The Raven Takes Flight
04 Oct 2016ParkTyGreen
Last morning I sat at the bridge of the F.N.S Blue Horizons, fiddling with my old bottlecap. I don't remember when I got it, I must have been too young to remember. I looked across the vast Blue Horizon of the planet, in awe.
I was on the planet Eiena in 19 Phi again, at New Somerset City.
Anyways, a few minutes I got onto the docking platform services, and looked at the local news board.
There was one news post that caught my eye:
"Distress signal from Laifangyi, Read for more details."
Not only was it a distress signal, which I was more than willing to help, but also in Laifangyi.
I continued, it read a bunch about how the Laifangyi system and many others had been forcefully taken over by the "Crom Silver Boys" months ago, which I knew, and in fact fought against.
Below there was a recording.
"**static** dis-tresss***** static**** We've been found... it's only a matter of ***static*** -oys" get to us. They are ruthless, anarchists, they have no order. We were only exposing them to the system... ******* and now we're being hunted. Please help...^*^***static***"
After some contemplating, I decided. Might as well get my good deed in for the day.
After finishing up one of the blue dried food packets (I don't like them, they taste like roasted raisins) I sent comms to ground control, set everything up, and then disengaged.
After a lot of turbulence and gee force I was finally out of the atmosphere.
I then disabled inertia dampeners and coasted for a while, checking ship systems and making sure everything was set for hyperspace. Everything seemed to be fine, so I charged up the FSD and entered hyperspace. After roughly twenty jumps, I was in Laifangyi. I hadn't seen that star in months, so it was surely a welcome sight. And so I made my way over to the first habitable planet in the system, one under CSB control, but also the planet of which the distress signal had been sent from.
After dropping into atmospheric flight mode, I began reentering the atmosphere. Whilst plummeting at 4 kilometres per second through the atmosphere I thought of the time I nearly became toast in a gas giant. Suddenly I heard a massive bang, like a cannon shot. There was nothing on the damage report, so I assumed it must have just been a slam of air pressure. Another bang, even louder. This time the entire ship shook, it sounded like metal was scraping. I checked the damage report screen again. Same as last time, nothing. I just shrugged it off as severe but ultimately unconcerning air turbulence. I grew distressed when I then heard the sound of hydraulics moving, then a loud clicking sound, and finally an explosion. The whole ship jerked to the left, shields not able to combat the extreme pressure from an unintended side, they shut off to avoid critical overheating.
"Shit! SHIT!"
Now something was on the damage report, landing gear critically damaged, left landing legs inoperable, forward landing leg damaged severely, and right one operable. The heat was now causing sparks to fly and flames to come out of air vents. Another explosion, this time the damage report said that the inertia dampeners in the starboard side had been damaged, I would be unable to slow down.
The ship began to shake violently, gee forces increasing, I was descending into the lower atmosphere. I was soon passing the cloud layer, reentry effects gone, but still travelling incredibly fast. I still had ventral inertia dampeners, so I engaged them. The ship began listing slightly to starboard, without thrusters on that side they couldn't compensate.
"Come ooooon."
8,000 metres
7,500 metres
The shields came back online, so I could at least survive a harder impact.
6,000 metres
I was slowing down too slowly
5,000 metres
I then thought,
"What if I caused a fuel leak, then ignited it, just like at the gas giant?"
I sifted through ship systems quickly, then swiped for discharge fuel.
Then I thought, "How will I engage the fuel?"
My question was quickly answered when I saw a thunderstorm roughly 2 km away, 2,000 metres below.
Quickly descending, I had to act quick. I engaged boost.
The ship shot forward, fast enough, however, the fuel was now draining much quicker.
I looked at the fuel meter, it was quickly emptying.
Clouds were
1,500 metres
1,200 metres
Five tanks left.
500 metres
200 metres
-25 metres
My plan worked, the positive charge in the storm set off a reaction, igniting the fuel. The force of impact was immense, I nearly blacked out.
But now I was going slow enough for the thrusters to slow the ship down to a manageable speed.
I then quickly closed fuel lines, and waited to descend.
I was still going forward quickly though, and the landing gear was not only not designed for a lateral landing, but also was severely damaged. After passing below 1,000 metres I saw in the distance where the coordinates had been directing me, it luckily had an old landing strip for atmospheric transports. After some time, I was quickly approaching the runway.
"Mayday, mayday, this is Zorgon Peterson Papa-Alfa-Romeo, FNS Blue Horizons Registration 156254 3301, I request permission to perform an emergency landing."
"This is flight control, you are cleared to perform an emergency landing. Emergency teams will be readied on the ground."
"Thank you, let's hope for the best."
I engaged the little landing gear left working, I heard a loud hydraulic sound, then shuttering, and then a bang. From what I could tell the port side landing gear had completely fallen off. Starboard landing gear was half deployed, and forward landing gear was fully deployed.
300 metres from runway
200
100
10
There was a loud bang and the shields shut off, the ship now dropped several metres and crashed at high speeds. I heard an intense scraping noise, sparks flying up as high as the canopy.
Then the ship suddenly dipped, and I hit my head on the controls.
Everything went black.
I heard a distant echo.
Somehow I was standing in the middle of a blank abyss, but when I looked toward the source of the sound, I saw a light.
I was puzzled,
"Where the hell am I?" I thought to myself.
I then walked toward the light, it grew in intensity, and then it was blindingly bright.
Suddenly I was standing in some sort of ship.
I turned around and saw a small child, running towards a T-9 transport.
"Stop right there you goddammed Jopper!" (slang for station hopper) yelled a large security guard.
The child and whole scene suddenly disappeared. Distraught, I surveyed my surroundings.
All of a sudden I heard a loud voice.
"We are not who you think we are."
"Who are you?" I asked with a tinge of terror
"We are the people of the generation ships, and we have been drifting for millennia."
"I'm sorry, I thought the generation ships were just myths. Stories for young children hoping to go to the stars one day."
"We are as real as the stars you speak of. We have been trying to talk to you."
"The visions..."
"Yes, and we are here to warn you."
"Warn me of what?"
"Of..."
I suddenly woke up
I looked around, I appeared to be in an infirmary.
"Hello, we've been waiting for you to awaken." Said a nurse
"How long have I been out?" I asked.
"Seven days, luckily in that time we've been able to repair your ship. We won't charge you though, since you're here to help us, that's correct?"
"Yes, and did you find what caused the problems in my ship?"
"We ran tests and found out something, are you sure you want to hear it?"
"Alright, what was it." I asked tentatively
"Your ship was sabotaged. We can't figure out why, but we know who."
"Let me guess, Crom Silver Boys?"
"Correct, we assumed they intercepted your frequency and hacked one of your ship's systems. Causing it to critically fail."
"So the Crom Silver Boys still resent me for helping in the war. How can I stop another attack?"
"We've covered that for you, we have a refitted protection system being installed. It will be near impossible to hack now."
"Excellent, now can I get to whoever is in command here?"
"Not yet, you've broken your wrist. You'll have to be in the infirmary for one day before its been repaired by nanites we injected. You mustn't disturb the process, it may cause irreversible damage."
"Alright, well thanks."
"No problem."
So here I am, writing this log in the infirmary. I'll see what tomorrow brings me, hopefully good.