Free Falling

He was falling.

The only thing to fall toward at this point in the Corriden Route, was Mitte! The deserted planet midway through this route.

Jax couldn't decide which was a worse way to die, slowly suffocating in space or becoming a blood-red slush on the ground. Not that he had a choice now.

Jax frantically tried to recall what he knew about Mitte, the deserted planet he was falling towards at a rapidly increasing rate.

Firstly, Mitte was about the size of Jupiter back from humanity's home system, the Solar System. But it only had the gravitational pull equal to Earth since the planet was not very dense. So that was good, it meant that he had more time to make peace with death. Other than that, the planet featured mostly grasslands and temperate forests, with some boreal forests and tundras closer to the poles. The other main feature was a large ocean that covered more than a third of the planet. Various lakes and rivers fed into the ocean. Overall it could be considered a paradise planet in regards to its climate and nature.

There were only two main downsides to this planet. Firstly the animals were all extremely deadly and highly territorial. Previous expeditions revealed that even on the lower end of the food chain, small herbivores could be comparable to grizzly bears in how dangerous there were. The other main downside was that planetary scans show that this planet contained almost no mineral or natural gas resources. These two facets combined with the fact that these types of planets were extremely common and that founding a colony here would be extremely expensive, all organizations ignored it for better prospects elsewhere.

Almost none of this honestly helped Jax at this point, but it was better than just waiting for death. The walls of the container began to heat up. It looked like they were going to enter the atmosphere soon.

The only hope that Jax had was that he could somehow land in the ocean near land or in a lake somewhere. That was if he did not burn up along with the container.

The shipping container that Jax was currently in was a model that was very common and often used by drop ships for delivery. Meaning that it could survive the atmosphere trying to burn it up... probably. This container is the type used by drop ships, but they normally dropped the containers below the mesosphere, where Jax was currently burning up. Also, those dropped containers were usually fitted with parachutes or some type of anti-gravity landing kit, whereas Jax's container was only used for shipping and storage. There was no guarantee that those tools would be available.

"Hold on," Jax said as an idea began to come to mind. "This container might not have an anti-grav landing kit... but it does have the standard transportation grav-kit!"

Each container was fitted with a device that allowed the container to float about a foot off the ground, depending on the calibrated weight. Jax couldn't recalibrate it to the maximum setting, but if he could get outside of the container, then he could activate it and at least slow his decent a little bit. His only chance would come once he entered the part of the atmosphere with oxygen.

Right now the container walls seemed to be glowing hot, letting Jax know that they were probably in the middle of the mesosphere. It had only taken the container one and a half minutes to make it halfway. This meant once another two minutes, Jax would need to exit the container and activate the grav-kit... from a free fall.

The activation panel was on the right side coming out of the door. What Jax needed to do was quickly open the door, hit the switch, and hold onto the container in case it slows suddenly.

Doing a few quick stretches, Jax began to steel himself and countdown to when he enacts his plan.

Once two minutes passed and the container stopped glowing hot, Jax began opening the door to the outside air. The pressurized door started to unseal and...THE PRESSURIZED DOOR! Jax had forgotten that the container was pressurized, which although allowed him to survive space but would now rip him out into the sky since it rapidly depressurized.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit" Jax begins to panic.

Jax tried to undo his mistake, but it was too late. His body was sucked out of the container along with the ton of rotting grain behind him.

Finding himself free-falling, Jax tried to stabilize himself into a skydiver's position and get an understanding of his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that there were more containers above and below him. These were likely the "junk" that the pirates had thrown out. Which meant that Jax could still use his plan, although with some unexpected improvisation.

Slowing his descent, Jax began aiming for one of the containers above him, so as to not be crushed on landing.

Aiming for the control panel, Jax attempted to reach the switch, only to wildly miss his mark, tumbling through the air and slamming into the side of the container.

Recovering as fast as possible, Jax made another attempt at reaching the grav-kit panel on the side. This time he slowed his approach, carefully latching onto the side of the container. Making sure to hold on for dear life, Jax sent out one last prayer before activating the grav-kit.

The container jerked suddenly, attempting to defy the speed and height that it was falling from, with little luck. Jax climbed onto the top of the container and tried to shift the balance in order to keep it steady.

The container began slowing until it was steadily descending at a rate of around ten kph. At this speed, although it would take Jax a couple hours to land, he would at least survive.

As he took a moment to breathe, he stared out to the deserted planet, grassy plains and lush forests spreading out before his eyes.