Ｐｒｏｊｅｃｔ Ｇｅｎｅｓｉｓ

Ｐｒｏｌｏｇｕｅ

"People, people, get a move on! I want a full craft assessment right now!" My voice felt croaky and hoarse from all the yelling I'd been doing in the last hour.

Sliding back into the comfort of the captain's chair, the shape molded to fit me like a glove, I sipped the dirt that they had the balls to call coffee on this godforsaken tin can. "Captain, status reports indicate everything is in order," Mike, my trusty second in command notified. His mouth was pinched into a thin line and a crusty layer of spit was forming on his lip from the constant licking of it he did. A sign he was nervous about something.

"Mike, have you anything else to report?" I asked, folding my arms and raising a brow suspiciously. Knowing he was caught, Mike hesitated. "It's probably nothing for concern but I just checked the navigation system and it seems to be getting some kind of feedback. I don't think it's faulty, it could just be interference...maybe from a meteor nearby," he responded, his body visibly tensing from stress.

Swiveling around to check the monitor, I was surprised to find the screen blank for a moment, before it flickered back on again. However, it showed nothing, as if we were completely alone in the vast expanse. Something seemed off.

Little warning bells rang inside my head. "Can we get a visual?" I asked, standing and turning to face Mike. No longer was I half asleep on my feet, rather, I felt my nerves standing on end, worry setting in. As the captain, I had to keep calm in front of my crew, but I'd never encountered this situation before. It had me baffled.

Mike fiddled around with the controls on his panel for a moment until the shields raised. It was necessary to keep the cabin's view blocked from the space outside the craft. Solar flares or passing objects can give off enough light to blind a person. However, this was a special circumstance. The panels slowly lifted. At first all that could be seen was just a sliver of inky blackness.

With baited breath I waited. Until the panels were fully lifted.

At first, there seemed to be nothing. Nothing that could possibly interfere with the ship's navigation system. It must of just been faulty.

Leaning forward, I tilted the steering control forward in the slightest. The ship tilted downwards.

That was when I saw it.

A moon. And then another, much larger moon. Tilting the ship down a little more, an entire planet, possibly several times larger than Earth appeared. In fact, as the seconds of silence in the cabin ticked by, the planet seemed to be getting closer. That, or...

"It's pulling us in! The gravitational field is pulling us towards it!" Mike exclaimed. Way to state the obvious, I thought humorlessly.

"Yes, it appears so doesn't it?" Pressing the intercom, I leaned down and spoke directly into the microphone, "this is your captain speaking. I want all crew members to secure their stations and then secure themselves, immediately."

Sitting back down again, I made sure to strap on the safety belt before switching autopilot mode off, taking control of the ship manually. As the seconds ticked by, the planet pulled us closer and closer. It looked as if we were going deceptively slow, but I knew that that planet was a lot bigger than it looked.

"Rear thrusters stabilized," I stated automatically, switching on the boosters as well. "Mike, see if you can get some scans on this place, I want to know if it's worth checking out."

"Already on it, I'm picking up oxygen readings and even some water readings. I'd need to send in a probe for additional information but we need to be closer for that," Mike stated, bringing the display from his monitor up onto the large holo screen in from of him.

"Alright, i'm bringing us in. Let's check this baby out." Maneuvering a ship under gravitational pull was a lot harder than it seemed. Soon the hull began to shudder. Gritting my teeth, I cursed. The boosters were failing and it seemed like I was no longer the one in control.

"Captain! We're going in too fast, the thrusters can't handle this kind of force, we're gonn-"

"Don't you think I realize this!" I yelled back at Mike. The planet that once looked small now loomed before us. A colossal giant, sucking us right into its jaws.

"This is your Captain speaking," I held the intercom down, "prepare for a crash landing. All crew report to your designated safety pods immediately!"

Looking over at Mike only confirmed my worst fear. We were probably about to die. Could it be any more ironic that it was technically a Monday according to Earth time? I never liked Mondays.

"Mike, get your behind into an escape pod now. We've only got a few seconds before we enter the thermosphere and start tearing up!" I bellowed, grabbing his arm and hauling him up, shoving him towards the door. "Get everybody safely in their pods." Then I returned to my monitor, making the picture of the ship larger on the holo screen.

"What about you Esther?" Mike asked in a small voice. Pausing from tapping away at my holo screen, trying to stabilize the engine so that it didn't blow up before everyone could get away, I sent Mike a look. "Don't worry about me, get everyone else to safety. Make sure you've got survival kits with you as well," I ordered turning back to the screen and typing away frantically.

From the absence of sound now in the cabin, I assumed that Mike had listened to me. By then, you would have expected the fear to set in, but I felt nothing, only the burning anger at myself for being so careless as to let this happen.

Pulling up the transmission device onto my holo screen, I sent out a signal, hoping that as a last ditch effort, I could contact one of the other ships and they could came and rescue us. "Mayday, mayday, this is Captain Redfox, we are going down, I repeat, we are going down. If there is...anyone out there who hears this. Please...find us."

Who was I kidding though? The likelihood of someone being able to rescue us was a slim hope. What if they just crash landed too?

It was too late to worry. Switching the system over to safety so that the pods would be launched before impact, I scrambled to get to the pods. The ship had descended into a full nose dive, making it nearly impossible to maneuver through.

Holding onto the side railings to support myself, I headed down to the safety pods. I could hear the mechanical voice counting down until pod launch. I had twenty seconds to reach my pod.

Kicking the door to the safety pod room open, I stumbled inside. There was one pod, smaller than the rest still open. Before going in to it, I turned and sealed the door. I hit the red button beside the door, causing a large metal barrier to come down in front of the door as the safety pod section broke of from the rest of the ship just as they entered the thermosphere.

Staggering over to the safety pods, I quickly stopped to check the monitor. Every pod was full. Five seconds.

Four. Three. Two...

I managed to throw my body inside of the last pod just as the doors slammed shut and it was ejected from the rest of the ship. The force threw me back into the wall. Wincing from the pain, I pulled myself down into the seat using the safety harness, strapping it over my chest just as the pod was jolted as if it had impacted something hard.

Yet, I knew it hadn't landed yet. The cabin shuddered violently. It felt like I was being tossed about in a tumble drier even though I was strapped in. I had no concept of up or down in the pod. I felt nauseous. Then, quite suddenly, everything went black.

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This is not edited just yet, I apologize. I hope you all enjoyed the prologue. ^^