They are obviously wrestling with thrusters and controls to try to stabilize the ship and avoid the ground, but gravity is relentless and the planet insists that we touch it.
Brace for impact!
Three seconds later, impact happens.
It’s not as bad as it could be. We’re not instantly turned into a thin smear across the surface of the alien world. Instead we bump and tumble and come apart in a variety of pieces. As the hull fractures, I see sky and land and the mess hall spray its contents all over a marsh.
All the bits and pieces of insulation wrap around me as they come flinging out of the walls, and cushion me in part. Everything is taking the load and strain of the terrible thing happening. Everything, somehow, except me.
I’m not sure how I am still alive. I assume I won’t be for much longer.
The part of the ship I am curled up in starts to rush through dense undergrowth, which slows the progress of the wreckage until finally we come to a rest.
I am alive.
I’m not even injured.
That’s amazing. I don’t know what the odds of that are, but they have to be practically zero.
“I’m alive!”
The thrill of existence washes through me. I can’t believe it. Adrenaline and excitement are pumping through me as I realize the hands of the gods themselves must have been wrapped around me in order for me to survive.
I clamber out of the broken brig and I stand atop my particular wreckage and I look out at…
An absolute sea of death and destruction. Bits of ship and bits of crew indiscriminately spread across alien terrain. It almost doesn’t look real.
Above me, the sky is roiling with fiery clouds. Something to do with our crash, I think.
I am lucky to be alive.
So many are not. So, so many. It seems to me that I might be the sole survivor.
The brig must have been specially shielded or maybe otherwise somehow protected. The rest of the vessel seems to have broken up like it was made of tissue paper. I don’t understand the engineering decisions, but I guess falling out of control through a random planet’s atmosphere was never part of the design brief.
The aftermath of the ship’s crash is…
Silence.
I really thought there would be more people coming out of the wreckage, but I don’t hear anyone.
“Hello?”
I call out. My voice sounds thin.
No other voices come back.
I sit down on the ground and I try to process what just happened, but of course I can’t. The human brain was never made to understand a crash that wipes out an entire crew. We were made to maybe fall from cliffs at worst, not come blasting out of the universe and into an alien planet.
I am alone.
More alone than I have ever been.
I try to come to terms with reality.
I can breathe the air on this planet. That’s a good thing. I don’t know what kind of animals are here. I don’t know what kind of aliens live here. I don’t know anything.
I’ve survived, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to die if I can’t work out what to do with myself. I probably need shelter. I could take shelter in the ship. I should stay here. They’ll send help.
