11 The Landing

Jack sucked a lung-full of smoke and breathed out. The Corporation absolutely forbad the act of smoking on a spaceship, but he was the captain. Ruled were upheld in his watch and smoking was his privilege.

He had been smoking non-stop for the past half an hour. The washroom was full of smoke. It certainly did not help with the ventilation and oxygen, but damn did it help with the smell.

Half an hour ago, he went to wash his face and clear his head. Pilots were scrambling around, navigators were panicking. He needed a little space. He was clear of the situation, and there was no way out.

Either they die in this spaceship or they lose the spaceship before having contacted the Corporation. The Corporation would never send rescue without receiving feedback communication. It was a heartless rule, but it was sensible.

Having no spaceship meant no return, and the enemies wouldn't be so kind as to not chase them when they escape to the planet. Then they would die anyway.

As he was reminiscing about his old life, before losing the custody battle and with that, his two most important people, the automatic airlock slammed shut behind him.

***

Even though Jack thought nothing could surprise him anymore, he screamed like a fangirl when he saw Naomi crawling outside the ship through the washroom's huge star-view window.

Yes, the toilet had a view for the stars. Go ask the designer of the ship if you have any question.

Naomi looked back at him in surprise. Then she puffed her mouth in an effort to hold back laughter. Captain Jack was floating in shit! "Jack" and "shit"! She convulsed. Captain Jack's displeased expression only added fuel to the fire.

Naomi crawled into the hole that breached the bridge.

She knew very well what was in there, who was floating in there. But she didn't have any other choice. Being at the front of the ship was her best chance of survival.

A ship doesn't nosedive when it crash-lands unless it's out of control or everyone on it is dead.

Sister Emma must have programmed the ship to orient itself perpendicular to its trajectory when it lands, to spread the ship's area as wide as possible and use the air as cushion. As such, the tail of the ship would very possibly touch the ground first.

If the ship nosedives, Naomi would die. Humans aren't built to survive nosediving into the ground from space, tail or front, augmented or not.

As she entered the site where hell was unleashed, she grimaced at the sight of burnt corpses. Some floated around, some melted to the wall.

Naomi tried to block it out, unfocused her eyes the best she could. Not that she could recognize the mangled faces with their horror-filled expression. Every corpse had been burned beyond recognition.

"You can do it. Captain Jack is floating in sh*t. Don't cry." Mumbled Naomi as she crawled to the nearest emergency oxygen panel. Both the face mask and the tube had melted. After pulling hard on the cord to activate oxygen generation, Naomi jammed her face into the panel to suck at precious air.

At least she wouldn't have to look at the scene behind her the whole time the ship was landing.

***

Naomi crawled out of the ship, after her artificial lungs gave her the 'okay' for the air on the planet.

A dark, strange forest opened up in front of her. There were sounds of animals, echoing from the deep pitch-black jungle. Tall trees covered the starry night sky.

It felt surreal. Even in the limited range of her night-vision eyeballs, Naomi had never seen so many vegetations.

Captain Jack was still busy taking a shower inside the ship.

A few minutes later, the man also crawled out. It smelt like he washed his entire body with bleach.

"Did you contact the escape pods?"

"No, I was waiting for you, captain." Naomi answered. "Wait, how…?"

"I know you smuggled a mobile phone onto the ship. You think a Corporation ship wouldn't have things to monitor unauthorized mobile devices?" Jack mused. "Your last entry was sending a music file to a dorm monitor drone called 'Gimmic'? Is that what I think it is?" He said as he laughed.

Naomi blushed. Jack waved his hand. "Don't worry, knowing how to bribe is a good quality. Now, we must get supplies and tools from the ship. Only then should we be worried about other people."

His words slowed down.

"Only then, we bury our crewmates."

***

The duo salvaged very bit of food and drink they could carry. There wasn't a tool storage anymore, only a massive hole remained. The tool storage was next to the engineering bay and it was where the torpedo headed into.

"Bad luck, huh? I really hope the engines are okay. We'll check on them later. Let's get to our next order of business." Said the blond-haired man as he chewed on a protein bar.

"At least, it doesn't seem the enemy is chasing us down here. Weird."

Naomi turned her phone on to find other surviving crew members. After a while, sound crackled from the device.

"Mayday… Alexa Corp mining vessel number 4210… requesting assistance from any vessel in the vicinity of the Cesari system… predicted landing coordinate… beware of hostile spacecrafts…"

"That's from an escape pod, sir. Strange… it is not communicating on radio channels. This is dark dimension communication."

Naomi shook her head. "The signal is rather weak, captain. My mobile phone is much less powerful than the communication device on an escape pod. We can't talk to whoever in the escape pod unless we get closer."

Jack nodded. Naomi then proceeded to set up a campfire, while Jack dragged the bodies out of the ship and buried the dead crew members.

Naomi wanted to take some mementos, but the captain dissuaded her. "We'll bury those here. They mean nothing if we can't survive." Jack said as he threw the mementos one by one into each burial hole.

The soccer ball that pilot Anton used to annoy the hell out of people.

The Star of Recognition for Exceptional Protector Service belonged to the old ex-cop navigator Zheng Zhihao.

…

Jack paused a bit at the photo frame. He sighed, took out the photo.

On it was the scene of the entire team celebrating Christmas. He stuffed the photo into his back pocket, then threw the frame down the last hole.

"How can you be so calm, sir?" Naomi watched her leader acting like an emotionless machine, her eyes already wet.

No answer came. Dirt gradually filled the burial hole.

Suddenly, Jack stopped shoveling, his eyes turbulent. "Unidentified creatures approaching." Jack commanded. "Ready for combat."