Battle and Survival
23 Feb 2024TigerAce121
A few days ago, I had truly the most terrifying and incredible experiences yet encountered ever since obtaining my Pilot's Federation permit.I never was much of a combat pilot until recently, and even less so a member of the anti-Thargoid community. Oh, I could managed myself in combat, yes, if it was 1v1 or maybe even 2v1 against some raiders, but never a pitched battle. Of course, I took note of that insufficiency in my skills and practiced. I spent hours reading on techniques, watching and learning from seasoned pilots, and eventually putting those skills to the test in resource sites, where some true engagements occur. And I improved.
As for the Thargoids though, I know they're tough to fight. Most of the times, I'd run from an interceptor if they snagged me in hyperspace, but the hunters would always, without fail, destroy my ship and leave me to be found by the search and rescue teams. Until two days ago, when I killed my first one. Interdicted by a glaive while jumping to an active spire site near Indra, I said 'screw it', and slammed Endurance into overdrive. While she was built more for surviving the maelstrom than fighting, those same characteristics and weapons made her just about the perfect choice to fight a glaive, and I managed to gun the enemy down, perhaps not cleanly, but alive. Pleased and rather shocked to some degree, I began to engage all hunters that managed to hyperdict me, besting them all.
But, as if aware of my success, I eventually was pulled out of a warp, and, looking at my screen, I saw not one, but two glaives, rapidly approaching. A surge of emotions went through me, starting with an understandable 'Oh crap', to 'I can't do this', to asking myself 'Why can't I?'. After all, I'd thought that about one glaive. So, as I'd done many times by then, I flipped Endurance around and came out swinging against the Thargoids.
Missile after missile they fired at me, lightning strike after lightning strike, and all the while I scarcely let up on the trigger of my multicannons. Never before had my COVAS helped so much, and even as caustic missiles hit, the acid compounds were being reported as cleared as the Endurance ran hotter than I'd ever dared to. At some point, a Thargoid missile struck the canopy, shattering it and leaving me all but blind as I lost sight of the two glaives against the black of deep space. And yet, despite that, I pushed on. The only way forward was victory or death, and I refused to die that day. With no more than my radar screen, some remaining shards of glass at the edges of the canopy's frame, and my own eyes, I managed to kill the first bug.
There was no time to celebrate, though, as that precise moment, the FSD shutdown missiles I'd managed to avoid thus far finally struck home, and I was well and truly stuck into it. At this point, my laser was all but gone, as well as one of my multicannons. I'd never had shields to begin with, and more than half of my other modules were on their last legs. But what I still needed, still worked, and with just over 50% hull remaining, I swung around on the second glaive and engaged her, the two of us single-mindedly focused on the destruction of the other. With 3 minutes of oxygen left, I pitched, rolled, and boosted Endurance around my foe, pushing every last bit of my ship to the absolute limit, until I finally heard the detonation of the glaive on my final pass, and saw the notification of a collected bond in my info panel.
I took a (not that) deep breath, before starting to laugh, perhaps a little hysterically for a moment. The hardest 12 or 13 minutes of my piloting career had ended so suddenly, so relatively quietly, I genuinely questioned myself as to the reality of it. At that point, though, I took stock of the situation. I was terribly damaged, with my FSD nearly destroyed, thrusters and powerplant on the brink, and many, many other alerts. After a quick oxygen synthesis, I rebooted the ship and, with everything at 'good enough', I jumped into supercruise.
My target was a fleet carrier I'd been working off of lately, one of the AXI's. Of course, finding my target with no canopy was certainly difficult, and as I passed near the star the vessel was parked around, I began to get uncomfortably warm. But alas, with some fancy flying and no small amount of luck, I landed (perhaps a little hard) on the deck of *Philadelphia*, with only 4% of my hull remaining. It was 3% more than I needed though, and before long, I was back out there, fighting the war.
Never give up, my fellow pilots. It might seem all is lost, but when it's between you and the bugs, fight until the last breath. Glory to mankind!