Another Forever Stumbling.

	Smoke.
Smoke drifted up into the air of an always-red sky, thick and black, like a firm paintstroke on an infinite canvas. It clawed upward out from among the heavy canopy of leaves that crowned the thick, alien jungle below. You could almost make out the fire behind those leaves, the electrical pulsing and whining of metal, if you just listened closely.
 	If you followed that man-made cloud, and those harsh, mechanical noises, into the forest, through the thick tangles of branches and vines, you would find a ship. About the size of a bus, originally, before it fell from the sky and smashed into a particularly sturdy tree at several hundred miles per hour. Now, it had been pancaked into the wood, only a fourth the length it used to be. Blue and red light flickered from inside the vessel, indicating the severe instabilities inside the ship to anyone with half a brain.
	Mechanical Engineer Tikayra Klitter (species: Davian. Body type comparable to a sort of combination between a frog and a cat) was painfully aware of these instabilities, and as she dragged away Captian Merfton Gartur (species: Turkston. Body type comparable to a kind of triped elephant) from the site of the crash. She briefly considered running back to the twisted metal and scorching flames to go and fix that warp core that dared to fluctuate at a hundred rotations a Federation Interval, or maybe to just destroy that pandamn solid booster that ended up almost killing everyone.
	She immediately decided against it though, mainly because fixing the ship wasn’t worth her time, but also because a warp cores fluctuating at a hundred rotes tend to explode. Violently.
	And explode it did, several minutes later, the percussive shockwave knocking Tikayra off her feet and into the foreign dirt of the jungle. It vaguely reminded her of several kinds of excrement, but she let this thought pass, and dragged her captain to a safe distance away.
	Waiting for the two of them was what looked like a worm, both ends covered in flamboyant, multicolored tentacles that vaguely suggested a mouth was hidden underneath. If you heard him say his name, it would not be a sound, but a smell, one vaguely like wood on a rainy day. But, in Federation Common, his name was Dr. Chixull Mironne, the medic of the crew. So, when he saw Tikayra and Merfton, he slithered over as fast as he could.
	“How is he?” he asked.
She gave him a funny, confused look and sniffed the air a few times.
	“Why… why do you smell like saltwater? Oh, wait, duh,” she said, pulling a small box from her pocket. “You need the translator.”
	She fixed the gadget onto his regulation spacesuit, and he repeated the sentence for her: “Is he ok?”
	“Um…” she said, looking down at Merfton. “I don’t know. You’re the doctor.”
	“Oh, Kayra, ever distracted, even in peril,” he said, brushing his tentacles over the captain. “He doesn’t appear to have any serious injuries. A good shot of Awake should be enough to, well, wake him up.”
	“That’s good.”
	Chixull looked up at the engineer. “And, uh, what of the others?”
	She shook her head back and forth, a sad expression on her face. “Dead,” she mumbled. “They’re dead.”
	The doctor gave off a tired, knowing scent, and went to work on Merfton, quickly pulling out a shot from his suit and injecting into one of his legs. With that, the captain jumped to his feet in a flash, screaming at the sky.
	“SOMEONE PREPARE THE KUKKING DESCENT CLAMPS, IF NOT WE’RE GONNA-”
	His thoughts coming back to him, he looked around a bit, and stopped.
	“Oh. What, um. What happened?”
	“The solid booster engine exploded,” Tikayra replied with an angry sigh. “And we crashed. The whole ship is gone, now! The entire warp core exploded. How does that even happen anymore these days!? I could understand a model four having a complete core meltdown, but a model six?”
	“Kayra,” Mefton said, doing a facepalm with his trunk. “We don’t need to hear the tech report. Please.”
	“But sir, tech reports are important in understanding what went wrong, and understand what went wrong helps you know what to-”
	“Kayra, you did not just quote your species practical-mysticsm-mumbo-jumbo, did you? How many times have I told you I’m not interested in ancient religions that should have died a thousand years ago!”
	“Merfton!” Chixull said, releasing a sudden and sulfuric smell. “That is no way to talk to your crew as a-”
	“Did I ask for your opinion?” the captain interrupted. “No, I didn’t. So shut it.”
He continued, his voice getting angrier and angrier with each word, “I mean, even then, isn’t it your job, Kayra, to make sure the engines are working correctly, and that nothing, y’know, explodes!? I mean, instead of figuring out what happened afterwards, why didn’t you see what was wrong BEFORE it happened? I knew you were slow-witted, Kayra, but I didn’t realize you were an outright MORON!”
	His voice echoed off the leaves, the trees towering high before them, and then silence. The air was thick with tension and anger, so thick you could almost reach out and touch it. It continued, reaching a point where it was almost too much to bear, until the engineer finally spoke.
	“Kuk you, Merfton,” she said, her voice faltering. “I’ll… I’ll be back later.”
	And just like that, she ran off. The captain swore under his breath.
	“Xull?” he said, breathing heavily. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
	“None, sir.”
	“Great. Just great. Try to go get some large leaves, I’m gonna go set up a camp.”