Chapter Thirteen: Survivors

Jonathan didn't even feel it when the perceptions of the universe changed - or maybe they didn't, if Grinder was right. the fact was, at one moment the ship was in the outter reached of the Port Orpheus system, and then it was suddenly in the Ranch system.
Jonathan realised that he didn't really understand where he was supposed to be going, but this wasn't it. The basic principal seemed to say that the ship was supposed to go to the ranch system and drop into orbit around the moon.
The problem was, there must have been some sort of error. Almost out of nowhere, alarms began ringing in the ship. Looking out the window, there was no doubt that what they were looking at wasn't the moon of Ranch.
Griner could see that this was a dangerous position. The moon of ranch should not have a ring of armed platforms. It should not be so big, and furthermore, it should not have had an atmosphere.
"Magdalina!" Grinder shouted. "Where are we?"
As if on que, the three orignal crew members were awakened by a screaming alarm that bit through the ship. Helen leaned over her chair and vomited, Andy colapsed into a fetal position, and Captain Fortworth screamed as if in terror before slipping back into unconscienceousness.
The woman up front yelled "Vaudeveldt! Weapons locks all over the system. Sir, the Taperts are demanding to know why we dropping in so close to a planet in a restricted system. What should I do?"
"Good Lord! Vaudeveldt! How did we get here?"
"I don't know sir! The Idealist must have done it, somehow! What to do about the demands being made?"
The bleating alarm suddenly increased in urgency. There were flahses from teh nearest platform in orbit around the planet.
"Weapons fire." Grinder mutterered. He immediately set the controls in montion. It was tough to bring the ship up to operating speed after it had sat dormant for so long, waiting to be preceived elsewhere. It was sluggish, but somehow grinder managed to twist it around and about, dodging the first set of missles. the next volly, however, was launched from more than one direction, and Grinder was working off of limited radar scope. A rocket bashed into the lower section of the ship. A new alaram started to bleat in the cockpit of the ship.
"That's the decompression alarm!" Grinder yelled, and he grabbed Andy. "Head for the door!" he shouted over the din. Jonathan smashed the control pad that would shunt the controls of the ship to the aft sections. Then he grabbed Captain Fortworth's collar and started pulling him towards the door. Magdelina had grabbed onto helen.
There was a kind of whooshing noise that drowned out all the alarms, and Jonathan felt a large tug backwards. There was a sucking noise and a clap as the pressure doors sealed all over the ship, simultaniusly. He was in a small compartment alone with the Captain of the dying vessle. There were no controls in what was essentially a hallway, only buttons to open or close the pressure doors. There was nothing he could do but sit with the still unconsious captain and see what might happen.
He didn't expect there to be a soft landing. When the ship crashed through the atmosphere, Jonathan believed he was going to die. the first time it skipped off the soil, he was thrown into a wall and lost consiousness.

Inspecter Graft looked at the wreckage. It was still smoking in the bright daylight. a black plume scorged across the sky. The plains around him were covered in short grassy plants, indigenous to Vaudeveldt. It was an outpost world of the Tapert familiy - a military base. He was the head of the planetary police body. he had had a lot of trouble with the Realists recently. It was tricky business, trying to keep it from the public, and he couldn't help but feel that this random craft, a Spacing Commision ship, was somehow tied into the whole affair. The Spacing Commision knew better than come to this world.
He scanned the horizen, looking. They had been here before his team. The Realists. He didn't know why, but his team had looked over the ship for the past day, looking for a clue as to why. They had been inside the vessle, that much was apparent. But why? There seemed to be no explination as to why.
"Sir," a graceful young woman said from near his side. "We've got confitmation from the other team." Graft scanned across the horizon to the other plum of smoke - where the rest of the ship had landed.
"One body," the woman said. "That's a total of three. Standard crew for a vessle of this sort."
"Why were they here?" Graft asked rhetorically. "What were they up to?"

Jonathan was surprised by the light when he opened is eyes. It was bright, and white. It look like the light from Earth. he wished there was some way he could believe thats what it was. He knew better than to hope, though.
He was in a bed, he knew that much. There was pain, a lot of it. Maybe 'eyes' wasn't the right term, he realised. Only one was open, the other was occluded by something. His limbs were encapsuled in plaster. He didn't even try to move.
Andy walked into view. He was covered in a network of burns. There was no way he could have come out of a crash like the one they were in without sustaining serious injury - there was no crash webbing, only walls to stop your fall from space. It was a miracle that they were alive at all.
Jonathan tried to speak. His throat was raw, but he bit back the pain and asked "How?"
Andy looked at him and seemed to understand. He smiled. "Remember Jon - The pain? It doesn't really exist."
As if signaling his growing hatred of this concept, Jonathan slipped back into the darkness.