A shaky service.
17 May 2021D. James Totendost
I'm not sure I'll soon forget it. The shaky nature of the voice as I pulled into that lodge place in Celaeno.The Thargoids had hit the sector hard while I slept. The call went out to help push them back and pull out refugees. I happened to have a luxury liner that we'd used for infiltration missions which I could easily use to pull some people out. That ship is a beast. Unwieldy and with weird dimensions it is definitely not designed for rescue. Still, she took me there, and I got to hear the beleaguered poor soul stuck, probably, in flight control, tell me in breathy, panicked words, that they needed help. I flew through the debris and landed amongst explosions.
The port pulled us below deck among the fires and station security was barely holding the crowds at bay. Serena had to facilitate boarding while I managed heat control. Through the cameras I heard and saw enough. Serena, pistol at the ready, "I can take x more!", and station security letting them through, Serena not allowing them to break up anything that looked like a family.
The clamor, cacophony, the disarray apparent over comms, goddamn, it was bad. I'd never really been in this position and it was bothering me. At a point when we were full Serena brought some kids up to the cockpit which I almost instinctively responded to in a bad way.
"They're alone. The want to see what space looks like", Serena said, sensing my initial ire.
It was a deep cut that put me back in my place of duty before preference. I can only hope the awe they felt somehow eased the pain they'd come to know being alone.
Getting in was rough, but fully laden, it was worse getting out. Flight characteristics were all shot to shit and none of the automated systems I'd been coddled by for the past decade worked. Heat levels were all over the place and it matched a tension I felt inside. Debris everywhere and the new pressure of all these desperate souls. My heart has never broken so quickly or so righteously.
Made it through the slot and that same wearied voice in flight control thanked me.
We darted over to the rescue ship and I off-loaded everyone. As Serena made sure they were off safely and in the hands of those more qualified personnel I sat in my chair and wept. Serena eventually came to the cockpit and informed me that a queue was building up behind us. We had to leave. I steeled myself and requested to launch and we went once, twice, over a dozen times back into that maw. The same voice warning us while we entered and thanking us as we left.
After an unknown amount of hours Serena was nearly passing out when I called it quits. Our last passengers disembarked and I flew back to the Enochian Lament. Sleaze's carrier had moved down to help evacuate and provide a staging point for our AX specialists. I helped Serena get back to her temporary quarters and I went to the lounge. I fell asleep at my table in a small puddle of my own tears having only finished a couple drinks from my bottle.
I woke early and caught the AX wing heading out, Sleaze at their head.
"I guess we'll have to take the fight to the Fednecks next time", he chuckled.
I joined them for their first sortie, then their second, and I spent the rest of the day taking my anger out on Thargoids.
Serena rang a couple times before she decided I was busy and it was best to go do some rescue runs herself. My concentration was spoken for, I hadn't spent a lot of time flying my AX ship, it's a mostly experimental build. Some pieces pulled from Meene in the hours after our failed op. It does well enough though. Those insects are slippery bastards though. Their movement is beyond me. I'm glad Sleaze is the lead of AX combat ops. I'm just not cut out for it.