The hatch tore from the dropship with a screech of tortured metal, that might have come from some ancient depiction of hell. The sudden sucking rip of the outside air tore one of the sergeants out through the breach, his wildly flailing arms vanishing into the darkness. Everyone 121st Volunteers was screaming. Many were also puking. Kyra managed to keep herself out of the second category only by virtue of herculean will power and having not eaten anything in longer than she cared to remember.

The dropship hurtled downwards in a freefall that pushed Kyra back into her uncomfortable seat. That was actually a good sign because it meant that the cheaply built space to surface craft was still underpowered, which gave it at least some chance of not being a coffin for its reluctant cargo. Despite the name the 121st were anything but volunteers. Almost to a person they were revolutionaries, criminals, or in Kyra’s case, other undesirables who had been given a choice of enlisting or serving a prison term that started at life and ended at a considerable shorter, if not preferable sentence. 

The emergency lights flickered on and off like strobes giving her brief glimpses of the terrified faces of her fellow recruits. She wondered what her own face looked like, blonde haircut to a military buzz, blue eyes wide with terror, fine features draw back into a rictus of horror that made her face hurt. She had accepted that death was a likely outcome of this mission, but in fairness she had expected to die plowing into the surface of Kyzon. The sudden flicker of a plasmabolt bathed the cabin in painful blue light, the near miss reminding her that she might die even sooner than that.

“We have to get out of here!” the conscript beside her shrieked as he ripped at his restraint harness. A massive crash shook the ship and something flashed through the man, transforming him from screaming recruit to a pile of ruined meat that sprayed arterial blood over Kyra as she squeezed her eyes shut. A better constructed vehicle would have been torn apart by a hit like that but the lander, little more than a thin steel box with for drive motors, was flimsy enough that the rounds punched right through it. 

The kick of the landing thrusters slammed the deck into Kyra without warning, only three of the four engines managed to fire and the resulting misalignment pitched the lander end over end. The world kaleidoscoped in a cacophony of screams, rending metal and clattering equipment before a colossal boom snapped Kyra back in her seat. The emergency lights flickered once and died, plunging the interior of the ship into silence and blackness broken only by the drumming of distant gunfire and the sobs of wounded and dying conscripts. It took Kyra a long moment to realise that she was still alive, vertigo assailed her as she realized she was hanging upside down. The dropship had turned turtle in its frenetic tumble and come to rest on its back. Gingerly she reached down to her belt, relieved to find all of her limbs were still attached, and drew the short cutting bar from her belt. Lifting it to her shoulder she sawed at the harness that held her, feeling the woven plastic fibers begin to part. She didn't dare power up the cutting bar, as her hands were shaking so badly she was likely to cut herself. After a few stroke the harness gave way and she dropped to the ground with a painful crash. Enough light was spilling in through the gaping wound in the side of the ship that she could find her way out. Crawling on her hands and knees she collapsed to the ground outside the wrecked ship. Taking her first breaths on a new world.