Better than you

While waiting for the ship to wake your pilot you review the little archived historical data stored on the Dandelion Project. Your best bet was that this colony were the descendants of a colony ship sponsored by a coalition of Central and South American states. The computer linguistics identified several meso-american terms although had no explanation for the strong presence of females. Lacking a better explanation, in your own mind you decided to refer to the blood thirsty women as Amazons.

Five minutes later a hand rests on your shoulder.

"I'm ready now Captain." Lt. Williams looked ready. Stims are a miraculous things, at least for as long as they are in the system. Unfortunately the real danger, you know, it is the stress imposed on the already weakened body as the medications fade. Pushing aside that troubling concern for now, you show Williams the flight path you have been working on.

"I see what you're trying to do Captain." Williams muttered as she ran your flight-plan through her navigation software, "but it won't work, not like you want it to. If we hit the outer atmosphere at that angle we're gonna bounce right off your projected path." You could see the tall ebony-skinned officer access her implant, and only wait as she interacted with the nav-computer. Suddenly her focus snaps back to you and she reaches for the controls. "I've plotted a slightly different entry point, Sir." She tells you as she fires up two of the portside thrusters. "I'll have to tweak our flight-path while we are still as high up as possible." You nod at her and sit back and watch as she fires a single burst and immediately cuts all power again. "Hopefully that looked just like another of the hundreds of collisions that are happening all around us. Here's our new landing zone."

Williams points to a spot on the southern edge of the large jungle continent. It is closer to one of the major high-tech cities than you would like but a 2,000 km ridge of a massive mountain range lies between the city and the shoreline where she hopes to land.

"It's the best I can do, Sir. You may as well relax." Williams tells you. "Nothing much we can do until 20:45 FST except tumble slowly towards the upper atmosphere." You nod and squeeze her shoulder in gratitude for her skill.

"In that case Lieutenant, I'm going to pretend I'm just an engineer for the next twenty minutes and patch as many holes as I can." You tell her. "Why don't you see how Ensign Smith is doing?" The look of gratitude that flickers across your pilot's face confirms what you suspected when you first saw the two together. "Don't wake her unless the computer says its OK to." You warn her, "I took a chance with you because it was the only way, but we'll be alright with her safely in stasis for this Hell-ride."

The Gorgon is in surprisingly good shape considering the condition of the rest of the UTF fleet, but there is more than enough to keep you busy as you slowly fall deeper into the gravity well of the M-class planet below. Thank the stars for that. You mutter under your breath, as you wrestle another defective thermal conduit back into position and spot-weld it into place. If Williams can get you safely on the ground you'll at least have a chance to survive until you can come up with some way to fix the hyperdrive or until the Federation comes back to kick some royal bitch ass.

Just before 20:45 you slide back into your command seat and nod to Williams. "Do your thing Lieutenant. You bring this baby down safely, without alerting those bloodthirsty Amazons and I'll be the first to buy you a drink."