The Highlander shuddered out of the RIP gracelessly. Junebug felt the hull torque as the insertion charge dispersed unevenly and she held her breath for long moments until it became clear that the freighter wasn’t going to break up entirely. This time at least she hardly noticed the discomfort of dropping out of the RIP.

“Alright someone tell me we aren’t all going to starve to death?” she said, her implant transmitting to all receivers that hadn’t made a point of blocking her. Currently Junebug was wedged into one of the access crawlspaces, wedged in tight with a nest of wiring conduits and junction boxes. The space was too tight for her helmet so she had borrowed, stolen really, a pair of glasses from Neils tool box. The glasses didn’t have the range of inputs her helmet had but they did allow her to link to the Highlander’s database and to read basic electronic information from the circuits she observed. She had been in the process of troubleshooting a sort that was preventing the power cells from draining evenly. The problem was that each burnt out chip she found only lead to another burnt out chip, each sequentially fried by the surge when the ship had hit the alien shield.

It had been three days since they fled the November Sky. Exiting a ship already in the RIP had been risky but the Highlander had managed to extract into real space long enough for them to jury rig the power cells and take star sights. The sights only gave them a forty percent likelihood of an accurate fix on their position even with Savran as a reference point. The best they had been able to do was point themselves vaguely in the direction of civilization and jump again before the Terran cruiser could return and snatch them up.

“Well it ain't exactly Gremadine, but I think it's settled,” Neil shouted, his voice unaided by communications gear. The thumping beat of his repulsive music echoed up the shaft from the cockpit.  SHe had no idea what or where Gremadine was but she took his meaning. They hadn’t talked much since they made their escape, they hadn’t had time, even with all five of them working they had only just managed to keep the half crippled ship together long enough to take another star sight which suggested a likely settled world and make a last ditch jump. Sayeeda hadn’t been kidding, if this world was uninhabited and there was a very real possibility the Highlander would never be able to leave it.

Surprisingly Saxon had found his way into her company more frequently than Neil did. The lizard alien seemed to be making a point of it, though Sayeeda couldn’t imagine why. He made a few cryptic comments about her being cold which seemed a positive change from his usual threats against Neils life but the change still left her baffled. Junebug pulled a screwdriver from her belt and worked free the fried chip with a click. She removed a chip from her pouch and held it up in front of her goggles, allowing the computer to confirm it was the right unit for the job before slotting it into place. The chip flashed green as the built in ameteres registered the connection was good.

“Alright,” she said, wiping her sweaty face on the shoulder strap off her tank top and then slithering her way back to the access port above the cockpit. With lithe grace she dropped through the port and landed on both feet and one hand just behind the pilot's seat. Neil must have expected the movement because he didn’t jump or react other than to make a gesture at the forward view screen. The planet before them was largely arrid, mostly desert except for a few unenthusiastic strips of greenish gray near an unhealthy looking equatorial ocean.

“Sensors show habitation,” Taya chimed in from her customary seat.

“Lony says there are even ionization tracks that indicate starship landings, though it doesn't look like they get a ton of visitors.” As the girl spoke long curving arcs appeared on the view screen with estimated times of the tracks. The most recent vector was over two weeks old. There didn’t seem to Junebug to be any pattern to them other than they all ended in broad canyons that criss crossed the desert.

“Any radio traffic?” she asked Neil.

“This dirtball have a name?”