Racing down the corridors, and trying (usually successfully) to avoid the flames, Gav made it to the nearest escape pod and tossed in his pack ahead of him. Glancing up and down the hall, he was surprised to see nobody else approaching. The Pharaoh had a crew of 1000, with enough escape pods for all of them half over again, so it was not -impossible- that he wouldn't see anyone else; just unlikely.
As he waited, a violent shudder ran through the ship's structure, followed by a bass crashing sound that was felt more than heard.
'Hull breach! Hull breach! All crew are required to evacuate ship. Atmosphere is currently at 62% and falling. Hull breach!' came the voice of the ship's computer over the speakers.
'Shit!' exclaimed Gav as he dove into the pod and slammed the hatch behind him. He didn't want to leave anyone, but if he waited any longer, he wouldn't be leaving either. He strapped himself into one of the 10 seats, which were arrayed in a circle around a central table that held the controls for the pod. Essentially, it was just a reinforced sphere, weighted and reinforced at the bottom for when it broke through the atmosphere. Two small chemical rockets on the sides allowed for attitude adjustments and brief burns to carry the pod away from the ship. It did not require a skilled pilot, and so, thankfully, all the young man had to do was lift a cover and press the button underneath.
CLANG!!
The pod separated from the ship, its simple autopilot engaging and setting course for a nearby planet.
Gav looked at the monitor, surprised. He hadn't known that they had made it so close. The command crew had been holding information about the planet close and there had been much speculation, but no information had been made available outside the highest officers. He looked through the limited scans available.
Size: Three times the size and mass of planet Earth.
He whistled softly. It was a LARGE planet.
Atmosphere: 68% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 2% non-toxic trace gasses.
It was breathable. Not too much different from Earth. Cloud cover looks almost complete, and the distance from the star is a bit more than expected, so it would definitely be cooler. It was too bad that the pods didn't have video screens. He couldn't see where he was headed. The computer would pick the best location to touch down based on what it could gather. That really only meant he wouldn't have to worry about landing in a volcano, or in the middle of the ocean (assuming the planet had any).
The pod began to shudder as it entered the atmosphere, and began to tear through the cloud cover. In a minute or two, he would need to hit the emergency chute release, to begin the process of slowing down. If not, the rockets would only slow him down marginally. Without those or the chute, all that would mark his landing would be a huge crater with scraps of metal at the bottom.
He pushed the button, the chute releasing, and jerking the pod up violently. He was staring at the screen, which showed only that he would be coming down near a blip. A blip could be another pod.
Suddenly, a crash shook the pod, and the screen went out, followed by the rest of the power. Something must have hit the pod. He could hear the rockets kick on, and so he knew he was close to the ground.
Another crash came, and the pod tilted violently, then seemed to hit something else before finally coming to rest with a violent thud.
Gav blacked out only momentarily, quickly shrugging off his restraints and peering through the small viewport in the hatch. The pod seemed to have come down in what appeared to be a forest. Or at least that was the closest approximation he could come up with. The 'trees' just looked... off. Perhaps it was the overcast sky, or the time of day, or even a lack of light through the canopy. He could just spy what appeared to be another pod several meters away. Slinging his pack over his shoulder, grabbing a medkit from under one of the seats, and a sidearm from the small weapons locker, he pushed the hatch open and looked around before clambering down and rushing toward the other pod.
Grimacing at the strange new smells that surrounded him, he tried to keep an eye out for any wildlife as he moved. He set down the medkit and his pack, and moved to the hatch of the second pod. Opening a small cover by the hatch, he depressed a switch there, which ignited a series of small charges around the door, and blew it right off the pod. There was no light inside the pod, so he watched and waited, the small implants in his ocular nerves cycling slowly through to low-light mode. He could make out what appeared to be a person, and she seemed to be breathing, but he couldn't make out much else.
"Hello?" he asked softly, hoping for an answer.