Wreckage

I heard them above, searching through the debris. They didn’t know yet that I was down in the guts of ship, pinned beneath the hyperdrive, trying to scream out for help. The casing for the hyperdrive had crushed one of my legs, the hot metal slowly cooking my ruined limb. “He-help, please,” I gasped through my bleeding lips, but I knew they couldn’t hear me yet. Galactic Search and Rescue policy dictates that an external scan be performed before entering any ship not from that planet, and a scan of a ship this size typically took at least six hours. My best hope was that they’d send in a drone to search for life, but I couldn’t depend on that. _Think, Tristan. _I looked around frantically, trying to twist my torso without moving my legs too much, until I found a piece of piping that had broken off in the crash. I tore lengths out of my shirt and used them as gloves to grab the pipe, the hot metal still burning me through the material, and jammed it between the floor and the hyperdrive, using what strength I could muster to try and leverage it off of me. The pain, the _pain,_ my vision went white as I slowly lifted it away from me, my breaths quick and ragged as I freed myself inch by inch. I wasn’t sure which was worse, my crushed leg or my hands cooking against the hot pipe, but at last I lifted it enough to shift myself out from under the rubble. “O-okay,” I spoke aloud, voice shaky with pain. “What’s next?”