3R

Screeching alarms at a pitch higher than they rightly should be awaken Demi with a gasping start. Her eyes, blurred and out of focus, scan around the confines as she tries to remember what happened. Once she does she blurts some unintelligible gibberish, thrashes a bit and then collects herself.

“What’s going on?” She cries louder than necessary, her voice reflecting off the bulkheads of the pod and right back into her face.

Head spinning because the pod is also, Demi worries she might blank out for a second time. Efforts are made to prevent that. They will have to be maintained until she can find out whether the alarm means she is at risk or… She, by chance, spies one of the displays and its readout in red text. Her grey eyes go wide as it informs her that the pod she’s in is several thousand feet from impact with 3R and falling rapidly with neither the airbrakes nor parachutes having deployed.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” The former Judicor spits slamming against the buttons and switches hoping one might save her bacon, deploy the parachutes and stop her from certain doom.

None respond in any manner she would call hopeful. Kicks soon follow. If she could she would tear herself out of this cylinder shape and take her chances jumping. Alas, she is locked inside, trapped. Claustrophobia, something that has never afflicted her previously, begins to gnaw angrily at her. She begs it to stop. It does not and so she explodes into a writhing frenzy. It is during this outburst that she catches sight of the subjugation collar. She stops immediately as an idea springs into her mind. It’s stupid, reckless, surely impossible and yet what other choice does she have? None is the reply she delivers unto herself.

Unfortunately, the collar is not easily accessible for it has tumbled and become lodged at the base of the pod, by her feet. The space around Demi too cramped for her to squat or bend. Instead, she is forced with the blaring alarm growing ever quicker, to use her booted feet to kick at the collar. A few quick swipes free the thing giving her the chance to use one foot to drag it up her other leg until the tips of her fingers are clawing at it. Sadly, it is at that moment a huge slam of turbulence sends the pod spiralling off at a horizontal trajectory. The collar, as a result, is thrown all around without the dark haired woman being able to grasp a hold of it.

Thankfully, the turbulence does not last for long. Though, the pod continues to be buffeted about, the alarm seeming to have lessened, as she searches once more for the collar.

She doesn’t dare waste time taking a gander to see if somehow she has gained altitude, against all conceivable odds.

Alas, try as she might she cannot set sights on the collar. However, something does skirt across the surface of the skin on her hand. Instinctively, she grabs at it. Some more struggling and plenty of annoying blares of the warning tone later Demi has her hand in front of her face clinging to the collar. She smiles, relieved. Then remembering her situation she dives into the crux of her plan, as desperate as it is.

Her aforementioned plan is to use the charge from the collar, the one that subdues the wearers’ bodily functions, as a kickstart to fire the airbrakes and chutes. The accomplishment is easier said than done she quickly learns because the panels have no interface which would allow her to…

“Fuck it, I’ll expose the wires and drive them into the panel section.”

It’s an insane idea but there is no other option available to her. Clearly these pods were never meant for manual piloting, which makes sense seeing as they are built as a one time, one way form of transport to send those found guilty to their doom on a dying planet.

How far along the road to dead 3R is exactly she cannot say, but the stories she has heard, they suggest this world is a husk, a barren wasteland filled with nothing but toxicity and death. If she could see anything more than thick dark clouds she might be capable of making a proper analysis but that can come later if she manages to… Demi exposes the wires that carry the charge. Taking a deep breath and for reasons she cannot give flicking her eyes to look at the panel with the altitude readout, which shows eleven hundred-ish feet, she forces the wires into the panel. Sparks fly immediately upon contact. The former Judicial guard wonders if she has sealed her fate with an imminent fire that’ll scorch her until the pod crashes full force into whatever surface 3R has.

That is not what transpires however. Instead the airbrakes fire, the pod slows. Demi rejoices, shocked, but doesn’t hear or feel the chutes deploy. A warning declares they have failed, catastrophically.

“FUCK! FUCK YOU!” Are her only exclamations while her mind races to think, consider, plan, plot.

Before she gets very far there is an almighty boom. The world goes dark, then light, then dark, then light, then somewhere between.

Demi groans. Her whole body aches but somehow she is alive. Against the odds, she has to admit. She didn’t expect to be. She was sure she’d die on impact. What she has to imagine was the almighty boom.

When she makes efforts to move her body screams, she joins in and mirrors it until she is facing the semi-darkened porthole. She can think of no other name for the small-ish circle in the otherwise unbroken mass of the pods hull.

“I’m still trapped, shit.” Are the words which tumble out of her mouth. Her head shakes not long after that.

Accepting defeat feels like the best course of action. The former Judicor teeters on the edge of it until suddenly a wave of angry defiance swells into being from deep inside her. In the wake of it she explodes into an uncontrollable bout of short-lived rage that sees her assault the hatch with all her might, screaming all the while. Her efforts are fruitless for there is no response.

“Let me out!” the dark haired woman with grey eyes screams over and over while lashing out every second cry.

From nowhere it is as if her pleas are answered because the hatch explodes away. A mask of confusion is the expression her face twists into, her eyes seeking and probing at the dark cloud choked sky that is the sum of what fills her view beyond the confines of the pod.

She half expects some convicts to appear brandishing weapons ready to kill. No such thing comes to pass. In actual fact this feat was achieved by Demi who, unbeknownst to her, during her exhausted thumps managed to catch a control on the panel that ejected the hatch.

Had she caught the button any earlier it would not have functioned for it is on a timer, invisible to the occupant. Luckily, she struggled at precisely the right moment. Oblivious to this and having not been attacked thus far, Demi stumbles out of the pod. She falls a short way, landing on all fours. Joy overwhelms her for she never expected to again see let alone feel ground.

The grey-black dust is course but cool to her touch. Her hands sink into it. A smile tears across her face. Then she realises she is breathing air. It’s heavier than she is used to as is the gravity. It also tastes of acrid fuel and clings to the back of her throat, but otherwise it is breathable. It’s quite the shock for 3R was said to be…

Having trailed off never to finish the thought, Demi raises her head and stops. She blinks slowly, her jaw hanging lose as she stares at the remains of thousands of pods, identical to her own. They are ruined. Chills run up her spine. It does not escape her that she is responsible for some of the pods which surround her. She wonders how many were innocent; like her, like Ceres and like the man she had been escorting with Haymenous until Captain Velfarha relieved her.

“I’ll get you, you bastard.” Is the promise she makes in the moments prior to a skittering noise, unmistakable as anything other than movement, reaching her ears as it circles wide around her.

Demi follows it, anticipates that it is some alien predator ready to strike and kill, feed on her remains. She will not go down easy and balls up her fists before raising them, then spreading her feet wide apart, keeping her body low.

The circling continues. That alone Demi finds baffling. Still, she does not dare drop her guard in case it is part of some ploy meant to lull her into a false sense of security before a strike meant to wound if not kill is delivered. She’s been duped once already recently. Not something she intends on repeating again soon.

Suddenly the ground explodes, revealing not one but a number of potential targets. They have her cornered with her back to the pod that brought her here.