It was easy enough until they hit atmosphere, when the…

““It was easy enough until they hit atmosphere, when the ship began to buck and pitch, shaking madly as it tumbled through the clouds. The temperature inside started to rise and there was a mix of panic, excitement and resolution on the faces of the 9's assembled in the passenger seats. Hesh typically kept his eyes closed on crazy stunts like this, but he knew it wouldn't be long until they would dip below cloud cover and Asdar would turn their mad drop to the ground into something slightly less suicidal. Even though they’d done this before, more times than he’d like to account for, he always found himself tensing up more than he should, knowing it would make his muscles sore later. The spine of the ship began to shake madly, rumbling and rattling as Asdar extended the atmospheric wings of the ship, carefully slipping away from the burning debris into a steep dive. Hesh knew at the last minute, he would pull up, causing the Rattleback to gracefully skim the treetops or whatever native foliage existed on this planet. The ship groaned and rattled. ...Or the ship would finally come to the inevitable conclusion that it had spent too much time and effort trying to remain together and quickly disintegrate into its component parts, send them all screaming to their doom. Thankfully the Rattleback decided to give them at least one more day of flying as it curled away from the ground. Gravity pulled down on them from the inside, making their guts heavy and their heads swim, if but for a moment. Hesh had felt better, but Socks looked green, if such a thing was even possible to see under his furry pelt.””

— R. Wade Hodges