Crash Course
The ringing began as a faint hum, barely noticeable at first, but it quickly swelled into a sharp, jarring whine that burrowed deep into Fenris’ skull. He groaned, eyes squeezed shut, torn between the possibility that the noise was real or just his body protesting the punishment he’d put it through. Either way, it refused to stop.
Then came the light.
Bright. Unforgiving. Sunlight seared through his closed eyelids, a blistering wave that made him curse under his breath. Of course, it had to be this way— what else should he expect from a planet with three suns.
He turned his head slowly, raising an arm to shield his eyes, and the movement sent an explosion of pain shooting through his sore muscles.
Everything hurts.
His joints, his plating, his pride.
Every inch of him seemed to throb in sync with the painful, persistent ringing in his ears. He forced his eyelids open, blinking into the overwhelming light, his breath coming in shallow, unsteady gasps.
His body screamed for mercy, but his mind didn’t have the luxury of giving in. He needed to move.
Shifting his weight, Fenris tried to push himself up, only to be greeted by a deep, aching throb in his bones. The pain was visceral—his body a road map of where he’d crashed. The memories flickered, shattered fragments that refused to fall into place.
His ship. The fight. The escape. Then—impact.
The desert stretched before him, endless and unforgiving. A sea of golden sand shimmered under the intense sun, heat rising in waves from the cracked earth. His ship was nearby—he could see it, or at least, he thought he could—but the desolate landscape played tricks on the eyes, making distances impossible to gauge.
He staggered forward, each step a slow agony. Every fifth step brought a fresh stab of pain, a reminder of how hard the landing had been.
Spirits, he thought, gritting his teeth. The flight had been exhilarating. The landing? Not so much.
And the ringing... that maddening, unrelenting ring.
“Fucking Asari commandos,” Fenris muttered through clenched teeth.
The words were little more than a rasp, but they were enough to release some of the pressure building in his chest. He didn’t know how he was still alive—but he wasn’t going to lie to himself. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t been pretty.
—⋄♦⋄—
Joola froze as the ship blazed across the sky, a streak of fire cutting through the atmosphere like a comet on a deadly descent. Her visor darkened instinctively, shielding her eyes from the intensity of the sun light, but even without a clear view, she knew something was terribly wrong.
The ship was spiraling—its descent, uncontrolled, violent. The angle was all wrong, too steep, too erratic. It was falling, and whoever was at the helm was either unconscious or a truly dreadful pilot. Maybe both.
Then came the explosion.
A distant, deafening roar that shook the ground beneath her feet. A plume of smoke unfurled into the air, dark and heavy against the pale sky. The sound of the blast still echoed in her bones as Joola didn’t waste a second. She grabbed her pistol, the cold weight of it centered her, and then she lunged ahead. Her boots pounded the desert floor, kicking up clouds of dust as she ran toward the impact site.
A crash like that would draw attention—on a planet like this, that attention was never a welcome thing.
She didn’t slow as she neared the wreckage. Her pulse thrummed in her ears, drowning out the faint hiss of wind over the barren landscape. She scaled the twisted remains of the ship, her boots scraping against the jagged metal as she hauled herself up. The wreckage loomed in front of her, mangled and broken, empty of life.
From the top of the wreck, she scanned the horizon, her heart hammering. The stillness was unsettling, too quiet, until her gaze caught a movement—a shadow, barely perceptible against the heat-blurred horizon. Her breath caught. There was someone out there.
She tensed, eyes narrowing, her hand instinctively tightening around the grip of her pistol.
—⋄♦⋄—
The pilot was alive—barely.
Fenris wiped the crusted blood from his mandibles, his vision swimming as he forced his gaze toward the horizon. His ship loomed ahead, half-buried in the sand, its broken frame warping in the heat waves.
Something was off.
His narrowed eyes locked onto a detail almost instantly. The antenna—twisted and bent in a way he couldn’t remember. His brow furrowed. Was it moving?
His pulse spiked. Instinct took over. He reached for his rifle, only to find empty air.
Shit.
A figure stood atop the wreckage of his ship, a barely discernible shadow against the shimmering heat. Had one of those Asari commandos followed him? Or was it someone else?
That pain in his ass was starting to flare up again.
Meanwhile, Joola studied him from a distance, noting the way he swayed on his feet, disoriented, his mandibles twitching with confusion and pain. He’d noticed her, but it hadn’t quite registered yet—though, she figured, it wouldn’t matter.
The ground trembled beneath them, a low, vibrating growl that echoed through the sands. Her stomach twisted.
It was coming.
And crashing a ship into its nest had definitely pissed it off.
Her breath quickened, muscles tightening as she darted toward the figure. Blue biotic energy crackled to life around her, forming an electric aura that surrounded the stranger. With a sharp tug of her power, she yanked him toward her just as the earth beneath him shattered.
From the sands, a monstrous form erupted, tearing through the ground in a violent explosion of dust and debris. Its mandibles snapped in the air, tendrils thrashing wildly as the beast rose, towering above them. The ground groaned under its weight, and a deafening roar split the air like a war horn.
The Thresher Maw.
“Shit.”
Joola didn’t hesitate. In one fluid motion, she drew her assault rifle from her back and shoved it into the pilot’s unsteady hands.
“Don’t make me regret giving you this,” she said, her voice cold with suspicion. “Let’s hope your aim’s better than your landing.”
Fenris barely had time to process the weapon before instinct surged through him. His battered hands gripped the rifle as adrenaline hit his bloodstream like fire. He inhaled sharply, then squeezed the trigger.
The rifle kicked against his shoulder as a hail of bullets ripped into the Thresher’s armored hide.
The beast recoiled, its massive maw splitting open in a grotesque display as it gurgled and spat a foul, bubbling mass of mucus.
“I don’t know if it’s just me,” Fenris shouted over the gunfire, “but I think we’re just tickling this thing! Honestly, I enjoy stimulating a giant phallic creature as much as the next guy, but I'm getting a pain in my ass a—”
He twisted and rolled, narrowly dodging a spray of acidic bile that sizzled where he’d just been standing.
Joola didn’t even glance at him. “Less talking, more shooting.”
Fenris grinned through the chaos, slamming a fresh thermal clip into the rifle. “I swear, if this keeps up, I won’t have the stamina to keep him satisfied,” he quipped. “So, how about we take this somewhere I like to call ‘Not Here’ and grab a drink?”
He tightened his grip on the rifle, his focus sharp. The adrenaline coursing through him, the danger, the chaos—it was all just the perfect cocktail to fuel his sharp tongue. But as his eyes flicked over to Joola, who was moving with focused precision, he realized his usual banter wasn’t landing.
She didn’t spare him so much as a glance
A frown tugged at his lips. He’d need a different approach.
The Thresher convulsed violently, its body rippling with tension before it launched a glob of acidic mucus their way.
Fenris barely managed to roll out of the path, his heart hammering as the acidic glob splattered on the sand with a hiss, eating its way into the earth.
With a dramatic sigh, he made a show of stepping it up a notch, flashing a grin at Joola as he dodged another spray.
“So… nice weather, huh?” he panted, breath ragged. His voice dripped with sarcasm as he shot her a sideways glance. “You, uh… come here often?”
Joola still didn’t even glance at him, her focus locked onto the Thresher Maw. Instead, she collided with Fenris knocking him sideways just as another glob of acid splattered down, missing them by mere inches. The heat from it curled uncomfortably against her skin, even through her armor.
“Shit,” she muttered, her eyes narrowing with laser focus on the creature. “It’s getting closer.”
“Guess I’ll have to up my game,” Fenris muttered, reloading the rifle. His earlier bravado had already been drained by the growing tension. He settled back into the fight, but his usual enthusiasm for the joke was gone.
Joola’s sharp gaze flicked over to him, her voice tight with disbelief. “Do you always flirt when you’re facing death? Or is that just the adrenaline talking?”
Fenris grinned, a glint of satisfaction sparking in his eyes as he finally got a reaction. “Why not both?”
But he knew she wasn’t wrong.
They weren’t winning this fight. They were just making the Thresher Maw angrier.
He fired again, the round slamming into the creature’s chitinous hide, but it barely flinched. The beast let out an earth-shaking screech, its massive form weaving as it prepared to strike again.
Joola jumped back just in time, narrowly avoiding one of the Thresher’s massive pincers, which slammed into the ground with a deafening crash, sending shockwaves through the dirt.
She hit the sand hard, her breath stolen by the impact, burning grains scraping painfully against her skin.
The creature was toying with them. It knew they were cornered—prey, helpless and outmatched.
“We can try to run,” she gasped, struggling to push herself upright, “but if it burrows, we’re dead. There’s no outrunning it.”
Her words were barely out when the Thresher let out a guttural rumble, its massive body coiling as it began to sink beneath the sand.
“Shit! No, no, no—!” Fenris fired wildly, rounds slamming into the Thresher’s armored hide, but they did little more than annoy it. He knew what was coming next.
If it went underground, it would strike from below—faster than they could react. Faster than they could survive.
Joola’s mind raced. Their weapons were useless, and Fenris’s ship—assuming it was even functional—was too close to the creature now.
But then, her gaze snapped to the wreckage. A reckless, desperate plan began to form, one that might be their only chance.
“I have a plan,” she shouted, her voice tense with urgency. “A really stupid, really dangerous plan. But unless you have something better—”
Before Fenris could respond, she didn’t wait. Pivoting sharply, she yanked both heavy pistols from her holsters. With deadly precision, she fired—not at the Thresher, but at the mangled remains of Fenris’s ship.
Fenris’s eyes widened in shock. “What the hell are you doing?!”
Rounds slammed into the wreckage’s hull, sending sparks flying from its battered frame. The fusion core flickered in warning, energy readings destabilizing. The metal groaned as if protesting, its weakened structure on the verge of collapse.
For a moment, the Thresher Maw hesitated, its massive head turning toward the explosion in the distance.
Joola shot a quick glance at Fenris, a smirk pulling at her lips. “I really hope you have insurance.”
Then she fired the final shot.
The fusion core ruptured with a deafening roar, sending shockwaves across the desert like a tidal wave of fire and shrapnel.
Joola barely had time to raise a biotic barrier before the blast hurled her backward. The force slammed her into the sand, even with the shield absorbing the worst of it. Her bones rattled from the impact, her vision flashing white in the momentary chaos.
For a long, breathless moment, all was still.
Then came the crackling of flames, the distant groan of metal settling in the wreckage, the lingering echo of destruction.
Joola’s chest heaved as she coughed, pushing herself upright. The scent of burnt metal and scorched flesh hung thick in the air, mingling with the acrid tang of molten sand. Her armor was caked in grime, the once-pristine surface now marred by ash and the remnants of the explosion. She wiped her visor with a gloved hand, trying to clear away the haze, and turned toward the wreckage.
The Thresher Maw lay still.
Its gargantuan form twisted in the sand, its massive body blackened and scorched. Mandibles, once lethal, curled inward in a grotesque mockery of life. Steam hissed from the ruptured carapace, and thick, viscous blood pooled beneath it in bubbling, unnatural rivers. The creature was motionless, defeated.
They had done it.
Joola let out a slow, shaky breath, only now noticing the thundering pulse in her chest. The adrenaline crash was settling in, and with it came the weight of what she’d just done. She had obliterated Fenris’s ship.
The thought hit her like a sudden gust of wind, sharp and undeniable. She turned slowly to find Fenris standing amidst the devastation, his armor singed and streaked with soot, his figure a stark contrast against the wreckage. His expression was unreadable, frozen between disbelief and something else—something she couldn’t quite place.
She rubbed the back of her neck, shifting her weight awkwardly as she tried to break the silence. “So… on a completely unrelated note…” She cleared her throat, offering a half-smile, though the joke felt flimsy against the gravity of the moment. “Still in the mood for that drink?”
Fenris stared at her, his pale eyes flickering with a mixture of disbelief and amusement. She had just wiped out his ship, yet here she was, cracking jokes? The absurdity of it seemed to take a moment to catch up with him. He ran a hand over his fringe as if to shake off the lingering shock. The realization that they had survived both a Thresher Maw attack and a fusion core explosion was settling in, but it didn’t soften the sharp edge of his sarcasm.
“Oh, and now you’re the one flirting?” he teased, raising an eyebrow as a short, breathless laugh escaped him. His voice was rough, still reeling from the absurdity of it all.
He glanced at the wreckage, a smirk tugging at his lips as he surveyed the smoldering remains. “Here I thought blowing up my ship was your way of saying ‘no’ to that drink offer.”
Joola chuckled, the sound breathless and uneven. Her body was finally catching up with the toll of the fight—bruises and aches from the adrenaline-fueled rush began to make themselves known, but she ignored the discomfort. She wasn’t about to let the tension drag her down.
“Well, if I’m being honest, I thought the explosion was a pretty solid rejection,” she replied, her voice light, even if the quiver of exhaustion hinted at the weight beneath her words. “But I’m flexible.”
Fenris smirked, his gaze shifting to the endless stretch of desert ahead. The heat shimmered off the cracked earth, distorting the horizon in waves. “So, you know of any places around here where we can get a drink?” His tone was dry, but there was a flicker of curiosity beneath the sarcasm. “Since all my alcohol just went up in flames.”
Joola shot him a look, the corner of her mouth lifting. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, she felt a hint of relief—the sharp humor between them grounding her, even as the world around them still smoldered.
“I’d be surprised if there’s a backwater planet in this system without some kind of bar or saloon,” she said, glancing out toward the distant horizon. “You’re definitely not going to find any drinks here, though.”
With a brief look at the wreckage, still hissing and crackling in the distance, Joola motioned for him to follow. “Come on. Let’s go find something better than what’s left of your ship.”
