A violent, shuddering lurch was his first sensation, followed by the deafening silence after the crash.

Orion’s head throbbed, a dull ache synced with the blinking red emergency light on the console. The stasis field had disengaged, dumping him back into consciousness. With a groan, he unstrapped himself from the command couch, the harness retracting with a worn whir. His fingers flew across the cracked console, pulling up the post-impact diagnostic. All external cameras were dark. "Main hatch," he commanded, his voice rough. The mechanism groaned in protest but didn't budge. He slammed a fist on the manual release. Nothing. He was entombed. Turning, his eyes adjusted to the crimson gloom, falling upon the emergency toolkit welded to the bulkhead. He pried the panel open, his hands closing around the cold, familiar grip of a hydraulic prybar. He wedged it into the seam of the hatch, the shriek of tortured metal his first answer from this new world.