Luisa's eyes snapped open as the restorative drugs were pumped into her by the system.  Her body quickly began to shiver as the warm cryo fluids quickly drained away.  She blinked several times as the light outside her pod flashed on and off several times before being reduced to a dull red light...<em>Emergency lighting?...why?</em>She felt the ship lurch and realisation dawned on her that something had gone wrong...terribly wrong.<em>Don't panic girl.  This ship was built with a thousand redundant systems in all areas to compensate for every conceivable problem and fault....the engineers will be onto it...all will be fine...stay calm.</em>Luisa kept repeating the mantra of<em>stay calm</em>even as panic began to well up in the pit of her stomach.<br/><br/>Flexing her fingers, Luisa tentatively reached for the emergency release handle.  When her fingers were wrapped firmly around it, she pulled quickly and cleanly...<br/><br/><em>FUCK!</em>Her mind screamed when the handle didn't move.  Then a face appeared in front of her pod....through the fogginess of her forced awakening, Luisa vaguely recognised the male face...<em>If he's out, then all is not lost...it means that some things are working...or have been working...stay calm</em>Luisa continued to watch him work on the control panel to her pod.  He worked quickly and efficiently and within less than a minute the pod emitted a soft sigh as the environmental seals were broken.<br/><br/>The chaos of the ship's intertior was almost overwhelming...Luisa's ears were assaulted with the cacophony of human screams, blaring klaxons and the tortured sreeching of tearing metal.  Luisa momentarily felt herself begin to float and then to fall hard back into pod.<br/><br/>"...Controlled cras..."<em>What the fuck is going on?</em>her mind demanded.  It was clear that the ship had suffered some form of ship-wide massive system failure and that an impact of some sort was imminent.  Unsure if the gravity would continue to fluctuate, Luisa gripped the sides of her pod cover and pulled with all her strength grateful that they had been designed with a redundant air-pressure hydralic system.  Hearing the safety lugs click into place, Luisa pulled the emergency straps over her shoulders and around her hips, locking the 5-pin safety harness into place.<em>Now just wait to see if you are consumed in some firey doom or whether you're actually going to survive the freefall of a million tonne plus spaceship from orbit...</em><br/><br/>