Chapter Text
«LOC-I.» a robotic voice in the control panel announced amidst the siren filling his little cockpit.
A cry of anguish left Han’s lips, the antennas growing from the crown of his head trembling as he reached to turn on the speech recognition.
«Switch t-to turbulence penetration speed!»
«LOC-I.» the voice repeated calmly, ignoring his wobbly, fear-filled command.
He started frantically pressing various buttons and tugging on the handles. The panel felt like a decoration, similar to the one in a game simulator he used to adore as a juvenile. It had all kinds of controls – from autopilot to disco mode.
And it all was completely useless.
«TOTAL POWER LOSS. INITIATING SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.»
«NO- no, no, no!» he yelped, jolting from the pilot seat.
His cabin was as messy as the room he had spent his entire life in. Except for the fact that his room was in a different ecosystem, on another planet. Millions of miles away.
Han dived into a pile of rubbish he had promised himself to clean out a few light years ago. He tossed away cosplays of his beloved sci-fi characters, plushies stuffed with stardust, and several packs of emergency snacks.
«Where the Abyss is my e-emergency parachute?!»
The siren was now ringing in his head like a never-ending alarm in the morning; his breathing grew heavier as tears of panic blurred his view. He pressed his hand to his racing heart, forcing himself to stop tearing the place apart and take a deep breath.
«O-okay, okay...just think,» he told himself, building a mental map in his head with his eyes closed. «Where would the relaxed Han leave a vital device?»
He followed his heart (or was it his stomach?) and found himself in front of a minifridge.
Its lid was covered in magnets from all the different eras his planet has gone through – cat on the pillow from the Pillow Revolution ƖƖƖ0Ɛᘔ, which ended because a cat fell asleep on the «weapon»; a slice of pizza symbolizing Pizza Boom that resulted some to burst from dangerous cheese pulls; a tiny spider from the spider rain Han never talked about. He opened the door and dropped to his knees in relief.
There was his lifesaver, tucked in between two neon-blue sodas with sparkles and dinosaurs inside (his own innovation). Han took out his parachute with a celebratory «ehe!», beaming as if he had won the lottery.
«COLLISION WITH THE LAND IN 60..,59..,58..»
«AHHHHHHhhhh!!!»
In a dizzying hurry, Han put on the chute and opened the vent, managing to land on the top of a tree before a loud, crashing sound cut through the quiet night in a boring human neighborhood.
He gripped the rugged trunk of the tree; its branches poked and scratched his silky-smooth skin. Han told himself not to look down, but when the windows in the nearest houses started to light up one by one, the curiosity got better of him.
He always wondered about people and their desire to act the same. It didn’t quite make sense to him.
A strained chuckle left him as they emerged from their little houses – disheveled and bewildered – pointing fingers and gasping like they had seen a flying saucer.
His heart stopped.
And then began to race even faster than when he was jumping out of his spaceship.
«Rule number one: don’t EVER get caught by people.» the warning from the Mother of the Moon echoed in his ears like a mockery.
«Well, scooba ya dudels...» he swore in his mother tongue, his webbed hands starting to slip from the tree with how clammy they were getting.
The people, meanwhile, took out flashlights from somewhere and began to inspect the outside like they were promised treasures.
«Always so noisy...n-nosy? Nosy – that’s the word,» he chuckled sheepishly to himself, accidentally leaning a little too much on a thin branch. It cracked under his weight obscenely loudly in the dead silence of midnight, not going unnoticed by the crowd.
Several bright lights were pointed at the source of the sound, and the only thing he was grateful for from his hometown was the chameleon camouflage. Real great for avoiding awkward situations and responsibilities.
Han felt the warmth of one flashlight grazing his cheek; his heart thrummed painfully in his chest as he held his breath. The line of cold glow trailed up to his forehead, where the beads of sweat began to form, before disappearing just as suddenly.
He glanced down, more than relieved to find out that his small spaceship had fallen in the thicket. Its overgrown bushes hid the disc almost completely, giving Han at least a few hours to find refuge.
The crowd already started arguing among themselves about something he didn’t understand.
His human vocabulary was impressive for his family and friends, but it was very obviously self-taught. Han had always felt a pull toward the planet Earth and the culture here (for him it was a single culture), so he often snuck out to the laboratory he had set up in an abandoned tower – sometimes to recreate human potions (coke and beer), sometimes just to read illegal human books (mostly porn).
The quarrel went on for about five minutes, ending with the neighbors flipping each other off and returning to their homes.
Han took it as an opportunity to finally get down from the tree.
He took his time, testing each branch before carefully stepping down until his foot touched the ground.
«Was it you who fell from the sky?»
He became completely still.
It was too late to use the chameleon camouflage again, wasn’t it?