A Ray of Hope?
16 Sep 2019Flikre
It's been a tough two months, mentally, after the attack I struggled to get the memories of Thome Gateway out of my head. I swear my brain hates me, everynight I get dreams so horribly vivid I often wake up sweating with my heart attempting to escape through my ribcage.It's all in my head, none of what I dream about actually happened, my parents are still alive, I didn't watch anyone turn inside out and I never ended up in the vacuum of space.
Still, that knowledge doesn't carry over to when I'm asleep, and when I'm awake I have to deal with the images my head has decided to punish me with. I can only imagine it's some form of survivors guilt, why did I get lucky and live when so many others didn't?
I meandered my way towards the edge of the galaxy, heading below the galactic plane until the sky was darkness. It was a humbling experience, looking out into , for all intents and purposes, infinity. Knowing that beyond the black, past the light pollution of the Milky Way and red-shifted out of the visible spectrum, lay billions and billions of individual galaxies, trillions even. Just like how our homeworlds are tiny specks of dust compared to the sheer mass of four humdred billion stars, the Milky Way is just one average sized grain of sand floating in a vast cosmic net that has been woven through the universe.
It's amazing how a little introspection while you're facing the abyss puts your problems in a different light.
It still hurts, I still get the nightmares but its become a little more manageable when I'm awake.
I spent a few days on the edge, just looking, drinking, crying and pulling myself into a more stable state of mind.
Eventually I headed back into the bubble, passing through the Witch Head and Pleiades nebulae on the way. While I was in the area I heard about a war against the Thargoids in Asterope, curious I headed to the system to find out more. I'd heard about Aegis and was vaguely aware of their anti-zeno weapons, but after talking to some veterans in some dive bar at Copernicus Observatory I learned that the best weapons were those made by the Guardians.
This was all news to me, I barely pay attention to current events normally and with the events of the last three months or so, I had fallen even more out of touch.
Apparently these Guardians are an extinct race of aliens that lived millions of years ago, it sounded like something out of the comics I used to read as a little girl, and I was sure the pilot was pulling my leg.
However I didn't have anything else to do with my life.
After travelling to some ancient ruins the guy had given me the coordinates for and following the instructions he told me, I came away with some blueprints for some device and a shed-load of materials. (I did question some of the more odd instructions like making sure I had plenty of point defense turrets on Argo, if I was in my Scarab why would that matter? But holy hell was he right, I had no idea they worked like that!)
Anyway, after buying and tooling up a Krait MkII, I headed into the fray.
In my defense, the ship never actually blew up but the hull was pretty much jelly by the time I dragged it back into port.
A few more runs and I'd finally taken down a few scout ships.
I couldn't do any more.
Seeing one of their ships up close, even the little ones, brought all the memories back. I'd panic, miss simple shots, more than once I froze up and very nearly got turned into goo.
I tried, but I couldn't mentally take it, every encounter seemed to trigger me. I was never the best pilot to begin with, but now I was a danger to myself and everyone else in the area.
So I quit, sold everything I had bought except for the ship, and left.
Almost.
As I was sitting in the Krait (It's a good ship, although I hadn't gotten aroud to naming it yet), waiting for permission to leave. A small ray of sunshine flew into the station.
An extremely battle damaged Krait Phantom.
The sight of it made my chest tighten as I though back to those ships that had been taken from me.
As it passed overhead, I noticed that a lot of the paintwork had worn away, apparently it had been repainted at some point as not all of the exposed areas were bare metal. Some were the stock colouring, including around the nameplate.
Arkadia.
That wasn't just any Phantom, it was my Phantom! I didn't even think, I bolted out of my ship and legged it across the port. I asked the ground crew who owned the ship, didn't get much information out of them although he was apparently only stopping for repairs and to restock, so I decided to stick around the ship rather than chasing some unknown person around a massive station.
Eventually the pilot showed up, a stocky, slightly overweight guy who had a permanent look of contempt on his face.
He was, however a really nice man. I explained to him how the Arkadia used to be mine, how she was taken from me on orders from someone who had a chip on his shoulder.
I obviously left out the piracy.
He was understandably reluctant about just giving away his ship to a complete stranger, so I offered a solution.
We swap ships.
To my surprise he agreed quite quickly, we sorted the paperwork and soon enough I had Arkadia back.
According to the pilot (never did find out his name) he bought the ship at an auction.
I was giddy at having my Phantom again, he had kept it mostly how he had bought it, only installing a new COVAS system and new lick of paint, I was intitially a little annoyed, but after hearing the new COVAS for the time I had to keep it, that voice suits Arkadia perfectly.
Not for any other reason.
Nope, none.
*cough cough*
Something more important than getting Arkadia back happened to me that day though.
If impounded ships are sold off, then that means Ellie could be out there somewhere. My beloved Viper could be, right now, flying through the galaxy. Which means all I have to do is find her, I'll happily trade Argo and Jinx for her and give every last penny I have if it means I can once more sit at her controls and feel her respond to my touch.
Having something you care about is a powerful thing no matter what it is, and even though I'm not back to my old self again, I might never be, I feel like I've taken the first steps along the path to healing.
I have a goal, a mission, a purpose.
A little ray of hope.