Derek takes care of her

Derek’s worst fears were materializing before his eyes. Tiana was bleeding profusely and had taken a serious blow to the head. With the escape pod spinning out of control, he still managed to get to her. He struggled to secure a safety belt from one of the chairs to his thigh, getting the leverage he needed to reach Tiana. Derek dragged her weightless body to the other chair and buckled her in.

Wasting no time he opened the pod’s medical kit and placed a temporary pressure bandage on her leg wound to stop the blood loss. The very fact that she was bleeding in a weightless environment meant that she was still alive and her heart was still pumping.

His next priority was to get the pod under control. Buckling himself back into his own seat, he accessed the computer.

“Computer, engine status!”

“Stabilizers have sustained damage and are offline,” the computer responded in its usual calm monotone. “Recommend taking manual navigational control of the escape pod.”

“Computer, materialize navigational controls.”

A familiar set of controls materialized before Derek with a circular view panel, suspended at eye level, providing him a 360-degree picture of the space around the pod. He was lucky he had taken flying lessons during his teen years, on similar short-range vehicles such as this one. Quickly assuming control, Derek tried his best to manually do what the stabilizers were unable to — keep the pod from spinning. Their speed had tripled since the shockwave had hit, but slowing down would have to wait since they were rapidly drifting off course. Derek quickly recalculated and reset their course trajectory for Arcadia 10. From what he could see, the stabilizers were damaged beyond any repairs he could effect from inside the ship. He had to do his best to guide the spinning sphere of metal to some form of a landing on Arcadia 10, now looming large and directly in front of them.

“Computer, slow down and achieve orbit.”

“Orbit cannot be achieved. Recommend resetting a course away from Arcadia 10.”

Yeah, right, I can barely steer this thing now and you want me to bypass the only planet in the vicinity that sustains life?

“Computer, switch to complete manual control.”

In the distance, Derek could see other escape pods burning up from entering the atmosphere too fast and at too sharp an angle. Clearly, theirs was not the only escape pod damaged by the shockwave. The only survivors would be those who knew how to pilot a craft.

Like fighting a bucking bronco, Derek managed to correct the angle of entry and slow the pod down a bit. They were still going too fast. Flames engulfed the pod as it hit the atmosphere, but the little craft still managed to hold together. Once inside the atmosphere he should be able to control the pitch a little better.

Rather quickly, the inside temperature rose well past safety levels as Derek fought to remain conscious and to maintain an entry angle that would provide the small craft with some breaking power without incinerating it.

Just as he thought he would pass out and lose the battle, the pod, having hit the lower layers of the ionosphere, and seen its speed reduced to safer levels, began cooling off. Derek increased the entry angle so as to further reduce their speed and engaged the front thrusters, slowing even further, but not enough.

The small craft had sustained enough damage that the best Derek could hope for would be a controlled crash landing. Skimming over the tops of what appeared to be trees hundreds of feet in height, Derek looked for the most suitable place to crash-land. The decision was taken from him as the wounded craft lost altitude, ripping a trail through the tree tops. Derek prayed that they wouldn’t hit a tree trunk head on. The pod, not mention himself and Tiana, would not survive.

Just as quickly as it entered the trees, the faithful little craft zipped out of the forest and crashed into a large lake, skimming over its surface much the same as he and his dad used to skip rocks on the surface of a lake when he was a boy. He just prayed that Tiana would hold on until he could tend to her wound.

Unpleasant as the bouncing was, it was what kept the ship from becoming a giant crater on the surface of this little explored world. Finally, beaching itself on the far side of the lake, the escape pod came to a stop.

Derek unbuckled his seat belt and began tending to his wife’s injuries.