TEARDROPS

I’ve decided to start this journal before the events that have happened become too foggy in my mind to remember clearly. I do not know for whom I tell my story; maybe for me to read in the coming years, to remind myself of who I was, where I came from, although I’m beginning to suspect I won’t care. It’s taken me an inordinate amount of effort just to start this—God knows if I’ll ever finish it.
My name is Lysette Kines, of Earth, Canadian born. As part of my undergraduate degree, which I had nearly completed, I signed up for a foreign exchange field study program to Charassa. Charassa is a sparsely inhabited planet in the Sieran system, with wide tracts of uncharted desert along the equator. Only the more temperate poles are inhabited. The rock there is rich in a dozen ores, or so I was told, and ComExCo mining held the rights. It was to Anleyville, near the north pole, that our drop ship was coasting, when the spreadwing malfunctioned during reentry.
There were a dozen of us on board, two students beside myself, the rest ComExCo employees, plus the three crew. The men from ComExCo were ogling me and the other female student pretty fiercely, and I remember feeling embarrassed and mortified. I don’t remember why—maybe it was because of the ogling, but that doesn’t make sense to me now. Anyway, the pilot and copilot did their best as we corkscrewed down toward the orange surface, trying to slow our descent. I was screaming, maybe not