The Way Back [Book 2 of One Tragic End to a Million Stories]

Sudden Issues

When I woke up, I expected everything to be fine, since I fell asleep peacefully, but, of course, that wasn't the case.

"Good morning, Captain. We are currently one month into our journey."

"One month?" I echoed. "That means..."

"Coffee is en route. Current ship status is moderately catastrophic."

"Moderately catastrophic?" I echoed, again. "That's never happened... It's always been either normal or absolutely catastrophic..."

"Initializing Emergency Wakey-Wakey Protocol." The cryo-pod door opened and I was let out of the cryo-pod. "Reviving Head Engineer."

I went to the cryo-pod and opened his door. "Captain? Please tell me we made it..." He exited his cryo-pod.

"No, but don't worry. I don't think the same things are happening, but just in case, let's get those blast sheilds closed." I closed the bast sheilds. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and waited for the fire. "We need to..."

Nothing.

"Yeah, the same things aren't happening. We need to figure out what is happening and why. Computer?"

"We are being pulled in by the gravitational pull of another planet after an asteroid threw us off course."

"An asteroid threw us off course? Why didn't the ADS shoot, and please don't say--?"

"The ADS missed."

"That's it? It just... missed? It's not offline?"

"No."

"No, it's not offline?" I asked.

"No."

"No, it's not... not offline?" I asked, tilting my head.

"No."

"What...? Is the ADS offline or not?!" I asked, growing irritated.

"No."

"You better not be lying!" I turned to Mark. "Are you okay?"

"Um... I don't know... I think--" The ship violently shook.

"Warning. Altitude decreasing at an alarming rate."

"What?! Open those blast shields!" The best shields open and, sure enough, we were falling very fast. "Wake them up! Wake everybody up! Everyone! The colonists, the crew...! If they're asleep, wake them up!"

Soon, the room flooded with crewmembers. "Captain, what's happening?!" Celci yelled over the panicked chatter.

"The ADS missed and now, we're being pulled in by the gravitational pull of another planet!"

"How did we get here?!"

"An asteroid threw us off course!" I glared at Gunther. "Gunther! Why didn't the ADS--?!"

Then, we crashed, and everything went black.