Anything but Serene

Anything but Serene

The small shuttle rocked violently as its wingtip disintegrated suddenly in a roaring ball of flame. Inside, the pilot wrestled with the controls as the small ship bucked and span uncontrollably.

The figure strapped into the co-pilot's seat span to face him with a look of shock on her features. 'What was that?'

He grinned madly, still wrestling with the controls. 'Whoa, did you see that?' he shouted.

'Did our wing just explode?'

'It did seem to resemble...'

'Atton, did our left wing just explode for no shabla reason?!'

Atton looked mildly sheepish and grinned, embarrassed. 'Looks like.'

The woman muttered something under her breath that Atton couldn't hear, but he had a feeling that it was somehow derogatory to his parentage. After a second or two, she turned to him and looked him straight in the ear.

'Can you at least get us on the ground?'

Atton turned to her and offered her a cocky grin. 'That part will happen, pretty definitely.'

'Then at least manage to get us there in one piece.'

'Well, seeing as our wing is gone and we're losing bits and pieces of wiring every second, we're a long way past one pie--ow! What was that for?' he asked, mentally rubbing his arm where she had hit it.

'Stop being any more depressing than you already are," came the muttered reply.

He bit down his natural retort to that and turned back to the task at hand. His right hand quickly darted out and flicked the comm. button in front of him. 'This is your captain speaking,' he announced. 'I would like to inform you that nothing is the matter and that our faster than average decent is due in no form or fashion to the fact that we are at this moment lacking an important part of this vessel. I would like to advise you to brac--,' the controls bucked in his hands violently he had to wrestle to keep them under control, 'Whoa, nearly got me there, bastard,' he muttered, 'Where was I? Oh yeah, brace for impact please, the ground's getting real close, real quick.'

A few seconds of silence, before a scornful voice crackled back, 'I take it from your inane gibbering that we are crashing again?'

'That would be correct.' He flicked off the comm. 'Stupid old hag.'

His eyes had all the time been studying the immense white mass looming in the view screen. 'Snow, snow or more snow. What a choice,' he shook his head, 'Ah well. You can only die once.' From the corner of his eye he could see the woman in the co-pilot's seat staring at him like he was insane. 'Y'know, love,' he said, 'seeing as we are probably all going to die, know would be a good time for you to declare you're undying love for me...'

'In your dreams flyboy,' came the scathing reply.

'No? Well it was worth a try.' He shrugged, or as close as you can get to shrugging if you are trying to hold onto the controls of a shuttle plummeting to it's doom, 'You don't think you could give me a kiss for luck then?'

'We get outta this, flyboy, you just might get a kiss.'

'Anything for a pretty lady...'

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A few moments later, the small gamma class shuttle made contact with solid snow and, for the occupants, everything got really dark.

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Disclaimer: Do I really need to spell it out?

A/N: This is unbetaed, seeing as that would count as giving a cookie...the real reason is that I forgot...but you don't need to know that...