Into the Fire
26 Feb 2018Birdnose
"Though I fly through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have cleared mass-lock." -- Unknown Pilot
I eased “Hot Rod Lakon,” my Type-6 freighter, through the mangled toast rack of Armstrong Station. The Pilots’ Federation had served me well on many occasions, retrieving my escape pod from the black, and now I was going to give something back.
The Type-6’s throttle response resembles a thermostat -- pick a setting, wait, eventually something happens. With that in mind I was careful to stabilize my speed before entering the station, unsure what I'd find inside. The docking bay was a horrifying sight; fires burned uncontrolled, smoke haze filled the air, large chunks of superstructure were floating loose. Every so often an explosion would erupt as someone’s stash of missiles cooked off. I normally appreciate the visibility given by the Lakon’s well-glazed cockpit, but at that moment I sort of wished it were made of armor plate instead.
There was also heat. So much heat. The ship was kitted out to run cool while fuel scooping, but that’s heat applied to one side, with the possibility of radiating some of it back out into space. Here, the heat surrounded me on all sides. The radiators were useless and the ship rapidly began to heat up. I could only control it by launching heat sinks. I’d brought nine, arrayed in three launchers, and I would need all of them.
I programmed a couple of collector limpets, not bothering to target them; pretty much everything in here was important to someone. Personal effects, black boxes, occupied escape pods...they all went into the Lakon’s cavernous hold. I held out until I was nearly out of heat sinks, then flew around the wreckage to my assigned pad. Years of Buckyball Racing have taught me that there’s no points awarded for finesse, so I didn’t slow much, just slammed the ship down onto the center of the pad, letting the shields take the impact. Emergency protocols were in place, and I was immediately lowered into the hangar, where the temperature was marginally lower.
Normally, passengers won’t board a ship with any visible damage. But here 23 passengers decided to take a chance on a boxy freighter with heat-blistered purple paint, flown by a weird-looking pilot. It beat the alternative.
The launch was harrowing. The ship rapidly picked up heat as it was being raised to deck level, and by the time control was turned back over to me, it was overheating badly. I popped my last heat sink, and flicked on the ‘FASTEN SEATBELTS’ sign as I lifted the ship off the pad and shoved the throttle forward. As we drifted into alignment with the station centerline, I hit the boosters, and we came smoking out of the slot, both literally and figuratively, into the blessed coldness of space.
A few minutes later, we arrived at the Pilots' Federation medical frigate, and the passengers disembarked, shaken and disoriented, but grateful. The escape pods were unloaded, the personal effects and black boxes stayed on board for eventual delivery to the PRE Logistics base. The frigate’s efficient crew quickly patched up and hot-fueled my ship, and I was off again, to dip back into the fire.
There’s nothing I can do to stop the Thargoids’ relentless advance, but I can make a difference to a handful of their victims, and I choose to focus on that.