The Death Planet

"We're going to crash on this planet!" Craig shouted, flipping from the autopilot to manual and swinging into place to steer the ship.

"Loren, find out everything you can about that planet," said Jerry, strapping into his seat and swiping the sleep from his eyes.

Loren jumped into her seat and started punching commands into her console as she fought with her seatbelt. "I'm not finding anything," she called out tersely.

"Not good enough," growled Jerry, leaning as far forward as his belt would let him, staring intently at the planet in the front viewport. It was growing larger by the second.

"What happened?" asked Erica, stumbling into the room last, blinking furiously as she all but fell into her seat.

"The ship got too close to an asteroid belt that wasn't on the maps," said Jerry, rubbing his forehead and glancing at his own display screen. "We've taken damage to the engines and need to land to make emergency repairs."

"Assuming we land in one piece," Craig added, fighting with the controls.

"I'm not finding anything about this planet," Loren threw out. "The entire area is marked dangerous on the map and there's no information of any planets at all."

Jerry cursed and turned to Erica, "Find anything and get a signal sent out ASAP. If we damage our coms in this landing…"

Erica nodded and immediately started droning out the emergency distress signal with their coordinates.

"If this area is blacked out," whispered Loren, glancing at Jerry.

"I know, but we don't have a choice. Have you managed to get any scans from the planet below? Can we even survive there?"

"We'll need rebreathers but otherwise the atmosphere is fine. There's a ton of lifeforms but I have no time to get better scans to find out if they're deadly or not."

Jerry nodded to himself as the ship began to buckle under the turbulence.

"Get everyone rebreathers and their emergency packs. Craig, how much time can you buy us?"

"I can give us maybe ten minutes, but the engines are already giving me major trouble."

Loren started strapping the rebreathers around everyone's necks for them to put on when they could and then headed to the back of the bridge to get the emergency packs. Jerry positioned his rebreather nervously, then narrowed his eyes.

"First thing is to land in one piece, Craig. Erica, have you managed to get a signal out?"

"If anyone has heard it, no one is responding," she said softly before turning back to continue trying.

They all knew someone should have responded. The fact that it was blacked out territory meant the government had decided it was too dangerous to travel to. There might be a scrambler preventing their messages from getting out so that if a ship did go down here, no one would come to help and get trapped too…

After Erica tried again with no success Jerry piped up, "Alright, we need to assume that no one is going to come to our aid. Erica, start investigating the damage and see what is needed for repairs. The more we know when we land, the better off we'll be."

Erica nodded, repositioning her rebreather and strapping the emergency bag from Loren on. Her fingers flew across her monitor and Jerry turned his attention to Loren as she sat back down and buckled back in.

"Loren, find out what you can about the life down there. We need to assume they're hostile based on the blackout status of the area, but if there's anything sentient, I would like to know now."

Everyone seemed to pause for a moment before returning to their tasks. Loren and Craig threw coordinates at each other as the ship sank further and further towards the surface. They were aiming to land near a body of water so that if they were there for an extended period, their survival chances would go up.

Jerry fought not to chew on his lip. Was there anything else he could do? It was his job as the captain to think of problems and solve them before they happened. Pulling up the list of the cargo docket, he scanned it quickly to make sure there hadn't been any changes while everyone slept in cold sleep. Could this have been deliberate sabotage? All the members of his crew had been with him for years. He trusted them, but that didn't mean money didn't talk.

Something caught his eye just as Craig cried out in alarm.

"We have incoming!"

All eyes snapped to the screen at the front in time to see large flying creatures streaming towards the ship.

"They'll make impact in less than thirty seconds!" cried Craig, steering the ship away from them as Loren frantically made corrections based on their course changes.

"My scans show significant damage to the forefront of the engine itself," reported Erica in the tense silence. "We don't have the necessary supplies on hand to make the repairs that are needed."

Jerry cursed again as he watched Craig dodge the giant creatures. They looked like worm dragons. They had huge mouths that opened the size of their bodies, and inside the maw that was their mouth, rows of teeth threatened to rip open the fragile skin of the ship. This ship was never meant to be in atmosphere. It would be a miracle if it survived landing at all.

"Everything will shut down in two minutes to prevent overload," added Erica, looking up at him. "I've done everything I can to reroute power to give us more time."

"Jerry! I found ruins of some kind!" exclaimed Loren.

"What?"

"I don't think it's just a ship, it might be a settlement! The size is too big to just be a ship."

"Is there anyone there?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"If there was, they would have responded to our signal," muttered Erica, turning back to watch her monitor.

"I can't tell. There's a lot of activity but the scans can't tell me if they're human or not."

"Craig, get us as close as you can," said Jerry, leaning back in his seat.

"It'll be close all right," growled Craig, straining at the controls.

Fighting to keep his breathing under control, Jerry watched as the settlement grew larger in the view port. A large colony ship had landed and started the process of building the colony, but it was obvious as they drew closer that it never finished. That was good. There would be plenty of supplies for them to use and maybe people they could wake up to help.

Screaming, Craig swung the ship hard in a U-turn, losing most of the creatures that were chasing them and brought the ship into a hanger just as the engine alarm began to sound. They set down in a ship cradle with seconds to spare.

With sounds of alarms and various mechanical clicks and ticking, they sat for a moment listening to the creatures screaming in rage outside.

"Can they not get into the hanger?" asked Erica softly.

"No," said Craig, unbuckling and standing up. "The entrance has a barrier that prevents nonhuman biological entities from entering on their own."

Jerry nodded in agreement and went to hit the button on his console to close the cargo list before anyone saw it, but it was already closed from power shutting down. No reason to let anyone know he was suspecting a traitor. He would have to remember to close it when they got power back.

"Then we're safe here?" asked Loren, glancing over at Jerry.

"For now. With everything shut down, we have no access to any of the reports you managed to create on the life here or to anything Erica found about the engine. Since this is a colony ship, there should be supplies we can use to fix anything that's wrong."

"And if there's not, it will have a factory capable of building what we need," nodded Craig with a sigh.

"This is good then, right?" asked Loren, glancing at the grim looks around her.

"We don't know why the colony ship stopped in the middle of building the colony," said Erica, unbuckling and standing up. "It takes a lot for that to happen."

"We're safe for the moment. Even with no power, we have plenty of air to breathe and access to water and food for days. I say we take some time to rest, gather our wits and make a plan before we don't have time to do those things."

Everyone nodded, following Jerry to the living quarters. The emergency lights gave them plenty of light to find a place to sit around the dining table.

"I need some coffee before the adrenaline in my system crashes," joked Erica, moving over to the dispenser and pulling open the drawer.

"That's not a bad idea," agreed Loren, following her.

"What are we going to do, Jerry," asked Craig, looking at him seriously. "You know that fixing this ship isn't going to be as easy as you're making it out to be. None of us have any experience working on interplanetary ships and just because this place is set up to handle a colony of people doesn't mean it's going to have what we need or respond to us."

Jerry nodded, thinking hard as the girls gathered their drinks and returned to the table.

Before he could say anything, however, a new alarm began to blare.

"That's the breach alarm!" gasped Erica with wide eyes.