Post by Kholbi on Nov 17, 2016 13:10:24 GMT
Kholbi told herself that she wasn't panicking. It was not a particularly convincing pitch.
Something about rapidly approaching a planet's surface in a twenty-year-old pod which had come off worse in an encounter with a mountain wasn't going a long way to salving her nerves. Not even her meditation techniques were helping her blank out the mounting terror surging through the back of her mind that she was about to die. Horribly and ignominiously. And then she'd never turn in her report about the planet she'd been sent to, they'd come looking for her and... and...
No no no no no no no. She was going to be fine. She had to be fine. For everyone else's sake back home. Even if Kholbi never saw any of them again, the thought of putting them in further danger sickened her. Even if she broke every damn bone in her body, so long as she could drag herself in to talk about her 'success', then none of the rest mattered.
The howling of the wind intensified as it whipped past the pod, the entire tiny vessel rattling with enough force to shake Kholbi down to the core. She clenched her jaw, closed her eyes, hands clinging white knuckled to the control panel, the closest thing to a support rail there was in here. This was it. Just a few seconds longer and...
Wham.
With the noise of an exploding sun, Kholbi's pod crashed into Vegeta's surface, kicking up an enormous cloud of dust as chunks of dirt and earth rained down all around it. Metal crunched and crumpled, viewing port plexglass shattered into pieces, Kholbi's seat straps strained, and then snapped, flinging her against the battered pod wall. Something that might have been a warning signal shrilled once and then immediately cut off.
...This thing had alarms?
Kholbi was glad of that one detached thought of distraction, because it delayed the inevitable realisation that everything hurt for just an instant or so longer.
Good news; if she was hurting she wasn't dead.
Bad news; owwwwwwwwww.
Smoke billowed around her. Something else was burning. Kholbi, plastered into the wall, grimaced, let out a groan, and reached out, prising herself free from the worrying dent she'd managed to leave in the wall. The pod door was still closed, and with ringing ears and bleary eyes, Kholbi noted that the mechanism was completely wrecked, the door buckled in such a way that there was no way it was ever opening again. Somehow the pod had flipped in its descent, with the shattered viewport now being above her, making it a climb to the only exit. Nothing else for that, she'd just have to get out that way.
Thankfully the pod was small. Standing, Kholbi's head was practically outside already. It was a very minor consolation for the protest her muscles and frame screamed out when she reached for the edges of the window and pushed up, hauling herself up and outward. Teeth gritted with the effort, she exerted herself, and then tumbled out, falling into the crater left by her pod's impact.
She made it up to a knee, staring hazily out at the planet she'd been born on, and felt nothing but completely alone.
Something about rapidly approaching a planet's surface in a twenty-year-old pod which had come off worse in an encounter with a mountain wasn't going a long way to salving her nerves. Not even her meditation techniques were helping her blank out the mounting terror surging through the back of her mind that she was about to die. Horribly and ignominiously. And then she'd never turn in her report about the planet she'd been sent to, they'd come looking for her and... and...
No no no no no no no. She was going to be fine. She had to be fine. For everyone else's sake back home. Even if Kholbi never saw any of them again, the thought of putting them in further danger sickened her. Even if she broke every damn bone in her body, so long as she could drag herself in to talk about her 'success', then none of the rest mattered.
The howling of the wind intensified as it whipped past the pod, the entire tiny vessel rattling with enough force to shake Kholbi down to the core. She clenched her jaw, closed her eyes, hands clinging white knuckled to the control panel, the closest thing to a support rail there was in here. This was it. Just a few seconds longer and...
Wham.
With the noise of an exploding sun, Kholbi's pod crashed into Vegeta's surface, kicking up an enormous cloud of dust as chunks of dirt and earth rained down all around it. Metal crunched and crumpled, viewing port plexglass shattered into pieces, Kholbi's seat straps strained, and then snapped, flinging her against the battered pod wall. Something that might have been a warning signal shrilled once and then immediately cut off.
...This thing had alarms?
Kholbi was glad of that one detached thought of distraction, because it delayed the inevitable realisation that everything hurt for just an instant or so longer.
Good news; if she was hurting she wasn't dead.
Bad news; owwwwwwwwww.
Smoke billowed around her. Something else was burning. Kholbi, plastered into the wall, grimaced, let out a groan, and reached out, prising herself free from the worrying dent she'd managed to leave in the wall. The pod door was still closed, and with ringing ears and bleary eyes, Kholbi noted that the mechanism was completely wrecked, the door buckled in such a way that there was no way it was ever opening again. Somehow the pod had flipped in its descent, with the shattered viewport now being above her, making it a climb to the only exit. Nothing else for that, she'd just have to get out that way.
Thankfully the pod was small. Standing, Kholbi's head was practically outside already. It was a very minor consolation for the protest her muscles and frame screamed out when she reached for the edges of the window and pushed up, hauling herself up and outward. Teeth gritted with the effort, she exerted herself, and then tumbled out, falling into the crater left by her pod's impact.
She made it up to a knee, staring hazily out at the planet she'd been born on, and felt nothing but completely alone.