The spaceship rattled as it exited hyperspace, filling the cabin with beeps and whirs. Captain Zara gritted her teeth, their salvaged ship barely making it to orbit around the moss-covered planet. Their food synthesizer was dead, and they were down to ration packs and whatever the ship's scanners deemed edible.

Lieutenant Theo held up a sliver of cooked, vaguely pulsating purple fungus. "Taste test, Captain?"

Zara sighed. Leadership on an empty stomach wasn't fun, but she bravely took a bite. The initial nutty flavor quickly devolved into burnt rubber mixed with seawater.

"This tastes terrible," Zara choked out, spitting it out.

Theo winced. "Noted. Edible, but horrific. We'll keep looking."

Finding good food was almost as challenging as finding their way home. Zara looked at the viewscreen. They might be stuck here a while.

"At least there's a lot of it," she offered. "We won't starve. Might even get used to the taste…"

"Or," Theo said, already scanning for alternatives, "we'll find something resembling real food before we lose our minds."

Hope, it seemed, tasted better than despair… even with a lingering hint of terrible alien fungus.