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The shuttle careened toward the ground, digging a path through the mud before flipping over. Erica remained trapped in the chair. The harness that kept her alive in the crash was now sealing her fate. She would not be able to make it to the portal. She tried to reach up to the harness latch to release herself, but her arms hung down uselessly below her refusing to move. She was trapped, alone, but held onto the hope that the others made it through.
Warm blood from a cut on her face snaked its way across her cheekbone. Unable to wipe it away, she laughed dryly at the fact that her last moment would likely be stuck waiting for the giant insects to break through the wall of the shuttle while she was mildly annoyed by the tickle of the moving drop.
The edges of her vision blurred, head beginning to pound as she continued to hang suspended. The harness digging into her shoulders. She heard a sound to the side, something cutting through the ringing in her ears, and tried to turn but couldn’t. Her only vision was the dark mud caked on the viewing window. She imagined the insects, their beating wings buzzing through the air as they pulled apart the shuttle.
Moments later she felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned slowly to a voice. “Hey,” Pike said, standing from her point of view upside down on the ceiling of the shuttle. “I’ve got you.” Erica just blinked, still dazed and dizzy from the crash, brain and mouth not quite working together well enough to talk.
Luciana came over, reaching up to cut the straps of the harness. Erica fell down ungracefully, Pike catching her as she fell. Pain spiked through her shoulder and spine as her vision faded to black before slowly coming back. She gripped her hands on the fabric of Pike’s shirt as she tried to steady herself before pushing herself upright through sheer stubbornness.
“I’m good,” she said automatically, rubbing the blood on her face and only smearing it further as she stood determinedly. “Though I think the shuttle is a loss.”
“I’ll dock it from your pay,” Pike replied with a smile. “We need to move.”
“Got to do something first.” Erica moved towards the controls, reaching up to the panel and setting a countdown. “This should draw the insects over, away from the portal, but we need to move.”
Pike nodded as Luciana made her way out of the shuttle first. She turned back to help Erica down to the ground outside with a hand. Pike followed behind, phaser at the ready. Erica took her first tentative steps. Mud stuck to her boots, cold and thick, as she pulled herself along. Pain radiating through her body as she ran.
There were different kinds of pain, Erica thought as she half stumbled half ran through the mud outside, insects swarming over to the shuttle. Pain you could stumble along with. Pain you could compartmentalize, turn into background noise. And then there was the kind that waited.
The fact that Erica remained upright those first steps was a blessing as she wasn’t sure she would make it up again. With each step in the mud her boots sank down, dragging down her tired limbs, confusing her feet. She moved forward with a singular focus; get to the portal. She only hoped Luciana and Pike were behind her.
The five hundred meters had never felt like a theoretical impossibility before, but now with everything, every uneven step, every breath that scraped in her lungs, every spike of pain, it felt like a marathon. Without warning the ground dropped out from beneath a foot and she went down, crashing into the mud.
Luciana was there by her side, grabbing her arm and swearing under her breath. “I can—,” Erica started as she blinked away the dots in her vision.
“I know,” Luciana replied as Pike stayed at the rear, phaser raised. Together they crossed the remaining distance.
They were just to the portal when the shuttle exploded behind them taking out the insects clustered around and sending a shockwave to the group, punching the air from their lungs. Erica’s ears rang with sound, her vision fading, leaving her in an isolation of pain as she was knocked through the air.
Erica wasn’t able to catch herself and she went down hard, skidding on the ground, tasting mud and blood, dark spots dancing at the edges of her vision. There was pain that waited and pain that brought you down. She hadn’t yet figured out how to push herself up when she felt arms dragging her up again. Pike and Luciana, both of them dragging her the last few meters to the portal. Her head drooped down as she barely held on to consciousness as they shoved her in. Her world tilted violently.
As Erica fell through the portal on the other side, no longer supported she took just a single step before collapsing as her legs folded. All the pain she had been outrunning catching up to her.
“Erica?” M’Benga was already there, kneeling and scanning her with the tricorder.
“We made it,” she said faintly, relieved to see the crew that they had been trying desperately to return to. The relief hit harder than the pain. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding herself together until she didn’t have to anymore. Pike was there, next to M’Benga, hand on his shoulder, steady and grounding. He looked at her and said something, but she didn’t hear it.
Erica let her eyes close, letting the pain take her down, knowing they were finally in safe hands.