The initial impact of the ship was so powerful it punched the ground and sent me flying upward as if I had jumped. The craft’s wide breast smashed into the very grove of trees Silah and I had waited behind mere moments ago, splintering the trunks so violently it sounded like breaking bones. There was no more high-pitched squealing in my ears; rather, the roar of the massive blaze overtaking the ship’s rear bellowed with such force that it was more akin to a gusting, relentless storm-wind than fire. I was thrown to the ground again as an explosion detonated from the furthermost portion of the transport.

Then, as quickly as the chaos had started, it stopped. The ship became still in its mangled state as it lost momentum, the flames relaxed to cheery crackles as they met the fireproofed portion of the construct, and I was left lying on my back with a viscous layer of snow and conifer tar coating my skin. I took in a slow breath of the sharp, frosty air before sitting up to assess the situation.

“Silah!” I barked. Not even a hint of an echo boomeranged back to me, blocked by the carnage all around.

“Here, Chief,” he muttered, poking his head out from behind a nearby tree, sounding thoroughly disgruntled.

I leaped to my feet in one swift movement and quickly tested my limbs and joints for functionality. “Are you injured?” I called to him.

He stepped into the open. “No,” he grumbled. “But I may as well be. This mess is going to set me back weeks in training.”

We turned in tandem to survey the scene before us. The flames, while appearing to remain restricted to the tail end of the ship, towered toward the sky, and pieces of the craft littered the ground as far as the eye could see. Smoke billowed in thick, black clouds from the starboard side, indicating an unseen blaze within. While snow had blanketed the clearing floor only minutes earlier, much of it had either been displaced by the ship’s skidding or melted by the flames, revealing the dark, frozen soil beneath. Worst of all, I distinctly heard the sounds of distant wails and cries over the residual noises of the crash.

“Fetch the Emergency Response Team,” I said through tight lips. “I must find those who can be saved.”

Silah turned a wary eye to me. “You think it wise to maneuver the wreckage alone?” he asked dubiously.

“No,” I admitted. “But there are survivors within, and I cannot let them perish while I stand idly by. Fetch the ERT, Silah. Quickly.”

He hesitated, clearly reluctant to obey my order and leave me to venture amongst the rubble unaccompanied, but I threw him a severe look, and he yielded. As he turned and departed with a sprint, I carefully strode forward to the mammoth space-vehicle and began strolling a perimeter around it to access the damage. The main engines at the furthermost end were unquestionably the source of the wall of fire, and closer inspection revealed thick swaths of strange, compressed fluff that I assumed to be what kept the blaze from advancing inward. As I circled to the opposite side, I was choked by the smoke and rancid fumes blooming from a gaping hole, but I was unable to discern the room from which the smoke was born.

The loading bay had been blown open entirely by the force of the landing, and I saw the contents within tossed about the space in haphazard disarray. Without permitting myself to think about the potential risks, I stepped into the bay. My boots thumped against the floor as I crossed to a massive door on the eastern wall. It was crumpled and bent out of its frame, leaving jagged edges jutting outward and a gap large enough for a body at the top. I hoisted myself up, stepping onto one of the jutted edges for leverage, and contorted myself through the void. I dropped into a corridor, though it was wide enough to serve as a meeting hall or a feasting room, and narrowly avoided cracking my head on a pipe that had been jarred from the ceiling.

The cries of the survivors were louder now, no longer drowned out by the incendiary roar, and they tugged at my gut. I could hear pain and panic as viscerally as if it had been me screaming. Transitioning into a jog, my boots thudding persistently now, I followed the corridor to a split and darted instinctually to the left. There was no smoke here, but there was a potent, bitter odor in the air that made my nose ache. With each step, the pleas grew closer.

I drew up to identical portal-like doors on either side of me. Both were intact, but one was slightly ajar while the other was open completely. I glanced through the open door to see a dark, unoccupied bunkhouse before turning to the other. Through the slit, I saw four slumped, seated figures.

With every ounce of strength I possessed, I wrenched the door open and crossed the threshold. I counted eight humans in total, all strapped into black, high-backed chairs and all with their chins resting limply on their chests. Seven of the eight were males, the last a woman, and none moved. My pulse quickening, I moved forward and pressed my fingers into the neck of the nearest man. A heartbeat throbbed against my fingertips. He had likely just been rendered unconscious by the force of the crash.

My ears pricked as I heard screams again. They sounded much deeper in the ship than I was presently. After searching for a pulse on a second human in the room and successfully locating one, I exited and proceeded again through the corridor.

I encountered seven more rooms with eight unconscious crewmembers, as well as one room that had caved in completely and killed its occupants, before finally locating the shrieks. The door, like the first I had found in the loading bay, was crushed upon itself from the top down and offered only a small breadth through which I could enter. The thick black smoke was present here, however, and I heard the snapping of a nearby inferno. I hoisted myself onto a folded, protruding section of the door to peer through the opening at the top, and I was met with the sight of vivid orange flames lapping at the postern wall. At the very back, nearest the conflagration, there were two females. The one to the right was as unconscious as the others I had found before her, but the straps holding her upright were enveloped in a small, tenacious blaze. The other was very conscious, and it was she who screamed.

The moment she spotted me, her screeches became louder, but with them came words. “Help her! Oh my God, help her! She’s going to be burned alive! Get her out! Get her out!” she wailed. Her hands pulled helplessly at the belts crisscrossing her chest, but they seemed to have melted into one great grid from the heat, and she was unable to free herself.

I scaled the door and leaped through the orifice. The six others in the room, all males, were unmoving, but I could see their chests faintly rising and falling, so I bypassed them. The alert woman was bucking against her restraints now, kicking her legs wildly and twisting desperately.

“Please!” she howled. There were shiny, moist tracks down her cheeks, and her golden hair was practically a halo of frizzled snarls around her head. “She’s going to die!”

I swooped down upon the inflamed woman. It was difficult to see through the haze of smoke, but I could make out a curtain of deep, rich umber hair and sweet, full lips that dangled open in her comatose state. With a quick inhale of breath and jolt of determination, I plunged my hands into the flames. Excruciating, searing pain pierced my nerves and sent a shout of torment rolling from my throat, but I forced my fingertips to scrabble over the straps in search of the buckles that would free the female. I found one, then a second, before I had to pull back from sheer agony.

The crying woman screamed again, pleading with me to free her friend, but I tuned her out. Lunging forward once more, I dug for the third, fourth, and fifth clasps. Flames licked my arms and smoke burned my nostrils, but I refused to pull back this time, as I knew I would be too reluctant to finish. When the sixth fastening was undone, I wrapped my hands around the woman’s upper arms and tugged, but she was still held in place by something. I glanced down to her lap, where fire danced wickedly and shoved my hand between her thighs without care for proprieties. There, I felt a seventh hasp. I unbuckled it, threw the final strap aside, and tossed her from the chair to the ground.

“Is she alive? Is she breathing?” the blonde cried tearfully, still struggling against her bonds.

I fell to my knees beside the unconscious woman and lowered my ear to her mouth for a sign of breath. I heard nothing.