Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever own Outlaw Star or Trigun or anything affiliated with said shows.

"Speaking"

'Thoughts'


"WARNING"

"WARNING"

"ALL SYSTEMS DOWN"

"WAR-"

"I KNOW!" Gene shouted as he tried to gain back the controls of the Outlaw Star. "You don't need to keep reminding me, I heard you the first time Gilliam." As Gene continued to try and stop his ship from spiraling out of control and getting lost in some unknown regions of space, the rest of the crew on the Outlaw Star were silently praying for their safety. And by silently, I mean Melfina and Suzuka were silent, while Aisha and Jim were screaming about how they were too young to die. Oh and let's not forget their many promises to kill Gene, if they lived through it of course.

After much help from Melfina, Gene was finally able to level out the ship. However, Gilliam was in need of immediate repairs and would be unable to make it back to Blue Heaven. "It looks like we'll need to find a place close by that we can land and do our repairs." Gene said as he tried to relax for a few seconds.

"Gene" Melfina said. "We are in uncharted space and I am unable to locate any known space ports. I can't even find anything out there other than more space since Gilliam's radar is down."

"Well isn't that just the icing on the cake." Jim said sarcastically as he punched Gene in the shoulder.

Gene looked at him and glared. "What was that for, it hurt dammit."

Jim clenched his fists and restrained himself from punching his idiotic captain again. "Hmm, let's see." He bit out. Holding up a finger to emphasize each point, he continued. "First, you decide to leave the port before all the repairs are finished just so you can save a few bucks. Second, you deliberately put us into harms way so you could test the new grappler arms you had installed. And how did you do that? YOU FLEW RIGHT INTO KEI PIRATE TERRITORY!!" Stopping to regain his breath, Jim continued on. "And last but not least, you LOST!!" Gene winced when Jim said that, it was still a sore spot.

"Jim, calm down." Melfina said softly. "We can't change what happened so why don't we try to solve our current problem instead?"

"Fine, whatever." Jim said as he brushed past Aisha and went to his room.

Mel turned to Gene and put a hand on his shoulder. "Just give him some time." She said. "He'll get over it as soon as we land."

Brushing her hand off, Gene stood. "No, he's right. I screwed up, but there's nothing I can do to fix that." Ignoring Melfina, Gene spoke. "Hey Gilliam?"

"Yes Gene." Gilliam replied.

"Can you get the screens back online?"

"Yes Gene."

A few moments later the view screens were back up and running, but it was just as Melfina had said. All anyone could see was space. "Suzuka, Aisha?" Gene called and at seeing their nods continued. "I want you guys to take turns scanning the screens for any sign of planet or dock out there, let me know as soon as you see something." With that he left the room.

"Poor guy." Aisha said as she used her keen sense of sight to scan for any place they could land. "But I have to agree with Jim on this one. Usually when Gene acts reckless we come out on top, but we all knew something like this would happen one day." Suzuka just nodded her head in agreement while Melfina left to go and comfort Gene.

ooooo

Several days had past and still there was no sign of anything, and by now the crew members were starting to get a little on edge.

CRASH!

BA-OOM!

"GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE JERK!!" Aisha screamed as she chased Jim down the hall, narrowly missing Suzuka. They ran into the cockpit and Jim went to hide behind Gene.

"Gene you gotta help me, she's gone crazy!" Jim cried out.

"ME?!" Aisha screamed. "You're the brat who stole my sandwich."

"I did not; it was just sitting on the table so I ate it." Jim said as he continued to cower.

"Yes y-" Aisha started to say before Gene jumped up and shouted.

"FOUND IT!!" Jim and Aisha both looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Rolling his eyes at his crew, Gene smiled even wider. "I found a planet." He said as he pointed to the screen. Gene's shouting had brought both Melfina and Suzuka into the room as well, so they all crowded around the screen to see what he had found.

"Well I'll be damned." Aisha said. "He actually found a place we could land."

"That's not entirely true." Suzuka replied in her all-knowing voice. "All he did was find a planet, we have no idea if it's safe to land on or if it has any life forms on it."

"Who cares, it's still a planet and that's the most we've seen in months." Aisha said as she jumped up and down happily.

Jim just looked at her blandly. "You idiot, it's only been a few days." Aisha stuck her tongue out at him in reply.

"Well since Gilliam's systems are all down right now, we won't know anything until we land." Gene said as he got into his seat. Looking at his crew he smirked. "You might want to fasten yourselves in." Everyone paled, and then quickly dove into their seats as Gene turned on the thrusters and sped off towards the unknown planet.

With Gene piloting, it didn't take long for the Outlaw Star to arrive at its destination. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten that Gilliam would be unable to help him land the ship until they had started their descent into the planet's atmosphere. And by then it was too late to turn back. 'Oh shit…' He thought.

However, before he could finish the rest of his thought, Jim spoke up. "How are we going to land if we have no idea what kind of terrain this planet has?"

Gene just smiled sheepishly. "Well, um…we're going to crash." It was suddenly so quiet that you could literally hear the anger in the air. "Calm down you guys, what's the worst that could happen?" Gene regretted saying that as soon as the words left his mouth, because suddenly everyone pulled out a pen a paper (Except Jim of course since he always has his computer) and began making out their wills. "You guys could at least act like you have some faith in me." Gene muttered under his breath.

Ten minutes and many screams later the Outlaw Star had landed. And five seconds after that the entire crew, minus Gene, was outside kissing the ground beneath their feet and thanking anything and everything that they were alive.

"Come on you guys, it wasn't that bad." Gene said as he tried to hide his own shaking. His crew members just looked at him with a look that said 'Yeah right'.

Once everyone had finished recovering from their near death experience, they got to work accessing the damages. "Well, we'll need to repair the outer hull and get some more fuel before we can even begin to think about going back into space." Jim said as he ran a diagnostic on Gilliam. "And it also looks like we'll need to replace the Ether drive when we get back home. Other than that it looks to me like Gilliam went on the fritz because of the damage to the hull. Apparently the Kei pirates knew just where to hit us to disable him. They managed to tear out a portion of his wires and unless we can find more around here someplace there's not much I can do to fix him."

"Well just keep up the good work Jim." Melfina said as she finished making their breakfast.

Meanwhile, Aisha and Suzuka were busy straightening up the cargo hold since everything had been tossed around. "I don't know why I always get stuck with the manual labor." Aisha whined as she picked up four boxes and easily moved them to another corner of the room.

"Gee, I wonder why?" Suzuka said sarcastically. "It couldn't possibly be because of the strength of the Ctarl-Ctarl now could it?" She asked as she rolled her eyes.

"Whatever." Aisha said as she continued to move boxes. "But I still don't think it's fair that Gene gets to go and look around while I have to clean up his mess."

"Don't you mean we get to?" Suzuka said as she narrowed her eyes.

Waving her hands in front of her face, Aisha backed up a little. "That's what I meant, no need to get hostile."

Thankfully, before anything could happen Gene came running in with a smile in his face and said. "Guess what you guys, I found a town."