Photo by Sue Vincent

I crawled out of the wreckage of the emergency pod.  How had I survived?  I couldn’t see any signs of other parts of the ship.  I shouldn’t have been surprised.  At a quarter of the speed of light it would have hit the star around a half an hour after I had ejected.  If it had hit this planet at that speed, well, there wouldn’t have been much left standing.

For the first time I realized I had no suit on, that I was in the open.  I briefly panicked, but then calmed down.  If I wasn’t dead yet, I figured, I shouldn’t worry.  Luckily the atmosphere had plenty of oxygen, so I could breathe unaided.

I looked around, taking my bearings.

I was in some sort of woodland, not too different from how Home must have looked thousands of years ago.  My heart sank.  I…