"Pilot!" Jason roared. "Who the hell is the pilot?"
He suddenly realized he wasn't broadcasting on the military channel, aning the pilot probably couldn't hear his helt's external communicator. He imdiately cursed at Marcus, whom he was currently dangling from his arm.
Only then did Marcus snap out of his shock, realizing that Jason had just saved his life!
It was completely incomprehensible... The solid ground had just collapsed beneath them, and they were in absolute freefall!
Cold sweat instantly beaded on Marcus's forehead.
But the crisis was far from over. If the spacecraft crashed straight into the bottom of the abyss, everyone would be dood. The kinetic impact would kill them all instantly! Not even the advanced power armor could protect them from a collision of that magnitude.
"Carter! The pilot is Carter!" Marcus reacted quickly, shouting the na.
Finally processing the reality of their situation, Marcus started screaming furiously into his comms link.
"...Carter, fire the thrusters! Do you want to kill us all?!"
"Carter, fire the reverse thrusters! Damn it... hurry up!"
In a situation like this, screaming was the only option. Faced with such a sudden, catastrophic disaster, even a highly trained operative would freeze for a few seconds, overwheld by inexplicable panic.
They didn't even know what had just happened!
Not everyone could remain as icy and calculating as Jason, instantly coming up with a survival strategy. Marcus's reaction ti was already exceptionally good.
But those few seconds of hesitation could be fatal. Only a furious, expletive-laden roar could snap soone out of shock and force them to act on pure instinct. When people are completely overwheld, they subconsciously obey the loudest, most authoritative voice in the room.
Through a fleeting glance below, Jason noticed countless tiny blue dots rushing up to et them. They had to be the bioluminescent fungi they had discovered earlier, clustered deep within the abyss...
There were so many of them... Just how deep was this damn second sub-level?!
As the spacecraft plumted toward the sea of blue dots, Jason's heart hamred frantically against his ribs.
Death had never felt so close. Morbid thoughts began to race through his mind: Why didn't this damn power armor have built-in jump jets? Why didn't they pack parachutes?
Humanity had never imagined that this subterranean cavern system was so massive. It was unbelievably, unfathomably huge!
It was so vast... it completely swallowed the entire surface outpost.
It had to span tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of square kiloters!
It was as massive as a small country!
This wasn't just a cave; it was an entire underground world!
The colonists had subconsciously assud that the surface was solid, that setting up an outpost a dozen kiloters away from the known cave entrances was perfectly safe.
No one ever expected the planet to have a false floor, let alone a second, deeper subterranean layer beneath that!
The heavy industrial mining operations, combined with the millions of tons of raw ore stockpiled in the surface depots, had literally caused the planet's crust to cave in!
"Carter, you idiot, fire the jets!"
"Fire them! Damn it!" Marcus roared, his voice cracking with panic. His words were becoming frantic and incoherent; he just needed the pilot to trigger the thrusters!
According to standard safety protocols, the engines of outpost spacecraft were always kept in a warm, standby state to help supply power to the base. Pilots were required to remain on duty in the cockpit, monitoring the ship's teletry in real-ti to respond to sudden ergencies or initiate rapid evacuations...
In that terrifying mont, Jason actually prayed the abyss was deeper. If the pilot didn't react in ti, they were all dead... they would be instantly pulverized into at paste!
In less than eight seconds of freefall, they had already plumted three to four hundred ters!
Inside the cockpit, pilot Carter was in a state of absolute, paralyzing confusion.
Just monts ago, he had been bored on standby duty. The outpost had been perfectly safe for over two months, and his vigilance had naturally waned. Then, out of nowhere, a catastrophic roar shook the world.
His entire body was thrown into a terrifying state of weightlessness. Brutal tremors rattled his bones, making him feel like he was being torn apart.
An earthquake?! he thought in a daze, having absolutely no idea what was happening outside.
"Carter, what the hell are you doing?! Fire the jets!" Marcus's furious curses exploded through his earpiece.
Jets?! What does that an? Carter's mind spun as his body thrashed violently against his crash harness, nearly throwing him out of his seat. His stomach did flips, and he couldn't even catch his breath.
"...The engines!" Marcus scread into the headset, desperately cycling through keywords.
In a flash of realization, it finally clicked for Carter!
He slamd his palm against the primary ignition sequence panel. He had drilled this exact motion thousands of tis; it was pure muscle mory.
Following orders was a Special Forces operative's duty, and the training finally overrode his panic. The spacecraft was in freefall?!
Had the ground collapsed? A sinkhole?!
The sudden weightlessness was disorienting, and the massive boulders continuously slamming into the hull caused the ship to buck wildly. He had to lunge for the console three tis before his fingers finally punched the correct sequence.
After slamming the override buttons, he barked out a rapid series of vocal authorization commands, grabbed the primary throttle with his right hand, and aggressively yanked it all the way back.
With a deafening BOOM, a massive pillar of pale blue ion flas erupted from the underside of the plunging spacecraft!
By the ti the thrusters fired, they were terrifyingly close to the bottom—barely a hundred ters from the cavern floor. Hanging on the outside of the hull, Jason gritted his teeth, his heart in his throat. If the ship didn't decelerate imdiately, they were all going to die!
Suddenly, a blinding flash of blue light illuminated the abyss beneath them. Instantly, the chanical hand gripping the airlock threshold locked up. A massive, crushing G-force tore through Jason's arm as the spacecraft rapidly decelerated!
Initially, they had been in freefall at a gravitational acceleration of 13 ters per second squared. Now... they were violently decelerating at over 50 ters per second squared!
Inside the cabin, the crew was slamd brutally against the floorboards, experiencing roughly six tis the force of Earth's standard gravity. Several people who had been tumbling in mid-air were crushed against the bulkheads, pinned helplessly to the deck.
Did it work?! Jason scread in his mind, completely unsure if the vessel could safely touch down under these conditions.
Encased in heavy power armor and supporting the full weight of Marcus, Jason's right arm was suddenly bearing well over 300 kilograms of mass. Under normal circumstances, the sheer physical trauma would have killed him.
At six Gs of acceleration, that 300 kilograms of mass effectively weighed nearly two tric tons!
His arm bones should have been instantly pulverized!
However, the advanced power armor perford a miracle. The chanical exoskeleton absorbed the vast majority of the kinetic stress. Still, Jason could hear the heavy Superalloy Z plating groaning and screeching in protest, emitting horrific, tallic shrieks that sent chills down his spine.
"Hold on! Hold on!" he roared, veins bulging against his temples.
With the reverse thrusters burning at maximum output, their downward velocity began to bleed off rapidly. However, having been in absolute freefall for seven or eight seconds, they had built up imnse terminal velocity, and they were far too close to the ground. They simply didn't have enough ti or distance to arrest their montum completely!
"Damn it! Stop! Stop!"
Inside the cockpit, pilot Carter was drenched in sweat. He kept the throttle pinned at maximum reverse thrust as a cascade of red ergency warnings flooded his HUD.
His eyes were completely bloodshot as the extre G-force forced the blood into his skull.
In reality, operating the thrusters at this intensity far exceeded the engine's structural safety limits, but there was no other choice! He couldn't let them smash into the ground!
The two n dangling outside suffered the worst of it, enduring the insane, tearing G-forces. Clinging desperately to Jason's arm, Marcus scread at the top of his lungs, "Arghhhh!"
As the spacecraft rapidly closed the distance to the cavern floor, its speed continued to drop...
Suddenly, a deafening crash echoed from above. A massive boulder, falling from the collapsed surface, slamd directly into the center of the spacecraft's hull!
The horrific impact swatted the struggling spacecraft out of the air, slamming it brutally into the ground!
The ship was already fighting extre turbulence from its own thrusters. Just as it tried to stabilize, the crushing weight of the falling debris pinned it down. Inside, the crew was tossed violently across the deck.
Following a series of violent tremors and apocalyptic groans, the engines finally choked and died. The entire outpost spacecraft sank several ters deep into the subterranean mud before finally grinding to a halt...
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