Class landing
Who: Micky, Jayne, Nameless Security Blokes
Where: The last Starbug to leave Blue Dwarf
When: As it's leaving
The Bug jolted and jumped as it left the outer airlock door.
"Woah!" Micky was shaken about. "Is it a trainee flying this or
something?!"
He still didn't know it was Jayne Chrysler flying. There was another
large jump from the Bug...
"Oh Smeg! Is this the oldest Starbug in the galaxy?!" Jayne was
struggling with the controls in the cockpit. "This thing is such a
heap!"
There was a gurgling noise from deep inside the engines as she gave
it full thrust.
Micky was thrown back into his seat and let out a small yelp.
"Never done this before have you mate?" Said the nameless security
bloke from opposite Micky. "It's easy. Just stick with me and you'll
be alright."
There was another jolt and the lights dimmed for a second.
"We just lost the satnav. You're flying by eye now pilot." The
navigator told Jayne as there was another dip in power. "And the
electrics are on the way out."
"How are the engines?" Jayne asked the engineer.
"Holding out." He tapped a few keys. "They will definately have
enough juice to get us there and back. No problems." He looked up
and smiled at Jayne.
The Bug was accelerating fast towards the planet as the electricity
cut out. The engineer looked up again, this time in darkness and
looked around the cockpit. "I wasn't expecting that!"
The Bug went silent, engines had been lost, power had been lost and
Mickys bowel control had been lost.
"The silence isn't good is it?" He asked the security bloke in
darkness.
"Not really. It means the engines have failed and if we can't get
power back, there's no re-sarting them."
In the cockpit, the planet was filling the view from the window. It
was only a small planet, but the gravity was pulling the Bug in.
Jayne could almost see the point they would impact.
"Is anyone trying to get the engines back or what?!" She called at
the other three in the cockpit.
"Im working on it! But everytime I re-route power to the engines,
somethign takes it all back again!"
"So it's you taking all my power!" The navigator shouted at the
engineer. "I need that for the nav computer!"
This sparked an argument between the crew in the cockpit.
Micky looked out the small window by the security bloke as there was
another jolt and the planet slid by the window.
"What the hell?" Jayne grabbed her controls again as the Bug spun out
of control. "Talk to me!"
"One of the engines is back online." The Engineer sounded
panicked. "But it's the only one. We don't have enough power to get
them all back."
"How do you expect me to stop us tumbling? I need more power or we're
going to end up spread across the face of the planet!"
"There is no more power!" The engineer was tightening the straps on
his harness. "We only have one engine."
Jayne yanked the straps on her harness to pull herself closer to the
chair.
"Then this is gonna hurt."
The Bug hit the planets atmosphere with a bang and flames jumped up
around the window near the security bloke.
"We're still spinning," the bloke called over the noise of entering
the atmosphere. "Brace yourself for a crash!"
Micky held onto his harness as the crew on board were thrown from
side to side.
One poor random security bloke didn't have his harness done up
properly and came loose. Micky reached out to grab him but missed.
Many others tried too, but the tumbling ramdom security bloke bounced
off a number of seats, walls and other things. Micky presumed the
worst as he went limp.
The flames died down leaving a dirty scorched screen. A town or city
or some sort of settlement was spinning past it. It was difficult to
tell what it was, but Jayne knew full well that was where they were
landing.
"Impact in less than ten seconds." She shouted back through the cabin.
Micky knew that voice. "Jayne?!" He went to undo his harness to go
have a word about losing his arm. Then he thought again as she gave
the five second count.
He shut his eyes and prayed. He could hear that he wasn't the only
one. He even heard someone cry for his Mummy.
Jayne heard Micky crying for his Mummy as she gave up the count and
wrapped her arms around her head.
The Starbug hit the first building backwards and tumbled faster head
over heels. It tore in two as it ploughed through the second
building and hit the floor. It was skidding across tarmac and
bouncing off buildings and leaving a wake of destruction. When the
main body finally came to a standstill it was obvious the cockpit had
been torn clean off the Starbug. Massive holes and tears filled the
hull of what was left. Surely there could be no survivors.
<Are there?>