Crash Landing

Story by Tarkus2V on SoFurry

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Starlog #34: 11/25/89 *The crew is dead everyone is dead i'm barely alive, I don't even know why I signed up for this shitty job anymore, now i'm here. Since this will likely be my last log i'm going to tell my entire story in case anyone finds this and hopefully figured out what caused this accident. I also managed to salvage the black box on the ship but its damaged and is literally useless I'm dying fast from blood loss and the climate on this god-forsaken rock is not helping so i'll try to say as much as I can.*

The expedition was going so well it seemed impossible that anything could of gone wrong. It started at the Omega Station, a new military outpost for science and exploration in the outer rings of the galaxy. I, being a reserve officer at the time had the freedom to do anything at the station from sweet talking the foxes to shooting asteroids. As a dashing wolf myself I was pretty popular back then, not like that matters now but, that's not the point. A new high tech B-class battlecruiser had pulled into the station and the captain was making an announcement. Saying that that Earth's government was requesting the testing of a new weapon systems on carriers and cruisers. The weapons were already tested on the ground and were deemed safe and effective from what I've heard, and the ship was fully outfitted with full titanium synthetic weave plating, the best in class. I took a look at the mission file through my datapad and from a quick skim I could tell this would be a piece of cake. And seeing that I only needed a few more runs in my tour of duty before I could go home, this would be one off my plate. The only odd part that I found was that this operation would go over the course of 4 months which was very unusual especially for a weapons test. But then again this would give me time away from the headache of a squad I currently ran. So packing away my clothes, paperwork, and personal weapon I made my way toward the hulking mass of space metal. As I was making my new quarters as comfortable as I could, a announcement came over the intercom calling for a full mission briefing to certain ranks, and in being an officer I was being requested to the bridge. After throwing on my uniform I made my way through the maze of hallways and elevators to the bridge to find that most of the other officers that came along were already there. Feeling slightly embarrassed I planted myself solidly in the back row of seats. Soon afterwards i ran right into my old shipmate Alex, a weapons technician. Alex turned up one day looking though the military dumps back on earth when I found him turned out he was the best turret driver I ever saw, so I took him in. And being a sly raccoon he found many creative ways to blow up the numerous pirates we encountered. After a quick run down on what was up, he told me that he would be one of the gunners for the new weapons that were being tested. With that we parted ways for the time and I went up to my post at the B-72 barracks, where my new squad would be.

Over the next couple of days I began to notice a small change in the higher-ups of the crew, mostly the colonels and majors. They seemed worried, stressed or very, how should I say it, held back, as if someone had threatened to drop a 500 ton nuclear missile on there heads, and no one knew it. Whenever I asked about it they got all grumpy and ordered me back to my post so I didn't approach the subject anymore, but I had the itch that something was up and I didn't like it. That's when bad things started to happen like the engines kept failing, or the power supply kept blacking out the ship. It had been the second time in the week when the artificial gravity had failed, and someone got a broken leg because of it. It's as if someone knew there way around this ship, I barely knew half of it. The teams trying to find out what the problems were finding bits of fur and shed hair at the scene, so someone had to have done it. But inspecting a 1000 man ship for one saboteur would be a tough job. The ships crew were kept informed daily of the situation rumors were spread about and tensions were made onto who the culprit was. Then it stopped a week passed by with no incident, and the commander deemed it safe to begin testing. I watched from the bridge where I had a perfect view of the guns. The guns themselves looked like they were made to glass the side of a planet. When the procedures began I saw everyone watching knowing that Alex would be the one to fire these powerful guns would be an accomplishment in his career. The charging sequence was just at 98% when suddenly the ships hard lines were cut leaving the ship powerless and the guns had to discharge there shot leaving the ship spinning in a mad fury with no end. The ship smashed into a large asteroid taking out a huge chunk of hull, And oxygen levels were falling fast in the area. I raced over to the command console and smashed the RED ALERT button that broke everyone out of their shock and they rushed to action closing blast doors and extinguishing flames. The ship soon regained engine power and the engineers were sent into action, repairing as much of the hull and engine wires as possible. All to soon however the ships left engine exploded the same side where the gun malfunctioned cutting the entire left wing of the ship in half. The commander issued the order to evacuate the surrounding area, but by then the left wing was gone and with everyone in it to. Not long after the ships other 3 engines started to be overpowered rocketing the ship toward Jargarus the nearly uninhabitable ice lands. Knowing the inevitable would happen the commander ordered for the ship to be abandoned, but with the escape pods being 10 levels down, with no elevators working, and with Jargarus being only minutes away we all knew we would die today. I sat back in my chair seeing my end coming knowing that I'll never be able to go home. Then my snap out of my shock to see an officer shaking me to help the rest of the crew crash land this ship into Jargarus. I got to work regulating power flow to the ships wing elevators hoping to angle the ship to prevent it from crashing into the ground headfirst. My idea worked better than I expected and our velocity was slowed by about 3% giving us an extra 30 seconds before we hit the ground. Taking a last look at the ship's monitor's I find that we are the last people on the ship. That took some weight of my chest knowing that the others will be safe. I then diverted all engine power to the ship's bottom thrusters as we got closer but they burst as I put in to much power. With nothing left that I could do I was just waiting for the end as the tech officer counted down the seconds to impact. And then the ship crashed down in a ball of heat straight into a flat plateau, that's when something hit me and I blacked out.

And now here I am dying *cough* I leave this message to anyone who may find it. And...and.......

*End of log*