In the business, we call these' 'oh shit moments.'

Aitella had only an hour 'til what might be the most important day of her career. This case could prove so shockingly fruitful for her, it would make the awkwardness of the past years worth it.

So why, oh cruel fate, did this have to happen now?!?

She was splayed out in her bathroom, writhing around the cramped tile floor in her dragon form, molting like some common reptile. It was not a particularly painful sensation, simply very uncomfortable. Like being unrelentingly tickled in areas you're not ticklish in.

There's a knocking at the door of the room.

"Oh you're fucking kidding me." the writhing dragon muttered under a gutteral breath.

With a creak the door opened, and a man holding a half-empty beer can stepped in with a faint smirk on his face. He took a sip of the can, smacking his lips a few times.

'Hey there Aity, smack havin' some troubles I'm seein'?'

She groaned, scowling with slitted yellow eyes.

"Ugh... Monty, you fucking suck..."

'Oh dear, Aity, you flatter me!' he chuckled, finishing his beer can and crushing it underfoot, 'Now, was there anything you might need help with?'

By this time, Aitella was already wriggling out of the shell of her former skin covering, groaning and cursing.

"You... shit... cold..."

'Got it, blanket and a hot chocolate comin' up, Aity.' Monty nodded, snapping his fingers into finger guns as he stepped out of the room. But a few minutes later, he returned with a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. The dragon, now covered in brilliant amber scales and drenched in slime, accepted the offerings handily. She should be back in working order in no time.

"I- thanks, Monty."

'Ah don't worry 'bout it, darl. I'll get your court-things or whatever ready 'fore you leave, just focus on staying well.' He assured her, patting a scaly shoulder and inadvertently drenching hid hand in slime which promptly washed off in the sink behind her.

'Just don't say I ain't never done somethin' for yous.'

She smiled, a toothy sarcastic smile.

"No promises, Monty."

Literally Yanfei.

As a wandering-knight, it is my duty to represent the righteousness of my kingdom wherever I go, assisting all those in need. And whenever I'm in a difficult situation I always think to myself;

"What our most esteemed founder, Lord-Protector Moseby, do in this situation?"

That question has never failed me, except for today.

I do not believe even he, in all his wisdom, would know what the devil is happening here.

It all started when I accepted a quest to save an orcen princess. I've saved many princesses, but an orcen one was a new experience! I wondered what it might be like! I figured she might be some kind of warrior, considering how central combat and fighting is to the orcen culture.

The rescue was the first red flag. It was my 32nd princess rescue at the time, after all. Just liberating a few marauding goblins of their existence and smashing open a dungeon wall. And yet, there she was, free shackles and holding her weapon, still wedged into the skull of one of her captors.

'Oh hello, Sir Knight! You must've been sent to save me! I would've made my way out but neither of these two have a key for the door!'

I tried to ignore it. Many people gain surprising ability in desperation, even towering orc ladies.

No, the strangest part was the journey back.

I was partially correct on my assumptions. She was indeed a warrior. A tall and menacing figure, taller than I, with a large club lined with steel at its end. A devastating weapon that delivered devastating blows.

Yet simultaneously I was so very wrong. Princess Idente, she insisted I call her, was yet more princess than she was warrior. She apologised profusely for her indecent state after being rescued, which I lent my coat to her to remedy. She ate the rations I had given her at camp with spoon and fork! She even curtsied before clobbering a troll's head in as a 'sign of respect'! A peculiar lady, who insisted I help her retrieve her tiara from some bandits whom it had been sold to.

When you have a 7-8 foot tall orc with a steel-lined club, you can figure out for oneself how that encounter ended.

She pried that tiara from the cold, bloodied and terrified hands of that bandit. I was utterly aghast I must say.

When at last I took her back to the palace from whence she came, I was surprised. The king and queen, who most certainly must be parents of the terrifying Miss Idente, were both themselves as human as I!

When all was said and done, I left with some 90 odd gold to my name. Enough supplies to get me to the next city. But the gold was not important, I was simply glad not to be anywhere near that princess.

She seems a nice and fair lady, but in battle she is a nice and fair beast. Truly, terrifying.

Its the year 1977

Apollo 25 has just made the disaster of 13 look like a little booboo. Oh god, how bad it can get.

After attempting to undock the Heavy Lunar Module (HLM) 'Liberty' from the Orbiter for the Lunar descent, a failure to close an air seal caused an explosive decompression in the HLEM, killing the two crew there and damaging the Orbiter along with it.

This is the story of Leman Reynard of Apollo 25.

He woke up head spinning, still strapped in his seat. Blinking to alertness, there was a million things already not going right. The instrumentation was going haywire! Light flooded in spinning columns from the sunlight. Oh. Oh shit!

Leman noticed, much to his horror, that the Orbiter was spinning! He grabbed onto one of the controls, burning the attitude control thrusters on the extremities of the the ship to kill his rotation. One axis after another stabilised. Lateral, horizontal. Alright, great. No longer spinning. He sighed leaning back and fiddling with the radio link. Sure, the Orbiter was currently on the side of its orbit where the Moon blocked sight of Earth, but when it rose in a handful of hours, he had to let Ground Control know what'd happened.

Liberty had gone kaput and now his ship was damaged to an extent he could not fully determine.

Scanning his instrumentation again, he took tally of his fuel. Sure, after Apollo 21, the tanks has self-sealing material, but he had still lost a good amount of liquid fuel to the vacuum of space. Along with two good men and entire lander. All in all, taking it into account... well he should have enough to at least escape the lunar gravity and enter the originally intended trajectory to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. At least that was good. Enough good news to sleep on, for the moment.

Leman awoke to the sound of the radio repeating messages. Peering outside the viewport of the capsule, he watched as the blue-white shape of Earth rose silently above the barren Lunar surface. It was his goal now. Picking up the radio, he responded to the hail, finally getting his first words of with Ground Control in Houston, Texas.

"Houston, this is Reynard. Liberty's been lost with all hands. Its a hell of a problem."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Some time has passed, and the intended burn on the near side of the Lunar orbit has placed the Orbiter of Apollo 25 and its sole occupant back into a intercept course with the Earth's atmosphere in approximately three days.

One small problem. The Service Module has vented far more oxygen than expected from the explosion. Leman has counted along with the boys on the ground; he has about a day and a half worth of oxygen left. He'll return to Earth as a suffocated corpse.

He was fiddling with one of the specialised zero-gee pens as he contemplated his next course of action, if he was to die, when the radio blared again. Picking it up, he was greeted by a very animated young voice. As he explained;

'Captain Reynard, there's a course of action you can take that might just save your life!'

"Wha- who is this? Where's the rest of Mission Control? I- what did you say?"

'W-well. I am just the janitor for this room while everyone's out, b-but! But! I've been studying the design of your mission's service module by looking over the shoulder of some if the engineers, and I have an idea to extend your oxygen supply!'

Leman paused for a moment. Was he really gonna trust this kid with his life like this? Someone who wasn't even trained in any of this spaceflight business? He was a janitor for Gods sake! What could he do?

Though, what did Leman really have to lose. Ground Control proper hadn't given him any possible solutions, so even if something went wrong and blew up on his face, he'd be dead anyway.

'So, Captain, are you willing to hear me out?' Came the young man again.

"Sure. Alright, kid, what've you got?"

'Oh- wait, really? I- okay... Okay! Alright, here it is. You've got some spare oxidizer from your fuel tanks right? Only the propellant was vented, yes? According to your reports.'

"Yep, I that's right. I have no real way to vent it out so its just dead weight now that I've burnt off most of my propellant already."

'Okay, gotcha, so, the Service Modules of all the Apollos since 21 are using Liquid Hydrogen - Liquid Oxygen mix right?'

"Yes, that's... That's right."

'Okay, so this is the crazy part. You need to draw oxygen from the LOx tank and vent it into your capsule to keep breathing.'

"What?! Are your crazy that's- wait..."

There was silence for a good half-minute.

'Uh, sir? Are you-'

"That's genius! I- I could make this work! Alright, thank you, uhh, what's your name?"

'Jeb, sir, why do you ask?'

"Well, thank you Jeb, I hope Mission Control informs you of the outcome of your plan."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

The capsule of Apollo 25 would jettison the service module minutes before striking the first layers of Earth's atmosphere. Its ablative heatshielding pointed against its velocity, capsule blazed through hot gas like a bullet as slowly but surely it decelerated from nearly 10km/s to only a handful of times the speed of sound.

Drogue chutes deploy in a cluster of three to slow its decent. The capsule lurches and groans under the sudden strain of parachutes.

Barely a km off the ground, the drogues are cut and the landing chutes deploy in a cluster of three. Apollo 25 has slowed to barely four metres per second of descent velocity. The heatshield, blackened and burnt, is jettisoned into the water has slowly the Capsule lands among the waves beneath a blue sky.

The flotation devices burst from their small housings on the bottom edges of the capsule as a barely standing Leman, straining to stand from nearly a week in zero-gee, looks out through the viewports at Earth once again.

That sounds like it would be awesome story, I get the feeling that it would be both wholesome and sad at the same time.