Read Hard Drop for Free Online

him. He tapped his comm once more, desperate to save his troops even if he knew they wouldn’t hear him.  
    “Mission critical!” He shouted hoarsely. “Launch now! Launch now! She’s coming apart –! “ He was cut short as his own pod thrusters fired on, slamming the craft against its restraints and knocking the breath from his lungs. Tyco took one last look at Poke, struggling to his feet against the ship’s spin, and then at the ship above. The hull had cracked open, leaking pressure and atmosphere into space through ruptures spreading down the cruiser's length. Never get attached, he thought grimly, taking a deep breath to brace himself as the pod’s restraints slipped away . The pod lurched as its rockets fired, and then he was catapulted towards the planet surface, jolted feet-first into a dizzyingly accelerated free-fall. He stared straight up at the disintegrating launch bay, watching as it erupted into a bright, horrible fireball. He exhaled slowly against the hard acceleration, groaning inwardly at what he had witnessed. The first confirmed casualty of a mission was never easy to take. Poke would not be the last.  
    Tyco’s pod blinked green on his schematic, confirming its successful separation from the cruiser, and not a second too soon: the cruiser was rolling now, lumbering towards the planet in free fall, giant spires of flame playing across its fractured surface. The fires burning through its hull threatened to erupt at any second.  
    More pods fired from the cruiser’s hold, but it was too late, much too late – the ship’s spin had thrown it fatally off course. The pod launch headings were now uncorrectable, beyond the abilities of their tracking computers to bring them back on course. The tiny craft fired in bursts, at crazy angles, rocketing at steep angles into the atmosphere, towards oceans, mountains – or worst of all, careening horizontally, bouncing out of the atmosphere, denied entry and consigned to the whims of endless, unforgiving space.  
    The cruiser exploded, at last, erupting outwards in a massive, soundless cataclysm high above him, catching and swallowing the pods that had not launched soon enough in its wall of flame. In different circumstances, if his troopers had launched successfully, Tyco might have been grimly amused at Lieutenant Sorenson’s white-gloved, ceremonious demise, but now, watching half of his unit destroyed in a fiery split-second, he could not have cared less. The loss of his men and women left him numb and bitter.
    The schematic in front of Tyco told the whole story: a quarter of the forty pods blinked red, never occupied, their passengers stranded somewhere on the flaming platform. Another quarter blinked yellow, but even as Tyco watched, these gave way to a dull grey, the schematic reading, grimly an irrevocably ‘SIGNAL LOST.’ The remaining twenty had launched, blinking green, though god knew how or to what coordinates. A handful of them now turned grey as well, dropping off the grid forever. Tyco had enough time to draw a deep, unhappy breath.
    And then the shockwave hit, catching and flinging Tyco’s pod mercilessly through the atmosphere, rocking it sideways and sending it lurching unevenly as it rocketed through walls of clouds. Flames crept up along the sides, encasing the metal in a tunnel of fire.
    “Critical heat warning…” The automated voice chimed in Tyco’s helmet. “Shields at 60 percent…”
    Tyco breathed out, riding out the turbulence, staring at the chaotically flashing display. The heat shield metal glowed a bright red at his feet. Strapped in and powerless, he prayed it would last just long enough to see him through. An automated countdown cycled down, dropping abruptly into single digits and cycling down to zero. Tyco took another deep breath, bracing himself for the jolt to come.  
    The rocket cut out above him, leaving his pod in gut-wrenching free fall, lurching against the staggering wind sheer.  
    “Critical