Crash Land on Kurai – Chapter 34

“They’ve hit our wing, and we’re going down. Prepare for crash landing in water.” Rin’s voice echoes over the inside speakers. “Hang on back there!”

“Water?” My breathing becomes shallow and rushed as the weight of Rin’s hand comes down on my head and tries to drown me in the river. It was a while ago, but the incident replays so vividly that I’m already drowning wherever we’re landing.

And I was considered a good swimmer growing up. Orihimé is ninety percent water, our tiny landmass swimming in a verdant liquid paradise. I grew up swimming in the ocean, the lakes, and bathing in the rivers.

I should be able to handle this, right?

I peel my eyelids open though the force of the ship makes them weigh as much as boulders. Shintaro is awake, although barely. The woman with the injured arm is chanting some kind of prayer, her eyes squeezed shut. One man hyperventilates, and the other is as still as stone. He looks ready to stare death in the face and say, “Not today.”

“Impact in three, two, one.”

The entire craft slams to a halt, the nose dipping forward and the tail end shooting up in the air. We all scream as we snap forward and dangle from our seats, unsecured metal boxes fly past us and slam into the cockpit door. The ship creaks, the tail end sways, and in a slow arc, we fall to horizontal upside down.

“I hate crash landing!” The woman across from me yells and then whimpers. Her head hangs, exhausted.

A crack like a gunshot echoes through the cargo area. I cover my ears right before another one.

“What was that?” I ask, my ears ringing.

The cockpit door opens, and Rin emerges walking along the roof and craning his neck to speak to me. “That was the air hulls deploying, but one isn’t working, and we’re upside down.” Water rushes around his feet, inching up his boots. “We lost our air tight shell due to the bullets.”

My head throbs as I hang upside down. Sudden onrushes of blood are not good for my migraines as we found out through many trips up and down to orbit. The migraines should have disqualified me from the trip entirely, but my mom pulled strings for me. My parents were busy, and I often went weeks without seeing them, but I could always count on them to give me a leg up. If anything, they never wanted to see the family fail.

“Help my brother,” I say, as Rin reaches for my restraints, but he ignores the request. His inverted grimace is almost like a smile.

“I’ll help you first so that you can assist the others. Hold on here, and you can swing around when I unbuckle you.” Rin takes my hands and places them firmly on the right shoulder strap. He puts one hand on my legs and unbuckles me with the other, careful to keep my swinging legs away from him. I fall forward into his arms, and he clutches me briefly before letting go.

“And he’s chivalrous too,” Shintaro says, chuckling. “What a find, Yumi.”

“Shut up, idiot,” I mumble, sloshing across the cargo bay to help the others. The pilot emerges from the cockpit, his head bleeding a red river down the side of his cheek. He looks dazed, blinking his eyes and fumbling through the rising water for a medkit. I help a few people down, and they assist the others, which leaves me to confer with Rin again.

“What do you think —”

He snaps up his hand to silence me. “Listen,” he whispers.

A high-pitched whine grows, and everyone’s eyes turn upward.

“They’re coming,” the woman with the injured arm says, halting a sob.

“Maybe it’s Tamura?” I ask, my voice begging Rin to tell me it is. He shakes his head.

“We sent a mayday, but he couldn’t get here that quickly. It may be another ten or fifteen minutes before we see them.”

Adrenaline taps turn on, and my heart races again. I wonder how much more it can take.

“We have to get out of here. They could blow us right out of the water,” warns one of Rin’s soldiers. She comes forward to help the pilot open a medkit and pull out a bandage. “Options,” she commands, and I’m impressed at how easily these men and women hand the power back and forth to each other.

“We’re sinking, and I don’t know how well the inflatable hull will hold.” Rin gestures to the water already at his knees.

“What happens if we open the cargo bay door?” I ask, clenching my teeth to stop them from chattering.

“Water rushes in, and the flooding makes it hard for us to get out. We have to hold our breath, wait for the shuttle to fill and then swim out.” Rin shakes his head, huffing in frustration. “Takes too much time.”

“We’re wasting too much time as it is,” Shintaro says, swaying on his feet. I throw my arm around his waist to keep him up.

The woman bandaging the pilot points upward. “The airlock. We exit quickly, jump into the water, and swim for shore.”

“How far are we from shore?” I pull off my jacket, pushing Shintaro toward Rin so I can squat down and untie our shoes. Shintaro flashes a toothy grin at Rin, and I have to stop myself from yelling at him that this is not the time.

“Two, maybe three hundred meters.” Rin glances at Shintaro, his forehead scrunched, lines of confusion merging with the scar on his head. I wish I had time to sit them down, let them talk, and see what happens, but we have to survive this first.

“Let’s go,” I say, agreeing with the woman. “It’s our best shot to get out of here.”

I take Shintaro back from Rin, and with the other Orihimé passengers, we press back to allow the natives to do their thing. The soldiers open an upside down closet and pull out long guns.

“We’ll go out first with the rifles and set up forward and aft. Hopefully, it’ll be enough to keep them occupied while everyone else swims for it.”

I take a deep breath and count silently backwards from one hundred. I can do this. We can do this. I got my brother back, and I can’t lose him now, even if he is being a jerk.

“My shoulder, Yumi. I won’t be able to swim.” Shintaro’s teeth chatter. “Maybe you should leave me behind.”

I blow out all the deep breath I had just sucked in.

“Fuck that. Do you know what I went through to get you here?” I peel off more of my clothes, down to my shirt and pants. Must eliminate drag. “I’ve been beaten up, nearly killed, and had to sell myself to buy your release. I’ve lost so many people. I’m not losing you too.”

Shintaro’s expression finally melts into one of seriousness. “Sold yourself? Is Kazuo dead?”

The airlock spins open, and our two point people hoist themselves up and crawl to the outside.

“We’re clear, but I can hear the approaching shuttle. They’re not far off now,” the woman yells down to us, turning to sweep her eyes and gun into the distance. She disappears, and the pilot follows her.

“No more questions,” Rin says, turning to Shintaro. “I’m going to boost you up. Use your uninjured arm to haul yourself out of the shuttle. Then wait for Yumi. You both go into the water together, and you” — he squeezes Shintaro’s good shoulder — “you float while Yumi tugs you to shore.”

“What about you?” I ask, darting forward as Rin turns away. After the last few days, the way he’s taken care of me without acting macho or arrogant, suddenly, I don’t want anything to happen to him. I’d be the first person to say that I don’t need anyone, I can do things on my own, but I know I’m better off with him, especially if we make it to Hikari.

And I hate to admit it, even just to myself, but he’s kind of grown on me.

Rin’s face softens, a glimmer of a smile bouncing off his eyes. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Hmmm,” Shintaro hums, looking between Rin and me. “Am I missing something here, dear sister?” He lowers his voice and smiles at me.

“Only your brain.”

He purses his lips. “I don’t need a brain to see what’s right in front of my face.”

I grab him by his bad arm and yank him forward. Little shit. This is no time for talking about love or kissing in a tree or any of the other stupid stuff he wants to pull just to embarrass me. I did not come this far to succumb to teasing by my twin brother.

“Hey! Ow! That hurts!” He trips along the cargo bay, and Rin purposely keeps back.

“Listen here. We’re getting out of this hunk of metal, and you’re going to survive to get back to Orihimé for Takéji,” I growl at him. He frowns. “And I’m going to make that happen if it’s the last thing I do.”

I signal to Rin with a jerk of my head, and he drops to a knee under the airlock, the water up past his waist now. We both boost Shintaro, and he flies up, catching the open airlock with his good arm, grunting, and hauling himself up.

“Thanks,” I mutter at Rin, avoiding eye contact.

He has other ideas though.

“Be careful,” he says, standing up and gazing down at me. My lungs seize, and my stomach clenches, wondering what will happen next. “Tow your brother to shore and head into the forest. Keep under cover until I come.”

“Okay,” I whisper, swallowing under his stare. I glance at everyone waiting behind him, and they watch us like we’re the latest and greatest drama.

“It’ll be tiring towing him, and I’m worried about you.”

Dust motes swim about his head in the sunshine pouring down the open airlock. I blink away my fuzzy brain, caught up in what-if scenarios of “What if I had met him in a bar? What if he hadn’t tried to kill me when we first met? What if he wasn’t some alien man who had purchased me?”

He should be worried about me. I’m not myself.

I slap him on the shoulder. “Don’t you start with me,” I demand, pointing directly at his startled face. “I’m perfectly fine. Let’s go.”

He barks a laugh. “If you say so.”

I stick my bare foot in his cupped hands, and he throws me up at the airlock hole.

From the outside, it’s apparent the shuttle is sinking fast. Bubbles of air surround the craft, and it leans to one side, shifting and burbling. So much for that fleeting dream I had of getting back to the temple, soaking in a hot bath, knocking myself out with pain killers, and sleeping until rescue came.

I slink over the side, holding onto a railing and dropping down next to Shintaro in the water. The water hits me like a brick, cold enough to drive my teeth to chatter without end. I slip behind Shintaro, assessing the distance to shore, the sky overhead, and what little I see of the horizon. The heavy whine of an approaching shuttle climbs higher, so I get moving.

“Hurry, Yumi,” Shintaro urges me. I shush him as I wrap my arm around his shoulders and begin the crawl to shore.

I cry out, and tears fill my eyes as pain from my cracked ribs shoots through my chest. I swear up and down the spectrum through labored huffs, obscenities that would make my mom proud, which does nothing to relieve the pain, and only makes it worse.

“Who did that to you?” Shintaro asks, but I ignore him for several strokes, trying to gather my breath back and ignore my screaming muscles.

“Did what?”

“Your throat and whatever other injuries you have. They seem numerous.”

I laugh, accidentally inhaling water and coughing it back up. I re-situate myself so I’m doing more of the side stroke, one ear in the water and the other pointing up. This gives me a good view of everyone else trying to escape the craft. Rin is not far off, towing the woman with the injured arm, and the others are swimming on their own.

Over the tops of the trees, Narumi’s shuttle screams into view. Several people drop from the open cargo door into the surrounding water. They fall like boulders, hitting the water and not resurfacing for air.

“Fuck. They just will not quit with the androids.” I swim even harder, kicking my legs double time and sucking as much air into my lungs as possible. “We have to get to shore quicker. Start kicking.”

Narumi’s shuttle circles over our crash site, letting loose with a barrage of gunfire. I’m pulling for shore and not looking back, but I hear Rin’s soldiers returning fire. The staccato tat tat tat echoes off our shuttle before strafing across the water, bullets hurling up water as they fire down on us.

“Get down everyone!” Rin shouts.

“Under,” I warn Shintaro, taking an exaggerated breath and hoping he catches on. I pull him under the water and continue to move. The lake water is clear and breathtakingly cold, the kind of water that comes from the mountains in spring, just barely thawed. I’m beginning to lose feeling in my limbs and face, everything freezing over. I try to concentrate on forward movement, but off to the left, a large object lurks in the darker depths. Panic urges me on.

We are so screwed if those androids get a hold of us again. I already fear I’ve beaten the odds one too many times with them. Rin’s the trained kenryōshi, not me. I have some self-defense skills, but that’s it. Nothing I do now will keep them from killing me.

I pull Shintaro back to the surface as the slope of the lakebed angles upward. We’re almost there. Five more strokes, and we’ll be able to stand. Two more strokes. One.

“Stand,” I choke out, hypoxia bringing my vision to a pinpoint. My brain feels three times its normal size, shoved into my skull, a too-full suitcase bursting at the seams. Shintaro gets his feet underneath him and wades to shore. I take a moment to pant and try to catch my breath, proud of myself for making it this far.

A mistake.

Something grabs my ankle and jerks me under. The cold water rushes up my nose and blinds me. I thrash at my assailant, too cold and disoriented to do anything except wave my fists around and hope they connect with something. I open my eyes briefly and stare directly at the android that has me in its grips. It’s walking along the bottom of the lakebed as if it has no buoyancy. Maybe they can’t swim, but they don’t seem to need air to function.

My lungs ache, desperate for breath, but I attempt to kick at its hand and wrist. Every kick is slow, weighted down by water. I regret taking off my shoes, but I don’t think I would’ve gotten Shintaro to shore with them on. I grasp for my knife and accidentally knock it free. Shit! It drops to the sand out of my reach. The android pulls me down, slamming me into the lakebed. My back hits something hard. I twist to move away from it, and my hand brushes a jagged stone.

It turns out you don’t see red when you’re angry; you see red when you’re about to die. My vision clouds, becoming the colors of sunset over the water at home. I want to surrender, just get it over with, but the rock in my hand begs to be a weapon. Pulling myself forward, I clutch the sleeve of the android’s uniform and slam the jagged stone straight into its eye.

It doesn’t flinch and doesn’t let go. But it doesn’t move either.

Oh my god, I’m going to die attached to an android anchor.

I want to breathe. I bet I could breathe water. Really.

Reaching down, I fumble about, trying to pry the android’s fingers from my ankle when Rin swims out of the dark.

Blackness descends on me, my lungs letting go.

Everything is midnight, the stars swirling overhead. I always wanted to fly amongst the nebulas, new worlds, meld with stardust.

Now, I have my chance.