A Pyrrhic Victory, but Victory none the less
06 Oct 2020Storm Grezal
"You might want to reconsider your choice in career."My insurance agent, Ted was not too happy from seeing me so much recently, but I knew what I had to do. I had to do my part for humanity and defeat a Thargoid interceptor. Ever since my humiliating defeat, I kept making attempts to kill a bug. None of them had gone well. Sometimes I would break one heart, sometimes I would break all of them. But in each case, I had to flee before the job could be finished, and the bug would get to live to see another day. With all this in mind, I finished my drink, and made my way through the star port to board my ship, ready for another go.
I completed the flight check. Had to make sure the insurance company didn't forget anything. It's very awkward when you face an interceptor and find out they did not restock your flak cannon ammo. But this time I was fully loaded. I jumped into super cruise and found a non-human signal source with a threat level of 6. Perfect. I engaged the throttle and started cruising my way towards it. On the way, I reflected on all my previous failed attempts. Get the Thargons quickly, that was a big one. Break the first heart quickly, and of course, dodge the EMP. Do that and I have won. It all sounds so easy.
I popped out of super cruise and was greeted by the interceptor that was there. We performed our respective scans and I steeled myself for the coming battle. The cyclops turned away as I started to backup to preemptively put distance between it and me. "Let's dance, bug" I muttered as I pulled the trigger on the gauss cannons. The Thargoid cried out in anger as it quickly turned to face me. I continued to fire the gauss cannons as Eden started to yell at me about my ship's heat. The Thargons started pouring out of the back of the interceptor, and I let loose with the flak. Luckily, because of the distance I already put between me and the interceptor, I was able to kill the swarm before it even passed me. I turned back to face the interceptor. My shots had already exposed a heart, and I took careful aim. The Thargoid was not making it easy. It put some distance between us as its cannon thundered shots into my hull. My shield broke, but I hit harder as my next salvo struck home, and a petal broke off the mighty interceptor and the Thargoid cried out in pain. One down, three to go. The Thargoid pulled close, raised its shield, and unleashed its lightning on me. I was not too concerned, however. My shield was already down, so it did not do much to my ship other than scramble my ship UI. I unloaded the shard cannon to try and break that shield as quick as possible. The lightning let up, and the cyclops deployed another swarm of Thargons. Here we go again. These I had to deal with on the spot, and the cyclops orbited around me as I blasted the swarm away. I turned my attention to the Thargoid and unloaded the shard cannon as it flew past me. Its shield, and mine broke and I once again unleashed the gauss cannons. The Thargoid returned fire. It knew where to aim. I looked up nervously as I heard cracking from my canopy. It stayed intact, but I could see little currents of air escaping from the cracks. The cyclops turned away to put some distance between us to let the heart hide itself again. I lined up a shot through the distorted space and lined up a salvo. The bug once again cried out in pain as another broke free. I was surprised that shot hit home. I looked at my ship integrity. I had 68% left and my shields just went back up. I actually stood a chance this time.
I refocused and saw the bug facing me again and immediately threw the ship into reverse. The ominous green trail appeared from behind the cyclops and I angled my ship to give my point defense as good a shot as possible. It wasn't enough and the missile screamed past the defenses and struck home. I activated silent running and unloaded as many salvos from the gauss cannons as quickly as possible to burn off the caustic substance and turned my attention to the Thargon swarm. Eden continued to yell at me over the heat in the ship, but I couldn't do much while the heat sink worked its magic. This swarm was harder to hit, swarming all around me as the cyclops closed in to shoot lightning at me. Pulling away from me, I easily lined them up and took out the remaining drones with the flak. I turned back to the Thargoid, who turned away to perform another pass. I unloaded the shard cannon, and the heart exposed itself. I wasn't lucky this time and I could make out where the heart was through the distortion. The bright white light from Celaeno's star was at my back, washing out any lights on the cyclops, also making it hard to see. It screamed past and I followed and blasted the third heart off. I was on good pace. My ship's hull was holding strong at 47%. But next was my bane. I quickly reallocated all power to systems. and waited. A familiar phrase rang through the cockpit. "Energy surge detected." I waited activated the field neutralizer, praying I timed it correctly. The blue sphere shot out from the Thargoid, and my ship was still running. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and wiped sweat from my brow. It had worked. Now to finish the fight. My relief turned to frustration as another caustic missile struck home. I had to burn this off before dealing with the Thargon swarm. The gauss cannons screamed to life and I turned to face the swarm. The swarm went down, and I took stock of my resources. One heatsink left, and 28% hull. I had to make it count. Both shard cannon and gauss cannon unleashed their salvos as the Thargoid performed another pass and broke my shields. I looked up more nervously as the cracking on my canopy continued to worsen. The cracks were almost meeting in the middle. I had to end this fast. Through the cracking, I unleashed another gauss cannon salvo, and the last heart broke free.
The Thargoid let out a long growl, almost aware of its fate as another caustic missile struck home. I performed the ritual again and quickly burned off the substance and turned my attention to the last swarm. The swarm went down quick and faced the cyclops as it performed one more lightning pass at me. But it was a ruse. It flew past and unleashed its cannons, and the canopy broke open. Before I could utter any curse, the atmosphere vented, and my helmet deployed. I unleashed another salvo as the glass flew into the vacuum of space. The Thargoid just seemed to be floating dead now. I looked down at its hull integrity on my console, still smoking. It had 4%. I giant grin crept across my face. I had won. I put all my pips into weapons and unleashed a final salvo. Small green puffs started appearing all over the cyclops, until it was enveloped in a great green explosion. Eden's voice echoed in my helmet, "Target Destroyed."
I had done it. I had my revenge. I looked down at my ship integrity. Shields came back, and I was at 11% hull. A little too close for comfort, but the bug was dead. I sat back and started laughing to myself. I had really done it. My celebrations were cut short however, as Eden's voice stated, "Caustic damage detected." What?! I looked back up and saw a green caustic cloud released from the Thargoid remains. I looked at my ship integrity in panic. It was at 9% and ticking steadily down. No, No, No, No! It wasn't supposed to be this way! I looked down at my other systems. Heatsinks were empty. I had no decontamination limpets. Uttering curses to make a sailor blush, I turned the ship away from the toxic cloud and blasted in the other direction. I left the ships throttle at full and ran full speed down the hall, blaring with bright red alarms, to the escape pod. If I had to eject, it was not going to be into the toxic cloud. I sat down, turned on the distress beacon, and was launched from the ship. My pod stabilized, and I looked out the small window back to my ship. I could see a green substance creeping its way along the hull. The substance hit the power plant and sparked into the fuel tank, and the ship was ripped apart in a fiery explosion from what little air remained on board. I sat back. I had won, but at what cost? A big grin crept back across my face. It didn't matter. I had won. I lived, and it didn't. As I was laughing to myself at this revelation, a pulse sounded echoed through my pod, then a voice. Please be search and rescue, and not a pirate, or worse, another bug.
"This is search and rescue Lakon Alpha Charlie Romeo. Please respond."
I let out a sigh of relief. I was going to live and tell the tale.