A RAIN OF TEARS IN HIP 22460
12 Feb 2023Goldgunner1
They’d promised that nothing could penetrate the hoses and gearing that drove the hydraulics, the pitch and yaw controls and the cooling system. They’d sworn by their workmanship and there had been no cause to doubt them. Until now. Closing the flight deck on the Mushashi in a cloud of atomised particles of hydraulic fluid Goldgunner felt a cold premonition of loss. The fluid was hissing out hot from the ruptured pipes under his feet. Dealing with hissing oxygen cylinders and hot cooling fluid from the heatsink mechanisms didn’t amuse him at all.Wreathed in smoke and sparks and oddly grateful for the spidered and leaking windscreen since it prevented the hot gasses from hitting him, the grey eyed commander prayed for landing permission to be given by flight deck control. He had no way of gauging how long that would take because the blown screen had also f*cked his HUD. He had expensive life support but even so he had only a few minutes on suit-air before things got even more f*cked up. In addition, the queue of ships waiting to dock was extensive and all were damaged in some way. The caustic material hung visibly from many and others had compartments open to space, leaking gas and minor debris. It was a circus out there and the clowns were manifold.
The sh*t that flowed in the veins of those vegetables penetrated every hardened system on every ship. There was no avionics mechanic in the Milky Way who could prevent eventual breakdown after even limited exposure to it. You could engineer a ROL to reach the hull and scrub and you could cleverly enhance the little thing to do the scrubbing at speed. You’d burn the limpet out in seconds but temporarily clear the gelatinous and corrosive stuff from your shell. That was all you could do. Clear it and then gun the ship’s engines and fly back into the maelstrom. More than 10 000 destroyed ships and a steady flow of escape pods and life beacons being collected by SAR was a testimony to the bitter poignancy of the conflict that had already claimed over six thousand human lives and blown over half a million caulifoids to atoms and pinwheeling organic detritus.
The battle over HIP 22460 was an epic one and we were all in. Skeleton Crew, fighting all out. We hadn’t lost anyone yet and that was a miracle given that all of us an many others besides were leading from the front. Commander Ricza was ahead on the leader boards and simultaneously ejecting from his Krait as it spiralled into fragments with relatively monotonous regularity. He had already had to do over ten rebuilds and had paid a sh*tload of money to stay in the fight. The cost was outweighed of course by the rich combat bonds that Salvation was paying out for every confirmed kill. All AX ships carried a xeno-vacuphone that recorded the sound patterns of the dying weeds. Somehow it was able to measure the tonality and distance of the vocalisations made and confirm the kills using some sort of souped-up algorithm. Ricza’s onboard unit had an overuse injury. It was a good thing that he didn’t feel the need to add bits from these enemies to that sinister black necklace that he wore. He’d have had to walk bowed over he had already killed so many.
We had all earned a fortune despite the occasional loss of a ship. We had earned renown too. We were a small group. Small but not ordinary. We were select, first class, slightly bourgeois, pugnacious, and independent. We were proud though, proud that when it mattered, we were always there. We had been there again in this battle; ranking 17th in the total effort amongst over 2000 active human squadrons many of which were more powerful; better resourced and with a much larger roster of combat pilots than us. It was an open question why civilians were needed frankly. The call had gone out for civilian support for the super weapon construction effort. Without that support the capital ships from Independent, Federation and Imperial fleets would have been overwhelmed. It was unusual to see them cooperating and to sense all the petty animosities of the last few years being put aside to make sure that something concrete was done about the ballooning Thargoid threat. It wasn’t plain sailing though. Waves of the caulifoid’s smaller ships assaulted these great lethal shards of metal without pause and every now and again the bigger enemy assault ships would warp in and kick the sh*t out of commanders, navy jocks and anyone else they could drop a petal on. Thank the gods that to date they hadn’t ever shown humans any form of ship of the line. Goldgunner figured that an event that drew out the capital ships of the enemy; which must surely exist; would put humans in a world of hurt from which there’d be low odds for survival.
The COMM crackled and finally landing permission was given by deck controller Alpha Six. No point engaging the civilised mechanism of an autodoc. The controller had made it clear he wanted the Anaconda named Fusilade on the deck ASAP. That other pilots were bleeding atmosphere and body fluids and every second mattered.
“A manual landing and a hot landing” thought Goldgunner as he deftly slid the battered craft towards the landing pads and open flight decks, their atmospheric shields shimmering as ionised particles, droplets of fuel and other less desirable material drifted into them.
He gunned the engines and ignored the red-lining gauges and controls on the battered dashboard, flying her by feel and intuition rather than dimension-by-data. Most modern pilots did the same; only a few needed to “fly by wire”. Nobody ever got to be part of the squadron or fly for a navy or trade the lanes without being able to fly their ship of choice and often many different ships by feel and sensation. The data becoming a comforting overlay rather than something vital that was needed to ensure good habits and safe returns.
She swung wildly and Goldgunner feathered the throttle until she moved with at least a modicum of the grace that she normally displayed. She pushed into the envelope of the atmospheric shield and emerged like a child through the birthing membrane into a hangar that looked like a bomb had gone off in a relief station. Medics doing CPR on the pilots and engineers doing the same on the metal beasts that plied the lanes. Everyone trying to save a life, flesh or metal. That’s what it meant to be a “hero of HIP 22460”.
“The price is too high”, thought Goldgunner as his battered ship, Fusilade, made gentle contact with the deck.
A textbook landing despite her pain.