Of course not

You tilt your back against the wall, and take a deep breath. You did it. The chances were against you, but you were able to escape the pirates.

“Next time, if we go to an uncharted sector, I am the one picking the course, alright?” Elena says.

“Sure,” you nod.

BANG!!!

Then there is another shockwave rippling through the hull.

“Elena, what’s happening?” you ask motionless, seeing the flock of red lights appear on the consoles.

“Looks like the FTL drive got damaged,” she answers. ”I’m not sure how long we can keep going with this. Probably not long.”

“Are there any nearby planets?” you ask. It would be a shame, if you would have to send a distress signal, and lead those pirates back to you, just after your glorious triumph.

“Yepp, there is one,” Elena says, and she immediately begins to steer the ship towards it.

Lucky for you, it only takes a couple minutes to get there. By that time the FTL drive is at the edge of overheating, so you are glad that you can finally see a planet in front of you. The problem is the de-acceleration. Or the lack of it.

“Elena?” you turn to her as you see another flock of red lights on the consoles.

“Looks like our forward thrusters are also busted. Well, at least most of them,” she answers.

You can see two glimpses of light coming from the front of your vessel. You recall there should be eight. You notice you start slowing down. But you also remember that these sort of landings usually involve a lot more slowing down than this.

“It’s not gonna be enough,” you tell her.

“I’m aware,” Elena says. “But the grav couplings are okay, so I think we are have at least a four to five chance that we survive this. Which is pretty good actually.”

“And what about the ship?” you ask. You get no response.

The Emerald Grace enters the atmosphere, darting through the sky like a meteorite. She continues to slow down, making the deadly descent to a slow crawl, then the ship’s hull touches ground in a forest, and starts digging a hole in front of itself. The hull begins to rapidly deteriorate around you. Elena is strapped tight in her chair, but you have nothing to use for cover, so you jump to her chair, and hold on dearly. Lucky for you, the ship stops dead in the ground seconds later, and mere embarrassment is the only cost of your actions.

“See: told you we are about eighty percent sure to survive it,” Elena smiles. You finally take note of yourself, and let go of the chair.

“And the ship got totaled,” you answer, pretending like nothing happened. You note there are less red lights on the consoles than before. But there are also less consoles functional.

“Well,” Elena shrugs, and she begins to assess the flood of information on the screens. “Give me a minute.”

You nod, and wait patiently as she reads through the data. You try to read her expressions, but even by the sheer number of frowns, sighs and eye-jumps, you can clearly see that your are not in a rosy situation for once.

“Well?” you fake some confidence as Elena turns back to you.

“The reactor core has fried, so we will need a new one. The backup generator is okay, but we will need new energy cells. We will also need a new FTL drive. Plus, the hull either gets patched up in several places, or we travel with half of the ship locked down, which we can do, but then we will also need a new shield generator. Because that’s also toast.”

“That is just wonderful,” you nod.

Luckily your sensors are somewhat still functional, and you can start investigating the area around you. There is a city nearby, and the docks, but other than that everything is covered with trees. The city itself is a blessing, because that means you can get the parts you need. On the other hand, if there is a city, there are authorities, which means that someone is already on its way here. At home this could be considered fortunate. Problem is: You are newcomers from a different place - without institutionalized slavery -, and this might not make them the friendliest towards you.

You decide not to play with fire, so you get out of the wreckage, and start looking at the city from a nearby hill at the edge of the forest.

“Well, what do you see?” Elena asks, as you look through the flock of gray buildings, docks, shops, squares and common areas with your ultra-visor. Most of these aren’t very fascinating to you. In fact, the only thing that catches your attention is a large building near the docks, with tall letters saying “**** Registry”. You see two people leaving the building, one of them is a wealthy man, tall, wide-shoulders, shiny gray suit, the other is a **** dressed in a blue straitjacket, tight and sexy, made of latex or something similar, treading after her owner cautiously in **** ballet boots, with her two meter long leash yanked repeatedly in the process.

“It looks like this is the more **** friendly part of the sector,” you comment. You also find yourself strangely aroused.

“What?” Elena asks.

You give her the visor. Then you see her jaw drop as she witnesses the woman in the blue straitjacket. It also looks like you share a common excitement with this. As you know for a fact that the both of you are kinky.

“You are thinking what I’m thinking?” you ask.

“You want to register yourself as a ****?” Elena looks back at you with glowing eyes.

“We could do it,” you say with a wide smile on your face.

“You cannot be serious!” Elena laughs. But her tone quickly tenses. “What if we are bought by a sadist? Or you know, end up as living furniture?”

“You will be the furniture,” you dart. “Come on! There will be authorities coming for the ship no matter what. And even if we do get the parts, and we don’t get enslaved in the process, we would still have to deal with them in some way. Which is not something a lot of people get to walk away from.”

“So you just want to get yourself sold to slavery?” she asks.

“Don’t tell me you are not curious about this!” you answer. “Come on: this way we get to avoid the authorities, plus all the crazy people roaming around the city. We will be collared, and trained, relatively normally, and get sold to someone who is normal, and just wants a ****.”

“Or we end up as furniture,” she answers.