The siren woke her. Groggily, she opened her eyes, and rubbed her head as a headache faded. Faye sat up, and looked around. She was lying on the floor slightly underneath the table.

What am I doing here? She wondered.

A motion from a heap across from her that she identified as Jet with his cooking wok over his head triggered a flood of memories. Bell peppers and beef for dinner, the proximity warning going off, and then a splitting headache before she passed out.

"Ugh. Did anyone get the number of the truck that hit me?" Jet pulled the wok off of his head and sat up gingerly, rubbing the back of his skull.

"No, but the driver should be charged with four drive-bys." This voice came from above, where Spike was drifting among the pipes that ran along the ceiling. The siren pulsed again, and he winced. "Would somebody shut that damn siren off?"

"Ed's head hurts." She whined from the floor.

"I'll get it." Faye shrugged off the last lingering effects of the strange affliction and went to the bridge. What she saw there stopped her in her tracks. They weren't in hyperspace anymore. They hadn't crossed through a warp gate, but even so there was a big, blue planet looming huge in the windows. Something had gone very, very wrong. She reached over to one of the stations and flipped a switch, simultaneously canceling the alarm and displaying the cause on the screen.

PLANETFALL WARNING. ATMOSPHERIC REENTRY IN 20 SECONDS. PROBABILITY OF ATMOSPHERIC BURNUP: 83

"Oh, crap. Jet! Spike! Get in here!" The last was enough of a panicked shout to draw everyone to the bridge almost instantly.

"What is it?"

"Somehow, we fell out of hyperspace and are now about to burn up in that," she pointed to the blue sphere in front of them, "planet's atmosphere." Wasting no time, Faye swung into a navigation seat. She looked back at the others, who were still trying to pick their jaws up off the floor. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Jet shut his mouth with an audible snap and swung into another seat. Spike settled in a third. Furiously, they began working the controls in front of them, calling up records, displays, and charts.

"How's our fuel supply?" Faye asked. Jet glanced at his readout.

"Not good. We don't have enough to get us into orbit at this velocity and altitude. We could do it from the surface, but not here."

"All right. Right now we have to worry about not burning up. Spike, I need a location to land this thing."

"Right. Let's see." Spike studied his screen. They had to change their angle to make a safe reentry, leaving them not many choices for a landing. But maybe they could hit that one long, narrow inlet...

"Here goes nothing..." Spike hit a button on his console, sending his selection to Faye's station. She glanced at it and grimaced. It was the best of a very, very bad lot.

"Hang on boys, it's about to get rough."

"Ed is buckled in!" Spike and Jet said nothing, just gripped their chairs tightly. When Faye described a landing as rough, it usually meant that the participants were lucky to make it out alive.

The bridge was beginning to get warm. Thrusters fired, turning the bow of the ship away from the surface, exposing the ceramic armor plates on the belly to the growing heat. The ship began to vibrate, growing more intense as they fell further towards the surface. Faye concentrated on the screen in front of her. They would have to activate the engines soon in order to hit their chosen landing spot, and they would still come in fast.

She watched the timer, and as the numbers before her hit ten seconds, she flipped the switch that would flood the engines with fuel, priming them to start cold. At zero, she mashed the ignition button. The first engine purred to life, then the second. But, when the third engine's turn came to fire, the ship bucked suddenly, as if it had been swatted with a giant fly swatter. A thunderous roar filled the ship, and the bow swung back down towards the surface again. Gauges went crazy, and a siren began hooting. Faye immediately slapped the cutoff switch for the engines, but the damage had already been done.

She grabbed the thruster controls in an effort to swing the ship so that the ceramic plating would take the heat again, but instead she heard the gut wrenching sounds of secondary and tertiary explosions as some of the attitude thrusters blew under the strain and the heat. The ship began to spin slowly on its long axis. Escaping now was out of the question. They were going to crash, and there was nothing she could do about it. They were probably going to die. Faye felt strangely calm. Jet was shouting, Spike was frantically pounding keys, and Ed was keening in dread, but none of it would do any good.

Well, at least I can face certain death, instead of running away from it.

She turned in her seat to look out the window. The heat of reentry had dissipated, and they had slowed to the point that they could now see outside. Even after decelerating in the atmosphere, they were still dropping at a suicidal rate. At least they would have a nice view before they died. She focused on a dark spot on the otherwise green surface. As it grew closer, she realized that it was an immense city. Since it wasn't moving as they dropped, she knew that it would also become their graves. Adrenaline flushed her system as panic finally gripped her. She didn't want to die here! She ripped off the restraints and ran for the cabin door.

I gotta get to my ship. Maybe I'll be able to break free of this wreck before it crashes!

She was gripping the door as they crashed, so she didn't see the brief flare of the retro rockets that saved their lives before the impact hurled her back against the chair she had so recently vacated, knocking her into oblivion.