“Are you certain?!” the captain asked. He sounded exasperated.

“Absolutely sir. Battery power is at 3%. It’s plenty enough to operate the ship’s interior lighting, equipment chargers and just about anything else we need for several months if we have to but we’re definitely not lifting anytime soon.”

At anything below 80% the batteries were incapable of re-igniting the core and without its massive power output they could never summon enough energy to break the surly bonds of gravity, especially on a fairly massive terrestrial planet like the one they were currently beached upon.

The captain smacked his fist into one of the consoles. “What about scanners?”

“We’ve got enough juice so long as we’re pretty cautious. You wanting to scan for signs of civilization?” Herschel asked.

“Yes, a quick scan just to make sure we’re alone here before we give up that hope.”

“Not a problem sir. Would you like me to do that now?”

The captain nodded his approval. “A distress call shouldn’t be too taxing on the batteries should it?”

“Negative sir.”

That was all the spacer needed to hear. He reached for the microphone hanging over Faust’s chair and pulled it free while still holding onto the captain’s console so that he didn’t slide into the cockpit’s rear bulkhead. He motioned to Herschel who tapped a few keys on his own console and then nodded to indicate that the system was ready to broadcast. “This is Captain Harridor Tarsik of the R.S. Honshu to any vessels within range. We have crash-landed on a Type-T world orbiting a yellow star and are in need of assistance. Our fusion core is off-line and our battery power is nearly expended. Coordinates follow this message.” the captain concluded his transmission and signaled for Herschel to send the star-fix they’d gotten in orbit along with it.

“Broadcast that once per local day on loop for 15 minutes. Clear?”

“Yes sir.”

Tele-wave units had the ability to function on their own but most of the time they were tied into the ship’s communication system so that the transmissions could be encrypted and the signals amplified. In the first moments after the crash-landing they’d had to spread the word manually throughout the ship of what had happened because most of the crew were not wearing their tele-wave units and even those who were still had them set to route through the Honshu’s comm system. Almost forgetting that they were back on-line Tarsik was surprised when his chirped to life.

“Captain this is Doctor Ramus. Pilot Faust and I have some information we think you need to look at, can you come down to my office?”

The captain slapped his tele-wave and spoke, “Sure thing Doctor, I’ll be there in a minute.”

In a moment of anger Tarsik had blamed Emily Faust for their rough landing and subsequent predicament. He knew that was the reason that she was doing her research in the Doctor’s office and not in the cockpit like she typically would have.

Under normal circumstances the crew would move about the ship via the two main transports but they were slow and at times unreliable. Now, however, the access tube that ran the length of the ship was the only real way to move about. Transports used far too much power, power that could be used for much more important things like sending distress calls and keeping weapons and survival gear charged. The captain sighed heavily as he looked into the access tube and saw it bustling with activity. The tube was busy with nearly all of the Honshu’s thirty seven crew members scurrying about trying to assess damage so it would take the captain significantly longer to make it down to deck six where the doctor’s office was located than he would have liked.

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“We should have worn our bubbles.” Fizril snarled loudly over the sound of crewman Carson’s flamer.

“Why? Air’s fine.”

“This lizard smells horrible!” the cat-like Antarian replied.

“Oh yeah,” Carson put down his flamer for a moment and spoke with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, “you cats have a crazy-good sense of smell right?”

Fizril’s ears went back, “Don’t tell me that doesn’t smell awful to you too human.”

“Oh no, it smells atrocious, but I can only imagine how bad it smells to you.” with that he laughed and went back to work.

“I’m going to work on the area that’s up-wind of this carcass.”

Carson acknowledged his shipmate’s statement with a nod.

Five men were busy burning everything within 50 meters of the ship. The primary purpose was to rid the area of the smell of blood from the Tyrannosaurus Rex carcass but also to clear brush and give them a nice line of sight so that no other predators could sneak up on them while carrying out repairs. This was typically what the flamers were used for. Most planets they visited had some form of dangerous predators and quite a few of them also had hostile natives. Burning a large patch of their forest was a gamble, on occasion it had really angered some locals, but it was better than having something deadly right on top of you before you had time to react. Whenever possible Faust tried to put the Honshu down in the open where the flamers wouldn’t be needed but about half of the time that simply wasn’t possible. If it was a backwater planet that they dealt with multiple times they’d often use the same landing site over and over again just to keep things simple and avoid leaving giant scorch-marks all over the planet.

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The captain looked exasperated by the time he walked into Doctor Ramus’ office. The doctor was sitting at his circular desk and Emily Faust was working at a nearby auxiliary console. The pilot looked up for a moment then quickly averted her gaze. She was obviously still not happy with Tarsik and it showed. He fully intended to apologize to her at a later time but he hadn’t quite gotten past his own anger yet. He knew very well that he couldn’t have gotten them down in one piece, let alone any better than she had, but he just wasn’t in the mood to say that he was sorry for yelling at her just yet.

The room, like the rest of the ship, was at a bad tilt and only by leaning heavily into their seat-backs were the two able to keep from sliding across the floor. The captain wedged himself in the door to keep his own body upright. “What’s the word?”

“Well,” the doctor began, “I took a cell sample from that creature you killed and have thoroughly analyzed it.”

“And?”

“Ansul’s not going to like it.” the doctor smiled. Tarsik recognized that smile. A man of few words, Doctor Ramus loved a good intellectual battle, what he was about to say would no doubt ignite one hell of a battle with the Martian first officer. “Again, I’m a physician not a xeno-biologist but in all of my travels I have never found any life form that shares as much DNA with a human being as that thing out there does. Not even Mr. Ansul himself and his species evolved on a neighboring planet.”

“You’re sure?”

“Convergent evolution is one thing Captain but there is no way that we share that much DNA without being related.”

The captain wrinkled his brow for a moment then turned to Faust, “I’m assuming you have something too or am I wrong?”

She didn’t look over at him, instead she kept tapping at keys on her console, “Captain I’ve analyzed everything the scanners picked up on our way down. Every simulation I’ve run shows that with roughly 65 million years of stellar drift our star-fix would place us at Earth. What’s more, I’ve used the ship’s telescope to cross-reference the images of Luna in our data-tapes with the moon orbiting this planet and there’s a 99% match.” finally she turned to face her captain, “Sir, we’re on Earth.”

Despite how badly that boded for them all he managed a smile, “Oh, that’s really going to get Ansul’s thrusters going. You know that right?”

Faust didn’t laugh. “With all due respect Captain, Ansul is a mechanic. A highly skilled one and fairly well versed in astrophysics, but still a mechanic. The data is right here. We’re either in an alternate universe or we got shot sixty-something million years into the past and into low Earth orbit. They’re both preposterous concepts but that’s what the facts seem to indicate.”

Just then the ship shook ever so slightly and all of their eyes jumped to the ceiling expecting to see the lights flicker out but they didn’t.

“What was that?” Faust asked rhetorically.

“Falling over?” the doctor raised an eyebrow. He knew as well as the rest of them that the ship was perched rather precariously. Her tail fins were lodged in the ground and her nose was propped up against a thick stand of trees but the Honshu’s tremendous weight surely would eventually collapse them.

The captain slapped his tele-wave, “Herschel, what’s going on?”

A moment later the junior pilot’s voice filled the room, “Lightning strike sir. We’ve got a fast-moving weather system coming in and it doesn’t look very good from up here. Skies are black as hell.”

“Acknowledged.”

“It was fine just 30 min...” Faust was cut off by her superior when his tele-wave beeped again.

“Hold on.” Captain Tarsik said and then tapped the button on his belt, “Captain here, go ahead.”

“Sir it’s Fizril, we’ve had to pull the men back inside the loading bay. There’s some very dangerous weather coming in. First Officer Ansul and two others were very nearly struck by lightning. They are a little dazed but appear to be stable.”

“Very well crewman. Thank you for the status report. Doctor Ramus is on his way to the loading bay to see about them. Make sure your men all stay inside until it passes.”

“Aye sir.”

The doctor was already up and halfway to the door by the time the tele-wave conversation concluded.

“I’m coming with you Doctor.” the captain said as he made room for the physician in the doorway.

“Me too.” Faust chimed in.

The scene in the loading bay was pathetic. All of the men who’d been working outside when the storm had moved in were lying about on the deck, soaking wet. Water beaded pretty well off of Service uniforms but at least half of the men had been wearing plain work jumpsuits. The rain had come down furiously mere seconds after the lightning strike and had drenched them all as they’d helped carry Ansul and the two other crew members who’d been dazed by the near-miss to safety. The first officer was indeed quite out of it as was Riley but it was Tsankov that had been closest to the blast and had absorbed the most voltage. The captain didn’t argue as Ramus went immediately to the auxiliary crewman and skipped over Ansul. He knew the rules of triage and despite his fondness for his first officer he certainly didn’t want anyone dying on his loading bay floor.

“Ansul you still with us buddy?” he said as he kneeled next to his friend.

“Seeing stars here boss.” the Martian said as he rubbed his soaking wet forehead with his left hand. Being covered in a light coat of fur Ansul looked particularly wet and pathetic, at least until the captain turned and saw Fizril walking up. The normally stoic feline face was so hilarious that had the situation been different Tarsik didn’t think he’d have been able to hold back from bursting into laughter. He’d never seen an Antarian wet before and he now knew why, Fizril looked exactly like a drenched house cat made to stand up and wear a uniform. He’d never say such a thing to the crewman however, since not only was it terribly rude but the feline was also one of the very few crewmen on-board that Tarsik would actually be afraid to get into a tussle with. Fizril was nearly seven feet tall and had one hell of a reach on him. Three inch claws also hid beneath the soft fur of his fingertips and the cat had more than a few scars proving that he wasn’t one to run when confronted. He’d only been aboard about a month but so far Tarsik was impressed with the Antarian.

“Captain,” Fizril said as he knelt beside his commander in a respectful manner, “the first officer and two of his men were inspecting the ship when the lightning bolt struck not more than 3 meters from them.”

Looking into that once comical face Tarsik no longer desired to let a laugh slip through. There was a somber air of reverence and he found the cat’s concern for his shipmates to be admirable.

“I must apologize sir. We dropped several of the flamer units when we ran to help these men. They have no-doubt been ruined by the rain by now Captain.”

Tarsik wanted to put his hand onto the feline’s shoulder but couldn’t remember Antarian etiquette and if that was an acceptable gesture or not. “Don’t worry about it Crewman. You did the right thing. Thank you.”

Fizril’s ears came forward in a gesture that Tarsik interpreted as relief, a gesture that caused a few drops of water to fly in the captain’s general direction, he paid it no heed.

“Crewman, get yourself and everyone else who isn’t injured dried off. You’ve done your job for today.”

“Thank you sir.” and with that the Antarian gave a slight bow, stood up, then walked away.

“I like the cat.” Ansul said, his typical smile had returned. The captain looked down to see him waving a hand in front of his face as if to check his vision. A moment later the doctor came over and pulled out a flashlight. He made sure to lower the intensity of its beam before he shined it into the Martian’s eyes.

“Ansul I want you to follow the light with your eyes.” he instructed.

“How’s Tsankov?” the captain asked.

“First degree burns, possibly an eardrum rupture. He’ll be okay but I want him off of heavy duty for a few days for sure.”

“Of course.” the captain agreed.

“I’ve got Faust giving him a sedative and then we’ll move him up to the Medbay for the night.”

The captain thought to argue for a minute about using the ship’s remaining battery power to operate a transport but then decided that it was the only way and that he wasn’t about to make Tsankov try to climb several levels on a ladder or spend the night in the damp loading bay.

The rest of that evening was spent tending to the wounded and cleaning up the ship. Heavy winds had come in and started blowing rain directly into the bay. By the time they’d gotten the ramp up and everything sealed the deck was completely soaked, even more-so than when the drenched crewmen had first run for shelter. Half of the equipment in the bay would have to be taken apart and dried so a few crew members were assigned that duty while everyone else worked on getting the mess that was the Honshu back in order.

Ansul hadn’t completed his inspection but for the most part it seemed that the ship was intact. There were no major hull breaches that he was able to see and the engines and other vitals equipment still seemed to be mostly intact. Two of the ship’s proton cannons, attached to the fins, were now buried deep in the soil and it was likely that they were goners but other than that most of it seemed fixable. The captain hadn’t bothered to ask his X.O. how long the repairs would take, he’d let the Martian get some rest after his ordeal with the lightning strike and then tackle those details in the morning. Regardless, with no way to charge the ship’s batteries or get the core fired back up there was little hope of ever lifting.

After a rather thrown-together meal by the ship’s cook everyone headed off to bed. That was a feat easier said than done since most of their beds were now at a 30 degree angle. The rain continued to come down hard well into the night and the ground began to soften more and more. No one was awake to notice, nor would they have anyway since it happened so slowly, but by the time they awoke in the morning the ship was lying completely on her belly.