Heritage (Under Revision)

Chapter 30 - Leon

“Alright, signal is out, let’s book it down to the hangar,” Uncle Damien says in an urgent voice.

We exit the control room in a sprint, running as fast as we can down the halls. My speed is so great that my eyes go to tunnel vision and everything around me is blurred is except for the path ahead.

“Sekrid!” Dad yells, pointing ahead of us.

“I got him!” Uncle Damien yells in response.

The Sekrid soldier has no time to react by the time he catches eye of us. As uncle Damien turns the corner, he slams into the commando, tossing him through a room window, knocking the Sekrid out cold.

The run goes on for ten minutes before we see the door to the hangar. We were moving so fast that we traversed from one end of the Poseidon to the other in a simple ten minutes. Father uses the door to stop himself and then presses the button to open it up. We all enter and begin to catch our breath.

“Whew...that was one hell of a run,” Uncle Damien says in between gasps for air.

“Yeah, well how bout’ getting behind something?” Dad says, pulling my arm and dragging me down next to him behind a set of crates as Mom, Stella, and Uncle Damien do the same.

“There’s a troop of Sekrid guarding the hangar down the way,” Dad says.

“What’re we gonna do then?” I ask.

“When the ship gets in, it’ll blow those soldiers to hell, don’t worry about it guys,” Uncle Damien says in confidence.

Uncle Damien stops and puts a finger up to silence the conversation. He holds a hand up to his ear and a smirk comes across his face and he looks at us.

“They’ll be here in five,” he says.

We all nod in agreement and smile simultaneously. Dad peeks over the crates and sees the rescue ship heading our way. He moves his vision to the Sekrid. I peek over the crates myself, and I see that the Sekrid are acting odd and they begin to point into space.

“Shit, you think they saw the ship?” I ask.

“Hm...even if they did, they can’t do anything anyway,” Dad responds.

“Wait a minute...Dad what the hell is that?” I ask once more as two Sekrid kneel on the ground with what seems to be a launcher.

“Oh fuck...Those are Jackal missiles; Damien take them out!” Dad yells.

Damien immediately pulls up his rifle and aims down the sights. He fires a burst of rounds and hits both soldiers accurately as the Sekrid pulls the trigger on the launcher.

“Yeah! You got em’ Uncle!”

“No I didn’t,” Uncle Damien says through his teeth angrily.

“Yeah you did, look, the missile is going completely to the left of the ship.”

“Jackal missiles have the most advanced tracking equipment you can find,” Stella says, interjecting into the conversation. “All it takes is for just one to be launched in any direction towards the target, and boom,” she says, finishing her explanation.

“Wait so does that mean...”

And before I can finish my sentence, the missile collides with the rescue ship. It veers to the left, but still moving on it’s fast-paced course towards the ship.

“Damn it! The ship is going to collide with ours! Take cover!” Dad screams as he covers Mom.

Uncle Damien crouches over Stella and I as well. My muscles tighten, and my heart pumps harder, anticipating the impact. I hear a nearly deafening crunch of metal as the rescue ship collides with the side of The Poseidon.

Flames burst through the door we entered in and pieces of the hangar begin to fall.

Uncle Damien takes all the blows from various pieces of metal. He hardly shutters at the impacts of metal on his back though. He only gives off slight winces here and there. I start to feel a shift in the ship, like it’s being pushed in another direction and Dad looks up with a horrified look on his face.

“Oh God no, don’t let it be that,” he says in a quiet tone.

There’s a large jerk on the ship, and then a strong pull. The ship then begins to turn until the back of the ship, where the hangar is located, faces a devastating view.

“No...no...no,” Dad says, so afraid that he’s shaking.

Uncle Damien reacts instantly, grabbing Dad’s shoulder and pulling him to the door we originally came through. We all follow his lead as he knocks the debris away from the door. Dad regains his senses and we begin to run as fast as possible.

“Please tell me you have impact rooms on this Godforsaken vessel!” Uncle Damien screams. Father hesitates on his answer so I speak up myself.

“Yeah Uncle, they’re just down that hall!” I yell in response.

“Got it!”

We take a sharp turn down a hall and find the first impact room we can see. Uncle Damien opens the door and hesitates his entrance.

“So this is where they’re keeping the crew,” he says surprised.

Before anything else, Uncle Damien motions all of us into the impact room, closes the door, and seals it. Stella and I untie the crew members that are with us in the impact room.

“Are the remaining crew members in impact rooms too?” Stella asks one of the crew.

“Just the crew that was in this quadrant, why, what’s going on?” the crew member says, frightened.

“Brace yourself, the ship is going down,” I say.

“Oh God no, my wife, she’s not in this quadrant. She’ll be killed,” the crewman says as tears start to pour down his face. Stella comforts him as I turn to talk to my Uncle.

“So how exactly do these things work? We didn’t cover impact rooms in ship architecture class,” I say, questioning Uncle Damien.

“When the ship collides, foam will be sprayed into the room, it’s a chemical blend that’s ultra-light, you’ll feel like you’re on feathers when it happens. It absorbs all the shock of the impact, or most of it anyway. We may get some bumps and bruises, but we should be fine,” Uncle says, explaining the process.

I nod my head in understanding and return to Stella as she sits on the floor staring into space. I take her hand in mine and she looks up at me.

“Don’t worry Stella, we’ll make it, the room will protect us,” I say, trying to comfort her.

“It’s not us I’m worried about, Leon. I have friends on this ship, so do you. What if they don’t make it...”

“The only thing we can do, is pray that they survive Stella.”

I caress her face in my hand and kiss her, trying to let her know, that with that one kiss, everything will be alright. Stella interlaces our fingers and I sit beside her, taking a deep breath, trying to prepare for the oncoming impact. I look over at my mother and father. Dad is stunned with fear, knowing the impending doom of his ship closing in, mother sits beside him, trying to console him, tears running down her face.

There’s another large jerk on the ship, causing me to fall forward. I reposition myself next to Stells and my anticipation starts to get the best of me and I become antsy. My foot begins to tap, as well as my fingers on my free hand.

Uncle Damien keeps an eye on the monitor, waiting for whatever signal is supposed to pop up on the screen. Words appear on the screen in large red lettering, I manage to see what they say for a brief moment before Uncle Damien moves in front of the monitor.

‘IMPACT EMMINENT’, it reads while blinking continuously.

The ship jerks one final time, jarring everyone in the room around. I get a sickly feeling in my stomach and my muscles tighten in fear and anticipation.

There’s a sensation of speed picking up and soon I find myself pressed against the wall as the ship begins to hurdle towards the planet. The G’s start to intensify and I feel as if I’m on the roller-coaster from hell and it’s a never-ending downhill.

I feel Stella tighten her grip on my hand as I close my eyes and begin to grit my teeth. The G-forces on my body start to give my body the feeling of wanting to pass out. I open my eyes somewhat and look around my room. My mother sits next to my father, holding on to him for dear life as he grips on to a support handle, keeping himself in place.

My vision next to moves to Uncle Damien. His eyes are closed and he’s sweating from the forces acting upon his body. He’s gripping the support handle on his side as hard as he can, trying to keep himself in place.

The two crew members that were bound in the room upon our entrance are holding on to each other, which leads me to the assumption that they have a close friendship.

And finally, my eyes turn to Stella. Her face is red and she’s crying, afraid of the impact to come. I’m not able to grab her and console her with a hug or a kiss for my arms are pinned to the walls from the gravitational forces. As the forces become more intense, I can’t help but close my eyes and wince in pain from the pressure pushing on my body.

I feel like my torso is being condensed so far down that I might be flattened completely. A loud ringing sound overtakes my hearing and it seems I’m deaf to the outside world. I can’t help but hear a faint sound of bending and crunching metal in the distance.

I see my Uncle yell something to my mother and father. The voice however, is too muffled for me to hear. The gravitational forces at this point become too much for my body to bear, and I start to lose consciousness.

In the instant my vision fades and I begin to close my eyes completely, there’s a strong jerk and my body jettisons in the air. I close my eyes as my head is about to impact the wall, but I feel my head land on a soft surface. My body jerks itself towards the wall, this time I feel a hard impact and hear a sickly crunching sound before I feel my body can be lifted by the unknown source that defended my head.

I slip in and out of consciousness as my body is tossed around the room. The only things I can catch glimpses of in my sight are flashing blue lights, small pieces of debris all around, and a strange substance engulfing me. The last thing I see is a panel on the ceiling crashing down on top me and then...darkness...

I wake up with a gasp of air and breathing heavily. My eyes feel heavy as well as my body. I bring my hands up to rub the grogginess from eyes, but there’s a problem. I can’t seem to move my right arm.

That’s when the pain kicks in...

I feel a shooting pain run all the way through my upper arm and I grind my teeth in pain and cradle my arm with the other. Pain then kicks in on my head. It’s so intense that it blurs my vision and I have to shake my head a few times to correct my sight. I lift my good arm and feel it. There seems to be a gash on my head, dried blood coats the area around it. I run my hand down my face and bring it to my vision. A streak of blood covers it in the same pattern that the blood ran down my face.

I struggle to pick myself up off the floor of the room. The foam had drained from the room already, and left a musty smell behind. I look around the room and see that everyone else is still unconscious and I stagger towards the door and push it open with my shoulder.

I look around and see fire and rubble everywhere. Wires hang from the ceiling, letting off small electrical charges and the floor is inclined due to the position the ship impacted. I hold my arm to support it as I walk up the inclination of the floor.

A bright light floods in from my destination and as I reach the top, I see that there’s not a door for me to exit from, but a large, gaping hole from which the back section of the ship tore off of. I look into the distance in absolute shock and awe at the sight of my surroundings.

“Holy...shit...” are the only words I can muster...