Starborne

Chapter 1

Everything was going absolutely perfect, until my ship fell out of the sky. 

"Well, perfect may have been an overstatement," my snarky artificial intelligence co-pilot ALYX intoned with a dry cadence from the navigation deck, "but if you can't cling to moments of hyperbole while engaged in death-defying feats, when will you?"

I ignored the sarcastic computer, childishly shutting off the autopilot to cease her nagging, but knowing she was right. Perfect would have meant my ship wasn't cobbled together from hastily scrapped parts. Proper coordinates may have saved me precious miles and fuel, taking me far away from the vast forest I was quickly approaching. Even a rudimentary amount of sleep and relaxation may have increased my reaction time and taken the edge off of the throbbing migraine that had been slowly building behind my left eye. Most days, things were so far from perfect that I truly felt like I had no measure for what it even meant. 

As an enlisted Terran Pilot, there were protocols in place - redundancies - that were designed to make sure mistakes didn't happen. As was the case in our crumbling military colony, however, most of us had no choice but to adapt. To me, adaptation meant breaking the rules a little. I thought back to our last shoddy repair job. I should have known better than to trust a pair of Anabander scrappers with Terran cruiser maintenance, but a run-in with mercenaries a few planets back had put me in a tight position. 

My thrusters were damaged by some heavy fire, leaving me with no choice but to depend on the scrappers to get off Anaband. They promised me their work was reliable, but ten thousand credits and one hyperjump later, the maintenance hadn't held up. Colored lights flashed on the consul, letting me know that my ship was approaching the ground at dangerous speeds. I pulled up hard on the throttle, trying to gain some height as my small aircraft began to skim the tops of enormous, ancient trees. 

As a twenty-three year old woman, I often had the fortune of flying under most people's radar. Compared to other Pilots, the mercenaries that staged elaborate attacks against Terran colonies and allied planets had offered a feeble bounty for my head, and I wasn't considered much of a threat. The Anabar attack was most likely due to misfortune rather than premeditation, so I wasn't worried about being followed to the planet where I was now attempting a somewhat-controlled-crash-landing: Cynabar. 

Righting myself after slamming through the branches of the tallest boughs, I engaged my barely functioning reverse thrusters and winced as the powerful jets made a smoking gash on the side of an enormous tree. My acceleration slowed, we ping ponged through some branches and began to drop, being pulled back-and-forth by thick vines that grabbed the ship and then snapped under the cruiser's weight. 

The craft came to a jumbled halt at the base of an enormous tree. The trunk's circumference rivaled that of a house; roots snaking out of the ground loomed taller and thicker than any I'd ever seen before. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to catch my breath, only allowing myself a few moments of relief that we'd managed a somewhat controlled landing on the floor of the dense jungle.

That being said, I needed to get off the ground and out of the uninhabited forest. It was never a good idea to hang around on an alien planet like a sitting duck, and wait to see who or what would show up.

I knew a little bit about Cynabar, courtesies of my Terran education, and remembered that they were generally considered a peaceful people. Our military stronghold had increased human presence on the planet, and the Cynabarrians were becoming close allies in our efforts to curb mercenary activity in the area. I was fairly sure they had a central monarchic system of government, but mostly lived in separate communities with distinct regional tribes and leaders. The Terran base was in their capital city; for all I knew, I was on the other side of the planet from where I was expected by my superiors.