Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fridge (2 of 2)
26 Mar 2018LongDistanceClara
(Horribly wordy this one! I think someone mentioned this fairly recently in Inara discord but good grief, I cannot wait till we have space legs
That and even some basic interiors, although I know that's hardly a priority! I was tempted to sneak some screenies from cyberpunky/sci-fi games with bars and clubs in, but decided that it'd probably just look weird in an E:D world, so I guess I'll just have to be patient Not a typical "Clara" one this one, but thought I'd try something a bit random just for a giggle 
)I don't think I'm making it out of this one.
I've just woken up and I can't move at all - my whole body is frozen stiff and I can't feel a thing. Which is probably for the best, since I'm out of painkillers, but I know I'm busted up pretty bad and the fact I can't feel anything at all can't be good. The emergency power is almost done for and once that goes, so does the atmo and the beacon, so...
Dammit I really don't want to die alone out here!
Sorry for being all mopey - I'll be honest, I had a good little cry earlier and thought I'd got it all out of me but the thought of turning into an undiscovered popsicle for all eternity on this dustball is pretty much my worst nightmare. I mean, you're always ready for it when out exploring, but what's killing me is knowing that Hal and Coral have no idea where I am, what's happened to me - and they never will! Here I go again...
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In the one-in-a-billion chance someone finds this log though, I guess I better finish explaining how I got myself into this mess.
So I was at that bar on the promenade. I'm just acclimatizing to the mind-bendingly loud music and enjoying the trippy swirly lights of every colour of the spectrum, plus a few new ones (although that may have been down to the banana-and-rocket-fuel daiquiri I was drinking), when, as I'm slurping up the bottom of the afore-mentioned brain-melty cocktail, another one gets planted next to me. I'm no genius, but that last one killed off enough grey matter that I knew I wanted to pace myself; so I began to protest to the barman in Drunken-ese that I hadn't asked for another, when he cut me off with a gesture (he was clearly deaf after god knows how long working here) and pointed with his chin down the bar to a guy raising a bottle.
I'll be perfectly honest - this doesn't happen to me everyday. The bars I usually hang out in are full of explorers who, let's be honest, are a fairly quiet, thousand-mile-stare, keep-to-themselves kinda bunch; or grabbing some drinks with the deck crew at Jameson who seem to have all decided to treat me either as a little sister or an honorary dude. THE POINT I'm trying to inarticulately make is, its been a while since anyone bought me a drink without prefacing it with "oi shorty, this your round or mine?" (I hang with a classy bunch).
And in my defense, the guy did look pretty cute, although that may have been the daiquiri goggles and a truly unfair amount of strobing. So I thought "aww screw it", raised the glass, took a sip and smiled at him in a way I thought was friendly with just a hint of flirty - but in reality given my mental state probably just made me look like a slightly concussed chipmunk. Oh boy do I know how to play this game...
So the guy comes over. And so ensues what at the time I thought was an hour-long masterclass in flirting but as I lie here (mentally biting my knuckles in cringing embarrassment) realize was probably sixty minutes of me becoming increasingly unintelligible and going from laughing coquettishly to cackling like a freaking hyena. I honestly don't remember things too clearly past this point - I vaguely remember being plied with another drink - before promptly recycling an hour's worth of booze all over the floor. I remember the guy looking pissed - I mean really pissed, although I had no idea why at the time - like he's never seen someone throw up before (like I said - classy!). Next minute he's hustling me away from the bar and pretty much dragging me up the stairs to the first floor with all the doors...
I definitely wouldn't say I'm that wise to the ways of the galaxy but I'm not a completely oblivious innocent, even when my brain is marinating in more-or-less pure ethanol. And the more I think about it, that last drink tasted kinda funny - right before I recycled it. That plus his sudden attitude change has my subconscious blaring the panic alarm (which was a good thing, as my conscious self was barely able to sign my name in crayon at this point). I'm now thoroughly creeped out as he bundles me through a door into some seedy little room and that sobers me up really quick.
Hokay. Time to get going. Just say you need to use the bathroom and then sneak out - newp, he's having none of it. Ok, plan b. Introduce Exhibit A (one right knee) to his Exhibit B (somewhere that's only ever supposed to be treated nicely) as hard as humanly possible. Next step; while he's in a crumpled heap on the floor vomiting, stagger not-so-elegantly out of the door, down the stairs and back up the street, desperately trying not to lose remaining contents of stomach over passers-by.
I remember being worried that the station security guys running ID at the hanger would refuse me access - they would at almost any other reputable station... didn't even look at me as I weaved past, bouncing off the bulkheads for good measure. I have literally no idea how I managed to clamber into the Viper but I vaguely remember having the presence of mind to make sure I recycled the last of the booze out of the airlock before locking up, falling to the floor and passing out.
Woohoo! San Tu '04, yeah!
For god's sake >.<
Oh wait, it gets better - this is where it goes from slightly pear-shaped to full-blown craptacular. I wake up with what feels like a broken rib-cage and a skull several sizes too small for the largely non-functional brain inside it. After feverishly gulping down a bathtub of water and spending a good half-hour wearing a Remlok helmet with the oxygen tweaked to one hundred percent, I start getting to a state that loosely approximates "being human" - when I suddenly hear a thundering noise slamming the back of the ship.
Staggering up to the cockpit - yep, it's that would-be-rapey asshole from earlier and some neanderthal grunts, standing on the deck andshooting at my ship!. Ok buddy. Enough. Thank you San Tu, you've been wonderful, but I'm out. This unbelievable asshat is about to blow out the access hatch to my ship and I don't think a swift knee is going to do the job this time - and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if he gets on board, it doesn't end well for yours truly.
One of the best things about the Viper is that it's old. Which means it doesn't have any of those pesky safety features built into it. Like, for example, safeguards preventing you from firing up your main engines whilst still in the hangar. Ok, how does this go again - four pips to shields, buckle in aaaand full throttle - OUCH, that would be me bouncing off the bulkhead at the end of the hangar, sorry Bansidhe. Funny though, apart from the sirens going off, its gone remarkably quiet back there...
Be honest. Tell me you wouldn't have done the same?! Well anyway - I'm pretty sure I'm persona non grata in this system anymore, better get out of here quick! So I quickly back the ship into the hangar, call the elevator down, thank god for the non-existent tower control at this fetid hole of a station and go screaming for the mail slot. At last - peace. Time to sit back, relax and...
Son...of...a...bitch!
Evidently Captain Creepy had some goons waiting outside the station for me, just in case. So now I'm trying to get away from a couple of Cobras while my head is still on fire and I can barely focus. Wonderful.
I only use the Bansidhe for racing, she's got no teeth at all, so it's not even like I can fire back. I just have to figure that these goons are as hopeless as their boss was. Aha! Hokay, let's try this. Back off the gas a bit, let 'em close up a bit OW OW OW NOT THAT CLOSE ok that's perfect; now pop the flight assist off and drift sideways towards this innocent little reactor port, nothing to see here folks, keep coming buddy ignore your surroundings and just fly full tilt at the nasty little Viper, keep coming aaaaannd.....boost.
One down, one to go. But this other sucker is good - I can take him easy in a straight race but this is his home turf and he's disappearing one moment then popping back up the next from nowhere; this station's getting on my nerves, it's like a rabbit warren! And the perma-neon afterglows everywhere are doing bad things to my poor abused head...
Goddamn it, again! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU COMING FROM? I burn a huge loop around the station and he's there waiting for me! All those ridiculous little gantries and alleys all over the place, fine, but how - dammit, he's probably got some goon on the station tracking me! Oh and great, now my FSD's taken hits, cockpit is filling with smoke - ok, hell with this, I need a new plan.
Aha! That moon's pretty close and I think I can make it, even with a banged up FSD; and if he stays with me, I'll just scooch around the canyons till I lose him, hole up and see if I can tinker with the FSD and coax just one high-wake out of it, boop to a nearby system - OK! Plan!
The supercruise to the moon was less than a minute but I don't think I drew breath the whole way there, praying for the FSD to hold it together. Finally made it to the moon - but the FSD was clearly feeling abused and made its dissatisfaction known by pile-driving me at full speed into an emergency stop, hundreds of kilometers above the surface.
So now I'm just flooring it as fast as I can towards the surface, expecting at any moment - CRAP. New contact, yep it's Goonie McGoonface, would you STOP SHOOTING ME! Your boss is toast, literally, take the day off! But no, I have to get stuck with the world's most committed henchman and he's starting to do some serious damage...
I'm never going to make it to the surface before he fries me. Ehm.....ehm.....ok yep, this is pretty stupid, he won't expect this. Oh crap, I need to draw him in closer BANG goddamit just a bit closer BANG CRACK good girl, hold together a bit longer...
Turns out, if you fly a knackered old Cobra full tilt into an escape pod that someone's carelessly ejected into space, it doesn't really do it any favors.
The only downside was I'd had to bang on the brakes HARD so the pod wouldn't eject with any inertia - and despite slamming the throttles back on the instant the pod was out, I was still close to the explosion. Way too close, as it turns out; the main engines got peppered with shrapnel and with a painfully loud BANG fell silent.
So now I was hurtling towards Moon 4c at over eight hundred meters a second with just thrusters to slow me down. No chance, just no chance - I was going to hit and hit hard. The best I could hope for was to find a fairly clear inclined space and pray the thrusters could take the edge off; but the place was a nightmare - just a mass of gullys and ridges. Even the valley floors were a mess of folds and criss-crossed with ravines. At the very last second, I found a vaguely flat-ish canyon and went for it...
I felt sure the ship would just split in half on contact - the impact with the floor was horrific and I was certain the Viper would explode; but she held together and rattled across the surface. Holy crap, I might make it out of this alivecrapthatsacliffOHMYGOD -
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Here's a fun fact - I woke myself up with the sound of my own screaming! Turns out you don't have to be conscious to make sounds like an incontinent giraffe passing a kidney stone. I got it together enough to drag myself over to the med locker, grab the first syringey-type thing full of blessed pain relief and jab it well and truly into my arm. It didn't get rid of all the pain but enough that I was just whimpering like a wounded dog rather than aforementioned giraffe - so that was nice.
By some unbelievable thank-you-guardian-angel stroke of luck, the canopy had stayed intact. I, on the other hand, was utterly broken - broken arm, ribs, collar bone, pretty sure I had busted up both legs. Once the pain had subsided to mere agony, it was time to take stock - yup, I was screwed. Main power out. Emergency power wasn't great. Feeling very sorry for myself and painfully slowly, I managed to splint both legs together, wrap my ribs and sling the broken arm. I must've looked like some kind of weird Egyptian mummy-a-like, dragging my more or less trussed-up body around the floor with one arm.
The short-range emergency beacon was fine, but that was pretty much suicide right now - it was omni-directional; I had no idea how long I'd been out, but working off the remaining life of the emergency power, I figured a day, maybe a day and a half at the outside. If the station security weren't looking for me, it would be a fair bet that Captain Creepy's friends may have carried on the search.
If I could get to the nose of the ship, I might be able to pull out the comm relay, drag it inside and hook it up manually to the emergency power to direct a focused SOS - and if I could grow wings, I could fly all the way home! At this point, the exit hatch was about four feet off the "ground", potentially more outside and it was likely the nose was buried in several feet of rock and debris. The chances of me pulling this off were pretty small - still, the chances of me dying if I just lay in the ship were in the triple digits...
Looking back, I don't know how I convinced myself to crawl outside and I really don't want to talk about it, it makes me sick just thinking about it! I'm not going to go into detail, but suffice to say, I lost count of the times I threw up in that suit - not fun with busted ribs! By some utter, utter miracle, despite having been driven into a rock wall and despite the nose being bashed in, the comm relay was more or less undamaged, albeit wedged in like a limpet! Getting it out and back into the ship was not exactly a party and I blacked out again when I half-climbed, half-fell back in through the exit hatch.
The next several hours were a blur. I did manage to hook up the comm relay to the emergency power, direct it to point the beacon to the nearest friendly port I knew the coordinates to by heart - good old Jameson - and send out a distress call. At least, I thought I did - in my drug-and-pain fuelled state, it was pretty much a twenty percent chance at best that I'd hooked everything up right.
So that's it. That's how I came to be here. I wish to god I'd never left the Chieftain - if only I'd ignored Hal and Coral and stayed to tinker with the ship; if only I'd never decided to come to San Tu; if only...
I really, really don't want to die out here. And I know I mustn't sleep but I'm so tired, so cold and so tired...and it's so quiet...maybe I'll just close my eyes for a little while........
