My Spaceship Has Been Stranded, but There Is an Earth-Like Planet in Front of Me, so I Want to Aband

Dragon Chaser

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A landing craft flies through the atmosphere and into the night sky. Outside, thousands of stars twinkle and a bright, white moon illuminates the earth.

Rudy is used to flying through space but is not familiar with flying within the atmosphere. He struggles to grasp the distance from the ground and relies on the altimeter. Checking his current location on the LCD monitor in the cockpit, it seems he is flying over a dense forest.

Hal had mentioned his destination was in the southwest direction from here…

As Rudy changes course, a warning sound blares from the speaker in the cockpit.

“What’s going on?!”

“There’s a flying lifeform approaching the landing craft,” Hal’s voice comes through the speaker, as they monitor the situation from Nike.

“A lifeform?”

“It’s a flying reptile over 300 meters in length.”

“Oh, no…”

Rudy’s face contorts in alarm at Hal’s warning. The landing craft is a civilian vessel without any weapons, leaving them defenseless and vulnerable to attack.

“Hal, project the image of the creature.”

“Yes, master. I’ll send the thermal graphic image from above.”

Since it’s nighttime, the usual cameras won’t work, and Hal transfers the thermal graphic image onto the LCD monitor in the landing craft’s cockpit. The monitor displays the silhouette of a giant reptile with wings, soaring through the sky.

“Could it be a dragon?!” Rudy exclaims at the sight.

Rudy had never actually seen a dragon before, but he knew of them. The elusive creature appears in space once every few decades. It can grow over 10 kilometers long and is known for its cruel and vicious personality. It can survive in the airless vacuum of space and, once it appears, it destroys any spacecraft or space station in its line of sight. Even attacks by space armies are futile, as the dragon can suddenly warp away, mocking its attackers before disappearing.

When a dragon appears, the news spreads throughout the entire universe, and even Rudy, who travels through space, was not immune to hearing about it through the news reports.

“I cannot be certain without further investigation, but it’s possible that it’s a juvenile,” Hal suggests.

“We don’t have time to investigate, and we have no way to defend ourselves. We have to escape!” Rudy replies.

The mysterious lifeform may offer a reward if they can investigate it, but their priority right now is to save their lives. Rudy increases the landing craft’s speed and attempts to escape, but the dragon is faster and quickly catches up.

“Only one minute until contact. I’ll transfer the image captured by the landing craft’s camera to the LCD monitor,” Hal reports.

“Damn it!” Rudy curses, looking at the monitor displaying a blue-scaled dragon illuminated by moonlight. He finds the dragon beautiful, but it’s clear that the creature perceives the landing craft as an enemy and is not in a peaceful mood.

“Why is it targeting our ship?” Rudy asks.

“My guess is that it’s trying to eliminate us because we’ve invaded its territory,” Hal replies.

“We’re just flying through the air!” Rudy protests.

“Perhaps it was provoked by the flames from the landing craft’s engines and took it as a threat?” Hal suggests.

“That’s not fair!”

As Rudy lamented, the dragon rammed into the landing craft. The impact almost threw his body out, and the seat belt dug into his body.

“Ouch! ” Rudy gritted his teeth and moved the craft to the left. The dragon tried to ram it again, but failed and ended up flying alongside the landing craft.

Rudy’s eyes met the dragon’s golden eyes. Despite their radiance, the sight of the dragon’s overwhelming violence made Rudy tremble.

The dragon flew alongside him and rotated its body in mid-air. It whipped its enormous tail, which was over 80 meters long, like a whip towards the landing craft.

“We can’t avoid that length!” Rudy thought. He didn’t flee but instead reversed the landing craft towards the direction of the dragon.

The raised tail grazed the landing craft. A sonic boom was generated from the tail that surpassed the speed of sound, and the landing craft was pushed towards the dragon.

Then, as if a ball had been pitched like a fastball, the landing craft hit the dragon’s face directly.

“Gyaaaahh!”

The dragon roared and twisted its body, caught off guard by the unexpected attack.

Rudy felt the impact of the sonic boom from the left, then received the opposite impact from the dragon’s ramming attack, causing him to spin around dizzyingly.

If Rudy’s clothing hadn’t been designed to absorb shocks, and if the landing craft’s inertia control hadn’t worked, he would have been minced by the attack.

“Let’s hide now,” he thought.

“Harahorehirehare~”

Hal took over the landing craft and steered it towards the forest while Rudy lost consciousness. It landed and hid in the forest, turning off all the lights.

Five minutes later, the dragon recovered and looked around, but there was no sign of the landing craft anywhere.

Once the dragon lost sight of the landing craft, it roared and circled in the sky.

“That was a close call,” Rudy sighed as he regained consciousness, hearing Hal’s emotionless voice.

Should I wait inside the ship until morning or venture out now? Walking through an unknown planet’s forest at night was dangerous, and I didn’t know what could come out. Therefore, I decided to wait, but how long would that dragon be around?

Rudy checked the LCD monitor. The dragon was still circling nearby.

To find his current location, Rudy enlarged the map on the LCD monitor. He found a building in the forest about 80km to the west of his current location.

“What do you think, Master?” Hal asked.

“Let’s sleep until morning. After the dragon is gone, move the landing craft close to the building we found, and hide there quietly,” Rudy replied.

As soon as he landed on the planet, Rudy decided to take a nap after being humiliated by the dragon.

“Good night,” Hal replied, and Rudy left the cockpit to rest in sleeping quarters.

Two hours after Rudy fell asleep, the dragon gave up and returned to its nest. Hal moved the landing craft 9km away from the building Rudy found and launched a reconnaissance drone to start scouting the building.

From data sent by the drone, Hal determined that the building was an old-generation spacecraft.