Chapter 10: Rescue

The low hum of the engines vibrated through the hull as Asus gripped the controls with a white-knuckled intensity. Sweat dripped down his forehead, the seconds ticking by with the weight of the mission pressing down on him. His voice crackled through the comms, "Thanatos to Crackle, I read you. What's your location, over?"

"22 klicks southwest of the fortress. They haven't noticed me yet, but the ships are searching," Crackle's voice came back, tinged with urgency.

"Understood. At 20 clicks, I'll radio in. When I do, pop an IR flare."

"Roger."

As the ship tore through the sky, Asus glanced at Crystal, who was tapping nervously on the controls. "Uuum, uh... Asus," she hesitated.

"What is it?"

Her voice quivered. "We're out of ammo."

"Shit," Asus muttered under his breath, the weight of their dwindling resources crashing down. The head turret was already emptied, scavenged for ammo from the tail turret. His mind raced, flicking over every possibility. They couldn't afford to slow down. "Okay, we'll rely on the plasma gun to deal with the rest."

"Got it." Crystal's hands flew over the controls, quickly draining the last of their ammo reserves.

Every second felt like an eternity. They had one chance—one shot—to grab Crackle and extract. Asus knew it: the ship's shields were almost gone, the time to get in and out was narrowing, and the enemy was closing in.

"Crackle, find an open area and pop IR. We're coming in fast and low, and it'll get hot real quick," Asus ordered, voice clipped and sharp.

"Got it..." There was a brief silence before Crackle's voice returned, a crackle of static accompanying her words. "Popping IR."

Asus's eyes darted to the 180-degree display on his canopy, scanning the terrain below. The seconds were slipping away. Suddenly, a hot-white laser beam lanced across the sky, burning into the cockpit display.

"Crystal, hang tight! Bank hard southeast, 143 degrees!" Asus shouted, his fingers flying over the controls. The ship lurched, diving towards the ground in a blistering roll.

They were in enemy territory now, and the clock was ticking. The ship's shields flickered, the strain almost unbearable. A moment longer, and they'd be fried in the crossfire. But Asus pushed forward, the target zone locking into view. They had barely a minute to make their move.

Crystal braced herself as the ship screamed lower, weaving through the open area where Crackle had marked. The glow of the IR flare ignited, guiding them in, but it was a race against time. Enemy fire sliced through the air, the ship's shields groaning under the pressure.

"Five seconds!" Asus barked.

Crystal's heart pounded as she watched the readout. "Almost there..."

With a deafening roar, the ship swooped down, the last remaining plasma cannon ripping through the sky. The enemy fire was relentless, but the ship was faster, darting in just under the laser-scorched sky. They hovered inches from the ground.

"Now!" Asus roared.

The air was thick with tension as Crackle bolted for the hatch. The second she was on board, they shot into the sky. With the shields screaming in protest, the ship shot upward, engine roar deafening, as the first blasts of enemy fire splashed against the hull. But they were already gone.

The escape had been narrow—too narrow—but they were alive. And with the mission complete, the pulse of adrenaline slowly began to fade. But the clock never stopped ticking.

The battered ship soared through the darkening skies, its engines sputtering and groaning, the hull scarred from the brutal extraction. Asus's hands gripped the controls, his knuckles white with tension. Beside him, Crystal's eyes flickered over the flickering consoles, her fingers trembling as they brushed the interface. The once-sturdy ship now felt like a fragile piece of scrap metal, its power systems failing one after another.

"Thanatos to Command, we're on final approach for emergency landing. Requesting immediate clearance for a crash landing, over," Asus's voice was strained, but his tone was focused.

The radio crackled with urgency, the static harsh in their ears. "Roger that, Thanatos. Runway 12 at the southern edge of the base. We've got a clear path for you. You're on your own from here. Good luck."

Asus barely acknowledged the transmission, his focus locked on the failing systems. "Roger that," he muttered. "Crystal, how's the fuel?"

Crystal's eyes darted to the fuel gauge—a blinking, ominous red. The green bars that had once shown promise were now nearly gone, hovering dangerously low. "We're running on fumes, Asus. Less than a minute before we're out. And the auxiliary power is dead."

The words hit Asus like a punch to the gut. The auxiliary power had been their only backup if the primary systems failed. Now, with it down and no fuel, the ship was a dead weight plummeting toward the ground. But they couldn't afford to waste time thinking about it. They had one shot.

"We need to make it to the runway now. Just hang on, Crystal," Asus said, his voice flat with determination.

Crystal, still relatively new to anything other than comms or turret work, glanced nervously at the console, her mind racing to keep up with the rapid series of failures unfolding before her. She fumbled with the controls, her fingers too slow for the magnitude of the task ahead.

"Crackle! What's going wrong?" Crystal shouted over the deafening hum of the dying ship, her voice rising in panic. "What do I do?"

Crackle, seated a few feet away in the back, twisted in her chair. Her eyes were wide with concern, and her breath came out in ragged gasps. "Crystal, you need to focus! The fuel's running low—too low. The auxiliary thrusters should be your priority, and you need to override the gear release. I've got your back, just follow through!"

Crystal's eyes flickered back to the console, her hands moving frantically over the controls. "I can't—I don't know how to do this. Nothing's responding!" Her voice was a mixture of confusion and fear, each second ticking by like a countdown to oblivion.

"Just follow the diagnostics!" Crackle shouted, the noise of the failing ship swallowing her words. "Check the error codes. We're out of time. Override, Crystal! Override the landing gear manually—do it now, or we're going to crash hard!"

Crystal's fingers hovered over the interface, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn't make sense of it. The flashing red codes, the alarms blaring, the sheer chaos—it all blended together, leaving her paralyzed.

"Crystal, don't freeze up!" Crackle's voice cracked with urgency. "The override's on the left panel, just push it! Trust me! We're going down too fast to think about anything else!"

The words snapped something inside Crystal. Her breath hitched, her hands trembling, but she found the override switch. With a hard press, she activated it—just as the first warning light exploded on the dashboard: Hydraulic System Failure.

"Shit!" Crystal screamed, her panic escalating. "I can't get the damn brakes to work! Nothing's responding!"

"Focus!" Crackle shouted from the back, desperation in her voice. "We don't have brakes—get the damn gear down manually! If the wheels lock halfway, we're toast!"

Crystal's gaze shifted back to the panel, the familiar process of troubleshooting now alien and overwhelming. But Crackle's voice cut through the noise of the dying ship, her words urgent and sharp. "You can do it, Crystal. We're almost there. Get that gear down, now!"

The ground rushed toward them. The emergency manual override barely moved the landing gear an inch, and with every jolt, it felt as though they were being drawn into an unstoppable gravitational pull. Crystal slammed the console again, her fingers slipping in the sweat of her palms. The ship groaned.

Then another warning light flashed, too late to prevent the disaster: Landing Gear Jammed.

"Prepare for crash landing!" Asus's voice cut through the comms, but it was too late. The ship was coming in too fast, too heavy, with no way to slow down.

The ship jolted hard to the left, the emergency thrusters firing sporadically. They were seconds from the tarmac, the ship groaning with every inch. The emergency brakes failed, the landing gear screeching and locking halfway down.

"We're out of options. Prepare for crash landing!" Asus barked, his hands locked on the controls. "Crystal, do what you can. We're too far in now to stop it!"

The ship slammed into the ground with a bone-rattling impact. The fuselage crumpled, sparks flying as it skidded violently across the cracked runway. The sound of tearing metal reverberated through the hull, a horrific symphony of destruction. For a brief moment, everything stopped. Time seemed to stretch as the ship's momentum carried it forward, grinding along the tarmac, dragging pieces of itself behind. The acrid smell of burning circuits filled the air as alarms screamed, the lights flickering in the cockpit.

And then, with a final jolt, the ship lurched sideways, coming to a violent halt. The shrieking of metal, the hot rush of air, the vibration of the engines sputtering to silence—it was chaos.

The world outside the cockpit was a blurry, smoke-filled haze. Crystal gripped the edges of her seat, her vision swimming as the ship finally came to rest. Everything hurt. Her ears rang. The ship's engines sputtered and died, leaving only the echo of their violent impact.

And then, in a final burst of understanding, Crackle's voice broke through the haze, faint but still urgent. "You did your best, Crystal... just hang on..."

In that moment, all she could do was cling to consciousness, the blurry smoke filling her lungs, the overwhelming sounds of the crash still ringing in her ears. Her mind tried to process it all—tried to understand what had just happened—but it was all too much. The world around her started to fade, darkness closing in on the edges of her vision.

"Crystal... Crackle..." Asus's voice was a distant murmur, almost lost beneath the haze of smoke and fire.

She couldn't respond. Her body refused to obey. The last thing she heard before the world went black was the sharp sound of emergency alarms still blaring through the ship's broken systems, each one a reminder that they had barely made it.

And then, in a final burst of understanding, Crackle's voice broke through the haze, faint but still positive and reassuring. "You did your best, Crystal... just hang on... helpss..."

Crystal tried to force her eyelids open, but they were heavy, her body like stone. Her mind drifted in and out of focus, trying to hold onto the threads of reality. Through the thick smoke, she caught a glimpse of Asus, barely moving in the wreckage. He was halfway out of the cockpit, his body dragged along the edge, his outstretched hand trembling as it fell toward the floor.

The world around her blurred again, and she couldn't move fast enough to reach him, couldn't form the words to call out. The last thing she saw before the darkness fully claimed her was Asus's hand, inches away from the floor, his desperate reach faltering as everything went quiet.