“I thought I told you no shooting ships from the sky! You’ve got to stop doing that!” Prince Rist exclaims. He’s not so panicked as he is frustrated. I don’t know whether I should be amused that he expects that sort of behavior from me or not.
“That wasn’t me,” I tell him calmly. “I haven’t activated the anti-craft turrets yet.”
“Turrets? What turrets?”
Oops. I shouldn’t have said that last bit out loud. Rist glares at me, likely fighting the urge to throttle me right then.
I watch the air around the ship burn during its descent. Usually, a ship would have slowed by now.
“Well, it looks like someone forgot to read their ‘How to Make an Atmospheric Entry for Idiots’ manual,” I scoff as I study the ship, trying to divert his attention from my slip of the tongue.
My amusement turns to a grimace as the small ship hurtles unsteadily towards us, rattling the hotel’s windows. It shows no signs of slowing or changing its course.
A spaceship crashing is a terrible affair. Death usually follows, along with lost cargo. It’s the last thing my comrades and I need, especially if the Galactic Federation decides to investigate—the Peacekeepers have a history of sticking their snouts in things that aren’t their business.
I watch in horror as the tiny ship flies directly towards us.
“Um, is it going to hit us?” Rist asks, his face showing the first signs of his nerves.
We haven’t had the best of luck lately, and the last thing we need is for a spaceship to crash into a building we’ve just finished renovating.
I hold my ground and try to determine the ship’s trajectory, despite my instincts screaming at me to run away.
“I calculate the odds to be... not ideal,” I reply as the ship barrels closer. “But we should be fine.”
“How very reassuring,” Rist deadpans. His fingers twitch as he clutches the thick stone balustrade in front of him. I have to give it to him, for someone whose not experienced front line combat, he’s got nerves as tough as sorium.
“It’s not stopping…” Prince Rist states the obvious, real fear growing in his voice.
Yeah… we should have run while we had the chance.
The ship crashes in an explosion of mud and debris. The minuscule vehicle, not even the size of a luxury personal shuttle, plows through the surface towards us, destroying everything in its path.
“Brace for impact!” I shout as the ship reaches the hotel gardens.
I dive behind the thick stone balcony railing, dragging the prince down with me. I hear the crunch of rocks and tree trunks splitting. Eventually, the world around us comes to a standstill, leaving only stunned silence.
Cautiously, we peer over the railing at the wreckage. Smoke rises from the crater where lush gardens had been moments before.
“Well, so much for curb appeal,” Rist grumbles. “And I spent the entire last week weeding, too.”
“You know, Rist, just once I’d like a nice, quiet day of heavy drinking and minimal property damage. Is that too much to ask?” I say, as I contemplate just returning to bed for the rest of the day.
“Let’s go investigate!” The prince springs to his feet, already briskly walking towards the chaos. He sounds far too excited for my liking.
I sigh, admitting defeat. What else can this universe throw at me? Other than an overly generous and naive prince, that is. All I want is to live out the rest of my life in solitary peace.
“What if it’s the critic?” I ask. If the male’s dead, then my problem is solved, right?
He narrows his eyes at me. “We wouldn’t want a slow rescue to give us a bad rating, now would we?”
We cautiously approach the crashed vessel. It’s a small personal pod—no, an escape pod! It’s coated in mud and mangled beyond repair. One wing has been entirely sheared off. Even if we had a mechanic or engineer with us, I doubt we’d be able to salvage anything from the wreckage. I spare a brief thought for the spaceship that this pod must have come from, and why the occupant found the need to eject themselves into space, despite the risks it posed.
I peer inside the tiny viewport, trying to get a glimpse of the occupant. What I see has me recoiling in shock.
“There’s a female inside!” I cry. She looks strangely like us, but with pink, smooth skin, so soft and vulnerable-looking compared to my own tough red hide. My work often exposes me to many alien species, yet this is truly new.
Rist looks over my shoulder, his eyes widening. “That’s a human! Is she alive?”
