"Warning! The fighter's star-shield energy is falling fast. Thirty-seven per cent… thirty-one per cent… twenty-seven per cent."
"Warning! The engine is in a state of overload."
"Warning! Power is being lost…"
"Warning! The fighter is about to crash. About to crash."
Zhao Chen woke with a violent start, and looked about him.
Black smoke could be seen everywhere, and he himself was at that moment hanging in a tree.
How was it his feet felt warm?
Zhao Chen looked down, and saw his own feet being fed upon by a creature like some great chrysanthemum.
Which was dragging him down out of the tree, little by little.
Looking at that great flower's writhing mouth, Zhao Chen felt his gorge rise.
He felt at his waist and drew out the light-blade hilt he carried.
Hilt downward, and a thought moved in him.
And a great blade cut the strange flower-creature below him clean in two.
Zhao Chen glanced overhead; the parachute caught in the tree was what had kept him from striking the ground outright.
Zhao Chen shrank the light-blade and cut through the parachute's cords.
And his body came down upon the ground at once.
Zhao Chen looked at the creature's carcass on the ground, and then at the slime upon his own boots.
And frowned slightly.
This was likely a living thing of the plant kind, which swallows its prey into its own body and digests it away by degrees.
Zhao Chen looked himself over from head to foot.
Apart from his boots being somewhat sodden, there was no wound upon him anywhere; and it might be that they had healed of themselves while he lay senseless.
Of weapons upon him there was only that light-blade in his hand.
For an interstellar fighter pilot is not like an ordinary interstellar soldier, who may carry a great many weapons upon him.
And such emergency gear as there is stays with the fighter.
Zhao Chen looked about him, and made certain first that there was no enemy anywhere near.
Then sought out a stout tree…
It should be a tree, at any rate, though it were grown of some black stone he did not know; but at least it was tall enough.
In three moves and five, Zhao Chen was at the top of this stone tree.
And then he began to look out over the country.
First of all he could see black smoke rising from the ground all about him; and from some near enough, he could even see that the smoke came from interstellar warships, fighters, shuttles or escape pods.
And above the cloud overhead, several interstellar warships wrapped in flame could be seen falling still.
Every one of these warships was the enemy's.
And the memory of what had gone before began to come back to Zhao Chen by degrees.
By rights the Alliance's guard fleet, once the relief had come up, could have worked with them from within while the relief worked from without, and so destroyed these enemy fleets.
But never in the world had they supposed the enemy held a black technology that could, given certain conditions, make a wormhole.
And most unluckily, the Black Rose No. 1 that Zhao Chen was aboard had been caught by that wormhole's pull, and was dragged into it at the last.
And after that no few warships were dragged in as well.
And some of them were torn into four pieces and five outright in the wormhole's disordered space.
After a brief confusion, Black Rose No. 1 found a 'window' within that wormhole space.
Which, in such a case as that, was a straw to clutch at.
Nor did Black Rose No. 1 care where this window might lead; she sailed straight for it.
And plunged headlong in at the last.
And what no one had supposed was that they truly did make their escape from the wormhole space.
Only that where in the universe they now stood was wholly unknown.
And at the same time, having been through the wormhole's disorder, no little of the ship's performance was damaged, and her energy engine and communications gear above all.
Which is to say that Black Rose No. 1 could neither reach the outside nor make any voyage.
And this was not the worst of it.
For afterward, past all expectation, a dozen and more of the other universe's warships had pursued them even here.
The other side's warships were gravely damaged as well.
And what followed was a fight to the death between them.
By good fortune the enemy's were all of T5 grade, and Black Rose No. 1 destroyed every one of them.
But at the same time Black Rose No. 1 was near enough crippled; there was not one place upon the whole hull that was whole.
And, having lost all control, she was falling toward the surface of the nearest planet.
And in such a case, an interstellar warship out of control falling to a planet's surface is fully the equal of a meteorite coming down.
It is a calamity.
So aboard Black Rose No. 1 the order was given at once for every hand to abandon ship.
Zhao Chen, being an interstellar fighter pilot, naturally had the advantage in that.
And drew off flying his own fighter outright.
But what no one had looked for was that the enemy clung like a ghost that would not be shaken.
For though the enemy's warships were destroyed, the enemy likewise had a great number of fighters, drones and even shuttles that had come through alive.
And seeing Black Rose No. 1 about to go down, they came swarming like jackals that have caught the smell of blood.
And fell at any cost whatever upon every soul drawing off from Black Rose No. 1.
And Zhao Chen was one of those they fixed upon.
Zhao Chen's flying is good enough, but the enemy were many and his own side few, and the fighter itself had little energy left in it besides.
And at the last, having destroyed a dozen and more of the enemy's craft,
Zhao Chen could only fly to this place and take to his parachute to get out alive.
For the fighter had lost control and there was no bringing it down in any proper way.
By good fortune, Zhao Chen had flown far enough at the last.
For otherwise, had his fighter come down near where Black Rose No. 1 came down, the backwash of that impact might very well have destroyed him.
"There is no knowing where Black Rose No. 1 came down. Upon land it is one thing; but in an ocean it might very well raise a tidal wave. Though since I cannot see her from here, she is likely a long way from where I stand." Zhao Chen looked about him.
And indeed there was no wreckage of Black Rose No. 1 to be seen.
Black Rose No. 1, being a warship of quasi-T6 grade, runs to some tens of kilometers in the length of her hull, and coming down upon the ground would leave fire and heavy smoke behind.
Were she anywhere near, it was not possible that Zhao Chen should fail to find her.
"I never thought it would come at last to a case like this one. In a universe I do not know, in a star region I do not know, crashed upon a planet I do not know." Zhao Chen sat on his heels at the top of the tree, and let out a long breath.
"System, oh System. How is it that since you fell silent my luck has been so bad? You have not stolen my luck away from me, I suppose?" Zhao Chen could not keep from grumbling at this point.
And at this Zhao Chen marked something amiss in the air.
Several craft were in flight, and behind them came a pack of craft in pursuit.
Those fleeing were craft of the Star Alliance, and those pursuing were the enemy's.