The trip through the wormhole was a little nauseating in my current state, but otherwise nothing about it seemed abnormal. Then we emerged inside of the Earth’s atmosphere, which isn’t supposed to happen. There’s a reason you make wormholes in near zero gravity. The torque of gravity against the wormhole began to rip apart the ship.
“You missed,” I said.
“Not by more than a few hundred miles,” Miranda said defensively. “It’s not like I’ve ever flown one of these.”
I looked nervously at the distant ground. “I thought you were a pilot!”
“I am a pilot, but I’ve only seen spaceships flown. I have only actually flown a few small planes.”
“Well, I guess we’re all in for your crash course.”
John was still reclined in his seat, utterly unperturbed. “I’m glad I left some feed out for the chickens before we left.”
“We’re almost free of the wormhole,” Miranda said. “When it releases us, we’ll begin to fall, and I’ll turn on the landing propulsion engines. There might be some damage to the ship and some systems.”
The ship groaned and creaked before it broke free of the wormhole, and thereafter we didn’t really fly toward the ground so much as engage in some creative spinning and flipping. I was glad my stomach was empty and that I was strapped in. I kept my gaze inside the cockpit to the extent I was able. I really didn’t want to see how fast the ground was coming toward us.
Miranda fought the controls, working feverishly to right the ship. “Cloaking on. If we make the news, it should be as a falling satellite or meteor.”
“That’s comforting,” I said.
I heard a large creak and a snap. “We’ve lost the warp drive,” she said.
“Do we need it? We’re in the atmosphere,” I said.
“Well, it would have been nice to keep the ship in one piece while landing,” she said.
An explosion rocked the ship.
“What was that?” I asked.
“That was the warp drive,” John answered. “It likely destabilized without the magnetic containment field.”
“Whatever the cause of the explosion, it just damaged both wings,” Miranda said.
“We can still land, though. Right?” I asked.
“Well, we can definitely put the ship on the ground,” Miranda answered.
“If you don’t slow down our descent, we’ll probably put the ship about thirty feet into the ground,” John commented.
“Everybody’s a backseat driver,” Miranda said.
A huge hunk of metal spun past the cockpit window.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Part of the wing,” John answered.
“Do we need that part?” I asked.
“It’s really only necessary when in the atmosphere. It’s completely irrelevant in space,” he answered.
“Maybe we should put on parachutes or something,” I suggested.
“Spacecraft are much too advanced for parachutes,” John responded.
I sighed. “That’s not very comforting when your spacecraft is breaking apart.”
Miranda jerked the control stick back and I felt the ship stabilize. We were still descending rapidly, and although we weren’t spinning, the entire ship trembled and groaned. Nobody spoke as the ground sped toward us. Miranda still frantically pushed buttons. Then the noise of our descent increased dramatically.
Miranda looked slightly relieved. “I’ve managed to extend flaps. That should slow our descent to a survivable impact.”
“You meant landing, right?” I asked.
“Right, survivable landing,” she corrected herself. “Five thousand feet. Four thousand. Three. Two. One! Brace yourselves!”
We rammed into the ground with the grace of a poorly spiked football. The cockpit erupted in rigid blue protective foam that obscured my vision and made it impossible to tell what was happening, but I had the sensation of tumbling and heard massive explosions. When we stopped moving, the foam receded, only a faint odor of burnt plastic remaining in its wake.
Miranda and John both were staring out the broken cockpit into what I assumed was the fresh Minnesota air. I felt rather invigorated. Survival against all odds always affects me that way.
I unsnapped my buckles and got to my feet. We must have been balancing on something because the remains of the cockpit tilted as I shifted my weight. Well, let’s go!” I urged them.
John and Miranda remained seated, and only their shallow breathing and blinking let me know they were still alive.
John finally moved. “Well, I think next time we fly commercial.”
“Hey, that was a great landing,” I said. “Everybody gets to walk away. What more can you ask for?”
John gestured around us. “A bit more of the ship intact.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t our ship anyway.”
Miranda unbuckled herself. “Yeah, that flight is definitely not going in my log book. I can imagine the entry: Phoenix 5000. Thirty minutes. Intergalactic. Ship destroyed.”
“I’ve had worse landings,” I said.
“How?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Okay, I haven’t actually had a worse landing while in a spaceship or airplane, but there’ve been a number of falls and jumps that were much worse.” I looked around the smoldering forest. “Gosh, I’m hungry. Do you think there’s a burger joint nearby?”