The promise of Monsoon

Interlude II : Shin

Well, that was dumb.

Shin wasn't very happy with her plan. Also, she wished she had had a plan.

The dark stained walls of the elevator shaft wooshed by her side as she plummeted down. The narrow chimney seemed to just dig into the planet's depths infinitely. Surprisingly, some bleak lights still kinda worked and sent blinks and flashes in the long dark well of metal. She could see rust and scraped paint roll by her eyes on mesmerizing patterns.

And she was still falling. But not enough.

That was the funny yet not-so-funny part. There was actually a peak speed you could attain while falling down a high shaft. Something to do with gravity and the weight of a human body. Well, it was slightly slower than a turbolift going down at full mag speed. And even free-falling, she wasn't keeping up with the lift. I need to catch that damn tin can... But how?

Something clattered against her flank, through her pocket. She gasped. Tay! She forgot the little girl had nicked several detonators from Voss. And Shin traded for them all. They used one earlier but she still had the others!

Let's figure out if two dumb ideas make for a good one.

Without much thinking, she grabbed one of the detonators, armed it, and slammed it on the wall of the shaft. She was falling so fast it almost broke her hand to make contact. But as she zoomed down, she heard the distant clank of the detonator adhering, back where she was a second earlier.

The blonde counted in her head. Under her, the distant light of the turbolift was slowly getting away. Soon she would be falling alone, much behind it. And crash on it at the bottom, long after Tay and Abeloth got out.

Unless my trick works.

The deflagration blinded her before she even heard it. The vivid flash of light was soon followed by a glowing heat and the deafening sound of the explosion.

There was something very dumb about willing to fall faster. But it was even dumber to propel yourself into it with a mortal blast.

The shockwave hit her like a truck. She felt herself slammed down into the shaft at full speed, barreling ahead of the flames. A sprinkle of shrapnel rained on her. She felt a million little cuts on her skin, glowing specks of metal burning through her clothes. It felt like being hit by a cloud of needles.

The blast made her spin on herself and soon, the somewhat calm fall became a maddening blur. She was falling faster, much faster. But so fast it was impossible to make a clean dive without spinning like a drillbit. She summoned the Force and made every effort to stabilize herself, swearing at her breath.

I'm never conceding Sabine a point about explosives again, it's a very dumb part of our arsenal.

As the panicked but calculated pushes stopped her flips, she managed to look down again. And barely saw the turbolift's ceiling before she crashed on it loudly.

Well it worked , she thought, feeling the full slam on her face. She did not expect to catch the lift so fast and had no time to really slow her fall. Pushing hard with the Force, almost in reflex, she felt herself bounce against the elevator's ceiling. Instinctively, she had pushed against it. But not enough to land smoothly. Then, the ongoing blast of the explosion slammed her again.

Expecting that slam to turn into a harsh and fatal shock, she instead felt the surface of durasteel under her cheek give way suddenly.

She gasped, as she fell again, inside the lift. In her desperate and clumsy fall, she had somehow landed right on the fragile service hatch of the lift. She slammed on the ground and renewed with the exaggerated gravity of a descending elevator.