Trailing fire and heat behind us, Starship Rex soared through the air.

We didn’t go straight down, instead arcing almost slowly as we burned a path across the sky of the planet.

I held onto the girl I’d barely met, waiting for the inevitable. I wanted to say something witty, or just anything but the shaking made it impossible to move my jaw without feeling like I would be risking biting my tongue. G-forces left us trapped in our shared seat, Rel’s shoulder was digging into me uncomfortably and the light-ropes from her Firstech bracer kept us firmly in place in the pilots chair.

If I actually knew how to pilot this thing then none of this would be a problem right now, I mentally cursed to myself.

I couldn’t see anything beyond streams of light breaking through the glass screen which had gone almost completely dark, like a fancier version of those light sensitive glasses you could buy.

I could scarcely breathe but I could feel as our trajectory changed. I could practically sense as we approached the hard, unyielding ground.

It felt like we levelled off a bit, travelling almost horizontally near the end but that wasn’t much of a relief. I’d seen video clips of how badly a commercial plane could land and I doubted crash landing like this was going to be any more gentle. I could only hope that our landing would see us landing intact, rather than hitting the ground with all the grace of a sperm whale that had found itself hopelessly out of its natural environment.

We’d done everything we could to try and survive this. There was enough slack to let us bounce around just a bit, bleeding off force as Starship Rex crashed into the earth beneath us. All I could do was hold on and pray that fate was on our side, that I and Rel would come through this in one piece.

And then finally we hit the ground.

After several long seconds of being thrown around as best the forces of nature could manage, Starship Rex came to a stop.

It was a few seconds longer before I managed to open my eyes.

The screen was turning transparent again, allowing light into the cockpit and I could see blue sky and green foliage in front of us. We had crashed into what looked like a forest and I figured that some of those trees had helped slow down our landing.

Thank you trees, your sacrifice shall be remembered.

We hadn’t landed smoothly though. We were now at an odd angle, the ship having finished its descent was tilted sideways. My weight was leaning heavily to that side but we were still held comfortably in place by the improvised restraints.

It was my companion that broke the silence.

“We survived?” Rel said, sounding more surprised than anything else.

“We survived,” I confirmed, almost laughing with relief. “You can let us go now,” I suggested.

“O-oh yeah,” Rel replied.

The glowing threads withdrew into Rel’s bracer and she climbed off me quickly.

She went too quickly though and with the floor angled like it was she slid down, barely catching herself on the side of the room.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Careful,” she warned. “It’s a steep drop.”

Taking the advice I slowly tried to push myself up but sudden dizziness overcame me and I quickly fell back down. my head fell back into the cushioned headrest behind me but even that was enough to set off a throbbing pain in my head and I gasped in pain.

“Are you okay?” Rel asked from somewhere to the side and below me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Think I shook something loose there. Just give me a minute or two.”

After giving myself enough time to recover I tried again, more carefully this time.

“Y-yeah I’m fine,” I said.

“Maybe you should just stay here,” Rel suggested carefully. “I’ll go and see if there’s any damage. I won’t be long.”

“No, I’m coming,” I argued immediately. “I’m the Captain, remember? It’s my job,” I winced as I turned my body, holding myself up on the chair so I didn’t just fall down.

The blue skinned girl didn’t seem entirely on board with my perfectly sound logic but she didn’t object.

I carefully pushed myself up and not so gracefully let myself slide down to the wall. I winced as I made contact. I’d tried to brace myself with my feet and arms but despite my efforts I still jostled my head and winced as the pain shot through me.

“See? I’m fine. Let’s go check out the ship.”

We clambered carefully up to the still open doorway and then through the corridor leading through the ship.

Nothing inside seemed to have been damaged, the rooms were exactly as I remembered them as we passed through to the cargo bay. Whatever Starship Rex was made of, it was clearly durable.

Of course I had no idea how it rated as far as sci-fi materials went, I wouldn’t be complaining though. We could only see inside thanks to the light produced by the ropes from Rel’s bracer but the living area seemed fine, the Captain’s quarters and the medical room too.

“So what now then?” I asked.

“We should make sure there isn’t any external damage,” Rel pointed out. “We could probably open the exit door in the cargo bay.”

“We don’t know if the atmosphere outside will be safe or not,” I pointed out.

“It should be. There were trees out there,” Rel told me. “Come on, let's check out the outside.”

I wanted to be sceptical about that. Most sci-fi settings glossed over the whole alien diseases or safety of the atmosphere thing. Sure there’ll be one or two episodes where that is a problem, as if to point out that the writers had thought of it. Then it would probably never show up again until it was relevant to the plot. This was obviously because it would be an unnecessary complication to the stories they were trying to tell. Like how everyone invariably spoke English for convenience’s sake, even when there was no rational reason why that would be the case.

But Rel seemed confident and she hadn’t really steered me wrong yet. I didn’t have it in me to argue the point anyway.

We found our way to the cargo room. The entrance Rel had entered through was fortunately on the side of the ship that was currently angled down, meaning that all we had to do was slide down to the wall and clamber across to the hatch.

“Can we open it manually?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s your ship,” Rel pointed out.

“A ship you know more about than me,” I pointed out, a bit annoyed. The dull throb of a headache wasn’t exactly helping my mood now that the danger seemed to be over.

With the light of Rel’s bracer, that we’d needed to see in the still offline ship. I found some buttons to press which did the trick. I narrowly avoided falling in as the doors suddenly opened, leading to a second hatch that presumably went to the outside.

Very carefully I lowered myself down onto the second doorway, letting myself fall the last couple of feet and doing nothing to help my throbbing head.

I’d need to get that checked out as soon as possible. I’d last until Starship rex came back online.

“It’s safe,” I said and Rel followed me down. Her lighter frame meant she had an easier time of it and it didn’t take long to find the second set of buttons to open up the second doorway.

Light came in from below and we could see torn up dirt and bits of destroyed timber. There was the sound of fire crackling and we carefully climbed out to view the wreckage of our landing and for the first time I saw Starship Rex from the outside.