Yachting Party

While their crew worked feverishly to repair the damaged rocket ship, the passengers set out to explore the planet. Thus they met the Hairy One....
The girl, Marla, trembled, yet she was not afraid. Ronal had told her at the outset of the cruise that although Krist's friend Logan was young for a space pilot, he was a good one, and had trained in the old fuel-propelled ships that men had first flown Space in before the new warp-drive had been perfected. But Logan was sweating visibly.
The blue planet loomed up, and Krist, who owned the trim Space-yacht and had suggested the cruise, jumped noticeably when the first shrill whistle of atmospheric resistance pierced the tense quiet of the well-appointed control-room.
They were half-falling, half-gliding downward, and despite Logan's attempts to check their descent with the clogged free-drive maneuvering jets, their downward speed seemed to increase each second.
My fault, Ronal muttered so only Marla could hear. Had we stayed on the warp we charted and not followed my suggestion to go adventuring on free-drive in some system none of us have ever heard of, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Not your fault, dear, Marla said to her husband. Even Logan couldn't have known the free-drive would fail and leave us too far from our warp-point to make it back, and—
The stricken craft lurched again, and the polished nose began an almost imperceptible up-swing. The shrill scream of the rarefied atmosphere began descending the scale like a gigantic siren running down.
Flat on the deck! Krist yelled.
Lush, green forests stretched but scant miles below. The sound of a heavy, rich atmosphere now racing past their gleaming hull dropped to a low, moaning note and then the sound of it was gone.
The nose came up.
There was a wrenching jar and the nerve-shattering cry of tearing, scorched metal. The control-room rocked crazily, then was suddenly still, cocked at a nightmare angle, as a shuddering impact brought the wildly slewing craft to a punishing halt.