With all of the Stars in the Sky

1, Azele

Word Count: 1,051

Azele was hurtling through space trying to contact their fleet commander, but there was something wrong.

The commander didn't respond.

"Shit," they said, angrily. "Star-fleet A-17, come in," they urged the still lifeless radio to respond. There was nothing scarier than being marooned in space without communication. Now they were utterly alone.

The ship's systems flashed warnings, but there was nothing Azele could do. No amount of skill or quick thinking could fix the broken communications or stop the inevitable crash. They were trapped in a falling coffin, and for the first time, they felt the full weight of their helplessness.

Azele had been separated from the fleet while in a dogfight with an enemy ship. While avoiding a shot from the powerful X93 proton cannons, they had flown far off course, and now their fleet would not respond.

Their brain was chaos, all of the carefully organized shelves of knowledge in disarray, thrown aside in the search for a solution. "Collision course detected," chirped the ship's computer.

"What? In how long?" they panicked from the suddenness of the announcement.

They never thought they would die in the middle of space, well they kind of did when they joined the space militia of the Perseus arm, but they expected to die in battle! 

"Collision course detected in 2000 kilometers, fuel insufficient to change course." UGH. "When we approach 115 km, initiate landing procedures," oh no.

Azele was about to crash into an undocumented planet, with low fuel and no communication. They prepped the ship for the gravity of the planet. According to the scanning system, whatever good that was at this distance, the world's gravity constant was roughly 9.8 meters per second squared, 1.2 g's compared to their home-world. Great. They would be living on a planet that was heavier than what they were used to. 

They heard the engines flare as they reached 50 km and the procedure to slow down was activated. Azele felt a vibration as the decoupler fired and sent the two pieces of the ship in different directions. Soon, Azele would see flames through the cabin window because of the heat of reentry, but not just yet. They had some time.

"Ship status?" a screen popped up with a list of systems. Among the list, the communications module was red. Broken. "Time until reentry?" a screen popped up with lots of stats. They had to scan through loads of text until they saw it: "T-56 seconds until atmosphere." Goddamn! "Activate mono-propellant thrusters" "Mono-propellant thrusters not functional" droned the computer. WHAT?

The stats slowly changed, now only ten seconds to atmosphere. Azele angled the heat shield towards retrograde, and prayed to their gods that they would get through this alive.

The ship groaned under the pressure, as if the metal itself was protesting the heat and the atmosphere it was hurtling through. Azele could feel the g-forces pinning them to the seat, making their arms heavy as they gripped the controls, their vision narrowing under the strain. Outside, flames licked at the edge of the heat shield, painting the sky with orange and red. "c-computer," they said, through the rumbling of the ship, "time till parachute deployment?" They asked this to gauge how much longer till the fire stopped. "Parachute deployment in T-15 minutes," okay, they had time.

Azele tried to regain their bearings. They needed a game plan. Their ship had emergency rations for a situation like this, but those rations were for if they were marooned on a known planet. Three months of rations. They would most certainly need more than that. How would they get more food? they were tempted to think :that's a future me problem,: but that was a bad way of thinking about it. 

Time to take inventory. Their ship had a negligible amount of mono-propellant for landings, a soon to be deployed parachute, food rations for 3 months, which they might be able to stretch to 9, oh shit, they almost forgot to check something, "computer, is this planet's atmosphere survivable?" "no, atmosphere is approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% trace elements, with an atmosphere of .09," chirped the computer.

This was bad. They had to produce air on top of everything else. The flames started to die down, perhaps they had been so distracted they hadn't noticed that nearly 15 minutes had passed.

The parachutes unfurled. They slowed down a lot almost instantly, putting a measurable amount of g's on the cabin, and most importantly, Azele. Very quickly, though, the acceleration was bearable again, and the parachutes fully unfurled. "Altitude?" "5Km from sea level, 4Km from actual height of land."

Azele couldn't help but wonder—what kind of world was this? It was barren from what they could see, no signs of active, sentient life or cities. They should have been filled with dread, but instead, a strange sense of satisfaction washed over them. They were the first here, after all. Azelia—yes, that would be its name. A piece of them would live on, no matter what happened next.

The parachutes slowed the descent. Azele's ship landed with a quick, gentle thud. They finally made it! After nearly an hour of stress, and fear, they survived landing. They surveyed the surroundings through the window. They landed on an icy wasteland, the bitter cold going on forever.

Azele's hands trembled as they unbuckled themself from the pilot's seat, muscles weak from the immense G-forces, and yet, they managed to move. :gotta check the systems: they thought to themself even though they had done it minutes before. They needed something, anything to keep the loneliness from closing in.

They tapped the control panel, though it wouldn't give any new information. The screen flashed "emergency power active," with almost every system, except *sigh* the communications system, in low power mode. They had survived, but the ship wouldn't last long.

She silence was unnerving. Only the sound of emergency life support to convince them that they were still alive. The space around them seemed to echo with emptiness. They needed to get out, to see if this world really was as barren as it appeared. "Might as well stretch my legs," Azele whispered, knowing full well that stepping outside could mean something worse than just a silent planet—it could be death.

Hey people (or aliens)! Escape here, this is the first chapter of a story I have been working on for a while, if you have any suggestions please tell me! I hope you enjoy, and I hope you learn more as the story progresses. Also, I'd like to know whether you guys prefer quick short chapters, or long chapters that take forever to release. Escape out <3