Remnants

Adrian Green sat glumly atop the small cot in his cell, a small one by two meter affair. He could lie down straight but he had no space to move about. Adrian briefly contemplated trying to convince his guard to let him out again, but discarded the notion when he realised his only worldly possessions were illegal and confiscated, or utterly worthless to anyone else but him. He decided on small talk instead.

"You excited?" he asked with rather convincing faked enthusiasm. He gaoler turned from whatever it was she was reading and gave him a once over. She contemplated replying for a moment and eventually did so. She ran her hand through her shoulder length chestnut hair, she sympathised with the chubby delinquent. She herself having smuggled a carton of cigarettes on board, but couldn't forgive him the time he had taken from her.

"Very." was all she said before going back to her E-book. Dejected, Green began to pout; his gaoler didn't even raise her head. Sighing he reclined once more on the hard fabrics of the cot. A minute later the PA began to make an announcement; the stern voice of his captain began to fill the corridors.

"We are now entering atmosphere, prepare yourselves for a bumpy ride." Green grinned and sat upright, bracing himself against the walls of his cell. The ship began to vibrate with friction and Green felt a lurch as artificial gravity was switched off. His warden fell off her chair, rather painfully judging by her liberal usage of unsavoury adjectives in direct reference to some unknown mother. Suddenly an enormous explosion rang throughout the ship, fire jumped out the vent nearest to Green, startling him beyond reason.

"Christ on a bike!" he exclaimed queasily "the hell was that!?" His warden got back to her feet as a siren began to sound, the PA crackled to life once more, as if in answer to his question.

"VTOL Two has blown! Section B has been sealed by bulkheads, all crew members in section B abandon ship; you are losing oxygen!" Captain Louise' voice contained no hint of fear, that didn't reassure him. Green began to grip the cell bars.

"Get me out of here!" He screamed at the stumbling woman outside of his cell. This was section B! She mumbled something incomprehensible and fumbled her key card in front of the reader. As the emergency system was active the cell opened instantly. The security guard was already out of the room, by the time a grunting Green vaulted clumsily out of his cell. He glanced about the room. On one wall were several lockers of equipment. One hung open; a single slag pistol was on the upper shelf, two magazines accompanied it. Figuring it may come in handy crashed on an alien planet, Green quickly grabbed it, made sure its safety was on and jammed it into the waist band of his grey cargo pants; he put the clips into his pockets. Satisfied, the janitor ran quickly out of the room, his shaved bald head sweating. He made several turns down the sterile white of the corridors, illuminated with a red light from the alarm bulbs. He was out of breath by the time he arrived at the escape pods, he paused to catch it but found the air was horribly thin. One of the two pods had already launched. Gasping now, his lungs burning for oxygen, Green stumbled into an escape pod, punched the launch button and collapsed onto the soft, padded floor. The Escape pod was of a dull grey colour, much like the ship it was leaving behind. Unlike the escape pod that had already launched this one had no pilot (conscious anyway) and its AI fell victim the fact that it was launched in atmosphere. It tumbled erratically through the air, heating up significantly, spinning uncontrollably. At one point it was both upside down and backwards then reverted to its normal position in less than four seconds. Green, oblivious to his peril was tossed about the soft tube. It wasn’t an entire minute before the Janitor came to. He realised what was happening faster than most would have given him credit for and promptly grabbed the nearest seat belt fluttering about the twenty man escape pod. He waited until the ship had flipped once more and let gravity take him toward the front of the craft. Alarms began to sound and Green could feel the pod heating, and gravity slowing. How fast were they going!? Now at the pilot seat Green pushed aside some of the loose objects floating about the air, MREs mostly. Grabbing the control stick Green attempted to remember just how these things operated. A small 3-D display showed that the pod was headed toward a mountain and very quickly. He looked about for the entry thrusters, and turned them to "stabilise" he was pretty sure that would work. By now his shirt was stained with sweat colouring it dark grey. His trousers slowly mimicked his shirt in colour, much to his shame, as soon as he saw the stabilisers were blown off. Whimpering in fear he simply pulled the controls in every way that seemed helpful. The escape pod had slowed greatly by the time it finally crashed but it still hit the ground too fast. Dust was shot many metres into the air and the gun in Green's pocket fired. He landed a full thirty minutes before the other pod.

~

"Damn it you fuckwit!" someone screamed. Harry ignored the cry at held the controls grimly.

"Green was still on board!" a muscled blonde woman yelled angrily at him, her security armour glowing red in the lights of the ship.

"To hell with Green, we were running out of air damn it!" defended a burly man at the back of the seven meter interior. Harry had had enough.

"Well we can't turn back now can we!?" he roared, piloting the ship with small grace. "We will come down over five hundred kilometres north of where I'd like, and your bickering ain't helping me change that!" he added. The thermals were giving him no small amount of trouble. Harry clicked on auto pilot and turned his rather plush swivel chair to regard those who had joined him in the pod. There was George, a scrawny fellow in charge of basic maintenance. The security guard that yelled at him previously, sitting right behind him, face red with rage (and oxygen starvation). A burly man he had seen only thrice before, but he knew as an engineer, sat at the back. His dark skin was slick with sweat from the run he had made to the pod. Another woman, this one he knew personally from maintenance. She was a short tempered girl with dirty brown hair cut short above her ears. She lay unconscious beside the last, a lean fellow in charge of cloning systems, Harry knew him better as That ginger arse hole from sector D.

"Bottom line folks," he began ominously to his fellows, "we can barely get a proper angle from how we launched. We are coming down in the snows, so I hope you packed warm." The horrible attempt at a joke fell flat. Other than the angry security guard they were all dressed in the same grey shirt and trousers.

"How’s the goldfish?" George asked worriedly, ignoring the horrible joke. Harry turned about in his chair and attempted to hail the larger ship. Nothing. He tried the Silky dagger, no dice. He reported this to the others. He decided against turning back to those sullen faces behind him and instead kept an eye on their decent.

~

"We lost VTOL 2!" screamed a terrified man beside Captain Parker.

"Keep it together," she called out as she walked to the PA microphone, "What's the damage?" she asked calmly yet sternly in her authoritative voice to the man who had yelled.

"Something caught in VTOL 2 and it exploded before we could shut it down.” He took a breath and continued shakily, “Section B is losing air, fast, and bulkheads have already closed." The man’s captain nodded and activated the microphone.

"VTOL Two has blown! Section B has been sealed by bulkheads, all crew members in section B abandon ship; you are losing oxygen!" She ordered sternly. Crewmen and women scrambled frantically to compensate for the fact they were missing a landing engine. She walked to her terminal, nestled in the corner of the ten meter long crescent shaped bridge. It was four meters wide at its broadest point before curving along the hull for five meters in both directions. Once she reached her terminal she brought up scanners and security cameras. The idiot Janitor she caught with an enormous stash of mary-jane was "sprinting" through the corridors. She watched him a moment before switching cams, trying to see if anyone else was left is that section, one fellow, desperately slapping at the flames consuming his body and a security officer swinging into an escape pod. Grimly she sealed the burning mans room entirely, as well as the room adjacent to it. She dumped all O2 in the room he was in, watching the fire die. Quickly she pumped as much air as she could back into the room, in order to stop him asphyxiating; it took less than a minute. He wasn't moving, and the room was still slowly losing air as the vent system had been damaged, but he might yet live. Might. She turned back to the idiot, who was still running despite his overweight frame. C'mon tubby... she silently urged. The filled pod launched, rocketing away from the starboard side of the ship. She watched intently as the janitor fell into the nearest escape pod. It launched two seconds later. She looked up at her bridge to find she had left the situation in capable hands as everyone seemed calmer. They must have seen to the issue and stabilised her ship. That or they had suddenly come to terms with their own mortality and had resigned to their fates. She glanced at the escape pods. The monitor reported the first was headed shakily downward, while the second was tumbling crazily. She groaned angrily at this, escape pods were independent from their mother-ship to stop boarders crashing them into the planet from a commandeered bridge. Leaving her console she walked calmly to the pilot and stood behind his shoulder. Watching the 3-D display of the Goldfish made it evident the ship was coming in too fast. This was not going to be a pleasant landing.

She returned to her console, sitting down this time, and strapped herself in.