text: The whirring of ship alarms broke her unconsciousness. Red lights pulsed in front of her eyes as she struggled to get a grip on her surroundings. “.....well at least I’m alive.” she murmured, pausing to glance around the room. She lay slumped in the corner of the emergency landing room, her whole safety harness had been torn from the wall in the crash, leaving her strapped to a shell of metal on the polished floor. “Alex,” she called. “Alex are you ok?......Amir...are you there?” No response. She pried open the locking straps on the safety shell and tried to push herself to her feet. “Shit!” a sharp pain forced her gaze down where she saw a large cut down her thigh, “maybe I’m not as lucky as I thought.” Blood was slowly flowing down her leg but the cut didn’t seem fatal at least, just incredibly painful. She limped to the two harnesses next to where her own had been bolted. The wall had caved down one side, it must have split her harness from its original position. “Explains why I was on the damn floor”. Her two companions did not seem to be harmed. She slapped Alex lightly on the face and tapped Amir on the head. “Come one....wake up....we’ve got to get out of here....WAKE UP!” “What the......ahh” Alex’s head rose from his chest.. Amir opened his eyes and glanced anxiously around the room. “We’ve gotta get out of here...the ship is unstable and we don’t know if we’ve been followed to the surface.” “Just give us a minute Ria..” murmured Alex. She began releasing the safety strap on his harness. “C’mon we really need to go.” Free from the harness, Alex strode the nearby medkit and removed a couple of painkillers and gulped them down. “My head is killing me..” He offered the pack to the others, Ria snatched them, downed a few and removed a bandage from the packing. “Hope this keeps me together till we get out of here,” she winced as she tightened the bandage around her leg, compressing the oozing laceration. “Ok let’s go.” she limped to the door control, her companions following closely behind. “We’ve got to get off this planet before they find us, we should be able to launch one of the scout vessels if we can get to the hanger.....and there are any left intact”. &#x200B; Explosions on the ship had left the route to the hanger open to vacuum, they’d had no choice but to strap themselves in and endure the crash of their kilometre long cruiser. They’d collided with the planet’s surface, more ships were falling around them as the space battle continued. &#x200B; “Run! C’mon down the hall now!” she yelled. Punctures appeared in the door from the direction they had ran. Obviously some of the enemy boarding crew had survived the crash too. She ran with a limp to the next door, waiting for the other two to pass through before closing and locking it behind her. She caught a glimpse of their pursuer just as it broke through: a soldier, covered in armour, it tore through the metal with an energy blade. They were biomechs, engineered for strength and speed. They had to find a weapon....fast.