"This is your captain speaking, we have entered the atmosphere . Please remain calm and stay seated. We will be in shortly to brief you." Authority rang through the voice on the ship-side intercom.

" This is also your captain speaking. Welcome home, earthlings." The second voice laughed, and the intercom fell silent.

The owner of the first voice stood at the bow of the ship, looking towards his crew with a kind of authority that supressed even the thought of stepping out of line.

The owner of the latter voice however, was handcuffed a chair, not that it seemed to bother her. She lounged on the seat lazily, although her eyes were on red alert.

"May I remind you are under arrest?" The first voice chastised the second.

"Yeah, by the jursidiction of a dying planet. And I'm still co-captain."

" The orders of that' dying planet' are keeping you alive, so I'd be very careful" He stood in front of her, his voice dangerously quiet.

" Sure, it's 'orders' that keep my heart beating, not the fact that without me you wouldn't last a day here." She spun her chair away from him. " A death warrant for me is a death warrant for humanity. You have a pen. Still want to sign? "

The first voice sighed and turned away.

"Yeah, thought so."

The unlikely co-workers turned away from each other and set about their respective jobs. The first, Captain Jason Thane, was a military man with every call in his body. Tall, broad-shouldered with a mind for tactics and a tendency to obey orders to the letter. He had risen quickly through the ranks however exuberated the authority of a much older man. His orders were direct and thought-out and his men seldom even thought of disobeying them, simply because they made so much sense. However his usual target was to attack, to weaken and defeat and kill. Here he was in charge of a survival mission. Here he was out of his depth.

The other captain was not captain of a military, but of a ship. The very ship they had just landed on Earth. The ship she had run for the last few years evading capture by the Martian authorities and exploring the solar system. She knew how to survive. On any planet. She could keep the human race alive. Captain Alex Dune was their best hope.

Captain Dune had knowledge, Captain Thane had power. These were desperate times. They needed the knowledge.

Even the people making the plan knew it could only go wrong, but they were running out of time.

Dune started pulling controls, preparing the ship for landing.

"Shall we stop pretending I'm cooperating out of some kind of fear for my life, or moral obligation to my species? Where's my crew?"

Thane paused his check of the terrian,  " That information will not be disclosed until I deem it tactical."

Dune said nothing for a moment, typing code into a computer. There was a moment of calm, then the craft began to fall.

" Sir! The engines have stopped!"

" Dune!"

She down in her chair toward the other captain, who had drawn his gun.

"Captain?"

" Turn the engines back on. That's an order!" She didn't move, just sat there smiling, " Or I'll shoot!"

"What happened to not letting me die?"

" I can shoot you without killing you. Put you in enough pain to stop you from not allowing us to change the engines."

Alex smiled and leant back in her chair.

" You could, except it's voice controlled and set to mine only. Alternatively you could tell me where my crew are and I'll change it myself. If we crash, most people should survive, but your precious ship, your communications devices, they'll be destroyed. No contact to home. You only have  few hundered kilometres to make up your mind though, so be smart."

Thane laughed.

" You think you're in control here? Listen up, girl. I will not tell you where your crew are. But I will tell you this, if you don't save this ship immediately, I will start killing them. You think you have a ace up your sleeve? You're wrong. I hold the cards. "

Their eyes met, fire dancing between them, then Alex flicked a switch. The ship stabilised.

Thane stood up, a smug grin to Alex that faded when he saw her even bigger smile.

" You may hold the cards, but you just showed me your hand. I now I know the rules I can win. And trust me I will. I don't just have an ace up my sleeve, I have an entire deck."

" I have years of training in tactics and dealing with the enemy. Sit tight and play nice we can co-operate. Or you can keep acting like an enemy and we'll keep treating you as one."

Alex span her chair once again back to the controls and began to finish the descent .

" You're holding my crew hostage, I wouldn't exactly call you an ally."

" Until yesterday afternoon you were on the most wanted list. Orders to shoot on sight. Now, we trying out hardest to avoid killing you."

" And I'm trying my hardest to be thankful for that, but I'm not there yet. "

Thane stared at her. " Wait. What happened to the voice control?"

She rolled her eyes.
"It didnt exsist.  I just didn't want to get shot. Now go talk to the civilians or whatever your real job is. We're about to land."