First Foot Fall
23 Apr 2022Willow Thorn
So it’s like this. I'm out of flight school for like 5 minutes and I'm all over my first job as a freelancer. The console shows me what work is available and I'm like salvage, yeah. That’s what I’m into. But I see a spanner icon down the bottom of the page and now I’m thinking. Or is it support? I mean I got the tools and that’s like a tool icon you know.So ok, I look at the support jobs and that’s totally me and they are all local, like no jumps needed and I’m all that’s good, my Winder has like 4 light years or something. So I’m about to take a job and I remember that you can get extra pay if you don’t get a job from the console, but like from one of the people hanging around the station.
I find this woman who asks “Can you restart a fusion reactor?” Yeah, I can restart, but like what’s the salvage situation? So she’s no help with that, but I guess the pay is more anyway, and she will supply the regulator so I’ll go down and see for myself about the salvage.
You never land on the pad right? But I did a fly by and the place was abandoned. The base is like totally deserted so I’ll risk it and let the autopilot land. So I’m down and I’m nervous because this is my first job without the family you know. Like it’s usually 3 or 4 ships with me my brother, and mom and dad taking on a job like this, but today it’s just me with my new ship, and new work suit alone on a cold moon.
Ok, I got a good look at the place while I did a few fly-bys and I know where to plant my SRV so its like the central drop off marker. The Power station is to my left, command centre in front and the production centre and habs are on my right. So like it’s time to get to work.
I’m ok with being alone in the dark, feeling the cold through my new suit, but this is still like my first time you know, without my family or other workers around so I’m nervous. I’m shaking a little but I get the airlock to the power centre open in like, seconds.
I’m in and looking around, picking up stuff that’s been left on cargo crates and I feel like I’m trespassing in a house, like the people who live there could turn up any second and chase me off, but I got a job to do and start cutting my way into the power core.
Step one is always like. Is it safe and is there power? And I got the power on before my Winder cooled down. My job takes me to crashed or derelict ships, so I’ve seen some morbid stuff. Not much makes me jump, but when my helmet opened all by its self after the air was restored. Just like, wow. I had to swallow my heart after that and take a few till my knees stopped rattling.
Ok so the power was on and I’m like pumped after the helmet thing, so I went a little crazy you know. I was running around swiping everything that wasn’t bolted down, and unbolting the stuff that was as is the salvager way.
Next to the power core, I find this lab, and I’m on that like stink. There’s valuable salvage to be had in labs you know. So I’m filling my pack when I see a data port, and lab data is like real valuable and it doesn’t take up cargo space, so I start downloading. I’m marking everything for download when I see a bell icon on some of the files, and I’m like. Woah, I should turn off the alarms and base defences.
The place is lifeless, but robots just follow orders and I don’t wanna get shot over junk that other folks left behind. I get the closest console to show me where the Alarm controls are and go back outside.
When I got here, it felt long dead, but it was only dormant. A sleeping colossus that needed rousing to awaken and work on forging what its little masters commanded it make. I did this, all on my own and knowing that felt good, but not as good as getting paid, so I hurried on to the security section of the command centre. Once the alarms were unable to alarm me, I opened my pack and started to fill it.
There is like, no harm in being double safe, so before I bounced back to the SRV to drop off another full pack, I disabled the defences too. Machines are wonderful, but I could trigger something, or a glitch could set them off, and I’d be toast less than 2 hours out of flight school.
I was down there for like a full evening getting the codes to lock-boxes scattered around the foundry and scooping up every article I could find. The last place to clear out was the Hab. Ok so I have claimed salvage on ships where I have also had the morbid task of bringing back the corps of its pilot, but this felt like stealing from peoples home.
I guess there is a thin line between salvaging and scavenging, and that all depends on whose stuff you are closing your hands on and claiming it now belongs to you. But whatever right, it’s here, no one seems to want it and I’m tiered by this point. So, whoever used to work here isn’t really gonna be all that put out by me helping myself to a coffee before I leave with the junk they left in a locker right?
I’m done, the place is picked clean and the power is back on just like the lady wanted. I take one last look around now all the lights are on and the stacks are vaping into the moons thin atmosphere before I get back to my Winder and leave to collect my pay.
So I’m checking my contract to try and work out what I’m going to get off this evening’s work, and it’s like hay, turn the power on at Dukulys you got like two hours left. So I can’t contact the lady and ask what’s going on, so I go look at the place again and it darks, like I hadn’t been there at all. I haven’t got the regulator anymore so I can’t go restart the reactor. I’m like, what’s going on and I don’t know what to do. So I take off again and I’m hanging there in super cruise when some guy tethers me and is all “I have found you now” as if I’m wanted. I'm like what? And following the escape vector till I'm free and just jump out of there.
It’s my first day on my first job on my first flight and now I'm wanted for completing the mission I took. I don't know what to do now, so I remember my mom telling me about The Galactic Bar on Citi Gateway. It’s a palace where pilots that know a thing or two hang out, so I went there to see if I could find someone that knows what I did wrong.
They say "See you in the black Commander" but it feels like "If I see you in the black, I'll shoot you down"