The silence woke me, for silence is a bad thing on a spaceship. Lifting my head from the headrest on the seat I’m strapped to I looked around. All the panels and computers in the room were dark. All except for the one I was sitting at. The helm of the ship. Tapping a few commands I attempted to restart the reactor, only to find it not present. Cursing at the situation I moved over to the backup batteries and switched them on. Suddenly the bridge came to life, Lights lit up and panels began displaying their proper information again. “Ziggy report!”

“I’m sorry, the personality construct you are trying to reach is no longer present in your ship. Please try again at a later date.
“What the fuck?” Not present on the ship? Where the hell did she go? Guess I’m flying manual. Tapping a few commands into the console I told the blast doors in front of me to open. Only for the room to explosively decompress. Luckily I was wearing my helmet. The air shot out of the blast doors like a whirlwind. And calmed down a few moments later. And what I saw in front of me both amazed and scared the shit out of me. What I was in front of the ship, was a PLANET. Not even the red or orange like you’d expect out here, But fucking Earthlike shit. It was an amazing view.

What scared the shit out of me, was the fact that our engines are not working, our gyroscopes are fried so we are in a slight spin, and we are on a collision course with that planet. To make matters worse thanks to that vortex thing our shields are down. Ok Nick, gotta think fast here. First, I gotta close this blast door so that the atmosphere doesn’t melt me. Second I gotta get back to the vehicle bay and prep the truck for a hard drop. I trained for this shit, so let’s get it done.

Quickly tapping the relevant commands the blast door in front of me dropped shut. Immediately I unbuckled my seatbelt and moved toward the exit door. Though the gravity generator is offline my mag boots work fine. Unfortunately, the door was stuck. Opening the panel I disabled its power and moved my hands to the indents in the door and began to pull them apart. And just like that the door slid open, albeit slowly. Moving towards the vehicle bay I repeated the process with the ITS door and began prepping the rover.

Or that’s what I would have done had I not been stunned by the sight in front of me. The entire back end of the ship had been ripped open, leaving a massive hole in the back of the Vehicle Bay. Luckily the door for the truck still functioned. Climbing into the truck I double-checked the parachutes and they were OK. Survival Kit ready to go. Cargo empty but that’s OK. And now we wait.

After about 5 minutes the ship started to shake and a single thought shot through my head. We’ve hit the atmosphere. Buckling my straps I locked myself into the truck. And after a while, the violent shaking died down to vibration. Taking that as my signal I opened the drop door. And I was right. We were clear of the upper layers of the atmosphere, And just after I opened the door I heard the concussive boom of us breaking through the sound barrier. Activating the Pistons I felt the rover drop until we were sticking out the bottom of the ship. I felt the air rushing around the outside of the suit but I ignored it. Tapping a few commands I hovered over the Truck Release.

“Ok, on three. One, Two, THREE!” Punching in the last button I felt the rover drop. And the ship above me disappeared into the distance. “Ok, five, four, three, two, one, Deploy Parachutes!” Slamming my fist down against a bright green button I looked up and saw 4 parachutes shoot out above the Truck. Slowing my velocity down to well within safe landing limits. After a few moments I heard a massive BOOM as the ship hit the ground. 2 minutes later the Truck also landed down. Onto a snowy plain.

“Well shit, That's cold. Wish I had Ziggy here... Let’s see here, Ok voice-activated computer stuff. This is really old Dumb AI tech but I guess it will work.” Tapping a few keys I activated the Archaic system. “Computer, Triangulate Starhopper Crash site.”

Triangulating...
”Starhopper crash site Triangulated. Estimated Crashdown coordinates read 7km North of your current position.”
“Well shit, Guess we got a drive ahead of us.” And with that, I shifted the truck into gear and began to accelerate.

”Weather Warning, SnowStorm Incoming. Seek Shelter Immediately.
“Understood. I’ll look for a cave or something.” At least that’s what I would have done, had I not driven over a hill to see a massive dome of light in front of me. “Computer, What am I looking at?”

”Scanning, Warning! Uknown Energy Detected! Proceed with caution!”
“Well shit, Computer how long until that storm hits?”
Estimating... You have 1 minute to seek shelter before the storm hits.
“Not really a choice then is there? FUCK IT!” I slammed my paw down on the accelerator and the truck shot forward. And we passed right through the barrier, into a green-looking area. With a city made out of fucking CRYSTALS filling the space. Unfortunately, I also saw the Starhopper, Nosed down right in what looks like the residential section.
“Shit shit shit shit!!!!” Pushing the accelerator as far as it would go I sped towards the wreckage. Only for my momentum to suddenly hit zero as something pink and quadropedic appeared in front of the truck and grabbed it in some sort of telekinesis.

“Did anybody catch the plate number on that pink semi-truck?” I said, genuinely confused as to what the fuck just happened.

“No, but I did catch a criminal alien who almost squashed 450 of my subjects, luckily they were able to get out of the way in time.”

Subjects? Oh shit, this lady is the queen or some shit. Quickly unstrapping myself from the seat I climbed out the side of the truck with my hands in the air in a clear *I ain’t gonna try shit* gesture. “Look Ma’m I honestly didn’t know there was a city here. My ship was crashing and I couldn’t control where it was gonna land. I’m glad they all got out of the way.”

With that, she seemed to calm down a little. She released my truck from her grasp and motioned me back into it. “Use your machine to take us to the wreckage. I would like to examine the damage and have a little talk with you. You have a lot of explaining to do mister, uh right your name. What is it?”
“Nick, Nick Fyxe” I responded as she climbed into the truck alongside me. Shifting it back into gear I slowly put my foot on the accelerator. Navigating us around to the indent the ship created in the ground when it crashed and continued moving. Driving us up to the back end of the ship I frowned. The entire rear section was gone. The reactor, AI core, computer system, AND thrust control modules were in there.

“Is something wrong Nick?” The pink horse-looking princess asked me.

“Yeah, something is definitely wrong. This ship will never fly again. All of the engineering section is just gone. Nowhere to be seen.”

“I’m assuming that was important?”

“Well yeah, considering it held the power source as well as all the control modules for the different thrusters as well as the AI Core which held one of my closest friends inside of it.”

“Oh, Oh dear.”

“Yeah, it was important.” Pulling up to the wreckage I put the truck in park and climbed out alongside tall bright and pink. “Oh yeah, I never got your name. Care to tell me?”

“Oh yes, where are my manners? My name is Princess Cadence! Sorry for the rough start. I made assumptions that weren’t true.

“Your fine, that tends to happen. Even back home. Anyways let’s get to this wreckage, and maybe we can have that talk you mentioned earlier.”

Author's Note

Boom second chapter is done and it's only 4 AM. I've triple-checked this one so I hope it turns out well. Have a wonderful night everybody! I'm going to bed...