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Planetoid
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2011
- Location
- in the heat
The ship flew into the rift. Before they could see much of anything on the other side, the proximity alert went off.
"Cut back engines to ahead dead slow!" Gadreg wheezed, his version of shouting. "Full left rudder!" But it was too little, too late. Moments later, the sleek black ship slammed into a large, gray, heavily cratered planetoid and skipped off like a rubber ball. As it careened away from the rock, out of control with all engine and steering destroyed, they found out that the planetoid was actually a moon, and they were on a collision course with the mother planet.
Again, the proximity alert screamed its warning. Gadreg sounded an abandon ship alarm, then ordered the tactical officer to cloak the ship, since they didn't know the technological level of whatever sentient species were on that planet. Fortunately, it happened before any telescopes saw it.
By the time the ship reached Earth's atmosphere, all the crew was except Gadreg, Abiallan, and the chief medical officer, who refused to leave if there was a chance of injury on the ship. There was, because the initial shock of hitting the moon had thrown Abiallan from her bed, breaking her leg. Because of this, she could not move fast enough to get to an escape pod. There were enough for everyone on board, plus ten percent, but a full fifteen tubes had been destroyed in the first impact. Finding that there were no more operable escape pods, Abiallan, with the medical officer's help, limped to the bridge, were Gadreg had laid himself on the deck face down and driven his arm and leg-spikes into the floor. When Abiallan and the doctor arrived, he did the only thing he could think of. He ordered them to lay cross-wise beneath his feet, then placed his tail tight across them and drove the blade into the deck. Hopefully, that would hold them.
In a perfect world, without minute differences in air density to turn the ship about, that would have been sufficient, if only to save their lives. With only his tail holding them, spinal injuries were pretty much guaranteed. Unfortunately, nothing within Earth's atmosphere is perfect, and the Piper began to spin crazily seconds after entry. Like any spacecraft, no matter how stable in controlled entry, an uncontrolled entry could destroy it, given enough time and speed. Fortunately, it did not even enter at half sublight. They were also lucky in that it didn't fall quite as far as it could have. The ship careened toward the Rocky Mountains, strewing hot debris across the landscape. By the time it crashed into a mountainside just yards above the treeline, more than a third of its outer hull was gone, along with all the weapons hidden behind thin panels, and the landing gears.
Fortunately for both the Piper and the civilians below, the ship's cloaking device remained undamaged until the final impact. The artificial gravity generator gave out at the same time, so that both devices, each weighing at least a quarter ton, flew forward and to the right, to slam through the forward bulkhead. Other objects, most lighter, but some heavier, went flying as well. Due to the ship striking the mountainside with an almost fourty-five degree yaw, Gadreg's tail, fully forward of his two charges, could not restrain them. Both slid out from under his tail, careening toward the starboard bow corner of the bridge. Abiallan screamed and grabbed for her husband's ankle, even as Gadreg wrenched his tail from the deck and whipped it around in an attempt to catch her. Neither was fast enough. Abiallan slammed into the starboard wall with a sickening crunch and bounced, plowing the doctor, already silent in acceptance of his fate, into the forward wall with deadly force.
Being semi-aquatic, Abiallan had very dense and heavy bones. The doctor also came from a relatively low-gravity planet. He died instantly, with relatively little pain. Abiallan lost consciousness, cracked three vertebra to pinch her spinal cord, and broke several ribs, three of which punctured her lungs - both of them. The impacts also collapsed her right lung. As if that wasn't enough, Gadreg opened a deep gash on her left thigh in his attempt to catch her.
Though the shape of his spikes guaranteed that the only direction Gadreg could go was straight aft, he wasn't home free. The communications console, in the port stern section of the bridge, also tore loose of its moorings. The two-hundred pound 'desk' spun across the bridge, striking Gadreg on the back hard enough to jostle his spine, pinching the motor and sensation nerves to his legs.
As soon as everything settled down, except for a half-dozen alarms going off, Gadreg pulled his arm spikes, and, with a little more effort, his leg spikes, out of the deck. He then proceeded to drag himself painfully toward the exit. After struggling for a few minutes, he got to the forward air lock and used his tail to slice open the panel containing the Planetside Survival kit. Opening it, he removed the universal translator and clipped it to his belt, then removed a self-righting holographic position flare. He adjusted it for the conditions, turned it on, and threw it out the hatch.
The moment the holoflare hit the snow just a couple feet from the treeline, it activated, emitting a one hundred foot high chartreuse arrow pointing toward the computer banks in the center of the ship. Just in case nobody noticed that, he pulled out a flare launcher and fired a chartreuse flare up and out, over the trees.
"Cut back engines to ahead dead slow!" Gadreg wheezed, his version of shouting. "Full left rudder!" But it was too little, too late. Moments later, the sleek black ship slammed into a large, gray, heavily cratered planetoid and skipped off like a rubber ball. As it careened away from the rock, out of control with all engine and steering destroyed, they found out that the planetoid was actually a moon, and they were on a collision course with the mother planet.
Again, the proximity alert screamed its warning. Gadreg sounded an abandon ship alarm, then ordered the tactical officer to cloak the ship, since they didn't know the technological level of whatever sentient species were on that planet. Fortunately, it happened before any telescopes saw it.
By the time the ship reached Earth's atmosphere, all the crew was except Gadreg, Abiallan, and the chief medical officer, who refused to leave if there was a chance of injury on the ship. There was, because the initial shock of hitting the moon had thrown Abiallan from her bed, breaking her leg. Because of this, she could not move fast enough to get to an escape pod. There were enough for everyone on board, plus ten percent, but a full fifteen tubes had been destroyed in the first impact. Finding that there were no more operable escape pods, Abiallan, with the medical officer's help, limped to the bridge, were Gadreg had laid himself on the deck face down and driven his arm and leg-spikes into the floor. When Abiallan and the doctor arrived, he did the only thing he could think of. He ordered them to lay cross-wise beneath his feet, then placed his tail tight across them and drove the blade into the deck. Hopefully, that would hold them.
In a perfect world, without minute differences in air density to turn the ship about, that would have been sufficient, if only to save their lives. With only his tail holding them, spinal injuries were pretty much guaranteed. Unfortunately, nothing within Earth's atmosphere is perfect, and the Piper began to spin crazily seconds after entry. Like any spacecraft, no matter how stable in controlled entry, an uncontrolled entry could destroy it, given enough time and speed. Fortunately, it did not even enter at half sublight. They were also lucky in that it didn't fall quite as far as it could have. The ship careened toward the Rocky Mountains, strewing hot debris across the landscape. By the time it crashed into a mountainside just yards above the treeline, more than a third of its outer hull was gone, along with all the weapons hidden behind thin panels, and the landing gears.
Fortunately for both the Piper and the civilians below, the ship's cloaking device remained undamaged until the final impact. The artificial gravity generator gave out at the same time, so that both devices, each weighing at least a quarter ton, flew forward and to the right, to slam through the forward bulkhead. Other objects, most lighter, but some heavier, went flying as well. Due to the ship striking the mountainside with an almost fourty-five degree yaw, Gadreg's tail, fully forward of his two charges, could not restrain them. Both slid out from under his tail, careening toward the starboard bow corner of the bridge. Abiallan screamed and grabbed for her husband's ankle, even as Gadreg wrenched his tail from the deck and whipped it around in an attempt to catch her. Neither was fast enough. Abiallan slammed into the starboard wall with a sickening crunch and bounced, plowing the doctor, already silent in acceptance of his fate, into the forward wall with deadly force.
Being semi-aquatic, Abiallan had very dense and heavy bones. The doctor also came from a relatively low-gravity planet. He died instantly, with relatively little pain. Abiallan lost consciousness, cracked three vertebra to pinch her spinal cord, and broke several ribs, three of which punctured her lungs - both of them. The impacts also collapsed her right lung. As if that wasn't enough, Gadreg opened a deep gash on her left thigh in his attempt to catch her.
Though the shape of his spikes guaranteed that the only direction Gadreg could go was straight aft, he wasn't home free. The communications console, in the port stern section of the bridge, also tore loose of its moorings. The two-hundred pound 'desk' spun across the bridge, striking Gadreg on the back hard enough to jostle his spine, pinching the motor and sensation nerves to his legs.
As soon as everything settled down, except for a half-dozen alarms going off, Gadreg pulled his arm spikes, and, with a little more effort, his leg spikes, out of the deck. He then proceeded to drag himself painfully toward the exit. After struggling for a few minutes, he got to the forward air lock and used his tail to slice open the panel containing the Planetside Survival kit. Opening it, he removed the universal translator and clipped it to his belt, then removed a self-righting holographic position flare. He adjusted it for the conditions, turned it on, and threw it out the hatch.
The moment the holoflare hit the snow just a couple feet from the treeline, it activated, emitting a one hundred foot high chartreuse arrow pointing toward the computer banks in the center of the ship. Just in case nobody noticed that, he pulled out a flare launcher and fired a chartreuse flare up and out, over the trees.
