The Best Is Yet To Come - 9: How to Survive a Shot to the Helmet
31 Aug 2023CrazyGolm
How to Survive a Shot to the Helmet - August 3309From the moment the torpedoes slapped his ship, CrazyGolm knew the [IDA] Rubber-Dubber was sinking.
He had to act, and fast.
The enemy hadn’t completely obliterated his ship, only mostly obliterated it, so Golm deduced they were here for him. They wanted to abduct him.
Golm had other ideas.
Thankfully, he had a spare suit on board, a Maverick suit that he’d been modifying and piecing back together.
He quickly formulated a plan:
-Leave his Electronic ID on his flight suit;
-Get in the spare suit, preferably before his cabin completely depressurized;
-Turn the power off to avoid detection, and breathe emergency oxygen;
-Survive.
And while he was at it, he’d just come up with a stellar countermove to strike back at them. Armed with an assortment of telepresence devices, he could stuff a robotic avatar into his flight suit and remotely control it. In other words, he could make a fake Golm. A decoy.
And he could track where they went to, and turn the tables on them.
Golm placed his flight suit into the escape pod. He’d miss it; it had been with him through thick and thin. He could get it replaced easily, but it was a shame it had come to this.
He pressed the eject button, and watched it launch into the black.
They would take the bait.
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As soon as the wing of Diamondbacks had waked out with his decoy escape pod, Golm got to work. He powered up his suit again, restoring its air recycling systems and activating its emergency transponder beacon. He was able to salvage some intact power banks from the wreckage, and use them not only to recharge his suit, but also to power his telepresence equipment. Not assuming he’d be rescued anytime soon, he would need to connect to the avatar from here. Thankfully, most of his ship’s multicrew suite was still intact, but it did need a subsystem bypass, some field repairs, and some adjustments to be able to telepresently control a robot.
So it was that when the soldiers opened his escape pod, they actually dragged and manhandled a telepresence avatar dressed in Golm’s flight-suit.
When Golm retorted to the operative, he actually did so remotely, any loss in audio quality being masked by his flight-suit.
When the operative slapped Golm on the side of the helmet, he actually slapped a plastic robotic frame concealed inside.
And when the operative pulled the trigger and shot Golm in the helmet, he actually shot an android decoy, not Golm’s head.
Golm was quite alive after all.
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From the wreckage of his Fer-de-Lance, Commander CrazyGolm gazed out into the open space. It was him, he was really still here, yet he felt like he’d been shot.
The celestial lantern that was Chelini A shone directly in front of him, casting scarlet light throughout the system and beyond. He hadn’t paid it much attention before, but it looked strangely beautiful now.
It was not long since his “execution”, and several hours since his shipwreck.
He was dressed in his spare suit. It was a heavily customized Maverick suit with a mirrored helmet, fashioned as nomad attire. He missed his iconic flight-suit, but this felt not dissimilar; even the helmet was familiarly styled. Wrapped in a hood and scarf, it was surprisingly comfortable, even “cozy”. But he needed that right now.
He could hear his own breath in the suit, but his thoughts were louder.
After everything he’d been through, he needed a moment to process it.
The Club, or someone working directly for them, had tried to abduct and kill him. They had dredged up the past and skewed it exorbitantly against him, as villains do. He had experienced his own execution virtually, and though he’d survived, he did not appreciate the sentiment to say the least.
Though that in itself was more than enough shock for an entire career, it paled in comparison to the revelation: he was a Pivot pilot.
He was genetically modified, and he’d never known it until now.
How could he even begin to deal with this?
All his life he’d been intelligent, imaginative, and quirky. When he got in his first Sidewinder, some five years ago, he’d taken to it like a fish to water. And he had come so far since then. Was any of this his own ability, or was it all the Pivot modifications?
Maybe it didn't matter. He was still the same man as when he was doing admin this morning. And God had let this happen for a reason. Maybe the galaxy needed a genetically engineered Golm.
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When a Search and Rescue ship finally did find him, Golm was thankful for how it turned out. As it happened, the SAR pilot was an IDA cadet from Logan O’Neal’s division. He was currently on patrol in Chelini, and was a huge fan of the Agency’s Commanders. In exchange for an autograph, he was more than happy to follow Golm’s instructions and deliver him back to Golm’s Kitchen without any unwanted attention.
He couldn’t put in an insurance claim for his [IDA] Rubber-Dubber, as that would surely arouse the Club’s suspicions. They had too much intel about him already, and likely had eyes everywhere. He had to keep on the down-low. He would take his Cobra instead.
They thought they’d killed him. Golm didn’t know how much time he had before one of them took a closer look under his helmet. Now was the time to strike back.
Back on his carrier, Golm requested a cup of tea, a trace of the telepresence stream, and for someone to find him CMDR Clixer. He had work to do, and justice to bring.
The secret to surviving being shot, is to not actually be shot in the first place.