When I finally came around to consciousness, D'ANA said that we had taken a total of 12 hard turns and were on a broad course to follow the alien ship.  "What!!!  What do you mean follow the alien ship?!!! Are you crazy?!!!"  I am a computer... how could I be crazy?  Besides that is the best strategy I could come up with, the last thing they would expect is a tiny little ship like ours to try and intercept them.  "Yeah, I know what you mean... the last thing I would expect is a tiny little ship like OURS to follow them TOO!!!"  Stop going into hysterics and shouting like that, it won't accomplish anything!  I am trying to do the best I can.  Remember we are not a fleet fighting ship and definitely don't have the fire power to destroy a ship of that magnitude.  So unless you have a better plan, sit back and stop yelling!!!  Do You Understand???  "Yeah, I guess so."  Besides the plan is not to continue following them to wherever they are headed, it is to follow their trail long enough that it conceals ours.  Then we drop out of warp, on impulse power we can veer off without leaving a trail that can be followed.  "Then what?"  We hide and pray they never find us...

    Six days later we began to follow the alien ship, almost a week behind it!  All I can remember thinking is... "I sure hope they don't decide to stop, and we run right into them."  D'ANA said that we had the advantage right now, because they are way to big to turn like we did.  They will have to slow way down to turn and they have twelve of them to do.  That should give us a day and a half more then we had before.  I calculate that we should follow for two days on this path, then veer off on impulse there is an asteroid cluster ahead.  They will expect us to go there... but, instead we will head towards the gas giant planet and hide in it's atmosphere.  I pulled up the surveys on that system.  It is a baby of a system, a bright yellow giant with four gas planets an asteroid belt and an asteroid cluster.  The cluster will probably be the only solid planet here 2 million years from now.  The third and largest gas giant has severe electrical storms, dangerous for us, but it will keep us safe from their scanners.  As I see it we are safer with the planet then with them!  "Can't they send fighters in search of us in the atmosphere?"  Sure they could, but are they willing to risk a collision, you see the atmosphere is so dense that you can't see ten feet in front of you and scanners won't work.  "If they can't see in then how do we see out to know when it is safe to leave?"  We don't know when but I would say a week minimum to be safe.

    Two days later we powered down from warp drive, and impulsed our way to the gas planet.  Zen... we have a problem!!!  "What kind of problem are you talking about?"  Well I studied the survey of the planet and nothing was mentioned of the high sulfuric concentration.  "And that means...?"  We can only stay in the atmosphere for a period 36 hours, then we have to leave before the acid in the sulfur starts to eat away our ship!  "Thirty-six hours that isn't even enough time to let them catch up, let alone stay hidden!"  I just recalculated their ETA and it is just over 75 hours away, in 74 hours we will enter the atmosphere. I was too stressed out to even try and study, all I could do was play the flute to keep me occupied.  After playing for over a year now, I was getting pretty good at it but I only knew 7 songs all the way through.  Well needless to say even that got old for me soon enough!  How do you relax when the unknown is knocking on your door, and it knows your home!!!

    Five, four, three, two, one... the countdown ended and we drifted towards the planet.  It was a strange feeling entering one form of death to escape another, but the planets death was a comforting blanket that concealed it's intentions.  As we drifted farther and farther down... I focused on the local sun.  It burned bright enough to make halo rings, much like the ones you get in your eyes when you go swimming, except they were all red, orange and gold.  It was beautiful effect that only blended away with the thickening atmosphere. SsssssssssCCCCRRRRRAAAAACCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!! BOOM!!!!!! That lightning bolt was so close that it tossed us into an uncontrollable spin... everything was spinning end over end!!!  By the time D'ANA got control over the ship again, I had made a tremendous mess with my lunch from two hours before.  "Can I please get up and clean the mess before I get sick again?"  No not yet, what if another bolt comes that close and we're tossed again.  You wouldn't survive the thrashing you would get!!! "At least give me something to wipe myself up with while I am strapped in!"  That I can do...

    Somewhere close to an hour later, there was a tremendous explosion somewhere nearby!  "D'ANA what was that, it wasn't thunder that's for sure!"  Zen I hate to worry you but I think that was an explosion that was caused by two spacecraft colliding.  If I am right... I fear the worst is true, they're back again.  A little time later another crash happened... you know Zen we are very fortunate that their scanners don't work here, now to just hope that one of them doesn't run right into us.  For hours we were nearly missed by alien spacecraft and lightning bolts, the odds were beginning to go against us!  Sooner or later something bad was going to happen if they didn't leave.  After about 12 hours went by the alien collisions had stopped, but the lightning was getting worse.  One bolt actually hit us, luckily is was a very weak one!!!  Zen I did a hull analysis and we are going to have to leave in four or less hours.  Where the bolt hit us, it weakened the hulls exterior and the elements of this planet are going to accelerate the decay rate!  We will be forced to leave... aliens or not!!!

    The last four hours seemed to last for days!!!  As we slowly emerged from the cover of the gas giant D'ANA passively scanned for the aliens.  There seems to be no trace of them Zen!  I think we were very fortunate to have survived!!!  "I think we were lucky too!!!  So what do we do now?"  We only have one option, to go to the Valkarian System.  That is all the fuel I can spare for traveling!  "Well I am tired and I am going to sleep now.  Please don't wake me up if they find us again, and you think we're going to die..."  Good-night Zen, we shall travel on.....