Junebug looked around the scruby forest that covered the shoreline. They seemed willowy and sinuous compared to the Tara pines of her homeworld, but she had been on many planets and seen many different eco systems since then. There were no animals in sight, which was good because Junebug was pretty sure she didn't want to meet any animal that calmly accepted a thousand tons of starship crashing out of the sky. 

"Damn," she said as she got her first look at the great rents in the side of the ship. Whatever had savaged them in the RIP had torn long diagonal slashes, the force of which had left the jagged edges raninbowe with heat stress. As she watched water gurgled lazily into the open holds and she felt the ship shift and then grind softly onto the pale sand beneath them. The eddying water slowed. They were in an estuary or a small river mouth with only thirty meters or so to shore on either side of them. They must have come very close to breaking the back of the ship when they hit. She suspected that Neil's last minute burst of thrust had saved them and there was a smell in the air like molten glass and burned mud that suggested she was right.

"Power reserves at critical Cap'm," Lonney's voice chimed in her mastoid radio.

"Roger that Lonney shut down if you need to."

"Aye Cap'm but what about Popsicle number three?" Sayeeda frowned trying to puzzle out the AI's meaning until she realised that Taya was still in the pod and would likely die if the power went completely out. Lonney must be channeling the last few watts of power into keeping her alive.

"Start the thaw cycle Lonney we will be down in a sec," she snapped and spun to drop back into the Highlander. A minute later she was cracking the seal and helping a shaken looking Taya out of her cry pod and into some dry clothes.

"First thing is first we better get the gun jeep onto dry land," she told Neil as she returned, leaving Taya in the cryo bay to recover her senses. The pilot had obviously been surveying the damage and looked rather mournful.

"From there we can run lines out to the ship to at least keep the lights on, even a small fusion bottle is more than enough juice for that." She sank down to the deck and peered across the narrow stretch of water at the pale sandy shore, it was almost pure white.

"I didn't see any tech on the scopes on the way down, the Goddess alone knows how we are going to get Her to lift again."

[@POOHEAD189]