were slowly falling to the planet. At the rate we were going, we would be hitting the atmosphere soon. I would use the thrusters to extend our orbit, but that would most likely just blow us up if they are damaged.

I turn to Avera, “We don't have a choice,” I tell her, “our orbit is decaying, we were slowed down after we hit the debris.”

“How much time?” She says

Looking back at the monitor, we don't have long. “5 minutes, 7 at most.”

“Alright.” She says, keeping her composure.

“Garrett,” she calls, “Get Lucas's hand bandaged. After that, prepare the cabin for re-entry.”

Garrett floats back up to my seat with some bandages. He begins to dress up my hand, that may I'm less likely to mess it up any further.

His hands are a dark dark red, covered in bits of blood. I cant help but stare with concern.

“It's going to be okay,” he tries to say reassuringly.

“What's the use,” I tell him, “We are all going to be dead within 30 minutes anyway.”

“Don't say that-” he stops, “We will make it, we will for Scott's sake.”

Garrett finishes up bandaging my hand and pulls himself away back towards the rear of the cockpit.

I begin to unbuckle my harness, “I need to go back and help,” I say.

Avera puts her hand out and stops me, “You don't want to see it back there. Just stay up here and focus on getting us on the ground, ‘kay?”

“Yeah…” I responded.