The Cursed World
24 Sep 2022Jacob Church
So, I'm in my new home system, fondly referred to by my colleagues in the Azura Initiative (that's the name of the bubble I'm in now, cool name, but I haven't seen any azure yet, it's all bright and orange thanks to its proximity to sagittarius a*...but I digress) - fondly referred to as "the cursed system" but I'm sure they're joking.Then I tried landing on the first planet in the system. 1.4g. I'd landed on planets with a higher gravitational fields many times before, hell, I'd ran a trade route from a 3g world before with no problems, but this place, there was something off about it. It seemed to almost *suck* me onto the surface. Nothing I tried could slow me down, full thrust at 90°, boost, nothing.
The impact was sudden, hard. I felt my teeth crack against each other, smashing themselves apart as I smacked my head against the nav console.
Blood pouring from my mouth, I stumbled from the seat and fell to the floor...
"Computer, damage report"
"Landing gear destroyed, engines critical, 4% power plant integrity, hardpoints destroyed, refinery destroyed, point defense destroyed, thrusters at 6% integrity, afms at 2% integrity and hull at 41%, canopy destroyed. Commander, you've really done it this time."
I picked myself up and looked out through what was left of the canopy at the vast, empty plain in front of me, the bright white sun burning down above, making this world uninhabitable, dangerously hot and decidedly uncomfortable.
"Computer, can we get off this rock and back to base?" I asked hopefully.
"Commander, I'm not even sure I can even get the engines running, never mind get off the ground. And even if we could get off the ground, I'm not sure we could overcome the gravity well. And even if we could manage that, I'm not sure we could get to base. And even if we did get to base, I've no idea how we would land without a landing gear. It doesn't look good commander."