Vengeance Lands on the Planet
1028 Words
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“You better sit down now,” says Hyun. “we're near.”
“Yup,” says Jasper. “gotta get back. Can you uh...” Hyun puts him in his place. “Thank you.”
Prisha, Hiroki, and Chao get busy pushing buttons on the panels. Beeps fill the air, the red lights blink, and the whole ship slightly rumbles. Then the glass window above is getting covered by a sliding metal. It clanks into a close.
“Entering Mars's atmosphere,” says Chao through the microphone that is broadcasted throughout the ship although they're the only ones in it except the worker robots. “Please brace yourselves.”
The humongous ship flips horizontally, facing the direction of its fall. Hot plasma begins to coat the underside belly of the ship, making it look like a fireball in the sky. Inside the ship, Jasper is laughing too much. His voice is trembling because of the vibration. Icarus, Sayuri, Hyun, Jack, Chao, Oso, and Prisha are calm. The rest of them are nervous. There isn't a wheel of some sort but just touchscreen buttons on the panel.
“Alright,” says Prisha. “it's up to Hiroki's program now.”
“Please work, please work, please work!” he crosses his fingers, closing his eyes and Prisha holding his wrist.
Strange sounds echo within the ship as it grinds against the atmosphere of Mars. The gravity inside the ship is getting stronger. A few minutes later, the rumbling gets calmer.
“Readying landing maneuver,” says the system in Prisha's voice.
“The voice!” Prisha exclaims. “It works!”
“Yeah,” says Hiroki, sweating so much. “But that's not the thing we need to celebrate for, Prisha!”
“We're near the surface,” says Chao.
“Here it goes...”
The ship is heading to the middle of the deserted plateau. It's like a whale falling from the sky. Dozens of explosions occur, the engines start like bellowing thunder. All of a sudden, the ship flips into an upright position, slowly descending. The gravity inside the ship becomes stronger and the humans among the group almost faint. Blazing plasma blows below the ship, rendering the dry rocky soil piping hot. The Martian dirt shakes stronger and stronger. Dust and rubble are blown away, creating thick and hot dust clouds. From the hull of the ship, four thick and long metal legs deploy simultaneously. Although enormously heavy, the ship lands like a feather, if not for its roaring engines.
In a snap, the engines stop. Their red-hot bell nozzles cool down. The barren plateau becomes quiet as it once was. The dust is being drifted away by the dead slow wind, revealing the majesty of the large ship that's covered in Martian dust.
Hiroki groans as he regains consciousness. Prisha wakes him up. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
The ship is upright so the bottom is in the direction where the backs of the seats face. They use the ladder running from the tip of the ship then to the hatch below them. Jack opens it and the warm air invades the control room.
“Let's go,” says Jack, jumping in first.
His metal hand and feet clang against the metal floor and he unintentionally hops a little bit. He looks confused for a second but realizes sooner.
His new metal limbs are made out of Tartarian Steel. They are black with some impurities. Even so, they are polished well enough to shine from the emergency lights on the ceiling of the passage.
He makes room for Oso to come down. “What's the matter?” he asks Jack.
“I'm not used to this gravity yet. Used a little bit of strength in landing.”
“Not to mention that those are new,” says Chao, following after Gwen.
“Tartarian Steel limbs,” Oso remarks. “nothing would be a stronger steel fitting for defeating gods. You, humans, have outdone yourselves.”
“All the credit goes to Prisha. It was her design.”
Prisha comes down hearing that so she smiles with her hands on her waist as she walks to join them. Touching Jack's limbs, she explains, “This steel is the answer for Jack's problems of fighting gods! It gives him active concealment at all times and immunity from their power!”
Philip, Icarus, and Jasper have already come down. “It feels good to be standing again!” Jasper says as he stretches his back.
“Thank goodness we had Lady Sayuri's fire to forge them,” says Chao. “It took me half a decade in making something way simpler than this.”
Finally, Sayuri comes down floating. She has knives under her soles. They step aside to make way for her. Behind her, they follow until they reach the door to the large elevator. The doors open mechanically. The floor slightly shakes as they open. The elevator is circular and wide with no roof. One can fit a helicopter here.
They descend to the bottom floor of the ship. When they enter the room, hundred of robots are busy flying and walking around to do different errands. That's when the large part of the floor opens downward, creating a sloping pathway to the ground. The Martian dust intrudes but settles easily.
Without a word or hesitation, Sayuri climbs down and plants the first foot on Mars among her comrades. They are under the ship's shadow for the moment and the engines are making the air hot as they cool down. Further, she walks steadily to the light. Once she's out of the darkness, the wind welcomes her, blowing her coat to the side until she stops before the cliff.
From here, it's like she's watching the Ra desert all over again. Dunes imitate the waves of an ocean. The difference is while water boasts an abundance of life, the sand is a lifeless domain. In her mind, she remembers the comrade she lost. Her eyes slightly narrow, remembering another timber that fed her fire of vengeance.
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- Writer
