Pip: There's a proverb in this episode that starts with "forever locked in an orbit eclipsing the sun" — which is either a survival guide or a very accurate description of a Monday morning.

Mara: The site is Cost of the Heart, and today we're in deep space with d², following a soldier's crash landing onto a world that may not want him there. Let's start with the planetfall itself.

Under a Dark Star: Crash, Darkness, and What Comes Next

Pip: The setup here is a soldier named Talas, mid-skip, mid-disaster — and the story drops you straight into the chaos before it explains anything. The question the piece is asking is: what does survival look like when every system is failing at once?

Mara: The ship's AI, Sarah, delivers the situation plainly before going silent for good — and here's the line that frames everything: "We are in a gravity well of a local planet. I am unsure where we are. The skip-drive failed and no stars are available for triangulation."

Pip: No stars for triangulation means no location, no backup, no rescue vector. Talas isn't just crashing — he's crashing somewhere that doesn't exist on any map.

Mara: The piece earns that dread carefully. The alarms, the free fall, the shrapnel — it's all physical and immediate. Talas fights through the disintegrating hull to his drop suit, and his goodbye to Sarah — "Well Sarah go into the void with peace" — lands quietly against all the noise around it.

Pip: And then the suit's computer, Pia, becomes the new Sarah. Cooler, more mechanical, less comforting. "You will survive" is her answer when Talas asks how high up they are — which is technically reassuring and somehow worse.

Mara: The landing goes wrong when three retro-jets fail simultaneously. Talas hits the ground hard enough that the last thing he manages to say is "Medical protocols" before losing consciousness. Pia's final alert — "Approaching lifeform detected" — is where the story pivots.

Pip: Because on the other side of that alert is a creature who has been watching Talas fall and is working through a very practical question: food, or keepsake?

Mara: That creature is the story's real surprise. She moves on four legs, sees across the full electromagnetic spectrum, and her interior monologue — weighing whether this falling thing is dinner or a curiosity — is written with a warmth that reframes the whole piece. The title, Under a Dark Star — Planetfall, is doing double work: it names the place and the condition.

Pip: A world without stars, a soldier without coordinates, and something hungry deciding what to make of him. That's where the story leaves us — and it's a fine place to leave us.

Mara: The proverb that opens the piece says only the night is safe — to roam, to look, to hunt. Talas lands in the dark, and so does the reader.

Pip: Next time, we'll see whether that's a problem or an introduction.