Fly me to the moon

"NO!!! Don't do that!!" you heard from the seat on your right. Williams had woken up during your approach of the planet.

"Williams! Thanks the stars, are you alright? I know how to fly the ship in space but I never trained on atmospheric landings." You replied, more than a little relieved to have the statuesque pilot take the helm.

"We can't land, we'd burn up on entry." She explains as she settles into the pilot seat and starts flicking switches. "We're coming in too hot with no way to brake enough. With no shields and those hull breaches. I give us about 7% chance of survival if we try a planetary landing, and the Gorgon will be a wreck." she told you after checking the readings on her screens.

"Isn't that better than our odds against the Greys and Draykchins? The Acheron and the Fleet left us, the only human ships left here are damaged or worse and we have no weapons, no comms, we have to get away! You're the pilot, find a way!" Not a really good and detailed order but reflection on this point would have to wait for a later moment. (that won't happen if you lose time thinking about things like that.) After twenty seconds second officer turns to you with a grim smile.

"There is something with better odds than a planetary re-entry, but it's still a long shot."

"How much better?"

"20% maybe 25, and with far less damage to the Gorgon if it works." So far so good, you nod for her to continue. "It's an old trick from the antiquity of space travel. We slingshot around Verdana 4 burning off some of our velocity in the upper atmosphere, then aim for the moon." You look at her in disbelief but as she presses for her solution you start to see it has some potential. "You marked the moon as having pockets of breathable atmosphere in the deep craters. This Ophidian ship will survive a crash landing on something with 0.5 G especially if we burn off some of its speed in the planetary atmosphere before we slingshot away. Best of all we can limit firing our engines to when we are inside the atmosphere and then play dead until we reach the far side of the moon to land." Lieutenant Williams showed you an elegant trajectory around the planet. You had focused so much on slowing your fall to the planet that you forgot to consider acceleration as an option.

"Well officer William, fly me to the moon and let us play among the stars." You agreed, hoping that this first real command decision wasn't going to be your last.

Having been freed the duty of flying the corvette you unbuckle you harness to go check on Smith. You grabbed the emergency medikit of the bridge but you were unsure that she would survive. The shock of the torpedo impact and the blowback of the damage caused her serious head injury, it was better that she remained ****. You injected her with a syringe of a mix of sedative and of a serum that would make her recover faster before strapping her down to an unoccupied bed to prevent further injury.

On-the-fly repairs in such a situation are a tricky thing but you manage to extinguish a few fires and reroute a power relay to give Williams one of the six main thrusters back.

"That's the best I can do alone in so little time, I really hope your piloting is as good as your file says it is." You told her through the ships com port.

"Oh, I'm that good but go buckle up, Captain. We'll make it, but it will be rough." she replied.

The slingshot manœuvre around the world at least got the Gorgon away from the last of the fighting and now your ship was hurling through space with all systems turned off except for the lowest setting for life support. You were pointed at the small moon, tumbling through space in what you hoped was a space-debris flight pattern. You had not missed the Draykchin recovery ships scooping up life pods from the crushed Fleet ships, any humans lucky enough to survive the abandon ship procedure would now be facing a life of slavery.

The only thing more terrifying than being spotted by one of those lizards would be for one of the Greys to find and board the Gorgon. The mag pistol that you kept on your lap was not so you could fight your way to freedom, if those Grey fuckers found you, you were going to shoot first Smith and Williams and then blow your own brains out.