Planet Smash
02 Mar 2020Space Boomer
I had spent the past week engineering my new Viper to be an absolute speed demon. I kept a bit larger power supply than suggested, but I was still able to boost that thing to 900 mps. It was glorious! My first trial run out of the station was amazing, As soon as I cleared the mail slot I hit the booster. The station shrank away like it was a toy. I decided to see how it felt to skim the surface of a planet, so I frame shifted to the nearest landable. Everything about the approach was by the book: I came in at a shallow angle, and I kept the glide just below the blue. When my thrusters took over I was going 750, and I headed toward the surface. My tuned power distributor allowed me to boost all the way down. I planned to plane out at about just above the surface so that I could feel every inch of the speed. Everything was going fast and great. When I got at 30 km I leveled out; the ground was rushing beneath me. I let out a whoop, and then I noticed that my altimeter was still subtracting rapidly. I pointed the nose up as fast as I could and hit the boost button, but it was too late. The impact was the loudest thing I've heard in my flying career. It instantly knocked my shield completely down. The controls responded, so I attempted once again to pitch upwards, but again I hit the surface. This time I slid across the planet while my hull peeled away. COVAS didn't even have the chance to tell me something was wrong. I woke up in Jameson with plenty of stitches. I have no idea how I got back home. Someone must have seen the crash and found my pod in the middle of a brand new crater. I paid the insurance and got a replacement Viper, but I've yet to take it out again. I'm going to stick to something slower for a few weeks.