Into the Frying Pan
31 Dec 2019Space Boomer
I was hopping through the Norma Arm on my second big exploration trip. I was en route to the galactic center on an accident-free journey, and I had just discovered by first ringed earth-like-world. I was feeling a bit full of myself. Finally I had the physics of deep space travel down pat. My Anaconda had a range of about 50 lys, and I was at the end of my umpteenth jump. When I popped out I saw two suns - one where it was supposed to be, and another surrounding my ship. I had jumped into the wrong binary system. The smaller star was in the way of my exit, and I essentially passed through it. At first, nothing really happened. My ship put on the brakes, and I was staring into the larger star. But then my heat gauge suddenly spiked. I could hear the sound of melting components and see the smoke coming from my monitor. I quickly pointed the ship from what I thought was away from any star, but I found yet another small star immediately above me. I had jumped into a very cozy trinary, and I was melting. I shoved the stick down and hit full throttle hoping that there wasn't yet another star. My COVAS assured me that the ship was taking damage. The temperature reached 140 as the glow from multiple suns filled my cabin. Eventually my cockpit view darkened, and my fuel scoop closed. I made sure that I was very far away before I turned around to look at what should have been a beautiful site: two brilliantly orange orbs orbiting a larger yellow. I should have taken a photo, but I was too busy putting my AFMU to use. When I reached the next station, I made sure to buy a second repair module - just in case.