"Captain!" Mugi chirped. "Incoming distress signal from thirty degrees g-west."
"Eh?" Yui said, confused. "We just got here, who could be contacting us already?" Yui, Mugi, Azusa, and Mio had returned to the bridge. Ritsu, presumably, was still asleep.
"There's no way to be sure; It's in a language I've never seen before," Mugi explained.
"Ooh, cool!" Yui said, happily clapping.
"More like 'potentially dangerous'," Azusa chided. "How are we supposed to gauge the situation if we can't communicate?"
"What's the planet look like, Mugi?" Yui asked.
"Looks barren, for the most part. Maybe there's a research or exploration team trapped there." Mugi speculated.
"Maybe we can get some clues if we move in closer," Yui said. "Can't hurt to orbit, right?" murmurs of agreement permeated the bridge. "Azu-nyan, set course to orbit the planet."
"Roger!" Azusa saluted, manning the flight controls.
"What's happening?" Came the voice of Ritsu, who was standing in the threshold to the bridge, sleepily rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Ricchan!" Yui greeted. "We got a distress signal, so we're gonna orbit this planet to get a better look."
"Oh," Ritsu said. "Want me on weapons?"
"Only if you wanna," Yui said. "You can hang out here if you want!"
"Stay here, Ritsu-chan!" Mugi pleaded. "You've been either on weapons or sleeping for a couple days now, we miss you!"
"I guess I can hang around for a little bit," Ritsu said, a bit hesitantly.
"Uh, Captain," Azusa called shakily. "We have a problem!"
"What is it, Azu-nyan?" Yui asked, running over to the pilot's post.
"This planet's gravity is way off the charts, like it's made of lead! I don't think I can maintain orbit safely." Azusa explained, frantically adjusting the ship's course.
"What do we do now?" Mio asked from the engineering post. "I can divert more power to the thrusters if you think it'll help."
"I don't think we have a choice! We're gonna have to land," Azusa lamented.
"Won't we be stuck there?!" Ritsu cried.
"Not if we start from the ground," Azusa assured. "I can launch straight up from the planet's surface once we land. I just can't pull up quickly enough."
"Alright, bring her down then," Yui ordered.
"Roger," Azusa said, gently tilting the yoke upwards.
Mio braced for the sickening weightlessness of landing. The Houkago Space Time created its own artificial gravity day-to-day, but had trouble adjusting on the fly, especially near planets. Mio grabbed her desk and tensed her muscles, clenching her teeth. She felt someone squeeze her shoulders in a show of comfort. Looking straight up, she saw Ritsu standing over her.
"I don't like it either," Ritsu said quietly.
"Thanks," Mio replied gratefully.
After a few minutes, the off-and-on nauseating weightlessness subsided as the Houkago Space Time touched down.
"We have touchdown!" Azusa declared.
"Good job, Azu-nyan. Mugi-chan!" Yui beckoned. "Have we triangulated the distress signal?"
"Sort of," Mugi said. "There are multiple distress signals, maybe hundreds, off and on, from all directions."
"Whoa!" Yui said. "That's freaky." Standing at her post, she punched a few buttons on her dashboard, prompting a small periscope to descend from the ceiling. Peering through, all that lay before her was a silver-ish landscape of sand and dust, mostly plain in topography, with a few hills on the horizon: a practical desert. Looking away from the scope, she turned back to Mugi.
"How far away are these distress signals?" Yui asked.
"About 1100 feet," Mugi said. "No, wait, make that 1000." The four other crew members looked between each other suspiciously.
"Now it's 900. They're definitely moving toward us." Mugi said.
"Ricchan?" Yui beckoned. "Why don't you go ahead and get on weapons?"
"On it," Ritsu affirmed, dashing out the back of the bridge. Yui peered back in the periscope and let out a yelp as she was met face-to-face with a large, pink-ish insectoid creature, who was gnawing on the ship's hull. As she turned the periscope, she spied another insectoid open its jaw as if to make noise, but no such noise came.
"Captian! We just got another signal, this time right in front of us," Mugi reported.
"It's alien bugs, and they're making the distress signals with their bodies!" Yui cried. "That's freaky."
"Alright, I'm reorienting the ship. Let's get out of this place," Azusa said, her voice wavering. Yui's radio crackled to life on her hip.
"Captain!" Ritsu's panicked voice came. "These things are trying to get in and eat me! Can I start firing at them?"
"Fire at will, Ricchan, I'll get on the second weapons bay." Yui spoke into the radio. "Azu-nyan, blast off as soon as you're ready!" With that, Yui ran towards the second weapons bay, punctuated by the sound of Ritsu's cannon-fire.
Yui sat down in the chair of the weapons bay. She had only done this once or twice, but she hoped she was experienced enough to hold off these giant termite-like aliens.
Sure enough, as soon as Yui began to move the cannon, the insects climbed onto the windshield. Their sizes varied impressively, and Yui wondered if some of them were babies. One of the larger ones reared back its mighty pincer and punctured a hole in the glass of the weapons bay. Its claw-like appendage scratched across Yui's face, and she cried out in pain. Her ears rang with the hissing of the air escaping quickly from the weapons bay, and she stumbled out of her seat and ran back out to the hallway. Still wincing from her stinging wound, Yui lifted the glass box that covered a red button that read "Depressurize and Airlock." she pressed it frantically, and sighed with relief as she heard the loud metallic click of the room being sealed. For all intents and purposes, that room had now been jettisoned until it could be repaired.
/-*-*-\\
"Yui depressurized the second weapons bay!" Mio cried, staring in shock at her HUD.
"I'll go make sure she's okay!" Mugi declared, sprinting off toward the weapons bays.
"Be careful, we're about 20 seconds from launch," Azusa warned.
"Got it!" Mugi called, barely audible as she rounded the corner.
Coming to the weapons bay, she found a ghastly sight: Yui, who was bleeding badly from her face, was stumbling along the hallway in the direction of the bridge, leaning on the wall for support.
"Captain!" Mugi yelped, tears already forming in her eyes. The roar of the ship's engine and the cannon-fire from Ritsu made it hard to hear. "Captain, come with me, I'll get you to the medical bay."
"Mugi-chan," Yui moaned. Suddenly, the ship began accelerating rapidly upwards, sending Yui to the floor in a heap, and causing Mugi to stumble forwards.
Struggling to stay upright, Mugi leaned down and turned Yui onto her back.
"Yui-chan, can you hear me?" she yelled over the roar of the engine.
"Wow, I must be pretty dizzy to fall over like that," Yui observed groggily. Mugi, through her tears, sniffled laughed at that.
"No, silly, we're taking off. Come on, I'll help you up," Mugi offered, helping Yui to her feet. She practically dragged Yui the short distance to the medical bay, laying her down on the nearest table.
As Mugi began to apply first aid, Yui winced, but remained silent. After a few moments, she spoke.
"Do I get to wear an eyepatch now?" she asked. Mugi chuckled at that.
"No, but you might need stitches. It's hard to say right now, but this might leave a scar." The gash went from Yui's left temple down to underneath her chin, just passing over the corner of her lip.
"Ooh, that's cool too," Yui said approvingly. The room became quieter as the engine calmed, and the exhausting g-forces subsided as the Houkago Space Time escaped the mysterious planet's gravity.
"You're awfully chipper about this whole thing," Mugi said, as she applied hydrogen peroxide to the wound, causing Yui's eyes to moisten, and her leg to twitch in an effort not to move.
"Being chipper makes it hurt less," Yui croaked. The door to the medical bay opened, and the rest of the crew spilled in. Yui looked at them without moving her head.
"Captain!" Mio cried. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay. Mugi-chan says I'm gonna have a cool scar!"
Azusa ran to Yui and took her hand in her own.
"Yui-chan…" she said, beginning to cry.
"Hey now," Yui cooed. "It's okay, I'm okay, we're okay." Azusa breathed deeply and nodded.
"I'm gonna stay here with you, okay?" Azusa announced. "Uh, if that's okay with you, Mugi-chan."
"Yes, of course," Mugi assured. "I'm gonna be giving her stitches in a minute though, so you might want to look away."
Azusa gulped, resolving to ignore her squeamish tendencies.
"Thanks, Azu-nyan," Yui said. "Mio-chan, you're in charge until Mugi-chan says I'm good to go."
"Eh?!" Mio yelped. "How long is that gonna be?"
"She'll be fine in a day or so," Mugi assured.
"Don't worry, we're just gonna be waiting until the warp drive is recharged. Just make sure everything's running smoothly for the next 24 hours or so. I trust you," said Yui. "We all do." Mio took a deep breath and nodded.
"I'll do it."
