original

Operation: Planetfall

Chapitre 1: Part I: Normalcy is made scarce.

I woke up. I would remember that morning as the last normal part of my life. Later, dear reader, after all was said and done, I can't say I was happier before the events of that year. However, in those life and death moments, those cold nights and adrenaline-infused days, I was terrified and worried, yet proud and happy. After all, well, it was the best part of my life. But I won't keep this a secret any longer. Enjoy your read, and understand the circumstances that almost led to your doom. And remember, this story is made up of my imagination and has absolutely no relation whatsoever to any real people, organizations, or extraterrestrials, ok?

I woke up. It was a Friday morning, and I was looking forward to the weekend. I was already fantasizing about my journey to see the majestic Griffin and its door at the Zoo of England, or to see a megalodon at the Jaws Aquarium, or to experience the thrill of nearly slamming into the cold, barren Earth at Six Flags, or I could just go eat the scrumptious blue chocolate chip cookies at Grandma's House.

But first, I had to endure through these last 12 hours of intolerable torture. After waking up at 5:45 A.M, I went through my routine, culminating in a 15-minute jog at 6:30.

As I was running through an urban jungle of buildings and asphalt rivers, I noticed something was off. Call it instinct, Jedi premonitions, 6th sense, whatever you like, but the very air and ground seemed to emanate malice. Something was going to happen, I was sure of it. The street was deserted. There wasn't a single soul in sight, not even that annoying bird that's always chirping or any cars driving by.

Suddenly, there it was. Teardrop-shaped, gunmetal gray with red stripes, and floating, was a vessel about the size of a house. Aliens were my first thought, followed by my subconscious shouting back, WHERE'S THE MIB, but you know that's just a movie. My eyes showed otherwise, after all, if humans could build such a majestic steel masterpiece like the UFO I saw before me, I would be much happier with the current state of affairs of the world.

Without warning, everything took on a greenish glow. In clear and seemingly impossible defiance of the laws of gravity, in which I instantly reacted with: THE APPLE IS A LIE! I began to levitate towards the vessel. I'm no diplomat, but I think being lifted up towards a vessel without your consent means their intentions are less than friendly. I took a deep breath and prepared myself. When I reached the vessel…. I, I'm sorry to say, promptly blacked out.

I awoke in a bed. The bed sheets and pillows had the same dull color of steel, heck it even felt like steel, like someone mixed steel and hay together. I turned my head to the right. Two heavily muscled guards stood watch next to the cockpit, which was barely visible as a mess of glowing buttons. A less muscled pilot manned the ship. They were all as covered as the Royal Guard.

A sea of stars surrounded us. They weren't the benign, twinkling entities I knew from home, however. They were unnaturally stretched, twisted beyond recognition. I attempted to find the constellations I've grown up knowing like the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and the Medium Dipper, but none of them were visible, not even Orion and his faithful dog Sirius could be seen. I then realized the sheer magnitude of my current situation. I was the first human to make contact with alien life.

The sheer possibilities overwhelmed me. Was I going to meet the leader of the crew? Be on a talk show? Going to take a tour and be a diplomat? Would I be selected for a mission or lead armies? This would be an adventure, one way or another, I was sure of it. Then a second realization smacked into me. Who cares what would happen later? I had met aliens, been lifted into the air, and was currently traveling faster than light. What had already happened to me, what is currently happening to me, was more than anyone in the history of humankind could say.

We were in some kind of warp, and like a lot of sci-fi shows, the stars were stretched into lines of light as we traveled through a bluish-purplish medium.

I rested my head on the steel-colored pillow that was just as soft as metal, and promptly fell asleep to the strange and eerie sensation of being farther from home than any human who had ever lived. I didn't know what they wanted with me, or even who they were, but that was a mystery for another time.

I woke up to a jolt. My eyes flew open and I was greeted with a thunderous symphony of a celestial order, a first-hand testament to the wonders of the cosmos and the majesty of the art of exploration. The warped stars popped back into their normal spherical dots in front of my eyes.. We were in normal sublight space. We received a greeting via the sight of a small fleet in impressive, lavishly orchestrated position.

They were guarding a beautiful sight. Looking up from the darkness was a planet. Decorated with giant wavy patterns for an atmosphere, as orange as a sandblasted pyramid, it dominated the glass viewport and was our obvious destination. I muttered "Carpe Diem" as we plunged headlong into the orange, gaseous tendrils that constituted the upper atmosphere of the planet. The orange color only became more and more pronounced as we traveled downward. I had the uncomfortable sensation that pressure was building, that the atmosphere was so choked with heavy gases that it would crush me on impact.

"Approaching the Korolev facility on Bastion C", came an automated voice. Straps came out of the wall and pinned me in place. Retractable seat belts. Looks like I might have to steal some trade secrets. We plunged farther and farther, until we reached the planetary surface. It was as orange and featureless as the atmosphere, save for a small outcrop of brown buildings. Generic and small, they seemed so out of place in the grand opera I had just witnessed.

However, I guessed moisture farmers were usually not abducted and sent to Tatooine. Clearly, I was not chosen as a diplomat or representative of humanity. There was no gleaming, awe-inspiring city or a swarm of senators beckoning me. My options were slave or prisoner. I didn't like how those occupations sounded, but the idea grew like the planet beneath us.

A small pad bore the brunt of our landing. With a hiss, a floor section folded into a ramp. The guards marched me out at gunpoint, or blaster/energy weapon point. The ever-present darkness of interplanetary night was all-encompassing. Dust raged around my ankles and sweeps gritty particles all over my legs. I hate sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

"You're going to Shack 66, prisoner.", a guard informed me.

For some reason, I could understand their language. He shoved me. There were 10 rows of identical shacks. Signs marked the rows, and plates on the doors gave the number. I walked over to the 6th row and went down to number 66. For some unknown reason, I faced a strong urge to name my shack something extravagant. The Citadel, perhaps.

I opened the door, which was riddled with splinters, and meet a grim sight. A small toilet and sink, a grimy shower, and a bed that promised to be just as comfortable as the bed on the ship. Everything was caked with sand and dust. I laid down on the bed and waited for the solemn silence of sleep to find me, and promptly winced as the pinpricks of sand assaulted me. However, it was hours before I stopped tossing and turning.

A deafening siren blared, waking me up. I quickly brushed my teeth with what looked like hay and a foul-tasting paste reminiscent of wintergreen. I headed outside, where the sand was somehow even more present. I stared, despite my eyes being under constant siege by the elements, for I had just seen my first aliens. The guards had been all covered. It was indeterminable if they were even humanoid.

There were all sorts of lifeforms, some covered in fur, scaled, or even hooved. There were none with more than two eyes, however. Perhaps they separated them into different camps. I tingled with delight. There were actual aliens here, and I was out among the stars, even if I was in a prison camp.

A alien with short stalk eyes and orange skin was taking roll. There were tons of names, with all sorts of accents and flairs. I was astounded at the variety. We humans have dozens of cultures and naming traditions. If you multiply that by the roughly hundred species laid out before me in military rank, you get thousands upon thousands of types of names, not to mention the names themselves. Such diversity permeated this place. The water between the fabric was the richest thing I had ever seen. But I had a ever-growing suspicion that the fabric itself is tainted.

They called me. Prisoner FN-2187. I was assigned to the mines for a day to test my skills at mining. On the outskirts of the rows of huts were three gaping holes plunging through millions upon millions of tons of rock, labyrinthine and branching like bronchi. I was given a metal pick with a handle caked with dirt and sweat, and shown to the middle hole, sloping at a 30 degree angle. Stalactites and stalagmites were impossibly large teeth in the darkness, seeming only seconds away from leaping into action, closing and encasing all inside to an eternity of gloom.

Once I reached my assigned branch, I was told to start, and thus began a seemingly impossibly long day of backbreaking labor. Sweat was an omnipresent aroma and the grunts of those working alongside me filled the air with a sense of suffering. The dull thud of metal against rock was repeated a millionfold in the course of those horrific hours.

At the end of it all, when we were told to return to the barracks, I had no muscles, only quivering jelly that threatened to collapse under me at any given second. It was a wonder that I was able to walk. Suddenly, an alien came up to me. They had green skin, more amphibious than reptilian, and eyes with black where humans have white.

"We're all from situations like yours, you know."

"What do you mean?" Then, after thinking for a second, I realized a more perplexing concept. "Wait! How can I understand you?"

They laugh. "Feel your throat." I did, and embedded in it was a small chip, around the size of a sim card.

Panicked, I hurriedly asked, "What is this!?"

"It's some sort of translator. It shouldn't hurt you, it hasn't bothered any of us," they replied.

With that concern addressed, I resumed conversation, though somewhat more anxious than before. "What did you mean, we're all from similar situations?" I inquired.

"Well, we were all abducted, and none of our planets have seen alien life yet or begun advanced spacefaring. We're prisoners here so the guys in charge can figure out our strengths and weaknesses."

"But why would they need to figure that out? And who exactly is in charge here?" I felt the ability to think clearly, or at least some semblance of it, finally return to me.

"It's a galactic empire, called the Dejah Empire. They might control the whole galaxy or perhaps not, but they're definitely in charge here. As for your other question, I don't know why they need us here."

He happened to be in a different row than me, so we parted amicably. I wobbled over to my hut, opened the door, and made it to my bed. I lay down, asleep before I even hit my hard pillow. In retrospect, that may actually have been a good thing.

My dreams were plagued with ghostly miners riding UFO's and other assorted topics. Given my situation, that's not entirely out of order.

The next day, I was once again woken up by the blaring siren that had assailed my eardrums the day before. Today, our new overlords decided to test my intelligence by giving me some tests to take. They tested how advanced I was in math and science. I probably failed since I didn't know how alien organs worked or the science behind their Byzantine guns or even the 'astonishingly basic' Force. For that, I put option D, that you close your eyes and wave your hands around and it works. When I got the results I saw that wasn't correct. The correct choice was option C. This just adds more reasons to my list of why school isn't very useful at providing information that can actually help us.

Apparently, I was supposed to tap into this 'energy field that unites all living creatures', but that just sounded like some crazy otaku talk to me. I mean, seriously, the only proof I had was the Star Wars franchise, and let's be honest, this whole Force talk sounded just as simple as shoving monsters as big as a building into a little red ball, but you know, if you can dream it, you can do it. I was far from stunned it actually existed though, since if UFOs existed, it shouldn't be surprising for other movie things to be actually real too. As the day ended (along with my last brain cells) I trudged to my shack and drifted off into deep slumber once again.

The next day, I awoke, unsurprisingly, to the dreaded siren that was beginning to dictate my every waking moment. When I roused myself through lifting my blanket and letting the cold in, I realized I had never been so…. unoptimistic. Fortunately, the day would shine with a radiance unmatched by recent events, and its repercussions, both positive and negative, would continue to linger for a seeming eternity.

At roll call, I was promoted. There was no pomp or fanfare, no salute or even a proper balloon release. Despite such glaring oversights by Central Management, this job hung alluringly like a gleaming fishhook in a rosy sunset. A picturesque scene concealing an instrument of death in its grand cloak. It wouldn't be my death. I had been promoted…. to the sole laundry worker of the camp. It was a lifeline to me, and I grabbed it.

You may be asking how such a low-ranking assignment would elicit such an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from me. Well, you have to understand the circumstances. The laundry room, as I had heard already, was notoriously insecure, and shared a paper-thin wall with the meeting room where all the high-level personnel gathered.

That made me the principal source for the inmates. On top of that, my job was simply to load the laundry and spy on the machine while it did the hard work. Consequently, I had an incredibly large amount of free time to spend eavesdropping or doing, within limits, what I pleased. Me being the sole laundry person…. er, organism, meant that I was essentially unsupervised. The presence of boxes full of odds and ends in the room only increased that prodigious effect. If anyone got on my bad side, well, there was a lot of bad things that could happen to them.

I was in a position of power. Of course, I had to be additionally nice to the guards and administration. Those in power are afraid to lose it. I, unremarkably, was no exception. Months later, the very same guards who looked condescendingly down at me would be terrified at my very presence. But that's for later.

I reported to my post. It was a dull, cubical room painted a beige the color of dust. In the center was a gray sphere the size of a large dining table. Then in came the hovering carts full of clothes. Loading the carts was rather easy. The hovers made them light, and you just dumped clothes inside. It took about 15 minutes. Afterward came the impossible task of pushing a button conveniently located at a panel. I'm underestimating it, I know. After that, until the cycle was done, I was free, as free as a songbird, as free as a comet hurtling through the inky void of the great unknown. I tried various pursuits. I tried to hear any conversations through the thin wall. I paced. Then, eureka.

I started scoping out the prison. The guards let me out. In this remote corner of the galaxy, the security were just farm boys who dreamed of grand adventures among the stars…. and got this. It didn't hurt that I did their laundry as well. All I had to watch out for was the occasional high-level officer who wandered out from their air-conditioned, gourmet-supplied administration building. They had their own laundry service, free from my influence and power. So it wasn't unlimited power.

I looked scrupulously for any sort of crack in the wall, the guard shifts, and the schedule for the prisoners. Unfortunately, even if I did escape, the rest of this small planet was nothing but a sandy desert. It was protected in the same manner as Alcatraz, with the environment acting as a barrier. I still couldn't find any sort of way out of the enigmatic mess of intergalactic power that had become my day to day life.

I went back to my laundry, grumbling. I had loved how Palpatine had slowly forced the Republic's laws against itself, weakened it from the inside. I had smiled maniacally as he made the Republic turn against its ideals and hypermilitarized it. I had nearly laughed as he turned the people against the Jedi Order. The rise of the Empire was fun, as long as you weren't living in it.

The ding of the laundry machine forced me out of my philosophical musings. Then began the much longer process of unloading the laundry. It took three hours. I stared at the shelves full of odds and ends in the laundry room. I was tempted to put the ornately carved stone… thing in a prisoner's pocket. But that would only serve to decrease my popularity. I decided against it.

My stomach growled like a chorus of grieving wolves silhouetted in the cold moonlight. another siren noise informed us of lunch. I hurried over to the mess hall. Like every other building, any ounce of character or charm had been savagely suppressed into nonexistence by the coarse, rough, irritating sands. The dust storms howled like yellow blizzards across the dreary landscape. It must have originally been gray, but was now a faded yellow.

I went inside, and I was in line. The interior layout was very similar to a school cafeteria. However, the food (if you can call it that) was just a few bars which appeared like granola bars. They were called Bracket 3A SNDS, which basically meant Standard Nutrient Delivery System for organisms with roughly human-like needs in terms of food. Of course, they didn't call it human-like. Species were separated into brackets based on their dietary needs. Yes, I am truly a monster for my humanocentric comparisons.

Afterwards, I simply strolled around the grounds and took a nap. I was met around every corner with looks of veiled envy. Due to my job, I had an atmosphere of respect the size of Jupiter surrounding me. Even the guards grudgingly listened to me, as long as I didn't ask for anything too outrageous. The only ones immune were the higher-up Central Management, people like military officers and the warden and such. When it came time for sleep, I fell asleep relatively quickly. Not a single dream came to me, and the next morning dawned quickly.

The next day, during my daily afternoon stroll, I continued to look for any weaknesses or vulnerabilities in the guard regime or physical barriers. Increasingly, it seemed the only way to escape would be to sneak off world. Just then, someone tapped my shoulder. I whirled around like a pulsar. It was the same alien from a couple days earlier, with skin the color of Betelgeuse. "You're trying to escape, aren't you?"

"No, are you?" I retorted.

"Look, we all want to get off this rock. I'm just saying, you have some serious influence, and I've got some knowledge of how this place works. We should come up with a plan together. Oh, I'm Ibo Ken, by the way, but you can call me Ken."

I considered his proposal. "Sure." Ken quickly sauntered away, as a guard was marching toward us. When Ken left, the guard shook his head and went back to his post. The rest of the day was uneventful. This place had that effect on you. I had only been here for a few days and already I was slipping into a routine that would only promise more boredom in the future.

The next six days were just repetitive routine that seemingly continued on without an end in sight. Everything about this place, I realized, was meant to wear down and demoralize the occupants, of course. It was waging war on our souls and bodies, a lengthy siege. I continued to scope around for weaknesses and do my job. Ken and I met and discussed plans at length, many outlandish, things like feigning death, sickness, hiding in cargo, and more. The twin suns continued to rise and set in an irritatingly perfect fashion.

On the next day, something eventful happened. I had just finished the laundry and had a couple of minutes before lunch was officially started. I was heading towards the mess hall when I spotted a new member of this wretched place to call home. She was very human-like, save for lilac skin. And those huge eyes, which were pitch black, barring her swirling lavender nebulae. She didn't wear the standard brown pants and shirt of the prisoners, but clothes more befitting a normal, general person you might see on a non-military-occupied planet. I wasn't an expert in galactic fashion by any means, so I couldn't say if what she was wearing was in style or not.

I walked over. "Hello. I'm Ana."

"I'm Celene."

"When did you arrive?"

"I've been here for a few weeks. My dad…. works here, but I've been sick for a while. New diseases in the Outer Rim, I guess."

"Oh. Well, nice to meet you."

"You too." Just then, the bell for lunch rang, and the whole area erupted into the thrice-daily, sudden outbreak of pandemonium that was caused by food. I, fortunately, was an exception. After taking my nutrient bars and saving one for a snack, (you weren't allowed to do that, but like Ken said, I had some influence) I went outside once more. There, I met the new inmate again.

"I didn't realize how horrible this place is, you know." She told me.

"Well, it isn't especially bad for me, since I do everyone's laundry, but I see the mine workers collapsing on their beds every night. I see their clothes hanging loosely off their emaciated frames. We've all been detained unfairly." She just looked at me. "I've been wanting to escape, you know, get out of here."

Her eyes widened. She turned, ready to sprint to the nearest guard and tell the guard about my intentions. I grabbed her arm. "I just want to see my family again, be back on my home world. Is that so wrong, especially when you have been thrown in prison for doing nothing?"

Celene hesitated. "Alright, I'm not going to turn you in, but I don't agree with you. You've been put into prison for a reason, surely. The Empire wouldn't waste their food and money on you otherwise."

"I know there's a reason, it's just what the reason could be that worries me." I explained. She looked at me with a hint of a smile and walked away. I was left to ponder her allegiance and if I could use her help in my escape plans.

The rest of the day went as usual. I relaxed and slept. Despite how comfortable that seemed, I ached with loss. I'd lost everything when I was brought here.

The next week went by like all the days here seemed to. When I was not doing the laundry, I was convincing Celene to join me. She was very hesitant. One of our conversations went like this:

"Look, I see your point, but maybe they're doing some sort of testing on you guys. I don't know."

"What kind of testing is done by imprisoning somebody? That only furthers the hypothesis that they're doing something nefarious." I explained.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?", she retorted snappily.

"You have access to the Officer's Quarters, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Snoop around in there and see what you find."

She recoiled. "No!"

Fortunately, I'd been making progress. I talked to Celene again today. "Have you gone in and looked around yet?"

"I'll go tonight." She sighed and looked around. "But if there's nothing there, you won't escape."

"Deal." I promised.

She sighed again, shook her head and walked away. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

There was nothing to do but wait, act normal. The dust raged repeatedly in the area. Perhaps the planet itself was punishing me for my plans. Perhaps it felt pangs of jealousy, for I would be leaving this vast desert behind soon enough. Meanwhile, whatever normalcy can be felt from doing laundry in an alien prison camp came to me.

All was quiet, even the dust. It seemed the night was Argus-eyed, watching my progress. I took an unnecessarily anfractuous path toward the center of the camp. The shadows seemed to cast illusions of astrobleme everywhere. I couldn't help but feel we were carrying out a camisado. But not even the ever-present darkness could obnubilate the stars. It was like a giant hand has tossed sparkling crystals into an impossibly smooth velvet. The sheer numbers were staggering; the idea of other suns incomprehensible to the human mind, what with the sheer distance and time. Some were bright and close, draped in celestial finery. Others looked like small sparks barely visible behind the dark veil that framed them, seemingly from the trails of angels whirling in the sky, themselves composed of thousands of stars. All of them seemed to beckon me among their ranks, empower me with the mightiest of resolve. They had cast off the chains of the dark and beseeched me to the same. I ran like the wind.

Celene was waiting for me. She stood distraught in an open clearing. The moon shone a spotlight down on her. She was racked with sobs. I approached cautiously. "What's wrong, Celene?" I queried. She offered no answer, just thrust a folder at me. I opened it as if I was in possession of Pandora's Box and looked at the papers within. It contained the plans for a superweapon known as the STGM. Details were scarce, but I just looked at the introduction.

I just stared. This had to do something with my capture. Just what, exactly? I tentatively handed the folder back to Celene, and staggered toward my cabin. Despite what I tried, sleep was always far away.

The next day, Celene was nowhere to be seen all morning. It wasn't until right after lunch when she reappeared. Despite the tumultuous revelations that had occured the previous night, she appeared none the worse for wear. "You know, I've decided to help you escape." A half smile appeared on her face. "It'll be fun."

Despite the grin, I could tell she was still reeling from last night. Just then, a clearing throat reminded us we had larger problems. Ken stood right there, looking at us. "Uh… Hi!" He did not appear to be reciprocating my greeting.

"So, you're escaping?" We stood in silence. "Just take me with you, alright?" Celene and I glanced at each other. What choice did we have? If we didn't, he might tell the guards.

"Okay." And thus, the plan was sealed.

The next few days were not quite as boring as the others. Celene, Ken, and I huddled together, plotting away. And as such, on February 27th, Earthen time (I had been keeping track of the days in order to attempt to keep a connection with my home planet), we made our bold escapade. Everything would have to work as perfectly as a well-oiled machine for this plan to succeed. Trust would be paramount. If any one of us wanted to sabotage the plan, we could do so. We had to believe. Just believe we could fly.

The plan was put into motion as the sun set. It was just a few minutes before guard change, and the guards were weary. Celene would start it. She would take an officer's card and send us the signal. I would distract the guards while Ken came up from behind and knocked them out quietly. Then Celene would unlock the shuttle on the pad and we would take it to the capital, Coruscant. Coruscant had regular space flights to nearly every major planet. It was huge and contained over a trillion organisms. From there, we could lie low. Adrenaline ran through my pumping heart.

Celene left. I crouched, waiting, Ken beside me. A few tense minutes later, she reappeared, nonchalant. The guards were used to her comings and goings out of Central Management. Then she tapped her cheek. I limped up to one of the two guards guarding the shuttle.

"Can you help me? I think my leg is broken." I winced for effect.

"Show me."

"Agh, it burns!"

"Show me!"

Ken came up to the guard and kicked him in the back of the knee. He clamped a hand over the guards' mouth and headbutted him. We laid him on the grass. We did the same routine for the other guard, facing the opposite direction. I ran over to Celene, who opened the shuttle. Luxurious couches, six blaster rifles and a heavy minigun, complete with two pistols. Celene knew how to fly and took the helm at the front. I sat in a couch. Ken walked over to a bed and laid down, out for the night. We closed the door and blasted off. Everyone was looking at the shuttle. I smiled as the stars grew brighter. We were free.

The next day, I awoke from the best sleep I'd had in weeks. The beds were more comfortable then at the camp, but that was no surprise. This was hardly a prison ship, after all. But something else made the sleep enjoyable Perhaps it had been the escapades of the previous night, exhausting me to the point where my body could no longer function, or maybe… Maybe it had been the weight lifted off my shoulders, the incredible relief of being freed from an unknown fate that had finally allowed me to relax, for the first time in weeks.

Looking up, I saw that Celene was still at the helm, presumably having been there for the whole night.

"Celene, have you been flying all night?" I inquired.

"Why yes, I have. If only somebody could help me pilot this. I sure wish somebody could be more useful and contribute a bit more," Celene replied sarcastically.

"I would help if I could, but if I pilot this, we would probably slam into the ground before we get to Coruscant." I replied.

"Yeah, you definitely need to be educated in the art of piloting a Phi-class fighter before I let you pilot my precious Manumitter."

"You haven't renamed it something cooler? The Executor or the Retribution, perhaps?" She just looked at me as if she was wondering how long I could last outside the airlock.

As we flew across the now familiar sea of stars, I pondered the reason I was chosen by the Dejah Empire as a prisoner. Was it some special reason, or perhaps just pure luck? Or unluck, in this instance. Was it because I had a relatively high IQ or just some random choice? My reverie suddenly ceased, along with my stomach, as we finally arrived at our destination, Coruscant.

"Ugh, does this ever get any better?" I groaned.

"It's hyperspace sickness." Celene replied. "You'll get used to it eventually." Just then, Ken suddenly sat up, awake at last. He gasped for air.

"Oh, gosh. That never does get any better, does it?"

"Well, our warp expert here says you'll get used to it," I replied.

Celene glared at me. "Anyway, we're on autopilot for a landing. Does anyone have a plan?"

"Alright." I took a deep breath and continued. Our freedom depended on this. "Let's find some old building to stay the night. Then perhaps we can hijack a shuttle to a military station where we can get back to Earth."

"Sounds good to me," Steve replied.

"Good enough." Celene agreed.