“Starship Rex, can you hear me?” I asked.

There was no reply.

I’d only been here for a little while but not having the ship answer when spoken to was still disconcerting.

“Lords…” Rel complained. I could sense her rummaging around.

“I left everything else on my ship. Hang on, I have an idea” she said.

A moment later those glowing yellow threads shot out from her hand and wrapped around it. It left her arm basically glowing and lit up much of the space around us.

“That’s pretty clever,” I said.

“It’s just a trick my mother taught me,” Rel said idly. “Come on,” she said, going to stand. She swayed slightly and I went to catch her but she recovered without me needing to help and started walking to the doorway leading through the shop.

Then I started to feel it as what I guessed was artificial gravity started to get weaker.

I felt lighter, needing less force to lift my feet and it left me flailing for a moment before I got myself back under control. It felt really weird but at least the gravity hadn’t cut out entirely.

“It said to prepare for a crash landing,” I said, following after the glowing yellow light on her arm. Apparently Rel was better prepared for the gravity starting to decrease. “What do we do?”

“We need to strap in somewhere,” Rel replied. “Anything will do really but ideally it needs to be cushioned so we don’t hurt ourselves in collision and we’ll need to strap ourselves in.”

“The pilot's chair. That had proper seatbelts,” I suggested.

“Was there another seat in there?” Rel asked.

“I didn’t see one,” I replied.

“Well that’s one,” Rel agreed. “But unless you fancy sharing then we’ll both need somewhere to sit. I’d prefer not being near the front of the ship either. Starship Rex can probably come out of it all in one piece, it’s Firstech so it should be able to handle a collision but I’d rather not take any chances.”

“Agreed,” I said. I went to stand up. “How long should we have, do you think?”

“It’d depend on how close to the atmosphere we were and how quickly the ship was moving when we exited FTL.”

“So there’s no way of knowing?” I asked. “Let’s hurry then.”

We arrived back in the living area.

“There must be some secure seating here,” Rel said.

“But where? I didn’t see any before,” I replied.

The glowing threads from Rel’s bracer helped but they didn’t fully light up the space.

“Nothing,” Rel said, having been exploring the seats.

The ship trembled for a second. I could practically feel as we started to enter the planet’s gravity. There wasn’t enough time to spend looking.

“We need to hurry,” I said. “Maybe we should check the cockpit.”

“Fine,” Rel said.

We made our way as quickly as we could through to the front of the ship and during that time it was obvious that we were starting to accelerate. There was light coming in through the viewscreen we could see by at least. Rel deactivated her bracer, the yellow ropes looped around her arm disappearing.

Unfortunately it was quickly apparent that there wasn’t a second seat. Only the pilot’s chair met our needs.

Rel let out a huff.

“We’ll have to share the pilot’s chair,” she said awkwardly.

She went and sat in it and gestured for me to join her but the chair was designed for one and it was immediately obvious that both of us weren’t going to fit in either side. One of us would have to sit in the other’s lap.

The sip trembled slightly around us, another warning that we didn’t have much time.

“You sit first,” she told me. “You’re bigger,” she defended a moment later, seeing something in my expression. “It makes sense.”

“Alright,” I said, allowing her to get up so I could sit in the chair properly.

“But this doesn’t mean anything, understand?”

“Absolutely,” I agreed.

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I wasn’t even lying. I’d rather not have to go through thinking about Rel dying a second time. The first scare had been enough.

I adjusted my position as she got up and then Rel went and sat in my lap and I pulled the buckles around us.

“Not like that,” she said, turning so she was sat sideways against my front. The buckles still went around us and clicked together easily.

“This doesn’t feel like it’ll be enough for both of us,” Rel said, eyeing the straps that were meant to go over my shoulders and didn’t really provide anything for her. I couldn’t help but agree.The material felt strong but it wasn’t enough for the two of us and it didn’t do anything to hold our heads from bouncing around or anything.

“We need more stuff to hold us in place,” I stated. “More to hold us both together in the chair, some to stop us bouncing around and knocking against each other too.”

“I have an idea,” Rel said after a few moments.

She adjusted herself a bit and then the space was lit up as she activated that bracer. Yellow ropes of energy came out and around us, wrapping around us tightly and holding us against each other and the chair.

“That should do,” Rel said from somewhere below my head. I could feel her shoulder digging into my chest and her head somewhere by my shoulder. There was a bit of slack at least. I couldn’t adjust my head to look down properly.

“Should’ve thought of that before,” I muttered. “Could’ve tied us both to that chair in the living quarters.”

“You were rushing me,” Rel complained, sounding slightly embarrassed. “I would’ve thought of this if you’d given me more time to look.”

We were practically wrapped up in glowing threads now. Funnily enough the only thing I could move was my arms and feeling a bit awkward but with nowhere else to really put them, I wrapped them around Rel.

“So now we wait,” I said as the planet below us seemed to get ever so slightly closer. The ship trembled again. It couldn’t be long before we started our entry into the atmosphere.

Neither of us said anything, both our gazes directed in front of us, waiting to see what would happen. But after a few minutes nothing had changed.

This really was taking a while…

It had seemed before like we hadn't had much time to get ready but instead now we were here, the entirely offline Starship Rex was taking its sweet time as it drifted closer and closer to the planet.

The silence left me to my own thoughts, always a bad idea in my experience, and that meant as we continued to wait for the inevitable that things started to get uncomfortable for an entirely different reason than the threat of imminent death and suddenly I was having to concentrate on other things.

Yes, hello libido. Yes there is a pretty girl basically sat in my lap. No, this definitely isn’t the time.

“This is taking forever?” Rel finally said, sounding more annoyed than anything else.

“Should we get up?” I suggested.

“There’s no way of knowing when we’ll properly start entry into the atmosphere,” Rel replied uncomfortably.

So she wasn’t going to be getting up. To try and distract myself from inappropriate thoughts I decided to try making conversation.

“So how did you find me?” I asked curiously.

“What?” Rel replied.

“How did you find Starship Rex?” I asked. “Why were you there? It was a junkyard, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, I was just exploring,” Rel said. “I’d heard bits about the last war and wanted to see it. I didn’t think I’d find you, or Starship Rex for that matter.”

“Seems like you got lucky finding me,” I said.

Rel let out a noise of amusement.

“Those other ships did too,” she pointed out. “I’d figured there would be scavengers, but normally they’re smart enough not to try shooting at a ship like mine. They were just lucky I wasn’t aboard.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“What for?”

“You’d still have your ship if you hadn’t found me and come aboard.”

“Maybe,” Rel agreed.

“Can you tell me anything else you know about me?” I asked. “I’d like to figure out what happened, who I was.”

“I know a few stories,” Rel replied. “Not sure how true they were though. I’m pretty sure she started making them up at one point though. You’re probably better off speaking to my mother if you want the truth. She was the one who actually knew you.”

“Fair enough,” I replied.

It’d been years since I’d been on the scene, long enough for Rel to grow up hearing stories about me as a little girl from the sounds of things. I let out a huff of amusement.

“What?” Rel asked.

“This whole situation is insane,” I said.

Here I was, in space. I’d been involved in a short space battle, learnt that I, or at least some past version of me had been some sort of storytime hero and now I was about to crash land on an alien planet.

“I guess it is,” Rel replied, shifting slightly against my side. “I didn’t think I’d be sitting in your lap after the way we met before.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said with embarrassment. “I really did think this was all fake.”

“Apology accepted,” Rel said. “It’s not like I didn’t get my ownback,” she commented.

“Being zapped by those threads of yours isn’t a sensation I wanted to repeat, no,” I said. Rel chuckled.

“It’s thought that it was originally used as a torture tool by the Lords,” she told me. “A whip to punish the servants, my people,” she elaborated.

“Interesting,” I said. “I take it these Lords are gone now then?” Otherwise Rel wouldn’t have this whip bracer thing.

“Thousands of years ago there was a liberation,” Rel told me. “The Lords were overthrown and destroyed. Some people think they were from the First race, but it’s so long ago there’s no real records or any evidence to prove anybody right. They might’ve just had access to a big cache of technology. Not that it matters now.”

It wasn’t noticeable at first but as we had been speaking the shaking of the ship became more frequent until it was a constant rumble. Vibrations were starting to build up in intensity and I could feel as the gravitational force of the planet seemed to grow stronger as we got closer, starting to enter the atmosphere. My stomach flipped at the odd sensation of two gravitational forces acting on me at the same time.

“Here we go,” I said. “If I die, it was nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Rel said dryly. “Despite how badly it started, it was good to meet you in the flesh. Even if you don’t remember anything from before. ”

We started to accelerate, the glass, or whatever it was in front of us dimmed automatically, going almost entirely black as we continued to pick up speed, heat and light building up in front of us.

It was like a theme park ride, only more real, more terrifying because I knew there was no hidden safety mechanism. We were going to crash and crash hard.

All I could do was sit and wait and hope for the best.