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The First Ring: Chapter 2
Posted By: Mother Superior<pontus_aj@hotmail.com>
Date: 19 February 2006, 9:05 pm
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The First Ring: Chapter 2: New surroundings
The small cargo transport shook and whined as the belly of the vessel was battered and burned by the ring's atmosphere. Mike called out to the cargo hold and shouted into the mike at the same time.
"Forty seconds! We're coming in over the landing marker now!"
Hank was sitting next to him, sweat dripping down his face, hammering at his controls, trying to bring the navigational computer back online. The screen showed two blips, a red one indicating themselves, and a green one indicating the landing marker for the designated rally point.
"I think we're gonna overshoot Mike! We're coming in way to high!"
"I know, I'm gonna aim for another field! This ring ain't so big, we can walk the last..." Mike's voice faded out as the roar of a lifeboats burning jets filled the cabin and a big clumbsy body filled the overhead windows. The pilot had blew the brake engines way too early, they were still high in the air and it came down on Mike and Hank's transport like a bird wounded mid-air.
Mike hit the manual controls and Emma tumbled clumbsily and slid away from underneath the lifeboat. As the collision alarms died down there was a bump, a thud and an explosion as the lifeboat's hull cracked and the little emergency vessel went up in a cloud of smoke and fire. The cargo runner shook and took a hit by a piece of debris. Alarms rang into action and Hank's console went dead.
"We lost guidance! One engine is hit, emergency shutdown in progress!"
"Well stop it, I can't land this ship with one working engine Hank!" Mike pulled his controls and tried to get the ship under control again but it was starting to slide to one side no matter what he did.
"I can't, override isn't working!"
The landscape beneath slid into focus, the ship was only a mere thousand feet above the ground now, but instead of the friendly, hopeful open plains near the rally point, the ground beneath them was mainly rock, mountains and cliffs. In the distance Mike could see the rim of the landscape, where the harsch metal features of the ring took over from hills and rock.
"Oh crap... Hank, give me that other engine now! We can't land there, I have to turn her around and head back to the rally point!" Mike was tearing at the joystick now but the ship was gaining speed in a sharp dive, nose first towards a particularly nasty-looking piece of mountain side.
Hank did his best at trying to get the wounded engine come alive again but his efforts were in vain. The ship stayed on course for the mountain and there was little or nothing anyone of them could do about it.
The mountain side grew closer and closer as the transport ship raced through the air, ever faster until the surface was only a few hundred metres ahead.
"Hold on everyone! Here we go!" Mike cried and held on, he closed his eyes at the last second and made ready to die.
The lifeboats slowly spread out and crewman Anthony felt the ship jolt as the braking rockets kicked in, she screamed and yelled and slowed down. The ship hit the grass, lurched back and skidded across the open field, bounced a few times and finally came to a rest in the middle of the clearing.
Inside it was quiet apart from a few groans and the sound of the braking rockets cooling off. Anthony slowly got to his feet, fell down and got to his feet again. He carefully made his way to the door, pulled the switch and forced the doors open. The shine of some distant star seemed sufficient to bath the ringworld in a light and warmth similar to Earth. Birds were tweeting somewhere in the woods not far from their crasch site, and the low murmur of landing rockets told him more lifeboats were inbound.
The other passengers had started to crawl out of their seats now. Anthony helped some of the wounded out, there were several broken legs and arms, the pilot had a big gash in his forehead but only one fatality. Overhead more lifeboats and cargo runners loomed past. Long running trenches of dug-through soil revealed where other lifeboats were.
Pockets of survivors gathered outside. A cargo runner made a successful belly-landing in the middle of the field and people fled out, going to help the wounded. Anthony helped drop off a man with both legs broken and then went back to findsomeone else to help.
He stopped halfway there. His gaze fell upwards and followed the ring as it bended uppwards and all the way back to behind him. He saw where the Earth-like landsape ended and the grey metal took over. It was like the edges of an open wound, where it blends into the smooth, healthy skin.
"Look! The Caligula!"
Someone had screamed from across the field. Anthony along with everyone else turned their gaze to the direction of the scream. Up there in the sky, amidst the trails of smoke from the lifeboats still inbound was the smoking wreck of the Caligula, in an unsteady course. She had escaped the ring's gravity initially but had entered it again on the other side. Pieces of her came loose and created little smoke trails of their own as the burning heap of metal continued onwards. She disappeared against the dark metal surface of the ring and everyone remained quiet as the minutes ticked by.
One minute, two minutes, and after three minutes an explosion could be seen on the surface of the ring.
"Well, it looks like we just lost our ride." Someone said quietly. Some murmured in response, and the people went back to work. Anthony stood there and watched the plumes of smoke spread out. He first expected them to fall down towards them but he realized that the vertical "wall" where the Caligula had crasched had its own gravity, just like this place. He stared as more lifeboats started to come in and another cargo runner bellied into the woods.
The air was full of ships, boats and debris that all came down in a constant stream. The sun shone down on the bizarre world from impossible distances and managed to brighten and warm the survivors. And somewhere on this world, a downed cargo runner had started a chain reaction that would destroy them all.
Silence. It was completely silent. Completely. Not a sound in the world. And then Mike woke up. His head immedately broke the peaceful trip into unconsciousness and reminded him of the duties of the real world. He looked around, felt the blood trickle down his chin and lifted one arm to his head. The gash went up somewhere in his hairline and he decided not to follow it any further.
"Hank?"
He turned to his copilot and choked on what he saw. A piece of the hull from the nose had caved in and cut straight into his stomach. The pilot seat was covered in blood as was his pants and lower torso. Long streams of dried blood ran down from his mouth. He felt for his pulse but found none. He reached up to the man's pale face and gently closed the open eyes.
He then turned to the consoles. No lights were on. He tried the backup power supply but nothing went on. Under his seat was an emergency radio, he pulled it up and connected it to the console, in hopes of using the ship's transmitting array. The radio console powered up with help of the battery-powered hand-held pack and tried his mike.
"This is cargo runner C-14, can anyone here me, over!" Static filled the speakers. He tried again.
"This is cargo runner C-14 calling any survivors from the Caligula, do you read me? Over." More static.
Mike sighed and keyed of the hand-held mic and turned on his helmet mic to the internal radio.
"Pilot to cargo hold, pilot to cargo hold, can anyone hear me? Bang on the wall if you're alive back there." He waited for a few seconds then he heard three faint bangs against the hull.
He got out of the pilot seat and stood on unsteady legs. The ship tilted heavily forward and slightly to the side. He pushed himself up through the doorway and down the stairs that led to the cargo hold. He pushed through some boxes that had fallen and stumbled into the cargo area.
Boxes, crates and equipment lay all over the floor. A pair of legs were sticking out from under a particularly heavy-looking box with blood running out from underneath them. Another crewman lay on the floor with a piece of pipe through his stomach. Blood from some unknown body trickled down the reffled floor and glittered menacingly in the soft glow of the emergency lights in the small compartments. He called out for survivors and got a response from some voices in the corner.
He made his way between more of the fallen cargo and bodies and found Captain Jacobs, a crewman by the name of Holly and a colony engineer whose name Mike didn't know. Holly was taking care of the colonist's leg and she turned to see Mike only after the captain nodded to him.
"Thank god. I thought I was the only one who made it." Mike smiled at the small crowd then hastily added; "Sir." The captain was carefully massaging his arm, presumably Holly had re-set that before she went to work on the engineer.
"What's the status pilot?" Jacobs inquired.
Mike paused for a second and tried to recap everything in his head.
"I don't know exactly sir. Somehow we survived the crasch, my copilot is dead however, along with most of the passengers, we've got nothing but emergency light and wherever we are, no-one else can read us on the radio. Either that or they're all dead." Mike finished his report and considered if he should have added that last bit. But the captain didn't look like he had taken notice of it.
"Where are we then?" The captain slowly got to his feet and looked around. The closed space seemed hostile in the faint flashing red light, he wanted to leave.
"I don't know sir, the cockpit is half-caved in with rocks, I can't see anything and all the instruments are dead." He sighed and looked around cargo hold. "Maybe we should take a look outside sir?"
The captain nodded and motioned to one of the side doors.
The door was jammed but they forced it open and climbed outside. It was pitch black. The red light cast ghostly shadows on the floor right outside the door but everything else was dark. Mike disappeared inside the ship again and returned with a couple of flashlights. They jumped down from the ship and started examining the outside.
The cargo runner had come down through the roof of a large cave. The passage ahead was completely rectangular in shape, the ground was smooth, as was the walls and, as far as they could see the roof was as well. The corridor was maybe twenty feet high and roughly the same length wide and ran for fifty or so feet before it made a turn and continued deeper into the mountains.
Mike aimed his light at the floor and slid his boot across it. Smooth and flat. He could glide across it. It was very safe to assume this cave was not a natural phenomenon, like the ring itself was not natural.
"Captain, what do we do now?" Mike turned to the captain who had his hand flat against one of the walls. He turned around and looked almost surprised. He studied the ground for a few moments then turned his gaze up again, with a determined look on his face.
"We follow these tunnels. They have to lead to the surface right?" He looked at Mike who nodded but then added;
"Well... what if 'that's' the way that leads to the surface?" He let his flashlight hit the caved-in section of the tunnel where the transport lay half-buried in rocks.
Jacobs followed his beam of light and understood the pilot's concern.
"Well we don't have much of a choice do we?" The captain turned his light to the other end of the tunnel again. And again Mike cleared his throat to talk.
"Yes sir, but what about Holly and that wounded colonist? Should we leave them here and come back with help?"
Captain Jacobs stopped in his tracks. He shut his eyes and felt a rock in his stomach. A military officer had probably made the decision that it would be wise to split up and leave the wounded man with someone to look after him. But he wasn't a military officer, and he felt safer the more people were with him. And apart from the purely selfish option, he also didn't like the idea of leaving two of his men behind without any way of alerting them to danger, least of all in an unknown place like this.
He walked past Mike and climbed back into the crasched cargo ship.
"Crewman Mendez? Can that man walk?" The woman looked up and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the bright flashlight until the captain turned it off.
"Yes sir I think so, his ankle is just sprained." She looked at him as if to verify it.
"Yeah I think I'm good to go, just no quick jogs alright captain?" He grinned and the captain nodded with a smile.
"Alright, good. Grab some medkits, some guns and flashlights and meet us outside. We're going for a stroll."
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