Inside the module, nothing moved.

Now! Wake up, now!

Eric Stanton Weston gasped, sucking in air as he awoke from a nightmare of being trapped in his ship after it had explosively decompressed. He flailed around momentarily, but was unable to move an inch, and he quickly realized why.

He was strapped firmly into the command console, which was now apparently attached to the ceiling. He hung there for a long moment, upside down and deeply confused, as he tried to take in what had happened and what was, in fact, happening.

Where? Eric couldn’t think straight. He felt like he’d just been beaten into the ground by a particularly heavy battle tank, or maybe had just plowed his fighter into some poor bastard’s field.

He blinked, looking around as memories returned to him, and realized just how close that last thought really was.

“Oh my lord, I hurt,” he mumbled, licking his lips and spitting out a piece of his helmet face shield. Shatterproof my ass.

Slowly he reached up and began picking pieces of the glass shield from his face. Then he detached the helmet and let it drop to the ceiling below him.

Realization was sinking in slowly, fractured memories of what led him to his current predicament filtering with agonizing ponderousness. He had a headache that felt like someone was pounding on his skull with a pickax from the inside, and he couldn’t quite manage to blink the blurred vision away.

Eric was no doctor, to say the least, but he knew the signs of a concussion. He likely needed medical help in the worst way, but considering the fact that he hadn’t really expected to wake up at all, he couldn’t say that he was feeling all that bad.

This is going to suck. Yup, no doubt about it.

He couldn’t stay where he was, that was clear, and he had no idea where he’d managed to land . . . crash . . . so he couldn’t count on help.

Besides, the world likely has enough on its plate just now. I’ll have to take care of myself.

Eric looked up, or down he supposed, and barely could make out the ceiling of the bridge a few feet below his head. Yeah, definitely going to suck.

He took a breath, closed his eyes, and then slapped the quick release on his straps.

Eric fell ten feet, twisting as best he could, and hit the ceiling shoulder first in a clumsy roll that sent a sickening stab of pain through his bones and skull. He skidded to a stop, curled around the extruded housing of the now dead lights, and just lay there until the pain began to subside.

I’ve felt better after being shot, he thought grimly to himself as he actually sobbed quietly, praying for the headache to subside.

Eric didn’t know how long he’d been laying there, but after a time the pain again dropped to manageable levels and he got to his knees and pulled himself over to the door. It was sealed shut, of course, and with no power he had to do things the hard way.