Drifting

Ah ... the irony of it. After all the dangerous things I’ve survived, all the risks I’ve taken -- am I going to die here on this god-forsaken planet?

It had seemed like a sure thing -- go to Imbro, pick up the boxes and crates from the R-1452 excavation, and head back home. Simple. And it had started out simply enough: departure - normal; the ti/spa dive - normal; re-entry - normal; landing, pack-on, liftoff - normal.

What hadn’t been normal was the slide, right after the time/space dive on the return. When you take the dive, it’s like you take one step, and then you re-enter to normal time and space. Only that didn’t happen. I slid. That’s what it felt like and that’s what I’m going to call it in the log, although I bet a billion years could pass before anyone would stumble on this desperate place. It doesn’t scan like any known planet, doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever heard of, and smells funny.

All the known routes, planets, and systems were taught from first class. That whole area of study was called rangles and was right up there with reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic -- the 4 R’s. And he knew the whole set-up better than anyone, even if he wasn’t in the Vaulted Service. Being in the VS had been a dream... once.

But I’m here now -- bleeding, banged, and botched. The slide had thrown the ship into an orbit around the planet and had damaged everything enough that it took herculean skills to keep from crashing. Broken arm, broken leg, puncture wounds, scrapes, bruises -- probably internal bleeding. But I would be glad to tell anyone who wants to listen that this little planet has breathable air. And a good temperature.

The ship had broken apart upon landing. Being thrown from the cabin into some sort of mossy, mushy glump had broken his fall and kept him away from the debris that had crumbled around the ship. He had realized after a time that the stuff he’d fallen onto had movement, and now he had drifted quite a ways away from the crash area. And even though the view was actually kind of pretty, he could tell it was deadly -- he didn’t have much time left.

There were a lot of what looked like multi-trunked puffy trees all around, with strange-shaped vegetation on the black ground. Everything looked... well... soft. But what he’d noticed just a bit ago was that he appeared to be drifting to the edge of something. He could see close and he could see far, but there was this edge...

He finally resigned himself to just enjoying the view, especially since there was nothing else he could do. He took a deep breath, relaxed back into the softness, and drifted.