Ashes, Ashes, And We All Fall And Burn
- Locked due to inactivity on Dec 30, '17 3:54am
Thread Topic: Ashes, Ashes, And We All Fall And Burn
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Chapter I: Collision Beta
...Your suits are also equipped with the standard heat shield armor, and the jetpacks have been rigged with parachutes. Be careful with those though, you'll be traveling at least hundreds of miles an hour, and although the chances of hitting land are low, try to land in the water near the coast if you can. The angle, as I'm sure you know, Mike, has to be perfect, otherwise the only somewhat....", Hazel droned. They all should have known this material, it's all emergency protocol after all. Maybe they all would have known this if this were taking place a decade ago. Then again, a decade ago no government would have allowed such a large nuke to be detonated anywhere, not even to mention space, and a decade ago they didn't have these kinds of suits and wouldn't even plan to until they saw the huge space rock. A decade ago, they would have been looking at it and wanting to study it rather than disrupt its orbit. A decade ago, things would have been different, very different. But now here Aeron, or Ron as most called him, was listening to the same lecture he had heard before he left. The technology had changed a little from when he went up there, having first went and stayed in space about two and a half years ago, and the technology was rapidly improving, but he had been able to catch up easily, so all this was nothing new to him and he saw no reason he should be in there when he could be preparing the Shuttle Not the space shuttle of the latest of last millennium and earliest of this, but instead a makeshift vehicle with extremely thick armor designed for the mission they just got back from: Changing the trajectory of the asteroid that was hurtling to Earth to one that would allow it to pass by Earth completely or at least skip off the atmosphere. The mission failed, it failed miserably. The asteroid was now heading almost directly for our home and there was an ever-expanding cloud of debris surrounding it that would pummel the same side of the Earth as where the asteroid hit to seemingly no end. This was surely the end for mankind, considering how large the asteroid is and, more so, was, before a chunk was blown out of it.
Aeron was snapped from his thoughts as the shrill blaring of an alarm sounded within the station, interrupting Hazel's lecture, now concerning what to do if you run out of oxygen while far underwater or if the glass of the helmet somehow starts to crack. The room fell silent for a moment as everyone was surprised by the loud, ear-piercing noise. Then there was people rushing out of that module to figure out what was happening. There weren't many people on the station, but they were all here for the briefing. As they all rushed out of the room, including Aeron and Hazel, the alarm shut off and a voice called over the loudspeaker, "It's time, everyone. Get in your suits and get in position. We either do this right and maybe one or two of us will survive, or we don't and we all die. This is a code Omega-Omega scenario and we need to treat it as such. Zeta-5 out." A code Omega-Omega...He never thought he would ever have to remember what that meant. An Omega-Omega is defined as imminent total destruction of the station with no way to avoid it. The shuttle wasn't ready, and even if it was, it could only hold two people. If they tried to use it now, it would burn up in reentry and whoever was within would be instantly burnt into ash when the seals broke, even with the reentry proof suits. And really, it wasn't even designed for reentry in the first place, it was only meant to survive the inevitable blast of rocks and plasma that came with the nuclear detonation, after which they could remotely undock it and let it become space junk with a decaying orbit and wait for a normal ship to pick them up. That was, as long as the mission succeeded, but it did not. Now they had found a very unfortunate plan B, but that wasn't viable either, since the shuttle wasn't ready. The only thing there was to do now was to get in their reentry-proof spacesuits and hope they can fall at the right angle as to not burn up. They had all filled their oxygen tanks to full, which would last about a day, which is much longer than they would need. As Aeron got close to his assigned location, the one furthest from the stations center of mass and so the least likely to violently explode and send shards of god-knows-what into him and the place least likely to have things flying everywhere because there was less station to break out here. There other places too, where people might survive, that others were assigned to; There was the best armored, four outer spots where the piece of debris that was hurtling right in the path of the station would merely snap the pieces off the station and have them fly off into wild and unpredictable orbits, and other places. Aeron's spot wasn't one of those four, rather, it was the extreme end of one of the module lines, the longest one, that from far away might look like an overly-sized antenna. It was almost like a fifth spot like the other outer ones but this module line was longer than the others and was perpendicular to the others, and because of the angle the debris was going to hit the station, this spot was especially survivable.
Aeron went over his sort-of checklist in his mind, but it was soon broken by Zeta-5's, or more informally, Hugo's, voice over the station-wide intercom. "Debris approaching, 30 Seconds. ", Aeron put on and sealed his helmet to the suit. "All hatches closed, 20 seconds. ..", And then suddenly there was no more gravity. Aeron's dark hair slowly floated away into a flare of tiny threads no longer bound by gravity. "Gravity Generators deactivated...10 seconds." Time slowed, as Aeron's adrenaline truly kicked in. At this time, he started to hear quiet, dull and low pitched pattering, "It's here." Aeron thought aloud quietly as Hugo called out; "Five...", The noise got louder. "Four...", Aeron made sure his helmet radio was on; it hadn't been. "Three...", He said into his helmet radio, "I hope you all. .." "Two..." "Are ready." The pattering had become louder and now was a roar, soon deafeningly loud if not for having a sealed helmet. The last number only came out as a crackle as there was enough dust to block the signal. The room itself started to shake, but not Aeron, as he was no longer attached to the station and instead floated above the floor. He curled himself into the most compact shape he could. Then there was noise, a somehow even more deafening roar, the squealing of shattering metal, white noise of all the glass in the station shattering despite being space-junk proof, and the rumbling of structural collapse. Their suits were armored, luckily, so when the station broke apart and Aeron slammed into the wall -- or did the wall slam into him? he hit hard enough to leave a huge crack, but it only bruised his backside rather than instantly killing him. The crack in the wall was a hull breach, the walls weren't all that thick, just projectile-safe, so as Aeron tried to move away, he only fell into the wall once again as air rushed out, the wall fractured and splintered away, the remaining air shoving Aeron into the cold of space, spinning and flipping away from the now shattering station. as Aeron slowed his spinning with the suit jets, he nearly missed one of the pieces of debris from the station hitting him right in the glass of his helmet, which would have surely meant death for Aeron, for his oxygen would have spilled out into the void of space until there was none left. From here, time slowly returned to normal. As Aeron drifted away from the station at a rapid clip, he called out into the radio, "Aeron here, is anyone out there, do you read me?" No response. I repeat, is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me?... Still no response; Static prevailed in his ears as he sailed toward the Earth. -
That's the first chapter, haven't finished the second yet but if anyone wants to see it so far just say so.
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I love how detailed this is. I also like how you kinda just jump into the storyline so at first I'm like "wots going on ??" and that makes me want to read further and then I figure out the world is basically ending, which is pretty cool 👌. I don't usually read science fiction-y books but I like how this is starting. When you get Ch. 2 to where you like it I'd definitely read it.
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Definitely purposeful on the thing about just jumping into the plot, I'm glad it had the intended effect :-) I've gotten a bunch of Ch. 2 done but its still not done quite yet and it might need some edits, I don't know.
Also, if I feel it's worth it after I've written a lot of this story I might do what's essentially a prequel to expound upon what happened previously, but thats waaayyy down the road. -
Yeah I knew it was on purpose and the whole time I was thinking "this is exactly why he wrote it like this, so I would actually read it"
Well, it's off to a good start. Maybe you could explain the previous events later on? Like maybe some flashbacks? I don't know, it's your story. Either way it would be cool. -
Welll...Not you to read it specifically necessarily XD More to grab attention in general, lol... But yeah, flashbacks might work if I can't get the rest of the story long enough to warrant a 'prequel'...Idk, we'll see where it goes.
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By me, I meant readers in general. Good luck with the rest of it
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Ah, okay, I understand. Thank you :-)
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