Emma Daniels TSC pt 3.2

Emma opened the door to the room she had occupied as she prepped herself for the weightless environment. She and her mother entered, and Guts was flipping through 'My Struggle' by Midol Hiller, curling his lip.
  Guts looked up at his company and slapped the book in his hand.
  "This guy is an idiot!"
  Emma glanced at the book and rolled her eyes.
  "Nice to see you too. Look, the two of us need a ride back down to Bay City. Can you help us?"
  Guts tossed the book away, letting it tumble in the air.
  "Why, sure. I do have a great idea but…" Guts frowned and changed his position in mid air nervously.
  "But what?" Sophie asked.
  Guts sighed and shook his head.
  "I forgot what it was…"
  Emma and Sophie were appalled. Emma's jaw would have fallen to the floor had there been gravity.
  "Guts!"
  Guts held his index fingers up and smiled.
  "Hold on, I have a backup. I'll just radio back down to Earth using the power of the wobbly wibbly radio waves."
  Guts turned around and blew air though his lips to propel himself to the door. Emma rolled her eyes and Sophie giggled.
  "Well crap! That works!" Emma said sarcastically. She stretched her arm out the door to follow Guts as her mother held on to her shoulders.
  "Your injury seems to have benefited him, Emma."
  Emma rolled her eyes again.
  "Alex seems to think so. I'm just glad that he's not a jerk anymore."
  The three floated back to the main receptionist's desk. Guts buckled himself in and got to work.
  "These are heat sensitive, Emma. The gloves won't register anything." Guts said. Emma made a sarcastic laugh.
  "Now you tell me…"
  Guts' finger hovered over Outgoing Calls, and he hesitated.
  Emma was getting anxious.
  "Guts, what? What's the matter?"
  Guts shook his head.
  "I… You know what, guys; I'm feeling really awful for letting my Dad down like this. Am I really honoring him by helping his…" he finger quoted "…'guests' get back down to Earth like this? I'm supposed to the successor to his legacy. This place and all of my Dad's assets down there will be mine soon, and helping you would hurt our relationship."
  Emma and Sophie exchanged glances. Emma licked her lips and put her hand on Guts' shoulder. She maneuvered herself to appear in his eyesight. She had a sudden burst of inspiration from her foregone comic books and smiled.
  "Guts, I think that it's wrong to betray someone who loves you so much that he would leave a multibillion dollar industry in your hands. Here's the problem with that though. For Hawk to go through so much effort to try and hurt me somehow…"
  Guts interrupted.
  "He wants too shoot you out an airlock. Sophie was the bait" he said bluntly.
  Emma gulped loudly and Sophie gasped, working to hug her daughter protectively. Emma resisted her mother's affection and continued.
  "Okay, that's really freaking bad, Guts!" Emma almost shouted, her sympathy turning to anger. Guts winced and Emma returned to her explanation.
  "For him to do that to me for making you the way you are is… appalling! I admit that it would honor your father to inherit the company, but all this with me and my mother is wrong! Damien Hawks' decision to try and kill me with a vacuum exposure is wrong!"
  "I know, but what do I do? What's right?!" Guts yelled. Emma sighed, surprised at what she was going to say.
  "What's right is to honor your father, but what is also right is to help the two innocent people who are in trouble with him for…" Emma squeezed Guts' shoulder, "…something that should make him more proud of his son instead of acting on revenge. Even if you do let your father down by helping us, doing so will be the right, and moral thing to do. Neither myself nor my mother did anything wrong, and the only person that's benefiting from all this is your fathers hurt pride."
  Guts looked at the display for a moment and smiled. He looked at Emma.
  "Why should the super hero be punished for creating a beneficial change at an unsuccessful bank robbery too? Just doing the job and creating an unforeseen side effect is not punishable either. I'm going to do it."
  Guts pressed the Outgoing Calls button. Sophie hugged her daughter and kissed her head.
  "Oh Emma, I'm so proud of you! I can't believe that you convinced him to help."
  Emma laughed.
  "I can't either, Mom. I just remembered that Virtueman in Virtueman Chronicles number sixty eight from uhh… thirty years ago had a similar problem."
  The two laughed amongst each other as Whitney Brown peered at them from around the corner; Minot Prize in her eyes.
  Guts held his finger up and shooshed the two women. They obeyed and he put on a headset, playing with frequencies on the console.
  "Hello? Hello? Mayday, mayday! SOS!"
  Emma moaned and covered her face. She felt her radio in her mask and turned it on, only to be buffeted by loud feedback. Emma cringed and tore her mask off her head.
  "Emma! Are you alright?" Sophie cried and gave her a hug. Emma rubbed her ears and turned off the radio.
  "Oww!"
  Whitney smiled, seeing the resemblance between Sophie and Emma. She jotted it down in her notepad.
  After a moment, Guts shook his head.
  "Guys, I'm just getting static across the board."
  Emma nodded.
  "You're telling me?"
  Guts shrugged.
  "Well, I don't know, but give me a minute to try and remember my backup plan."
  A new voice broke out.
  "I had the station lined with lead so that radio waves cannot escape. Even the glass; it's a special transparent formula that I stole from Caesar Stone. Outgoing calls are not allowed on this service plan."
  Emma had slipped her mask on to see properly. She sighted Guts' father and frowned.
  "Damien Hawk, trying out the same kind of entrance twice now?" She asked.
  Hawk shrugged and Emma clenched her fists. She nodded at her mother.
  "Goods a plenty. I had figured that---"
  Emma had extended her arm out to punch Hawk in the jaw with full force. It came back and Sophie whooped for her. Hawk sailed back and hit the wall, sticking to it. He felt his jaw and adjusted it.
  "How exhilarating. It hurt, yes, but it felt like a barrage of sponges too."
  "What are you going to do to us now?" Emma asked, vaulting as best she could over the desk. Her feet stuck to the floor.
  Hawk sneered; his voice got rough.
  "Guts and Sophia are safe, but you my dear, are going to suffer from asphyxiation and burn up in the Earths atmosphere! I swear that I will see to it!"
  Hawk snapped and some guards had come flying out of the shadows. They bombarded Guts and Sophie and effortlessly tied their hands behind their backs.
  "What are you doing? Get off! Emma, look out!"
   Emma looked at her mother and saw from the corner of her eye that three other guards were on a collision course with her.
  Emma thought of a pancake and a sheet of paper. She shot down and felt herself flatten to the surface below. She watched the guards all palm each others hands to stop. Emma thought of launching up at them and spinning while forcing her fists out and quickly decided to act on it. She felt her body go up, but she didn't spin like she thought she would. She shot up only half way because her wrists were firmly stuck to the floor.
  Emma did not have the chance to look at them and smile innocently. She was grabbed helplessly by the guards and pulled up, her suit fighting the hooked surface. Emma used her elasticity to free her arm and throw it out to grab the back of a chair at the desk. She softened her body and successfully escaped the guards grasp as they tried to grab at her nearly fluid body. She stiffened her arm while rebounding and shot at the wall behind the desks at a high speed, planning to use the force to try and rebound back. She quickly crouched into a ball, bounced against the wall, traveled back and hit a guard in the belly so hard that he saw stars.
  All the while, both Sophie and Hawk were yelling at the fighters trying to motivate them both. Sophie looked at Hawk guiding his guards animatedly and she yelled at him.
  "Hey Hawk, you sound less like a bird, and more like a Scottish terrier!" She hollered. Hawk stopped immediately and glared at Sophie, more confused than offended. He was cut short by Emma still in her balled form coming too close to him for comfort. Hawk, a bit scared, but refusing to show it, resumed his yelling.
  Just around the corner, Whitney realized that the story was far too big for her to take on alone. For fear of looking crazy, she dashed away to wake up the other reporters and get them for support.
  Emma bounced across the main receptionist's hall while loosing momentum. She undid her balled form and saw the two remaining guards rush at her, getting frustrated at the environment that they were just barely trained in. Emma looked at a nearby wall with a non-sticky picture with footprints in sand. She smiled; an idea was forming. She stretched both of her hands out to wedge herself in between the ceiling and floor, and she maneuvered her feet to the photo, running on it. Emma's arms became a pivot, and she gradually gained speed, twisting her arms up and using her legs to fly out and hit the guards; it only kept them at bay.
  "That's it Emma, kick their butts!"
  Emma had a lapse in judgment and thought that if she kept her arms from being tense, she would be fine, but she had not anticipated her own limits. Emma found it harder to spin and 'jump' to get her legs over to the paining each time. The guards watched her, waiting for the right moment to strike; Hawk had apparently seen plenty.
  "What are you bastards doing? Grab her!"
  At that moment, Emma had reached her limit of rotations and could no longer reach the painting. She thought she could have pushed one or two more in.
  "Oh crap…"
  Emma spun the opposite way with a scream, and then had the sense to put her plan into action. She was going to whack the guards with her feet. She tried to aim, but the hallway became a blur.
  "Emma! Focus!" Sophie yelled.
  Emma started to think that her plan was a bad idea; she was quickly getting sick. Emma let go of the floor and ceiling and she continued to spin while trying to attack the guards. She was failing.
  Sophie and Guts yelled out to her, but Emma was seeing double. She cursed her motion sickness and tried to attack. She swung an untwisted fist out to a guard. She missed him, and he grabbed her arm, pulling on it and enveloping Emma too. Emma had tried to keep from throwing up, but it was difficult to do while she struggled about.
  "Got her! She didn't put up much of a fight." The guard held her wrists behind her with one hand and skipped over to Hawk.
  "Excellent," said Hawk with a chuckle. He grabbed Emma's face and studied it. "Who knew that a lone hero could be taken down by her own inner ear fluids? Not I, certainly." Hawk squeezed her face experimenting with her elasticity.
  "Emma, fight him!" Sophie yelled. Emma growled and spit at him. Her projectile missed by a good foot. Hawk smiled at Sophie.
  "Charming, I'll bill you for the vandalism." He snapped and pushed off of Emma's head to float away. The second guard came up and grabbed Emma's ankles. He folded them up and held her waist along with them. The first guard took the top of Emma's head and turned it left and right to keep her dizzy.
  Hawk flittered his hand.
  "Take my son and Sophie away; we're going to dispose of this rubber girl."
  Sophie yelled out. She tried to escape and Guts offered assistance by kicking her captor in the face. Sophie was let go and she darted over to Hawk as Guts was swatted over his temple, and his wrist twisted to keep from resisting farther. Guts cried out and would have lost his balance, but he just lost coordination.
  Sophie passed by Hawk and punched him in the face. Hawk yelped out and slowly tumbled back toward the wall. The guard that Guts had kicked was close behind and recaptured a struggling Sophie.
  "I won't let you kill her! Let go of me!"
  Hawk hit the wall and got his 'balance' back. He went upright and spat some blood. With a glare, he kicked off and rejoined Sophie and the guard. He grabbed her wrist.
  "Listen, you should be glad that I am sparing you! One well known reporter who looses her life on my station would ruin me!" Hawk roared.
  Sophie was swept to tears but she held her ground.
  "You sit back, and let me do my work, or I will make sure that you will never find another job in the editorial business again!"
  Sophie sneered.
  "Fine! Let Emma go and I'll back out."
  Hawk snickered. Emma threw up a little and moaned.
  "Nice try." Hawk pushed her away and he continued with his guards to another part of the wall where a keypad was hidden behind a painting of the Andromeda Galaxy. Sophie started to scream and plea for Emma's life and was pulled away. Hawk keyed in his password and turned to Sophie.
  "Will you just shut up!"
  Sophie continued to scream. The hidden door slid open to show an airlock behind glass and a red flashing light. It was an emergency escape pod.
  Hawk smiled and looked at Emma, her face was green. She tried to speak and only made a gurgle. He pointed at the glass and the two guards opened a door and threw her in, locking it from the other side. Emma floated into view from behind the glass. Hawk chuckled and began to follow her in.
  "I believe that I already have gotten away with this Ms. Emma Daniels. Release Sophie as soon as I am inside, I want her to watch."
  Just behind Hawk, Whitney and the other four reporters, anxious for a good story to accompany their own personal greatest story ever, floated over to the glass with Sophie in tow. Hawk grabbed Emma's neck, hoping to cut off her oxygen, opened the pod's doors, and threw her inside. Emma, still feeling rather disoriented, moved about the pod as a spider would if trapped in a small jar.
  Sophie continued to scream and plea and bang on the glass.
  "There must be something we can do instead of sitting here! Damage some machinery, crack the code, do something!" Sophie yelled to her peers. The reporters, feeling Sophie's pain, started to act, but Hawk yelled out, his voice being carried over a radio link. His voice had a fanatical and insane edge to it.
  "No! Do not act! Watch, fair reporters, for this is the death of a Ricochet! A struggle that was won by me and assisted by my boy Guts, whose loyalty to his father transcends his own will!"
  Hawk laughed and shut the doors as Emma was coming to her senses. She threw her fist out to punch him, but she caught the door instead. Hawk keyed in the override release button, failing to manually close the stations doors to keep from getting sucked out. The reporters stopped and looked at Guts. His face had gone pale and he looked like he was going to throw up. He shook his head while Sophie's face hardened with anger.
  "You son of a--"
  Guts held his hands up.
  "Wait! He's twisting the words! I brought her up to save you and… Oh for…"
  Guts elbowed his guard in the stomach, and kicked off of him toward the window. Hawk, giggling with glee, danced his finger over the release button. Guts reached the window and pounded on it.
  "Dad! Stop! I have an idea for her!"
  Hawk stopped and turned around.
  "It's too late Guts! My plan is too far gone."
  Whitney sneered.
  "I'll say…"
  Sophie looked at her with a small smile.
  Guts pounded the glass again; Hawks finger hovering ever closer.
  "No, listen!" Guts sounded more anxious than wanting to convince someone.
  "What if Emma has a contract that says she must be a mascot for the industry? She could be a… a media slave of some kind! She would be in promos, make mall appearances, and be on a reality TV show with people trying to deal with her! You would be the only major corporation with their own super hero!"
  Guts looked at a fuming Sophie and winked. He also shook his head slightly and mouthed out 'no way.'
  Hawk's finger retracted from the button, and he held his chin for a long moment. Sophie and Guts held their breaths.
  As Hawk pondered, Emma looked out the small window and heard a beeping. She looked about the pod to see a white lump of clay on the wall with a timer counting down from ten minutes.
  Emma, having read too much TVTurnings.org, felt stupefied for a moment and thought that Hawk had watched too many movies. Well, given his work experience…
  "Oh come on! Wait! Oh shit!" Emma searched about the pod to find some kind of release, or override, and she was coming up short.
  Hawk suddenly pushed away from the console, took a remote from his pocket and the beeping in Emma's pod ceased. The timer had lost power. Emma sighed with relief and started to laugh.
  Hawk shook his head.
  "I can't believe it. I have come to my senses. I got so wrapped up in revenge that I had not thought clearly. Why kill the world's only super hero, when I can exploit her?"
  Sophie was staring gawk eyed at Hawk. Guts nudged her and she looked at him with an angry eye.
  Hawk continued.
  "I can't believe that I hadn't thought of that from the beginning! Offer her fame and fortune while subtly making her miserable. The young can't handle fame anyway."
  Guts chuckled.
  "Dad, her mom is right here."
  Sophie glared at him, her anger intensifying. Hawk smiled warmly at her.
  "Money buys everything Sophie. How could you not want to be in that decrepit apartment?"
  "Its home."
  Hawks eyebrows shot up. He chuckled.
  "Well, you should be happy that I spared her for a greater opportunity."
  He pressed the release button and the pod door shot open. Hawk hovered over to it.
  "Emma, I've had a change of heart, you see---"
  Emma growled, wedged herself in the pod, and punched Damian Hawk in the head so hard that he sailed back without a word and knocked the back of his head against the glass.
  Sophie smiled and started to cheer. The other reporters followed suit.
  "That aught to make some kind of purple welt too!"
  "Look, there are some teeth!"
  Guts bent over to Sophie and whispered.
  "And that's why he wants me to take over when he dies."
  Sophie took Guts head and kissed his cheek. Hawk was trying to regain his senses, and Emma had brought out the non functional bomb for the reporters to see.
  "You were great, Guts! Thank you!"
  Guts smiled and started to leave.
  "Thanks! Come on, I remember plan A for escape. We'll wait for Emma."
  Guts and Sophie left as the reporters were busily taking notes and exclaiming that there was indeed a bomb present.
  Hawk wiped his mouth, swore at Emma and kicked off to strangle her, his senses lost once more. Emma ducked and punched Hawk in the chest. The action drove hawk back with a gurgling motion, and Emma went back against the pods control panel. She pushed off of it, grabbing a bar on the panel's edge for stability, and threw her arm to grab Hawk and take him out, but something happened.
  Emma heard a loud clunk and a whoosh noise. She had no time to notice that the pod was gone and that she and Hawk were suddenly in the all too quiet vacuum of space. Emma's heart leapt up to choke her as she saw the shocked reporters recede.

   Guts and Sophie reached a second loading door and Guts opened it to see a very irate pilot on the other end. The pilot sighted them and pointed his finger at Guts as the two stormed inside.
  "Hey pal, what's the big idea keeping me cooped up in my own ship all day? Don't you know that I have an actual job to do?"
  Guts smiled and turned around into a lounging position as he flew, now backward, down the aisle.
  "Well, I'm sorry about that, but do your job now and take us two passengers back down to---"
  Guts never finished. He slammed the back of his head up against the door frame at the end of the seating aisle. The pilot and Sophie glared at each other, stunned. The pilot shook his head. Guts was bleeding.
  "Well, I know that any medical personnel don't come until next Tuesday, so we have a big emergency on our hands now." The pilot said and rushed past Guts.
  "Any additional passengers would have to wait; it'll be just us three aboard this flight. Try to buckle him in, there are some bags under all of the seats, try to cushion the wound with them."
  Sophie held her hand out, her heart sinking.
  "But, Emma…"
  She looked at Guts, his blood making strange patterns in zero gravity.
  "I don't care if he's sorry either, he had it coming for locking me up!" The pilot yelled. Sophie ignored him and sighed.
  "I'm sorry, Emma…"
  Sophie floated up to Guts and tried to strap him in as the plane started up, getting ready to leave.

Emma saw Hawk just twenty feet out; flying away from the station, his skin was paling. The escape pod and bomb forgotten. She held on tightly to the bar inside the station and threw her other arm out to grab him. Hawk, seeing the sides of his vision cloud, saw Emma's arm come at him and he grabbed it.
  Emma, too scared to be scared properly, reeled in both of her arms and threw Hawk back inside the station. He hit his head on the glass once more and lost total consciousness. Emma smiled as she flew back into the station, but the safety door immediately closed, locking her out.
  Emma bounced off the door and clawed at the stations door, trying to find a handhold. She saw that the bar she was holding onto had snapped off and was slowly floating away. Emma figured for a moment that Hawk was trying to save some cash by using cheep building materials.
  Emma found a new handhold outside and reeled herself in. She started to hyperventilate and peered in through the cabin. Hawk was floating helplessly and the reporters were banging on the glass watching the trapped hero outside.
  Emma was ready to cry. She was literally on the brink of infinity, and if she let go, she would never see Bay City, or the Earth, ever again. No Alex, no Eddy, no Bravo Team… Emma's vision blurred… and no Isaac either.
  Absence makes the heart grow fonder…
  Emma shook, sobbed, thinking of her seldom seen boyfriend. She felt like she would throw up. The eerie quiet intensified, and Emma was half convinced that she had permanently lost her hearing. She shook her head and tried to regain her bearings. How would I get back in? She doesn't need to breathe, as demonstrated while coming up, so there must be a service shaft with an airlock.
  Emma lifted her mask and wiped her eyes with her wrist. She readjusted it and looked around for an outboard control panel, finding no purchase. She smacked the hull and stretched her head up to overlook the "roof' of the Prospect of the Hawk. Her nausea and fear came back in full force as she peered out at the Earth beyond. The sun was just peeking out behind the planet and she felt its blazing heat come at her. Emma was thankful that she had not wet herself.
  With her free hand, Emma slowly, and with a jittery hand, reached up above the station to find another makeshift hand hold in the dim light from the sun. She found purchase and slowly reeled herself in, a fear of "falling" pressing down on her thoughts like an elephant in Vietnam. Emma sneered, thinking her reference was from a terrible movie. She shook her head and slowly and hesitantly took her other arm off of the first hold and repeated the process. She tried to see straight, but her equilibrium was tilting the station like a sailing ship, which did not help her nausea one bit.
  Emma wanted to lie down, her stomach was protesting, and her lunch had fully vacated itself long ago. She choked down her bile and thought she saw a quick flash on the 'horizon' of the hotel. She froze, focusing on the flash. Maybe it was the bomb?  
  She saw it again and this time it was sustaining itself. The flash moved about strangely and Emma realized that it was a plane back to Earth!
  Emma soundlessly gasped and wasted no time trying to take this opportunity to take a ride back. Abandoning all caution to the solar wind, she threw her free hand across the roof and grabbed whatever she could get a grip on. Her hand slid a bit, and she received purchase. Emma, feeling suddenly like an elastic wolf on a prowl, used her feet to kick off. She repeated the actions of looking for a handhold until she ran out of station. At the edge, Emma aimed, like she practiced when on top of the Gadfly Building when all of this started, and leapt.
  Time slowed down for her she tried to catch up with the departing ship. Emma's mind and vision was clear, but she felt sluggish, and a little warm. Three hundred feet… two hundred feet… one hundred… fifty…
  Emma threw her arms out at the ship and enveloped her arms in it, hugging it as she imagined--knew her mother would if she survived the decent. Emma retracted her arms, thumped the hull, hard, and realized the cliché about holding onto something for dear life.
  Inside, Sophie had heard the thump. She looked up, and then around. She looked out the window and saw a noodle that was a familiar shade of blue. Sophie squinted at it and shook her head, thinking that it was Emma's arm or leg… or torso somehow, but could not figure out how her daughter had gotten outside. There was a high pitched scrape outside, like rubber chafing on, well, anything, and Emma's head appeared at a window, looking distressed. Sophie watched her daughter with awe.
  Emma was slipping off of the hull. The ship was picking up speed and the hull was getting hotter. Emma was deathly afraid of regaining her position by slapping her hands out, stretching them farther while using her upper arms as clamps of sorts, so she did it with her legs. Emma hiccupped somehow. She quickly, but carefully, which was too slow for her anyway, kept her body on the hull, and moved her legs out to get a better grip. She moved her hands a little to try and blindly catch her feet for a better grip.
  The ship then decided to flip over. Emma lost her footing, and her whole lower body went free. She screamed, and noticed that she was quickly bending over backwards. Thoughts of a broken back appropriately missing from her mind; she used the opportunity and spread her legs. Her butt hit the hull of the ship, and her legs flew backward and wrapped around the ship poorly, but effectively enough. She tightened her outstretched muscles to prevent herself from falling and kept her head down. The heat was intensifying. Emma looked toward the hull and saw her mother looking at her, her expression sick with worry. Sophie reached her hand out and Emma smiled softly as the hull started to turn a light red.
  At the hotel, the technicians working in the small room had seen that Hawk was trapped in the room, and they had let him loose to his guards and the remaining reporters. The radio signals were reinstated, and a message was sent to the planet to send an emergency ship up to gather Hawk. The guards, having little medical training, were nursing Hawk, who had lived through the ordeal, but was unconscious, and the remaining reporters gathered to listen to Whitney's story and take notes.
  "Was that really a super heroine?"
  "What was she doing up here?"
  "Whitney said that was Sophia Daniels daughter!"
  Whitney nodded.
  "Yes, that is her… or it was. No one could survive out there that long." Whitney had asked the technicians moments ago about Emma's status. They reported that, aside of Guts untimely exit, no external doors had been opened. They assumed Sophia's daughter, the hero was dead.
  "Poor woman…" A reporter said.
  "Yeah… Hawk wanted to take revenge on the hero that saved his life, and he succeeded…"
  "What do we do?"
  Whitney bit her lip. The rest of the reporters were looking at her.
  "I think… I think that that hero, Ricochet, I think was her name from Hawks odd verbiage; I think that she had been at her job for a long time. If none of us had heard of her before, than maybe she had worked hard to keep her identity, or even her very existence, a secret. Maybe we should keep her unknown?"
  "What, like say that it was an unknown hero?" One asked.
  Whitney shook her head.
  "No, I mean, delete her from our stories. I'm above lying for a story, that's one reason why I got here, but this seems like the right thing to do."
  A reporter crossed his arms.
  "How convenient for her." He said snidely.
  Whitney nodded.
  "Exactly. I think it's what Ricochet would want anyway."
  "What do we write about then? People are going to want to know what happened with Hawk."
  Whitney started to speak, when a reporter spoke up.
  "Let's consult with Sophie when we get back. It would be best to get her word first."
  Whitney nodded.
  "Alright, that is, if we can anyway. Sophie and her daughter's relationship is most important for the story, I think, and I thank you all for cooperating."
  The reporters nodded and waited for their ride back down.

Emma's eyes were forced shut. Not only was the sun in her eyes after orbiting the planet, but the atmosphere and hull had glowed a brilliant mixture of white hot overpowering a dark blue. Emma held on for dear life; her whole body feeling the worst heat she had ever felt. She could barely vocalize her terror, her throat had gone dry. Worse yet, her whole body felt like it was both loosening its grip and holding on tightly. Emma had no other thought than to hold on.
  The heat was unbearable, and a distant roar soon became unbearable. Emma had tried to endure it, but she felt her grip on reality fading.
  No! I need to make it down! I can't let go!
  Emma's feeling was fading. She was lapsing in and out of consciousness, but still, she tried to hold on. The sky abruptly seemed to turn a bright blue from out of nowhere, and the heat lowered noticeably. Emma lost all her physical feeling, and she could just barely open her eyes. Her vision was foggy, and she saw two blobs making up a horizon; blue on top, and white on the bottom.
  Logic escaping her, Emma thought that she had died. Most of her senses had gone, she was numb, blurry eyed, and could neither smell, nor hear beyond a deafening ringing in her ear. She wasn't sure how much time had gone by; the blue blob above had very quickly changed shades, eventually turning orange. Lights sprung up all about, moving frantically and Emma was delighted by them, but she quickly grew tired.
  All of a sudden, she felt her equilibrium tilt and she snapped awake. Emma got her sense of feeling back rather quickly, feeling that she had had it back for a while and did not notice due to her dormancy, and she drooped off. The rest of her senses returned when she felt the urgency to try and move, but it was sluggish and her body had to race to keep up with her mind. Emma looked up to see that her body was still sort of sticking to the hull of the plane in the dim sunset.
  "I'm not dead, that's good." She tried to say, but her mouth was caked shut. Her mouth opened suddenly and she could breathe properly. She worked on freeing herself from her charred prison and heard her mother call for her. Emma stopped and looked around; she saw a vague shape come at her drooping body. She smiled as best as she could.
  Sophie came up and rubbed her blackened mask lenses to allow Emma to see. Emma blinked and smiled. Sophie was in tears.
  "Hi mom." She said softly.
  Sophie started to sob, and she took Emma against her chest, rocking her as best as she was able.