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Jet glanced at the computer monitor as his hand jerked the control stick, aiming the Jetstar at the smaller of the two planets. Lindrous Beta was about twice the size of ancient Earth and was quite similar in qualities. Water covered about fifty percent of its surface and spots of green plant life covered much of the land. It was a warmer planet, drawing much of its warmth from its bigger brother Lindrous Alpha. Much of the standard year for Lindy-B, as most called it, was spent in total daylight. Whenever its orbit brought it between Lindy-A and the small white dwarf sun, Lindy-B would be covered with direct light from the sun while Lindy-A reflected light to the back side of Lindy-B.
Finally, he thought, reading the monitor as words scrolled up from the bottom.
ANALYSIS COMPLETE
Good, Jet thought, relieved that he could get back home now. Maybe there would be a better, more exciting mission waiting for him. He had to get away from here. He jabbed at buttons on the console in front of him.
WARNING, WARNING.... EVASIVE MANEUVERS... WARNING, WARNING...!
Jetter jumped at the computer as its mechanical voice echoed through his helmet. He'd never gotten an evasive maneuver command before, and his reflexes were slow to react. He flipped a switch for the Jetstars exterior lights just as he saw a large piece of space trash disappear underneath the nose of his ship. The control stick jerked in his hand as the object slammed into the underbelly of the Jetstar. An explosion racked the cockpit as a solar fuel panel erupted into flames by the single engine at the rear of the craft.
The lights flickered in the cockpit, but stayed on, as did the computer and guidance systems. The first thing Jetter had learned in flight school was that in an emergency, especially one occurring in deep space, the first thing one should do is hit the distress button. This button sent out a distress call, followed with an encryption detailing the exact coordinates of the distressed vessel.
The distress call would do Jetter Thoms no good...
The Jetstar jerked under him as Lindy-B's gravity began to draw it closer. Jetter did a systems check and found that most of the computer components were still operational, but the single engine of the Jetstar was demolished. He tested the control stick and found that the control thrusters at the nose of the craft were still operational, but for how long he didn't know. He adjusted the Jetstar, gently placing it in an optimal position for entry though Lindy-B's atmosphere.
Now, he thought, where to crash. He laughed at the decision placed before him on where to die. The water of the planet would be no different than the land, at the speed he would be traveling his ship would slam into either one with the same effect.
TREES!, he thought. He turned again to the monitor and punched up the schematics of the planet. This Jetstar was a top of the line craft. Nothing had been built better or stronger than this very ship. Its hull was made with a material than would withstand collisions with space dust particles and other small particles of space debris that had compromised the pressure and gravity fields of so many ships in the past. Jet had actually seen a starship impact with a fist sized rock in space. The rock passed straight through the starship and the ship instantly imploded from the difference of pressure in the ship and the lack of pressure in space. He wasn't about to let that happen to him and he saw to it that he purchased the best shielded craft on the market.
"Lot of good it did me," he said aloud, thinking about how bad the underside of the Jetstar must look. But the trees! Oh, yes, the trees! The armor of the Jetstar should be able to withstand the trees of a forest. He would use the thrusters to angle the Jetstar over the top of the trees and hopefully, as gravity brought the ship closer to the ground, the treetops would slow down the forward velocity of his ship. "Yes," he said, as he laughed, "this could work!" He'd never before heard the term delusions of grandeur.
The Jetstar entered the atmosphere in a fiery trail of flames that stretched across the sky like a red smile on the blue face of the sky. He fired the lower thrusters, raising the nose of the ship as he streaked closer to the ground. He was over water now, but land was ahead and coming closer by the second. The coast was covered with a thick forest and he fought against the gravity of the planet, putting as much fuel to the thrusters as possible. The readouts for the thruster engines were red lining. The Jetstar wouldn't take much more of this.
The trees were upon him now, and the Jetstar smashed though their tops like a razor across the stubble of Jetter's face. Leaves and splintered wood, like bone, flew into the air around the ship as the control stick was wrenched from Jet's hands. He was just a rider now, with no control over what was about to happen, and he spent the entire ride laughing.
Jetter was right about the trees slowing the forward motion of the Jetstar, but he never anticipated the nose of the ship catching in the trees and sending the ship into a tumble across the tops of the trees. The ship flipped end over end and broke through the canopy of trees and fell to the ground within the leaf enclosure.
Amazing though it was, Jet never lost consciousness. He was thrown around quite a bit, but the padding of the seat and helmet protected him quite well. A Jetstar pilots main fear wasn't crash landing, death could be cleverly avoided in a crash, just as Jet just proved... a pilots main fear was explosion. Jet sat for several minutes waiting for the fiery end that was sure to come, but didn't. He breathed a tremendous sigh of relief as he pulled off his helmet and unclasped the safety harness that kept him attached to the chair.
The transparent canopy of the Jetstar was jammed shut so he used a nut driver to loosen one of the panels so he could crawl out. There was movement in the trees around him and he froze, halfway out of the craft. He had no weapons and contemplated staying inside the cockpit. But there was no telling how long it would take help to arrive so he had to make some sort of shelter nearby to await his rescue.
There, again. Movement to his left. Jetter dropped down to the forest floor just as two, leathery creatures stepped out from behind the trees. They weren't humanoid at all. Hey had long forearms and short, stubby, but powerfully muscled hind legs. Their bodies were sleek and smooth and shone with a wet gleam of sweat. Their heads were bulbous and completely grotesque with a mouth lined with small, flesh tearing teeth. Jet had never before been so frightened.
Something slammed to the ground to his right and he turned to see more of the strange creatures dropping from the trees. They were surrounding him. Now he knew why their forearms were so long, they used them to swing through the trees. These creatures weren't designed to walk on the ground.
There were a dozen of them now. They were all completely still. Jet stepped forward, facing the first two he had seen. He raised his hand in the air, palm out.
"I come in peace," he said. He turned and ran into the forest, his hysterical laughter echoing around him as he ran from death.
Copyright 2000 by Christopher J. Thomasson
