Starhawk

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It would take a long time for the Xavlus IV to crash.

The L–Class space cruiser was almost a half mile in length and displaced more than a million tons Earth weight. It was built of electron steel and was capable of traveling in Supertime, so it was virtually indestructible in space.

But slamming into the hard surface of a planet was a different matter.

The gigantic spaceship was falling, quickly, toward an uncharted world. It was on fire and all of its critical control systems were either failing or already dead. Because the Xavius IV was a Starcrasher, there was no chance it would burn up on entry. But once inside the planet’s atmosphere, the spaceship’s descent velocity would become hypersonic. It would be moving so fast when it hit the ground, it could take up to twenty miles of plowing across the planet’s surface before coming to a stop. And even if the vessel did survive more or less intact, its propulsion core would explode soon after it ground to a halt because that’s what prop cores did when deprived of external power.

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