Chapter 12

**Chapter 12** is the twelfth chapter of the *Astra Lost in Space* manga.

## Synopsis

After taking a few tense seconds to get the flying creature in his sights, Ulgar shoots once and hits it with Luca's glue gun, immobilizing it and deactivating the safety lock. Kanata screams for the crew to brace themselves as the gravity generator turns on, and Zack brings the *Astra*'s engines to life, even as the ship plummets through Shummoor's atmosphere, surrounded by a searing plume of superheated ionized gas. The crew is pressed against the floor by the force of the vertical deceleration; when the *Astra* finally comes to a stop just above a barren, desert section of the planet's surface ringed by distant mountains, they briefly rebound off the floors before coming to rest for good.

Sweating profusely at the console on the bridge, Zack reports to the rest of the crew that they have succeeded, eliciting ecstatic cheers from all but Yun-Hua, who stayed on the bridge after nearly drowning. They all meet on the bridge to celebrate, but when Zack thanks Ulgar for his prominent contribution to the operation's success, he tells Zack to shut up and returns to his quarters. As the somewhat stunned crew watches him go, Aries is the only one to notice Yun-Hua, who is sitting away from the rest of the group, downcast by her latest failure.

Having arrived on Shummoor at last, Aries writes in her diary of her excitement on reaching a new world and the newfound closeness and bonds the crew has forged with each other. Zack begins searching for a place to land, but after flying the ship for a while and not finding a river, Charce and Kanata talk with him, convincing him to put the ship on autopilot and rest. Opting to splash some water on his face, Zack opens the bathroom door to find Quitterie, who is finishing her own shower, completely naked but for a towel, which she quickly wraps around herself. Zack barely reacts to seeing her naked at all, nonchalantly remarking that he failed to check as to whether or not the "in-use" light by the door was on and asking her to finish showering quickly, as they are planning to land soon. When she confusedly berates him for not reacting with more embarrassment, Zack simply responds that he saw her naked when they were much younger, leading her to wonder aloud if he is blind.

When Quitterie, still muttering under her breath about Zack, returns to the bridge, the rest of the crew is there, save for Ulgar. As she tells Luca about what she did when they restored the power, Funicia uses the phrase "Aye, yeah," which she has borrowed from Bee-go's *Animaroids* show and informally means "Yes, sir," leading Quitterie to suggest they adopt the phrase as their own for the remainder of the trip. Aries compliments Kanata's command during the crisis, but Kanata cites Yun-Hua's near-drowning as proof that he still needs to improve, focusing instead on the fact that they survived the crisis at all. Luca reiterates the sentiment, saying he thought the killer was going to succeed in killing all of them at once, a statement that silences the group for a few moments.

Aries is the one to break the silence; she wonders aloud if the killer, whoever they are, may not want to die anymore and is instead seeking to survive along with the rest of his would-be targets. In the spirit of this thought, Kanata and the crew decide not to pursue the question of who the killer is, choosing to focus instead on getting home, on the grounds that wasting time being suspicious of others will raise the chances of them dying. Having said that, Kanata dares the killer to try killing them, stating his confidence that the crew has no intention of dying without a fight as the *Astra* coasts onward in its search for water.

## Characters

* Kanata Hoshijima
* Ulgar Zweig
* Luca Esposito
* Funicia Raffaeli
* Aries Spring
* Quitterie Raffaeli
* Zack Walker
* Yun-Hua Lu
* Charce Lacroix