This planet was not made for humans, thought Keisha as she tried to land the ship on the flat bare surface. Only a few trees dotted the white sandy expanse. The bright sun in her eyes was a nice contrast from the blackness of space they had been flying in for the past month.

This was rated as one of the easiest planets to land on. She couldn’t hit something even if she tried. The land below was nothing but white sand with a few small trees scattered throughout. The colony researchers had spent the last year monitoring this planet for life and had found nothing. If it hadn't been for the few trees they wouldn't have even considered the planet habitable.

It was a straightforward mission of landing near the colony site, waking the researchers first, and then helping secure the first village. The research team would send back data to Klokos I so they could send any soil amendment requests they would need with future colony ships. Judging by the looks of it, this soil would need a lot of help. Why they chose this planet to be Klokos II, Keisha could only guess. It was bleaker than any of the other three planets she had trained on.

The Captain came into the small cramped deck to oversee the landing and Keisha and Fiolas sat slightly straighter. They had spent most of the trip in cryosleep but had been awake for the last month to ensure a safe landing and steady approach.

“We’re coming up on the landing coordinates.” Fiolas said.

“Good, let’s make sure we land right where they told us,” Captain Alterra said, “This planet all looks the same to me, but the researchers assured me the water was closer to the surface here. Should make it easier for the colonists to get a well.”

Keisha nodded in agreement and began her descent towards the landing pad. To Fiolas' credit, he kept silent and did his job without distracting her. It may be a boring planet, but she was determined to not mess up on her first solo mission as a head pilot. They touched down as soft as Keisha had ever experienced and just as she was about to smugly report it, the ship swayed up and down as though they had landed on water.

The satellite images had shown this site to be nothing more than a sandy flatland, then why is the ship swaying up and down? Keisha began checking all her instruments to see what was happening. Fiolas gave her a concerned look then started double-checking his instruments.

“Pilot,” Captain Alterra barked, “why is my ship bouncing?”

“Sir, I was just wondering the same thing." Keisha unclicked her seat belt and looked out the window. The sand looked off, but she couldn't quite figure out why. "Permission to lift off and survey from the air?”

“Permission granted.” Captain Alterra replied. The old man hated when things didn't go as planned. He was a military man through and through, everything was done to spec or it wasn't done. Keisha began the steps necessary to perform a take-off maneuver she had done hundreds of times. The sound of switches flipping to prepare for the take-off echoing in the small deck.

Fiolas immediately started helping get the take-off sequence started. The ship raised slightly then stopped as though something had tied it to this place. She tried again and this time the ship raised even less and felt even more bound.

Starship Excelsior may be old but it had never had a take-off problem. She tried once more and the ship rose several feet and stopped, Keisha gently set the ship back down, not wanting to accidentally mess up the landing gear. She knew how particular the Captain was about his ship.

“Captain,” she tried to keep the trembling out of her voice, “the ship is stuck.”

“What do you mean stuck?” He yelled and his face was getting redder by the moment.

“I mean, it won’t lift off, sir. From the controls, it feels as though the harder I try the less I am able to get this ship off the ground.” Panic started to race through the small command deck of the ship. "Should I get out and take a look?"

“Lieutenant Brakas, I want this ship off the ground, if you go out and get stuck then where will we be? Is there someone in cryosleep who can help us?” Keisha took a deep breath.

The only more senior pilot than her was still asleep in cold storage and was officially a colonist now, having retired with a stellar career. Not to mention it would take a week to wake him up properly.

She didn’t want to have to be the one to inform the Captain of that. He was known to have a temper. As Keisha began preparing for another take-off, Fiolas, pointed out the window and had a silent scream on his face. She followed his finger as he pointed out the window to a ginormous black shiny leg wrapped around the tiny tree at the corner of the landing site. Soon another leg joined it and it was clear there was more body it was pulling up out of the ground.

The satellite images never showed a creature this large on the planet, somewhere, somehow the people in charge of choosing new planets for colonies had messed up.

All three of them watched as this creature pulled up and moved towards the ship. Keisha recoiled and stared with disbelief her mouth hung open.

Now the creature was above the ground she could see it had four legs on each side of a large bulbous body and a smaller head with multiple eyes. The entire creature was an oily black and it was difficult to tell how many eyes it had because it all melded together. The Beast oriented itself the thing crawled towards the ship at a speed she only believed because she saw it. It went straight towards the side of the ship and they felt the ship lurch under the weight of it.

Without waiting for permission Keisha burned the engines and they heard a blood-curdling scream from whatever that creature was. I need to get off of this planet, thought Keisha. She burned the engines with their wind turbines as hard as she could.

“Fiolas! Detach the cargo hold.” The Captain yelled. Fiolas immediately started pressing buttons and Keisha felt the ship rise higher than before and finally broke free and lurched forward as whatever had held them released.

Laughter and tears filled the room and the Captain squeezed Keisha’s shoulder. Fiolas looked her in the eye and nodded in appreciation. Keisha circled the thing and watched as the cargo hold fell through the hole they had created. The three of them stared at the creature silently.

"I've seen a beast like that before but only in the holo's my grandma would show me." Fiolas broke the silence. "She was one of the last immigrants from Earth and when she took me in she would tell me stories about it and show me pictures." He paused and choked back some tears, whether from the scare they just had or the memory of a loved one Keisha couldn't be sure.

"That thing looks just like a creature on earth called a spider." Fiolas' voice wavered and Keisha and the captain listened with eyes glued on the thing they had just escaped. "They have 8 legs, 8 eyes, and they make webs to catch their food. They were never as big as that thing though. Depending on where you lived they ranged from tiny pinpricks to about the size of a small cat, not big enough to move an entire ship."

Keisha tore her gaze away and started scanning the terrain and now that she knew what to look for saw ginormous webs covering the face of the planet. Everything they thought was sand was a web of some sort. She maneuvered the ship to get a good look down the hole they had made and she saw a thick dark forest. The few trees they thought were the only vegetation were just a few trees tall enough to break through the web line. She could not tell how far down those trees went, but it looked deep.

“Lieutenant Brakas, I have deemed this planet unfit for colonists. Take us back home.” Captain Alterra was still breathing hard from the shock. He began typing in a message Keisha hoped was warning the other colonists.

“Yes sir.” She responded and began making their ascent to leave orbit.

BEEP--BEEP--BEEP--BEEP

The alarm for the fuel tanks rang loud through the ship and they started losing altitude at an alarming rate. “BRAKAS!” BEEP “DO NOT” BEEP “THIS SHIP” BEEP “ANOTHER ONE OF” BEEP “WEBS!” The Captain was yelling what appeared obvious to Keisha. The only problem was the only place not a web was the hole they had just created. She maneuvered the ship through the hole and crashed through massive branches and various smaller webs for what felt as though forever, though it was surely only seconds, then it was only black.

Keisha was the first to regain consciousness. She had a laceration across her forehead that was already coagulating and no longer running freely, meaning she had been out for roughly 20 minutes or more.

The ship was completely dead, the familiar hum of electronics was gone. As she reoriented herself she saw why. There was a huge branch that had smashed through the window in between her and Fiolas. She leaned over to Fiolas and felt his neck. A slow steady pulse.

Thank the Stars, he’s still alive. The branch was massive and had slammed all the way to the back of the small deck piercing Captain Alterra through the chest and slammed against the doors. She fought back the urge to vomit. The ship lurched forward as the branch was breaking against the weight of the ship.

“Fiolas,” She started shaking him, “Fiolas please wake up!” her voice pitching higher as she struggled to wake her second in command. He slowly started rousing as though she had woken him from a peaceful sleep. “We have to go Fiolas, the ship is going to crash down even further, come on!” He slowly came around to the situation and Fiolas did vomit when he saw the Captain.

The same branch connected to the captain widened and sloped down the closer it got closer to the tree. There was a large crack where the pressure of the ship rested. Keisha stood on the now-dead control panel of the ship and grabbed her emergency pack and the ship her mother had given her and motioned Fiolas to do the same. Once her pack was securely on she reached up under the Captain’s seat, “He won’t need his pack where he’s going.”

She opened the top and grabbed a rope, next to it she saw the only gun allowed on the new planet. Only captains were allowed a weapon. Captain Alterra is dead, technically I am the captain now. She closed the bag and secured it to her front then tied a knot in the top rope and started looping it through Fiolas’ carabiner on his belt than hers.

“Time to go.” She looked Fiolas in the eye and tried to steady her breathing.

“What about the passengers?” Fiolas asked. The ship had carried 500 people in cryo-storage to what would be their new home, to pave the way here for future generations. The entire point of their mission was to get them set up safely.

“They didn’t make it Fiolas.” Keisha's voice softened.

“How do you know that?”

“This ship is dead, listen, none of the engines are working. There is no way to have the machines keep them in cryosleep, nonetheless bring them out. It would take me hours of work to bring even one engine back online. Cryo-sleep itself requires very little power, but it still requires at least one engine to be fully functioning. We have zero.”

He nodded in acceptance slowly. “They know what they signed up for. They knew the risk. We have to go now.” Keisha tried to assure him.

The ship lurched more as their weight shifted in the cabin. The two of them kicked open the rest of the window and watched it fall to the floor “Let’s hope the real surface of this planet is less deadly than the top.” They repelled down the rope and as they reached the portion of the branch they could walk on the branch gave a loud crack and broke off, falling down the tree with the rest of Starship Excelsior.

They slowly made their way to the trunk of the tree and sat down, the branch thick enough at this point they could sit side by side. Taking stock of their surroundings they found the surface eerily quiet. No birds singing, no animals running and the only light coming from the hole they had just gone through.

They sat in silence and Keisha found herself holding Fiolas’ hand for the reassurance another person existed in this strange place. A shadow crossed the light and they saw the creature begin repairs on his web. “What do we do now?” Keisha whispered afraid of breaking the silence on this planet.

“We survive,” Fiolas responded. They sat there holding hands and watched the last of the light vanish.