A/N: While this can certainly be a stand-alone story you might find reading my previous story 'The Doctor Visits Point place' to be at least somewhat helpful.
Just beyond the orbit of Saturn-
1650 A.D.
The navigator of the Dryzzik scout ship cackled in glee as his instrument panel fed him information.
"Overlord," he called out to the large creature enthroned in the chair behind him. "I have found the perfect place for our next conquest."
"Send it to the science terminal for verification."
"Yes Overlord."
A moment later, the science officer, Tomek, spoke up. "It is a wonderful place, Overlord. Mineral rich, lots of water and the native populace is without any signs of modern technology."
"That is magnificent," the Overlord rasped as his obsidian eyes shined with excitement. He rose gracefully from his chair, his tall muscular body striking an imposing figure.
Like all the males of his species, he was approximately two meters tall with skin that was as black as pitch. His head was slightly elongated, and rather than hair upon it, there were spiky knobs. Each of his large hands had razor sharp spikes that could be extended from his knuckles, which was very useful in hand to hand combat, or pruning roses if the urge struck you.
"I shall send a message of our find to the high command. Then we shall move in for a closer look. At our current distance from Dryzzik space it should be a little over two months until reinforcements arrive." His forked tongue shot out of his mouth and he licked his lips in anticipation of what was to come.
"We could practically do this by ourselves," Tomek said. "Their technology is nothing compared to ours. Between our ship's weapons and the twenty of us on board, we could have the entire planet subjugated before enforcements ever arrived. "
The Overlord seemed to relish the idea as much as the rest of the bridge crew. "Unfortunately," he said, the displeasure evident in his voice, "we must follow procedure and wait for reinforcements to arrive. But do not think that there will be no action for us. It is an entire planet. We shall have our fun."
"I have successfully blocked the transmission sir," the blue skinned communications officer said.
"And they are not aware of this fact?" the commander asked.
"No, sir. From what I can tell, they think the message was sent just fine."
The Commander turned to the comm officer. "Are you sure?" He questioned. "Because if that message got through, then this planet is doomed."
The comm officer gave the commander a hurt look. "I'm well aware of the consequences," he responded. "I've also been doing this for over twenty years. I know what I'm doing."
"Yes, of course," the commander said by way of apology. "I'm just a bit tense right now. Finding out that the Dryzzik have resumed their reign of terror is not sitting well with me." He paused for a moment, slowly stroking his ridged chin as he thought. "Very well then. If that is done, then take the ship into attack position."
"Aye sir," the helmsman said.
"Prepare to decloak and fire on my mark," the commander said as the Dryzzik ship filled the forward view screen.
Just then, the Dryzzik ship pulled away from them.
"Have they, detected us?" the commander asked, quite baffled. It was nearly impossible to detect their ship when it was cloaked. It was certainly not something he felt the technologically backwards Dryzzik could do. The fact that they could achieve superluminal velocities without their ship flying apart amazed him to no end. There was no way they could know that his ship was behind them.
"No sir," the helmsman said. "They appear to be approaching the inhabited planet."
"Then we must end this now," he said decisively, as he tightly gripped the arms to his chair. "Pursuit course, and ready weapons."
"Firing range in twelve seconds," the tactical officer said from her station.
"They will reach the planet in twelve," the helmsman said.
"Nothing we can do about that now," the commander said. "Prepare to fire."
As he said this, the ship's cloaking device, which when in use sucked up most of the ships' available energy, deactivated, freeing up enough power to fire their energy weapons.
"Three seconds," the tactical officer said. "Two…"
"They've spotted us!" the helmsman screamed. "They're powering up their weapons and coming about!"
"One," the Tactical officer said.
The commander leaned forward in his chair just the slightest bit as he calmly gave his next order. "Fire!"
"Overlord!" Tomek screamed. "A military ship of the Shadow Proclamation is behind us!"
"What!" the Overlord proclaimed. Jumping out of his seat.
"I am moving us into attack position," the navigator, Garjok, said.
"No! You fool!" the Overlord said as he strode over to the navigator and knocked him from his chair. "We are no match for them. We must flee." He sat down in the now vacant seat and attempted to do just that.
"They are firing weapons," Tomek screeched.
Just then the ship was violently rocked, and everyone was thrown to the deck.
The Overlord pulled himself back into the navigation chair as thick acrid smoke began filling the air. Once again he tried to initiate their escape.
"These controls are not working!" he raged, slamming his fists down on the nav panel, as if that might somehow help.
"That shot knocked out our engines," the engineer, Daluth, proclaimed.
"Then get down to the engine room and fix it," the Overlord snarled."
"Yes Overlord," the man said as he headed for the lift.
"Overlord," Tomek said, his face paling in terror. "That shot knocked us into the planet's gravity well. We are going to crash!"
The main viewer, which had been knocked offline when the ship had been fired upon, chose that moment to come back to life. This allowed the Dryzzik crew to witness the planet's surface speeding towards them.
"How long until we crash?" the Overlord asked.
"Less than five minutes."
"Engineer," he barked over the personal communicator he had strapped around his wrist. "We need the engines fixed in four minutes or less."
"Four minutes or less?" came the incredulous laugh over the communicator. "I'm not sure I could repair this thing if you gave me a month."
"We should abandon ship," Garjok said.
"We would not be able to outrun the Shadow Proclamation vessel in the escape pods." The Overlord rebutted. "That would allow those bastards to pick us off one by one at their leisure."
"Then we will surely die," Tomek moaned.
"No," said the Overlord, suddenly rising from his chair. "We will not. To the cryogenics room."
"What will that accomplish?" Tomek asked.
"It is the innermost part of the ship," the Overlord said. "It should be the safest place to survive an impact. If we turn the structural integrity field up to maximum, then we should have a chance of surviving the crash.
"And you don't think that the Shadow Proclamation soldiers will just come down and finish us off?" Garjok asked as they headed towards the Cryogenics room.
"If we are cryogenically frozen, they will read no life signs aboard and believe us to have perished in the crash. We can then wait for our reinforcements to arrive. They will be able to track our ship's transponder signal and release us from our cryogenic stasis."
As they entered the cryogenics room along with the rest of the ships crew (who had been informed via shipwide communication of the plan), the Overlord began powering up the cryogenics equipment as people started climbing into the cryo-units.
"With any luck," the Overlord said to his crew, "in two months time, we will be woken from our cryogenic sleep. Then we, along with the rest of the Dryzzik fleet will conquer this puny planet and make it and its inhabitants ours."
The crew, as was expected of them, gave a cheer of approval. It was half hearted at best however, as everyone was very cognizant of the fact that the odds were against their surviving the crash.
As cryogenic stasis began to crowd out consciousness, their thoughts were not focused on the upcoming conquest, but rather on whether these were their last moments of life. That they would all be killed upon impact. It was a terrifying thing to contemplate.
What fate held in store for them was far, far worse.