måndag 19 december 2011

Nineteen.

“Krystof? Wake up, man.”

Krystof opened his eyes. There was a vague shapeless blob before his sight, which turned out to be Darrens' face.

“Wh- what happened?”

“I managed to program in a trajectory at the last moment. The impact knocked me out too, but the Gilmore was apparently sturdier than their ship – somehow we must've smashed straight through it and kept flying. She followed the course I set, and put us down here. She's pretty badly banged up, though – I'm not sure if she'll be able to take us away.”

“...and where is 'here', exactly?”

A grim look passed over Darren's face. “Christmas Planet. We made it. But as far as I can tell, there's just snow here. Not space-snow, either. Regular snow.”

Krystof slowly became aware of the fact that he was very cold, even though he was wearing a warm sweater. He looked around the ship, and noticed everything was switched off – including life support. They must have been running on emergency power until they landed, and now it had gone out. They were lucky it had lasted as long as it did.

“Babs is out doing some reconnaissance, I haven't seen her for almost an hour.”

Krystof got to his feet. “So we're stuck on a legendary planet with a broken ship?”

Darren nodded. “Seems like it. You're not hurt, are you?”

“Not badly. I'll manage.”

“There's still hope. If we can find the treasure... well, nobody really knows what it is, but it's supposed to be pretty high-tech. We might be able to use some of it to fix the ship, and we should have landed fairly close.”

Krystof walked over to the cockpit and looked out through the window. Darren was right – it seemed to be just snow. Before his eyes was a frozen wasteland that seemed as vast and endless as space itself, a great white blanket cast over a barren landscape. If there was anything underneath all the snow, it was probably just rocks. Only one thing broke the monotony: A figure was moving across the white surface. Krystof squinted – it had to be Babs, right?

It was. And there was someone behind her.

2 kommentarer:

Yeonni sa...

AAAAAAAHH Why do I get the completely irrational feeling that it's something dangerous :P

@Rik: My notes of Darren were in no way meant as criticism, absolutely not. I just thought it was funny. Darren seems like a matter-of-fact, vaguely badass navigator with decent people skills (I mean, seriously, that's some pretty cool poker buddies he's made himself), all of which I greatly approve of :D

Nefandus sa...

AAAA I'M DOING THINGS