by Hex
Written for Merith's request for the Whumped!Quatre fic-a-thon.
Credit where credit is due. This was inspired by the movie Enemy Mine and The First Ones, Episode #74, (Season 4) of Stargate SG1.
My thanks to Anne, for putting up with me and beta reading this ^__^
"Maintaining the current course and speed should have us at space dock in another twelve hours," Quatre said.
"That's perfect. I want to be there a few hours before the wedding."
The static hissing that came with Trowa's reply made him sound further away than just a few feet. Quatre craned his neck to see Trowa out of the corner of his eye. T-type wingers were normally used for combat. They had two separate, fully functional, contained cockpits, an array of weaponry, and were highly maneuverable. They were also incredibly uncomfortable. And not meant to be used for long distance travel. Quatre was wiggling to make sure he maintained the feeling in his legs.
"Don't do that, you'll hurt your neck," Trowa said.
"I just can't stand talking to someone without looking them in the eye," Quatre replied. "And you'd think after working together for nearly a year, you'd have given up on telling me that."
"One lives in hope that those around them can learn," Trowa muttered. Quatre's laughter was cut off by a dull thunk.
"What the hell was that?" Quatre asked.
"I don't know," Trowa replied.
Quatre smacked his hand down on his computer and stared at the sensor spread. He jumped a mile as more dull thunks began sounding off the starboard side of the ship. Quatre felt his heart skip a beat as a piece of asteroid, about the size of his fist, bounced off the ship's containment hatch.
"Damn it, Trowa, you were supposed to check the long range sensors for meteor showers," Quatre snapped. He grabbed the piloting controls and slammed his hand down on the display console. Taking hold of the shoulder harness, he locked the snaps down. He slipped his goggles into place and mentally readied himself for a rough ride.
"It isn't showing up on the sensors," Trowa snarled. The intermittent sounds of asteroids bouncing off the hull had become a steady, relentless rhythm.
"How can it not show up on the sensors? It's hailing asteroids!" Quatre cried.
"It's not my fault, Quatre." Trowa's voice was quiet compared to the sound of the ship's hull being battered.
"I know," Quatre growled.
"They're moving too fast. We'll never outrun them," Trowa's voice was short and quiet in his ears.
"Trowa, I'm sor-. DAMN IT!" Quatre yelled. "Starboard stabilizer engine just took a heavy hit."
"I can't fully compensate," Trowa barked. The stars and surrounding planets moved in a sickening swirl. "We're stuck in a spin. Quatre, we've lost control. We're heading right for the fifth planet in this system. Once we hit the atmosphere we might be able to stabilize manually and land, but there's nothing we can do out here."
"We don't really have a choice then," Quatre said, grimly. "Are your manual controls up?"
"Yes." Trowa's voice was as calm as ever and Quatre felt it sooth his nerves.
"Good."
"Quatre?"
"Yes?"
"Let's put this bucket down."
"I'm telling Howard you called it that," Quatre said, and grinned. He breathed through clenched teeth as they began to enter the atmosphere. The outside of the winger was starting to turn a bright orange as their entry angle made them burn slightly.
"I'm counting on it," Trowa replied. "We're almost through. Grab your controls now."
Quatre grabbed the manual controls and adjusted the stabilizer wings of the winger. The controls shook and strained in the opposite direction Quatre was trying to pull them. Quatre could feel sweat slipping down his forehead and rolling against the side of his goggles then away as they still spun.
"Pull up," Trowa said. "And keep her steady."
"I am, or at least, I'm trying to," Quatre ground his teeth and pulled back hard on the manual controls. The controls literally vibrated in his hands. "At this rate I'm going to lose the feeling in my arms and my damn legs."
Trowa's chuckle was strained but still low and warm in Quatre's ears.
"Pull up as hard as you can."
Quatre could feel his knuckles going white from the way he was gripping the controls.
"Pull harder," Trowa growled.
Quatre planted his feet on the winger's floor and pulled. Even with the extra leverage they weren't leveling out. They were nose-diving right towards the planet's surface.
"Harder!" Trowa barked.
"We're going to crash!" Quatre bellowed. He continued to pull up hard on the controls but it wasn't stopping the planet's surface from rushing at them.
"Brace!" Quatre wasn't sure if he managed to scream before everything went black.
The first thing Quatre did when he opened his eyes was close them again as quickly as possible. The world beyond his eyelids was bright and tilting in a sickening way.
"Trowa?" Quatre waited for a moment. "Trowa, are you all right?"
Quatre ground his teeth; either the comm line was no longer working or Trowa was incapacitated to the point where he couldn't respond. Neither boded well. Quatre took several deep breaths and cracked one eye. The world was just a little less harsh and bright. It was still tilted, but it didn't give him the same sense of vertigo it had the first time. With a fortifying breath, Quatre took a look around. There was a thick layer of dust over his containment hatch. He looked more closely and realized his containment hatch was half buried under fine, red sand. Quatre pressed the release lever for the hatch and nothing happened. He cursed and tried it again, still the hatch just sat there. Glaring at it, he tried it a third time, pushing up on it with one hand while the other repeatedly pressed the release.
"Damn it," Quatre snarled. He cursed repeatedly as he maneuvered around in the cockpit. Crouched over with his shoulder and the back of his neck pressed against the top of the containment hatch, he pressed on the release and pushed up with his legs. "Damn!"
Quatre paused for a minute to collect himself. Losing his temper or panicking wasn't going to help him, nor would it help Trowa if the brunet was actually incapacitated. Quatre couldn't see the other man very clearly and concern for his co-pilot was gnawing at him.
Grunting, Quatre cursed as he tried again. Finally, the hatch started to lift up. Quatre let out a small whoop of joy only to have it cut short as clouds of dust and sand piled into the cockpit. He squeezed his eyes shut and stumbled out coughing and wheezing. The sandalwood-coloured sand was soft and he sunk into it, practically to his knees. He scrubbed at his face trying to get the grit and sand away from his eyes.
The only thing Quatre could do was yelp as his foot twisted the wrong way, and he fell to the ground, a sharp pain snapping up his leg. Quatre screwed his eyes shut and only opened them once he was sure he had stopped rolling. He carefully wiped dirt and sand away from his eyelids, not needing a stray piece of sand or grit in his eye to top off his injuries. He opened his eyes to green sky that turned and tilted like he was laying on a rotating platform. Quatre blinked a few times to clear his head. He hoped he didn't have a concussion. He pulled himself into a sitting position slowly, groaning and rubbing at his temples. His head ached and so did most of his body. His chest was the part of his body that was protesting the most; every breath made him wince slightly.
Quatre groaned as he got to his feet. He had managed to sprain his ankle getting out of the ship or during his subsequent roll down. He ground his teeth in frustration as he limped up the hill. It was an awkward climb up the soft sand with his ankle but Quatre managed it, making most of the way on his hands and knees.
Clearing away some of the dust on the containment hatch, Quatre peered inside. Trowa was slumped over his piloting controls. He wasn't moving. Quatre pushed on the emergency release, but couldn't tell if Trowa was bleeding or even breathing. Banging on the hatch a few times, Quatre hoped that he would wake Trowa up. Trowa simply stayed where he was, hunched over the controls, completely motionless. Quatre slammed his fist down on the hatch. It refused to budge.
"If these things weren't supposed to be air tight I'd be ready to kill someone right now," Quatre growled. He tugged mercilessly at the hatch and had little success in getting it to move. It had come open at the seam, but it wouldn't budge beyond that point. Quatre puffed up, ready to curse and have a fit, but deflated against the hatch instead. He took a few fortifying breaths before pushing himself away from the ship. Glaring at the offending hatch, he blew his bangs out of his face.
"I need some leverage," he muttered.
He stopped to carefully survey his surroundings for the first time since he had awakened. The ground was uneven and the reddish sand stretched as far as he could see to his right. On his left, lush green plant life twisted on itself and looked like an impenetrable wall. Quatre hobbled towards the greenery. There was nothing he could use as a lever in his cockpit. Love the descriptions
Quatre surveyed the plant life with a little apprehension. There had been a time, when he was still quite young, when he had learned that plants are not always as safe as they first appear. His sisters still teased him on occasion about that family trip but they hadn't spent a week of vacation with their legs covered in itchy, red bumps.
Moving into the foliage, he began searching for a stick the right size. He started towards a strange looking fallen tree. The branches stretched outward in oddly uniform rows. They were spiny and without leaves. Quatre contemplated the foreign flora for a moment, caught off guard by the unique nature of the plant. He supposed it could have been an extremely large bush of some sort. Quatre dismissed that train of thought as frivolous and finished working the branch loose. He limped back through the plant life and paused at its edge.
There were several, Quatre hesitated to call them people, hovering near the downed T-winger. Large ridged foreheads, no nose that he could see. They might have been speaking but he wasn't sure, although he could hear some rather strange clicking sounds and hissing. They had long pink tongues and flat mouths that looked like they had short teeth. Their skin was dark and greenish. They were wearing short clothes, animal skins of some sort, that covered them from shoulders to mid-thigh. They were all carrying spears.
It was obvious they were not a technologically advanced race and Quatre began mentally cursing the Consortiums "no personal weapons on space dock" policy. Neither Quatre nor Trowa had seen any point in bringing weapons on the trip when they would have been confiscated anyway. Quatre would have given his left foot for a blaster or something that could at the very least scare the small throng of natives away from Trowa.
The group had managed to open the containment hatch and it looked like they were jabbing Trowa with spears. Quatre suppressed the urge to growl. There was no way for him to creep up on the group without being seen; the foliage ended too far from the rocks and sand they had landed in. He would be completely exposed and the only thing he had to use as a weapon was a stick. Quatre tilted his head to the side as he watched each member of the party sniff Trowa's face. Aside from the initial prodding, they didn't seem intent on hurting him. Quatre breathed a sigh of relief. He pushed aside his concern at the fact that Trowa hadn't woken up and tried to think of a way that he might be able to get to him.
Crouching down, Quatre hid himself behind some large plants and watched as the group approached the tree line. He crept along, hoping he wouldn't be seen or heard. One of them, the largest one of the six, paused and sniffed the air. Quatre curled himself against a tree and peered around the edge. He watched as the one he decided was the leader, flared three sets of nostrils at once, then each set separately. Quatre felt a moment of pure curiosity before he shoved it aside; it wasn't the time for interests in alien anatomy. The leader hissed and the others mimicked his actions. Quatre held his breath and closed his eyes, willing them to keep moving. They began moving again, after a few moments or an eternity, Quatre wasn't quite sure.
He let out the breath he had been holding, allowing them to them move further a head. It was obvious he couldn't afford to be too close, stepping gently; not wanting to snap twigs or disturb the unfamiliar surroundings.
Quatre felt something under his foot snap and tensed up in horror as he plummeted into darkness.
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