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Roman flipped controls wildly, trying to find the one that would shut up the insistent alarm blaring across the entire ship. "Yes. Yes. I am aware the engine is gone, I get it," He cursed at the control panel. There was nothing to do now but damage control; they were gonna crash, he just had to point them in a direction in which they may survive said crash. There was a cute little blue and green planet on his radar that was perfectly habitable, to the point where a lot of these readings were fairly similar to their own planet. He vaguely wondered why this planet had yet to be considered for colonization but that was hardly important as they were now barreling towards it.
He opened the comms to see Logan's annoyed and panicked face, his fur standing on edge as his rounded ears were pulled back, "Roman, what did you do?"
"Not my fault!" Roman hurriedly exclaimed with a manic grin, "Buckle up, Logan were in for a rough landing."
"Roman, I swear if we get out of this I'm-" Logan growled before Roman cut off the comm.
He laughed nervously, the planet was now in his sights, getting bigger with every second. He put the last of his excess power into slowing their ship as much as possible. He opened the other comm, "Hey Patts, no time to explain, you just gotta buckle up."
Patton's tail was wrapped tightly around his leg as he was racing about his greenhouse, securing plants in their places, "I kinda figured as much when the alarms went off- How long do I got?"
Roman huffed, "No faith in me, huh? Well Patton, I'm going to say you have about till now, cause I'm not letting you risk your life to save your plants. Please buckle up."
Patton sent Roman a soft, strained smile before he grabbed his comm device and left the greenhouse. He found his spot next to Logan and strapped himself in, "Alright, we're secure, be careful, Ro!"
"Please do as little damage to the ship as possible," Logan added.
"I'll do my best," Roman grumbled through his forced smirk, shutting off the comm and taking a hold of the controls. He maneuvered around the bit of meteors and debris floating and spinning around them. He squinted as something oddly shaped came into his vision as he maneuvered away from hitting it; it passed in a flash but from what Roman could tell it was gigantic and definitely not natural, with blinking lights and antennas attached. Perhaps there was a reason this planet was never colonized.
He did his best to flip as many switches as possible that could slow them down and stop the ship from burning up into a fiery ball of molten metal as they hurtled towards the planet’s surface. The entire ship shook violently as they passed through the ionosphere, he could hear Patton's scared chirping from here but he was just glad they were all getting through the worst part without burning up. Several shaky minutes later and they passed the mesosphere and stratosphere. "Brace yourselves!" Roman called out as they entered the troposphere.
As he ran out of buttons to press to help them he curled up in his chair and covered his face with his arms. The sound of metal crunching and glass breaking drowned out the sound of branches snapping as the ship finally hit the ground and dug it's smashed nose into the earth, filling his cockpit with dirt as it spilled through the broken windshield. He wheezed as he pulled the seat belt off, wincing at the forming bruise but grateful he hadn't been thrown forward at a deadly speed. He looked around and winced- this mess wasn't getting fixed anytime soon.
"Roman!" Patton yelled from the other side, pounding on the door, "Roman, please tell me you're alright!"
"I'm alright!" Roman shouted back as he stood. He looked over the controls and huffed as he started flipping all the important ones off. It wouldn't help them fix anything if they kept trying to run the power without an engine. He pulled his ears back with his hands in stress as he looked over the damage before letting them go and finally unlocked the door.
Patton leaped forward and wrapped his arms and tail around Roman, "Don't you ever scare me like that again, mister!"
He chuckled humorlessly, "I don't plan on it."
Logan came up behind Patton; Roman winced, expecting a lecture or a reprimand or just an insult. Instead, however, Logan set his hand on Roman's shoulder and sighed, "I'm glad you are alright, I was worried."
Roman lit up, "You do care!" He loosened his grip on Patton to pull Logan in, Patton gladly helping him.
Logan hugged them back and huffed, "Of course. You're our pilot," he deflected, but Roman could see his nose turning pink and he laughed.
"Well, I guess we should go explore? Get a shelter started and see if we can find any food sources," Patton suggested, pulling away from the hug.
Roman's ears flicked back, "We should be careful, I think this planet is inhabited."
Logan's fur, which had finally managed to smooth out, puffed up again, "What do you mean?"
"There was tech in the exosphere and I think I saw at least one city before.. landing." Roman answered sheepishly.
Logan sighed, "At least they're not primitive; but yes, we should be careful and try not to draw attention to ourselves. If our crash hasn't done that already."
"So-? We're still leaving the ship, right?" Patton asked for clarification.
"I'll go first, you guys stay here," Roman answered immediately. Logan opened his mouth to protest but Roman cut him off, "I crashed the ship and have the most combat training, it's only fair and logical that I go first, check for threats and scout the area."
Logan grimaced but nodded, walking over to a side cabinet. He unlocked it with his fingerpad and pulled out a light sword and translation collar, "Don't hurt yourself with this."
Roman scoffed and clipped on the collar and attached the earpiece before he took the sword, feeling it in his hand, "Please Logan, while you were busy being a nerd I was busy studying the blade."
"Still," Patton added, "Be careful kiddo, you don't know what's out there and I don't want you getting hurt by accident.”
Roman gave him a reassuring smile, “I’ll be fine. Why not go check on your samples?”
“Oh! My Kepfers!” Patton exclaimed and rushed off to check on his plants.
Logan gave him a look and Roman just shrugged, “I’ll be right back Logan, don’t worry.” He opened the hatch before Logan could reply and climbed out into the fresh air. He closed his eyes to take a deep breath and revelled in the fresh air despite the smell of smoke.
When he opened his eyes, his ears pulled back and his fur ruffled up. Everything was giant. The trees towering higher than any city building on his planet and the leaves nearly as big as him.
“Oh this can’t be a good sign..” He pulled himself completely out of the ship and dropped down into the upturned dirt, completely enthralled in the extreme size of everything.
“Holy shit,” a low voice muttered next to him and he swivelled around to it, hissing in response. He almost dropped his sword when he got a good look at the life form, his fur standing completely on end now. The life form was massive, possibly ten times the size of himself, furless except the purple tuft on their head and dark blond patches above their eyes, pale skinned with a large nose and ears, small mismatched eyes blown wide and his pink lips parted. They crouched down, holding up a black flat device up in their hand, “You’re an actual alien.. Janus owes me a hundred bucks.”
Roman watched the device and the life form cautiously, “Uh.. greetings! I-”
“Oh my God, please don’t follow that cliche,” The life form snorted, “News flash, no one actually says ‘greetings’ on Earth.”
Roman blinked in confusion and scowled, “What is that supposed to mean? I say ‘greetings’ to everyone I meet! And Earth? Is that what you call this planet? You named your planet Dirt? Really?”
They laughed, “You seriously say ‘greetings’? What type of stuffy space society are you from?”
“Are you really just insulting me?” Roman fumed, “You came all the way out to my ship just to make fun of me?”
“Nah,” They said, stifling their laughter and they set the device in their hand into a front pouch of their jacket. They smirked down at Roman, “I was gonna take your ship before the government could get it’s greedy little hands on it.”
“Excuse me? You will be doing nothing of the sort! This is my ship and some assistance from your government sounds much better than the likes of you taking it off to do who knows what with it,” Roman exclaimed, pointing his sword at them, “You will not be commandeering my ship today, good-sir.”
“I really doubt the government will give you much assistance,” They replied, “Take you to a secret military base to be interrogated and then dissected? Yeah, that’s more likely.”
Roman growled, “Why should I believe that?”
They shrugged, “You don’t have to, but you’ll be pretty upset when the guys in black suits cart you away to never be seen again.”
“And what will you do instead?” Roman questioned, readying his sword.
“Take you back to my friend’s house and harbor you until you can leave this crummy planet,” They answered, glancing back at his ship, “There’s not anyone still in there is there? It looks pretty fucked up..”
“There’s no one else. I’m the only one,” Roman gritted out, “And it’ll be fine, I can fix it.. Probably..”
The fur above their left eye raised, “You don’t sound too confident.”
“Be quiet or I’ll slash you!” Roman swung his sword threateningly.
They rolled their eyes before lifting their head and looking off in the distance. Roman blinked and followed their gaze, he couldn’t see anything but he heard the sound of sirens, growing louder with each passing second. The life form’s face paled, “Times up, little guy, we gotta go.”
“What is-” Roman started to ask but was cut off by a scream as the life form scooped him into his hand and shoved him into his jacket pouch with the black device. He turned off his lightsword as to not hurt himself or the other, “What are you doing?”
“Saving your ass!” They replied. He heard metal creaked and groan and realized with horror that the life form was picking up the ship, “Oh fuck, this thing is hot!”
“Be careful with that!” Roman screeched, severely worried for his friends inside.
“I will be!” They shouted back and they started walking quickly away from the crash sight. “You can call me Virgil, by the way.”
He growled in the pocket and replied begrudgingly, “Roman, he/him pronouns,”
“Oh! Um, me too,” Virgil added, albeit a bit awkwardly.
Roman flicked his hand up and down in understanding despite Virgil not being able to see him and likely would not understand the meaning of it anyway. The sirens got louder as they walked and it was barely a minute later when Virgil stopped. There was the sound of something popping open and a bit of jostling as Virgil presumingly moved into either a hiding place or a vehicle. “Where are we?”
“My car,” Virgil answered, there was a jingling sound before their entire surroundings erupted in low rumbling. A vehicle then.
“Can you.. Put me back in my ship?” Roman asked. He needed to check on Logan and Patton and tell them what was going on.
“Uh, sure,” Virgil answered, wrapping his fingers around Roman and set him by the hatch of his ship. Virgil turned back to the windshield of the car and moved a lever so they started moving, causing Roman to wobble. He watched Virgil control the car in interest for a moment before climbing down.
The moment he was back inside he was faced with two very terrified crew mates. He swallowed as his ears pulled themselves back and he offered a very tentative smile, “So.. you’re not going to like this..”