#sst 1.1

[mooseabides]

Without any other direction, the ship was drawn in by the nearest body with gravity - crash landing itself as a fail-safe. It dove toward the planet, spinning erratically as it continued to lose altitude.

[mooseabides]

... she ran. Pushing bruised muscles to carry her as fast as they could, lungs burning, she ran. Heedlessly crashing through unfamiliar terrain was the kind of impulsive mistake that got inexperienced idiots killed. But Alexa needed to know she wasn’t alone on a strange planet, with a ship mangled beyond repair.

[mooseabides]

“Jiiillll! Jillian Katherine Smith! Get your little butt back to this house right now!”

“Yikes. I’d better go...” Jillian was thoroughly impressed by her new acquaintance, and mortified at being addressed by her mom like that.

“Hey! If you’ll just wait here, I can come back later to take you to my uncles’.”

“Ah, I don’t know... This place is empty, then?”

“Totally! My brother and his friends sneak out and come here at night sometimes. He doesn’t think anyone knows,” Jill snickered.

“I could use some rest...” Alexa weighed the idea of squandering precious time that could be spent seeking a way off of this planet and back to her ship, her crew, against the the thought of laying her battered body down somewhere secluded and dry for a few hours.

“Yeah, alright. You’ll come back soon, then?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you real soon!” Jill agreed, beaming, “Oh! And beware the dragons!” She added, before turning and trotting off toward the disembodied voice that had been calling for her.

“Wait, beware the what now?”

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[mooseabides]

“Should I ..?

She’s just a kid, anyway. How much trouble could she give me?

And at this point - what the hell do I have to lose?”

[mooseabides]

After the vessel made contact, tearing and grinding it’s way to a halt, the motion finally ceased. The stillness was sudden and complete. Alexa’s panic was short-lived; she would have no idea how long the careening descent had lasted.

[mooseabides]

“Hey, uh… Hey, kid?” Alexandra found it odd that the girl hadn’t diverted her attention from whatever she was constructing - even once - as she had approached, “I was hoping you might be able to help me out a bit.”

The girl slowly rose, but only stared at the grown woman silently. She looked uncomfortable, but not alarmed, quizzical, perhaps. Alexa began to wonder if the girl was curious as to why an adult she’d never seen was stopping to ask her for help. Are her parents going to come barging out of one of these houses with a gun? She’d certainly been met with hostility for far less than accosting someone else’s child on visits to societies that were less-than-hospitable to foreigners in the past.

A moment passed. No angry parents arrived, but the girl remained silent. She may not even speak Simlish, Alexa chided herself, Foolish mistake to assume, just because she appears human.

Since the girl made no further attempt to communicate, but gave Alexa her attention, Alexa proceeded to give an abridged account of how she’d arrived on that road. Still, the girl was silent. “So maybe you could just tell me what planet this is? Hopefully I can figure out what to do from there…”

“SimEarth. I think my uncles can help you,” was all she said in response.

Alexa’s mind reeled. SimEarth? It wasn’t possible. There was no way the ship could have traveled that far from the time she lost the controls. Where was she? “What?”

“Why didn’t you just go straight to town, though? Are you trying to stay out of trouble?” the little blonde posited.

“Let’s just say, I didn’t come by my craft entirely legally.” Alexa admitted hesitantly.

“No WAY! Are you a space pirate? You are, aren’t you?! I love to play space pirates!”

Alexa shrugged, chagrined, “Yeah, that’s me, kid. Space pirate. In the flesh.”

[mooseabides]

[mooseabides]

Before she even had time to think about what may have happened, or what was happening, Alexa was being flung around the closet-sized control room as the ship spun and dipped.