"Entering earth's gravitation field… closing into earth's atmosphere" Wilder uttered. Their spaceship was shaking rapidly as they entered the exosphere. Everyone was clenching their teeth as they moved at a hasty speed of seventeen thousand miles per hour.
Suddenly, there was a rapid increase in temperature. Everyone started sweating.
"We ..we …we've entered the thermosphere. Hold on to you're as…ess." Wilder muttered. The speed of the craft made it hard for him to speak well.
Their spaceship started overheating. Parts of the external spaceship started collapsing.
It was a nightmare journey, Zoe was terrified.
"Ss…space ship tea…rr…in…ing a…part." Ryker stammered. He could hear metal tearing apart, some metals breaking, he could hear a lot as they entered the earth's atmosphere. His hearing was off the charts. He struggled to keep it together. The sound of metals, cracking, breaking, and melting was like a piercing in his ear.
Their space exterior was on fire. They could see yellow flames on the cockpit window of the space shuttle. Ryker was in pain, he could hear the sparks of flames igniting rapidly and randomly. He screams out loud turning side by side on his seat, but no one could help.
"Hold on, Ryker we're almost there." Wilder tried comforting Ryker.
"We got you." Zoe pitied him. She was helpless, couldn't aid him.
During re-entry, the compressed air in contact with the space shuttle body near the leading edges of the shuttle is quick, causing the temperature of the air to rise to as high as 1500 degrees Celsius being contact with the shuttle, it heats the shuttle's surface.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! Ship integrity at critical 45%" The ship AI responded to the damage the ship was taking.
"Aya, prepare the landing sequence, we'll be engaging soon." Wilder talking to the ship's AI, called Aya.
"Landing sequence activated," Aya replied after a short while.
Suddenly, "Landing sequence offline." Aya delivered the worst news at the time.
Everyone was shocked.
"Aya, analyze and fix the problem right away." Wilder was still surprised as all hope was fading.
"Landing gears offline! Parachute system offline! Immediate manual repair is required. Landing in approximately twenty-five minutes."
"Guys we're screwed; we're done we can't do anything," Wilder said in a condescending voice.
"I'll do it," Ryker whispered. He was still in continuous pain. It was the longest 15 minutes of their lives.
"Do what? We're already doomed." Wilder irrationally said.
"I'll fix the problem manually. I'll--" Ryker was interrupted by Zoe.
"What, are you crazy? You'll burn up out there. Hell no." Zoe screamed out.
"--well, doing nothing is suicide, crazier than my idea. I'm going out Wilder. Can you ease the ship's angle?" Ryker removed his seat belt and moved towards the shuttle's door, he hocked his space suit to a rope as an anchor to make sure he doesn't fly away if he loses his grip and pull back to the ship.
Zoe was speechless. Wilder grabbed the controller and pulled it back raising the nose of the ship a bit up. He put in a lot of strength but could only shift a bit. The space shuttle was still accelerating towards the earth's surface. The heat had reduced but the ship's surface was still up in flames.
"See you in a bit," Ryker said as the shuttle door slide opened, he climbed out.
His space suit immediately started overheating. He crawled like a bat and whooshed into the landing gear system at the back of the shit. His space suit started melting off.
"Do you me, u better come back in here, do you hear me! I can't lose you." Zoe was talking to him over the communication cap radio.
Ryker was startled to hear her. He smiled and paused, as he approached the manual controls of the parachute system gear.
"I'll be right there," Ryker replied and got back to his impossible mission, crawling to the manual override controls.
"Ouch," Ryker's right-hand palm was exposed to the burning surface of the ship.
The space suit was burning out. His body was getting exposed to the sun rays of the rising sun at the horizon and the burning ship, and he started burning out.
He got the manual controls. He stopped to read the instruction. He then identified the required lever to pull. He reached out for it, unfortunately, the lever was superheated. He tried pulling out with his left hand but wasn't enough, part of the suit melted immediately on the lever.
The ship was past the cloud level. He could see the land below, the earth's surface.
Wilder and Zoe's hearts were pounding abnormally. They knew it was all up to Ryker. They were counting on him.
Ryker knew it was now or never.
He got a better position to pull the lever with both of his burned hands. He grabbed the lever firmly as he screamed out, he then pulled it in a single action.
"Landing system online." Aya notified them all.
"He did it, you did it." Wilder was relieved.
"Come back now!" Zoe cried out as tears fell down her cheeks.
Ryker started crawling back to the shuttle doors.
"Guys the thrusters deploying systems are not working and the rocket boosters are still igniting, I can't turn them off or release them mid-air to allow the landing of the ship. We'll crash straight into the earth's surface like a meteorite blowing up into the stone age." Wilder was frightened by the turnaround of events.
Ryker was just at the space shuttle door, half of his upper body inside the shuttle.
Zoe had turned her seat observing and already waiting for him to enter, she was relieved as she saw him crawling inside the shuttle until when he stopped to pause when he heard Wilder's news over the communication cap radio.
Ryker raised his exposed face with the melted helmet. His burned brown skin was regenerating, healing rapidly his dark-brown long hair was growing back, covering his forehead part. He smiled at her mischievously.
"Hey come why did you stop, crawl back in," Zoe said as she felt something was off.
She then read him, "No, Ryker whatever you're planning to do, don't. Please, please will work everything out together in here." Zoe was in terror.
"We don't have much time." Ryker crawled back out. He felt stronger whenever they came closer to the earth's surface. He whooshed up to the tip of the rocket thrusters. It was still igniting pushing them closer to their death. He broke all the metals holding the rocket to the spacecraft. He was also burning out.
He pulled it off the spacecraft and hold it on his back as he surfed the spacecraft. It was too risky to throw it or redirect it in quick succession mid-air as it might blow up. They couldn't deploy the parachute yet, it was risky. He also knew if he allowed the rocket to hit the ground it will blow up like a bomb giving them radioactive ground or water to land on, which was dangerous.
He looked down and saw they were going to land near a shore.
"Hey, Wilder?" Ryker called out
"Yes," Wilder responded.
"Now I see the problem, we were supposed to release this rocket once we entered the earth's exosphere. We're a couple of amateurs brother, a doctor, and a vampire being astronauts. None of us knew we could make it this far, if we did all this just the three of us," He paused to catch a breath. " I bet we can even do the impossible, fly into the sun perhaps. I owe it to both of you as we all kept our promise of getting back to earth. Being here is enough, it's beautiful up, better than the moon." Ryker said as he laughed.
"Ryker please come, back," Zoe called out for him over the communication cap radio. She was crying.
"It's too late. Stay strong for me, Wilder…keep her safe." Ryker said as he unhooked himself from the space rope locked on his suit and jumped with the two thousand tons of a rocket holding in his back.
He maneuvered with the rocket directing it towards the sea open. Zoe saw this over the spacecraft window, Ryker flying away with the space rocket. She screamed out as she felt helpless. Wilder was shocked as well and felt sympathy, anger, and sadness at the same time. He felt helpless with mixed emotions.
Wilder deployed the parachute, which slowed down the speed of the spacecraft.
"Ryker turned to look at them. His heightened senses allowed him to see Zoe hundreds of miles away leaning at the space shuttle looking over at him and crying uncontrollably, every single tear falling off her crystal eyes and her sobbing, he could see it all through the space visor on the helmet.
"Hey, I love you, to the moon and back." Ryker's last words to her over the communication cap radio which was barely working.
He then transformed the tip of his fingers into vampire claws and he pierced the space rocket. The rocket blowup, sending flames and shock waves in all direction mid-air. Ryker sacrificed himself.