~~

The spaceship had no destination.  Allison was uncertain as to how she was going to tell this to the rest of the passengers, considering that she wasn't supposed to know about it in the first place.  Hacking into the ship's navigation systems was certainly illegal, but at this point, potentially being arrested was the last of her problems.  She'd stared at the readout on her computer screen for a few minutes, trying to convince herself that it was wrong, to no avail.  There, in neatly generated text and a few graphically informative images, was the truth- Icara was no more.  The colony they had been intending to visit was gone, certainly- swallowed up by their own planet's fiery core.  She leant closer, light from the displayed picture illuminating her face with red as she tried to understand what had happened, and how the autopilot had failed so drastically that it was convinced this wasn't a problem.  The planet seemed to have... imploded. 

Where the colony's application information had shown a vibrant landscape of blue-tinged mountains, with native species thriving alongside the introduced earthlife, the images before her now showed a world of flames.  Continents shattered like glass, lava bursting up from beneath the earth, spilling across the near-destroyed remains of the colony.  There would be no survivors on Icara- not if the surviving probes were accurately relaying the temperature.  There would be no survivors on this small ship, either, if they landed.  Their shields were good, but not that good.  They'd go off like a firecracker partway through entry of the atmosphere- boom, boom, fizz.  Pieces of metal and clueless spacefarer raining into the molten sea to join the remains of Icara and its people. 

Allison could turn off the autopilot- probably.  She'd gotten her way into this information easily enough once she'd begun to suspect something was wrong, so the spaceship security wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  But as for flying it safely anywhere else...  She didn't even know where the nearest safe planet was, or if they had enough fuel to get there.  It was pretty clear by this point that the autopilot couldn't be trusted, and she didn't know how to fly...  Surely, out of the fifty people on the ship, someone had to be a pilot, right?  Or at least have had more experience than a teenager from Earth, here on a exobiology scholarship? 

With shaking hands, she navigated her way to control of the ship's announcement system.  How was she supposed to say this?

Deep breaths, Allison.  You can do this.  You're not going to die... probably.

"So, um..." she began, her tremulous voice broadcasting throughout the rest of the ship.  "I don't want to worry everyone, but... does anyone know how to fly this thing?"