Captain Flame Creme rotated the nose of the star fighter straight up and into a barrel roll, silently cursing the pilot of the Caninian war cruiser. If only he could angle away and above the slower larger ship he could slip quickly behind the third planet out from this yellow star. His ship was damaged from the near miss from the Claw torpedo the cruiser had launched. His horizontal stabilizer rocket would not engage,he needed to land to make repairs,soon. Thanks to his lucky nine lives, oops,we're down to six now, he was within a dozen parsecs of this blue green planet when he emerged from Prrr drive. He had been trying,unsuccessfully,to locate this backwater hole in the universe in his visorscan, as he desperately needed to communicate his location via ESPergnomic link to Felinious Command Central, alas, it was not on his sector map for this galaxy, Rats! All he could hope for was to land his ship and hope he would be able to accomplish the repairs on his own. The Mongrel Dane class cruiser could not match his manuverability. Flame slipped his small patrol craft,the Jaguar, into a geosynchronous orbit around the third planet, with the planets class L moon between the cruiser and his ship. Now he had a few moments to to evaluate the situation.
Flame polled his crew, 3 Siamian Uninauts,Flicker,his Co-pilot/Navigator, ESPerann,his communicator and Felicia the flight engineer,known to all as Feely,all were accounted for and unharmed from the chase and near miss. Also on board the Jaguar was the reason for this trip, Her Majesty the Princess of Felinia, the eldest daughter of King Tutinheimer the Great, 39th king of the 13th planet of Solar System 3120,the munificent Sophia, she was unharmed also,though a bit shaken and irate at the disturbance of her nap. The Jaguar had been tasked with transporting Princess Sophia to the transgalatic conference on Planetary Hairball Etiquette when they had been detected and Attacked by the Dane Class cruiser,chased into the unknown realms of hyperspace during thier flight to the relative safety of thier present position. Flame perused the third planet using his visiscope, doing a quick survey of the surface he established that the planet had an Oxygen based atmospherebut was 2/3 water,,,YUK, and while the planet was inhabited, the population was sparse and of low IQ,thus posing no threat to a Star fighter Patrol vessel. He made a command decision to orbit the planet and find a suitable landing and repair site,his decision made, he decended from geo orbit and prepared for atmospheric entry without his horzontal stabilizer, he was approaching orbital stability at perigee when the Dane spotted him and made a targeting run, Flame had to risk all or lose his ship, he reversed the prrr drive and threw the ship into hsss alignment, the ship rolled on it's back all four landing gear extended,shooting a stream of ionic bullets from it's nose gun. The Dane cruiser had but one choice, try to out run the ion bullets, The Dane's commander, Rear Admiral Wolf, slammed the Dane into BRK overdrive,instantaniously the Dane was in Hyperdrive and away, Adm. Wolf cleared the ninth planet and sought the safety of an asteriod belt, the Ion bullets pelted into the belt but all missed the Dane. Adm. Wolf was not pleased, he had the Felinian Star fighter in his sights and had let him evade capture, but he was sure the Star fighter had crashed into the planets watery surface and all aboard had drowned. Adm. Wolf turned to Lt. Cocker, Another rabbit chased down the hole, he laughed.
Capt. Flame adroitly used the extended landing gear to stabilize the decent of the Jaguar, approaching the surface of the planet at mach 2 he sucessfully flipped the craft back over. They were over water, yeeegods no place to land here, they must find land, there on the visiscope, 45 degrees off to port,about .24 parsecs away, a coastline. Flicker, help with the controls,she's yawing badly, head for that coastline. Fortyfive seconds later they cross the coast, losing altitude, but that is ok, they are over what looks to be a desert,speed down to .5 mach. In the back cabin Princess Sophia's lunch is late,and the ride has been very rough and noisy, she has had enough of this, she will speak to the Captain, she jumps from her sofa only to be jolted to the floor,she screams at Capt Creme, you imbecile! Can't you fly this thing, why couldn't father have sent me on a Star Cruiser! Flame fighting the controls is distracted by the Princesses scream,turns to check on her, Flicker yells "Watch out" Flame turns to see a triangular structure sticking up out of the desert,right in thier path, the left wing grazes the tip of the object, spinning the craft out of control,bouncing upward. They drop to the desert floor,still spinning but upright for several hundred yards coming to rest in a cloud of dust next to a river. Feely, strictly by instinct, blows open the escape hatch and they all scramble out to safety. they look for cover fearing the return of the Dane to finish them off. They run for a field of tall grass in front of the ship,reaching safety. Night is decending on them, thier ship is destroyed but they are safe for the time being. During the night they will survey thier surroundings, during daylight they will sleep and plot thier next move. ESPerann will evaluate the beings that inhabit this planet, see if they are trainable or otherwise usable.
The Felines have arrived on earth.
