The whole aircraft shakes viciously, and the sound of flak exploding around us is deafening. The blast shields open in preparation for landing and the side windows fully reveal the outside. Hundreds of aircraft fly around. One transport craft is hit by Herculean fire and following a burst of flame, breaks into two burning parts and falls downwards. The marines inside the destroyed hull fumble out of the disintegrating chunks engulfed in fire. Their bodies become tiny burning embers that are eaten up by the white clouds below us. The madding sound of flak continues exploding outside; our metal cage bustling and shaking in the air. At any moment we would be hit next, ripped away from our hull and freefalling through the air to our death. It numbs me dumb. I’m suddenly terrified of heights.
Please let this fucking thing land!
My hands tap my thighs rapidly. I try yawning away the lump in my throat but instead dry heave and choke. I continue to stare through the dirty side window at the exploding sky and burning pieces of more hit aircraft. Holy shit that can be us! How is that not us? We really are going to die. Close the blast shield, show me no more! But I can’t look away. Looking out that small side window at the chaos gives me an insight to what we are enduring. As if my lifeline, my hope of making it to the ground, relies on the visuals my eyes show me from within this hull to the outside world. This hull—the metallic flooring below me only a meter thick, if that—is what protects my life from out there.
“Jesus who art in heaven!” the chaplain begins, “Forgive us for our sins! We ask that you give us safe passage…” the Osprey shakes and he is broken off from the growing loudness of flak.
The ship takes another heavy jolt. Vick stumbles out of his buckles, hitting others and rolling down the hull to the back. “Help!” he says as he bangs around, “Help! Fuck!”
“Grab him!” says Blake. He and Ray take hold of his limbs.
“Oh god,” Vick throws up.
“Goddamn it! Not my boots!” says Blake. They push Vick back to his own seat. Vomit slides around on the floor. The stench and odor of adrenaline is met with an additional smell. The man next to me from Foxtrot has pissed himself. The liquid travels down his legs and discolors his boots. I look away as to try and not embarrass him, then look back to see his petrified face, out of curiosity I guess. His body is so still, it’s as if death has already grabbed him. He’s probably from my college as well, now we’re in the same subject. His eyes meet my gaze and he ducks his head crying. I made matters worse, but it doesn’t matter, we’re all dead men anyway.
The chaplain continues, “Give us safe passage to our destination and strength in fighting these aliens…” The Osprey rocks violently again. The side windows crack and shards of glass and the shrieking wind blast inside the hull.
“I CAN’T SEE!” says Jonathon. Glass has hit his face. The marine next to him cowers behind with raised arms covered in lacerations of impaled shards. We all quickly lower our helmet visors to escape his fate.
“Gauze!” says Vance from further down the seats. “Pass a dress kit!”
The shouting is hard to hear as the louder screeching of wind passes through the cracked window, and showers us in Jonathon’s blood as the wind attacks his face. I cover my ears—god the noise!
The blast shields slide shut to stop the wind. The medic pouch is ripped off the wall near the rear ramp and handed from marine to marine towards Jonathon. “Oh god!” he blubbers, “I think I’m blind!” Blood leaks out from his eyes onto his groping hands and down his arms. The marine sitting next to him begins placing gauze strips around his face.
Again, the chaplain goes on as if he can save us from it all. “Also heal this man Lord! And let us all return ho—” a fiery bolt of light tears through the flooring and strikes out through the roof, blinding us temporarily. The laser burst has left burns on a few marines from Foxtrot and ripped apart the chaplain’s torso. Scorched pages from his bible stick amongst us. Blood and gore spills out onto the floor from the dead chaplain, and his leaking guts that look like drenched party streamers are sucked out by the wind vacuum through the hole. The burned men wail and one is on fire.
Fucking god! This is insane. What do I do? What do I do? The pissed man next to me has gotten his arm on fire from trying to help another, and panics unbuckling himself.
“Blanket!” says Blake. The hull becomes blurry. The shouting and screaming become distorted noises. I retreat within myself. Is this shock? The hull feels like the memory of a nightmare one has when they awake from a bad dream. There is a great pain upon my nose that breaks the trance and I see spots. Blake is unbuckled and smothering the man on fire with a large retardant blanket. The other burnt man has paste being rubbed on him by Julian. Blake grabs me by the thigh as he positions himself back to his seat. He leans into my face, sweat and blood dripping down his own, “Private! You obey an order when I command it next time.”
“We have taken hull fire. Repeat, hull fire,” says the Pilot.
No shit.
Red lights flash. The floor swashes back and forth with blood and vomit and broken glass, staining our boots and cuffs.
I close my eyes. My breathing is sporadic and, my heart—it feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest! This is madness. If the Herculeans can kill off so many of us already, what is it going to be like once we are finally on the ground?
What the fuck do I do?
Jesus please, please forgive me. Don’t let me die. I don’t want to die! I’ll change and follow you.
Isaac grabs my wrist. I look over to see his eyes closed tightly, he’s biting his bottom lip hard. His teeth puncture it, and blood runs down his chin.
The Osprey goes through a succession of jolts and tumbles. Marines scream louder.
Please God! I will honestly tell everyone about you when we land, that you are the true God. You are the one and only. Please let me live! Let me live! I am sorry!
Peter, that holy man has died, and in the middle of a prayer, too. What the fuck makes you think god will save you? Get yourself together, there is no god, or that pious chaplain would have lived.
No, no! It doesn’t matter I have to try! I don’t want to die. Maybe he was a fake. Please God, I’ll do anything. Don’t let me die!
“Approaching landing zone,” says the Pilot.
“All right!” says Blake, “Guns to the ready. Prepare for drop off!”
The stench of the hull is nauseating from the sloshing blood and vomit. After a bit there is less rattling. The Osprey is low enough to the ground that Herculean anti-air fire can no longer target us.
“Landing,” says the Pilot. The Osprey pauses and hovers, making a one hundred eighty degree turn. The blast shields opens again. The broken window shows other Osprey’s and aircraft also turning around backwards before landing, so that their loading ramps face the city. Some larger carriers deploy the massive Goliath crawlers as well. An Osprey descending next to us is hit and the wing catches on fire. It twirls and crashes to the ground before finishing its rotation. The marines roll out dazed and confused as others scream aflame.
The hatch door opens, and beams of sunlight shower us from outside. Destroyed aircraft have already littered the field in front of us. Blake leaves first, “Move! Move! Move!” Buckles come off and weapons are pulled from the spaces in between the seats. We jump to attention, our boots splashing about in the gore and other liquids on the hull floor. Blake runs out a few meters, crouches, and moves his arm in an arching motion to summon us forward. We pile out into a loose circle around him, some of us additionally carrying tool kits for the planet crackers. The sky is a mess of black flak mixing with the white clouds, and descending outlines of the next waves and hundreds of aircraft in motion.