Sally's Journal: April 3, 3235

Journal of Sally Acorn
Date: April 3, 3235
Entry Made @ 1132 hours

Dear Journal,

Austin's dead.

The crash... The crash wasn't the worst of it. Not by a long shot. As a matter of fact, the crash was probably the only thing that we had some degree of control over. For that there was physics, models, and at least a good guess about what we were going to do next.

Then we crashed.

I was out a good long while. According to Bolen, who woke me up, we had all been unconscious the better part of twelve hours at least. I woke up splayed across a wall, or perhaps it was the ceiling. I couldn't tell. However, I remember that there was a fire blazing not too far from me. Part of my cheek fur was singed off. I can kind of feel my skin a little bit. I hit my head hard too. I was extremely lucky I didn't get anything more than a moderate to severe headache.

Tails has a broken arm. I remember before we crashed he hurt it on a door frame. We knew it was broken when we first saw it, but we lost the casts, so some of the crew made a makeshift sling until we find something that can really help.

Cossack's dead, Marceau, Jones the security chief is dead too. Jones died in the crash of a broken neck. Austin though... he didn't die in the crash. Not right away.

I don't know where he was, but I found him in some maintenance tunnel, probably trying to survive the worst of it. He was there for some time. When we crashed... oh Jesus, he was impaled by part of the superstructure. He had been trying to call for help for hours when we found him, barely alive.

It hurts to remember his words, but this is what he said, as best as I can remember:

“Is Stevens OK?” He coughed this, blood already dry on his lips.

She came at that. She cried at the sight. Stevens was bloodied up but seemed otherwise able-bodied. A long cut stretched from her shoulder to the side of her abdomen, cutting through her flight suit. It was bleeding, but not too badly.

“Captain!” She barely made out.

He looked at her a long time, but then said in a voice barely there, “Hey kid.” a smile crossed his face. “Looks like you made it. I don't...”

He didn't finish. I looked and saw his eyes half closed and jaw slack. Dead. As Stevens started to cry, I punched a wall panel with surprising strength. I dented it. I felt bad for her. She lost a person she looked up to. I then realized that Ferell had clung on to life long enough just to make sure Lola was alive. Then I started to cry a little too, but mopped it up to give the image that I was the commander I needed to be. There was no way to get him out. I reached in to close his eyes and take the tags off his neck. I handed them to Stevens, whose ears drooped a bit deeper. After staring at them with absolute sadness, she got a hold of herself, looked at me, nodded, and then placed them in her right breast pocket.

“We're outside.” she said. “The survivors.”

“How many?” I asked, dreading to hear the numbers.

“Seven.” She turned and left at saying this. She clearly wanted to leave this hallway behind, and so did I. The place smelled of sulfur, ozone, and death. I could smell a few things better than the Humans. Finding my feet, surprisingly dizzy, I looked one more time at Ferell's broken body and left.

I didn't even know the names of the other two people that died. They were part of the flight crew on the bridge. I should have at least cared to look, but that was surprisingly secondary compared to my own desire to get out of the crashed ship. Bolen was still around.

“It's all fucked! No way in Hell we're getting off the ground again let alone upright!”

Upright? We were flipped? By Mobius, how did any of us survive?

“How fucked are we?” I asked

“Royally fucked.” He said, then giving a rasp of a laugh. “Sorry.”

“It's fine.” I stumbled, grabbing what I think was a wall for support. Hell, I didn't even know anymore. The surface beneath my feet I was calling the floor was angled and dark. Emergency lights blinked. I smelled smoke which probably meant fire, but at the same time I felt biting cold.

“Follow me, Highness.” Bolen had advised, and he slowly walked down the incline. “We're outside. We brought everyone we could. Alive, or otherwise.”

I constantly felt cold, but it got worse and worse as time went on. I shivered, which was saying something when a coat of fur was supposed to keep you warm. Finally, I saw the hole in the hull. Hole was an understatement though. This was a gash nearly fifty feet across that cut perpendicular through compartments. The ship had split in two and the front end had bounced a bit further than the rear. Fires were spread along the ground, but the air was so cold that barely any melting occurred. Immediately, snowflakes stung my eyes. I covered them with my hand to protect myself. My breath hung in the air as it steamed as soon as it left my lips.

Miles came running up to me, but his arm was wrapped up in an emergency cast. He wore frosted goggles and a parka, probably taken from a storage locked somewhere. His face was as frozen as the landscape. He looked at me for about a second, then broke down crying, hugging me with his good arm. He buried his head in my chest, sobbing nearly uncontrollably.

“I thought I was going to die.”

“I thought I was too. You didn't find anybody dead, did you?”

“They brought some out.” He said quietly.

“Where?” I instantly asked. I pulled him off me.

“Up ahead, not far from the engines.” He sniffed. “We're stranded, aren't we? We can't get the ship to lift off.”

“Don't say that just yet. Come on.”

Bolen and Stevens joined us as we made our way to the meeting point. I saw two forms lying on the ground covered by what I believed was a tarp. It was stained through with blood. Sharp pieces of metal were hammered through the tarp which kept the sheet on top of the corpses.

There were also some people standing, clearly alive, and one sitting down against the blackened hull of the Currie wearing a command cap. One turned to see us. Copper was alive, along with Dr. Stone, Dr. Mercer, two Marines acting as security personnel, and Commander Lancaster too. He was alive, but hurt too. His leg was torn and bleeding. Someone tied a makeshift tourniquet to stem the blood flow, but he needed medical attention.

Dr. Stone waved us over. He shivered, but spoke clearly: “We thought we lost more souls. Thank heavens you're alright, Highness.”

“Where's the pilot?” Mercer asked.

“Dead.” Stevens responded. “He just died.”

“Lord in Heaven.” Stone breathed.

“He and they will go on to their next lives.” Bolen said. “It's not too bad.” He tilted his head sadly at the figures under the tarps.

“Do you believe in Hinduism?”

“No, I follow the Triad, Gevadim's Truth.”

“Believe what you want to believe.” Copper said crossing his arms and shaking his head in sadness. “But nobody would have survived what they went through. Got whatever I could get out here. It'll have to be a closed casket for these poor bastards.”

“Who were they?” I asked.

Lancaster pointed to the one on the left. “That one is... Hertzold... Logan. The one on the right's name is Osaka Ourihime. They... served under me for four years.”

It was horrible. Not a single death needed to happen, and I felt the impact of every single one. We were downright somber from the crash. Tails in particular. He sat quiet in the snow, watching some of the fire flare. Just then, I remembered that there had been something particularly important in the ship.

“The Emerald!” I realized.

Dr. Stone and Dr. Mercer looked up at this. They too suddenly seemed to remember this. Dr. Stone rushed back into the crashed ship fearing the worst. A Marine went in with him claiming to be protection for him.

“No, no! I don't need protection from this!”

He jumped back into the ship through a tear in the hull. The Marine flapped his arms once in annoyance. “This guy is going to get on my nerves.” he said. I learned later that this Marine's name was  Richardson, and the second, a dark skinned man, was named Benoit. Neither of them seemed to be keen on sharing their first names with me. We waited a bit longer in the cold. Dr. Mercer paced impatiently, saying that she wanted to go inside and pull him out. I could see her shaking and it had nothing to do with the cold. She likely saw Dr. Cossack die in the crash.

Miles was still silent and unmoving sitting in the snow, only rubbing his broken arm in the cast.

Dr. Stone re-emerged. “I've got it! I've got it!” He held a container in his hands that seemed untouched by the crash. “This is made out of starship-grade plating!” He said with a surprising level of enthusiasm for a man who walked away from a spaceship crash. “Take no chances!” He twisted what looked like a combination lock and popped the lid. A hiss of air escaped into the thinner atmosphere of TB-44110b, and nestling inside the padded interior was the Chaos Emerald without a scratch on it. It made me curious but at the same time angry that the only thing that survived without blemish was this damned jewel.

Copper looked at it as his eyes widened and his ears perked. “So that's what one looks like.” he looked to Dr. Stone. “So, um... who's carrying it?”

I snapped, “I will.”

Dr. Stone surrendered the jewel at once without question. I clipped the container onto my tattered but still intact utility belt. Some of the other crew looked at me with suspicion. The reason would be clear soon. I told Dr. Stone to ensure that his research was still alright. He nodded and headed back into the ship again with a slight shiver.

I walked through the chill to check on Commander Lancaster, who nodded at me despite his pain. “He's stable.” Dr. Mercer said. “I'm may have a PhD, but I still know how to stop bleeding.”

“You did fine.” Lancaster said with his muted, but still clear optimistic tone. “Hell of a crash we went through, Acorn.”

“We got lucky, sir.”

He grimaced as he moved his leg. “Yeah, we got lucky.” he tried to smile but it ended up looking like a snarl. “Think I may have gotten a few scratches though.”

“You shouldn't be outside.” I told him.

“I know, but I needed some alpine air.”

“How safe is it to breathe?” I asked Mercer.

“Safe enough. There's a healthy nitrogen/oxygen mix, but there's some organic compounds we couldn't quite nail down. Probably some micro-organisms.”

“And we're breathing this shit?” Copper said with anger.

“Relax, Sergeant.” Lancaster said with effort. “We're in no danger from dying. As long as I'm still breathing, I'm the commanding officer! Keep your cool, mister!”

“Aye aye, sir.” The Mobian Marine said.

Lancaster was quiet for a moment, but then stared at the tarp again. “We can't bury them. We're up in the mountains. Ground's probably as hard as rock.”

“So we just leave them?” Richardson asked, clearly distressed about the issue.

“No choice. They stay out here, and whoever's inside stays in there.”

“And where do we sleep?” Miles asked, not wanting to sleep with corpses.

“In the Billet.” the Commander said. “And we'd better move. Sun's going down fast.”

He was right. The sky was already a deep dark purple, but no stars were visible. A large endless-looking cloud was approaching us fast. Snow was falling there. I grabbed Lancaster under one arm and Copper under the other.

“Someone see if they can get a radio working! Something had to have survived the crash!” Lancaster ordered. “Call up the Othello and get us some dropships down here ASAP!”

“Sonic!” Miles said. “I forgot about him!”

“We'll tell him we're safe.” I reassured the kid. He must have been frantic up there without us.

Before we went back through the hull, Bolen stepped out to meet us and jumped slightly.

“Sorry, Mister Bolen.” the Commander said.

“That's OK. Uh... we have a problem, people.”

“What?” Copper asked.

Bolen held up a datapad and sighed. “I just did an emergency diagnostic on the engine and checked the operations logs.” he paused for a beat. “The engines firing? That wasn't an accident. Someone deorbited us on purpose. It was sabotage.”

::END ENTRY::