		
Learning Dizyntk Prologue...(scfi, no sex)



          "Shit, goddamn it, mother fucker," and a good dozen other curses in 3 different languages came spitting from behind Michael's clenched teeth as he fought to gain some semblance of control over his rapidly descending craft.

 It was not supposed to have been this hard on this run. He was supposed to be out and back in just 4 days. Of course he hadn't anticipated running into a battle.
Now his main engines were gone, the sensors were offline, and worst of all the inertial dampeners were barely functional. He had to slow the ship down or the impact would surely kill him.

 "Easier said than done", he thought as he watched the planets surface getting closer all too quickly. 

The ships systems were blaring alarms and warnings at him when he noticed that the atmospheric foils had finally deployed. He didn't know if they were in time as he watched the altimeter plummet past 1000 meters. He pulled up hard and prayed that the wings didn't tear off. The ship slowed rapidly, but he could tell that he was still going to hit very hard. He closed his eyes and braced for the impact. He briefly felt the horrendous jolt before he was knocked unconscious.

		Michael Christopher had joined the space forces when he was just out of high school. He initially served on a destroyer for 2 years before he applied for a transfer to the courier service. He had shown a high aptitude in both piloting and navigation and was accepted into that elite group. Courier ships were small and very fast and their pilots got to see a lot more of the galaxy than the average fleet crews. Their job was relaying messages and small cargoes between fleets and distant planets. It was a dangerous job sometimes, and the fact that the little ships carried little in the way of weapons only made the abilities of the pilot that much more important. Courier service pilots were therefore considered some of the best in the vast Terran Protectorate and being accepted to serve in that service was considered a high honor. Michael was trained on one of the larger courier ships with a 3 man crew for 2 years before being given his own one man packet ship. It was usually a lot more boring than exciting as he spent up to 3 weeks at a time between fleets or planets by himself. Overall however he liked his job. The only thing he had to worry about was the off chance of bumping into a pirate ship or a hostile alien species.

		The first was rare, although it had happened to him twice in the 2 years he had had his ship. Both times he easily out piloted and outran the brigands. The second he had never had happen. Humans had only encountered two other sentient space faring life forms in the three centuries since they had discovered FTL travel. The Oorli were vaguely reptilian and hard to understand. There had been some minor clashes with them early on but for the past 200 years they and humanity had gotten along reasonably well. This was mostly because their atmosphere and temperature requirements meant that the planets the Oorli settled were not suitable for human colonization and vice versa. So there was no real competition between the two races for living space. Therefore they got along, or at least were not antagonistic towards each other.

		The Dizyntk on the other hand were suited to very similar environments as humans. Not much was known about the Dizyntk. They were mammalian and almost feline in appearance. Little was known about their social habits.  They had only been encountered 60 years ago and relations were quickly strained over claims of ownership of two star systems. This led to a war between the Protectorate and the Dizyntk Imperium. It lasted 12 years before peace negotiations finally brought an end to it. For the past 40 years there had been nothing but the occasional small skirmish.
		
		Just three days ago Michael was given an assignment to deliver messages to a small Terran fleet 2 days distant. While it was near Dizyntk space Michael saw little need to worry. Two days out, two days back. It was a milk run, or at least it should have been. 

		Michael's ship dropped out of FTL near the fleet's location. Immediately all hell broke lose. Before he could even get his bearings a large energy blast passed barely 100 meters in front of his ship. Suddenly his systems were blaring collision alerts and letting him know that he was being tracked by weapon targeting systems. He instinctually began dodging the chunks of debris in his path. He quickly realized that the debris were pieces of starships. The ships automatic scanners informed him that half of the 14 ships of the Terran fleet were gone. Then they informed him about the 9 Dizyntk warships of which 2 were tracking his vessel. He quickly accelerated and dodged behind the nearest Terran ship. He headed straight for the fleet flagship which was still intact he was happy to see. His computer rapidly connected to the flagships computer and downloaded the message and uploaded messages to be returned to his own fleet.

 "If I ever get back to my fleet", Michael thought sourly.

		Just as he started to punch up the FTL drive a Dizyntk fighter attacked. He flew for all he was worth trying to shake the fighter that was firing on him. Laser fire from one of the Terran warships finally hit the Dizyntk fighter but not before it had damaged Michael's packet ship. His navigation system was down and the FTL drive was showing damage but it was still online. Suddenly his scanners showed three more Dizyntk ships coming out of FTL right in front of him. He broke right as two of the ships headed for the battered Terran fleet. The third turned the same direction the he was now headed. Terran ships engaged the three new targets quickly and Michael could see that he was caught right in the line of fire. He knew that he didn't have coordinates but he also knew he had to get out of here right now. As he saw several hits strike home on the Dizyntk ship near him he engaged his FTL drive.

		Michael did not even know where he was headed. He simply told the computer to drop out of FTL when the ship came to a star system. There were sparks and small pops from the damaged systems in the cockpit. Suddenly a panel to his left blew out and struck him in the head. Had Michael not been wearing his helmet the impact would surely have killed him. As it was he went immediately unconscious.

		He slowly awoke to the annoying sounds of alarms blaring in the cockpit. As his mind cleared and his eyes focused he saw the planet that the ship was heading uncontrollably towards. Quickly his training took over and he started trying to get control of the ship. He could see that most of his systems were now down.  He had no idea how long he had been out or how far the ship had traveled but right now he had more pressing things to worry about. His main engines were out for some reason. He was going to have to try and use the planets atmosphere to slow the ship. Luckily his scanners were functioning just enough to let him know that the planets atmosphere was breathable. 

"Well that's good news", he said out loud, "If I live to get a chance to breath it."

 The ship slammed into the atmosphere and even more systems went down. Michael hit the button to deploy the ships airfoils and got a red malfunction light. He stared at it for a second in disbelief then looked back towards the planets surface rapidly getting closer.

		"Shit, goddamn it, mother fucker"............

