Helping Out Humanity
26 Nov 2023Oak7603
"WARNING: Hyperspace Conduit Unstable"The ships hull screams with the pressure changes as it is dragged out of hyperspace by an unknown terror. The smooth blacks and blues of normal hyperspace travel are replaced by a caustic green and yellow hue meaning only one thing. The Thargoids are here.
Spinning out of control back into normal space, Cmdr Oak7603 tries to realign 'Dynamo' with his intended destination. The horrendous, frightening noises from the Thargoids fills his ears from the system speakers as he wrestles with the yoke, his HUD jittering from orange to blues and greens. He glances at the radar to see two thargoids behind him. He starts to panic thinking of the 160 passengers he had collected from Yegorov Gateway in Obamumbo.
When he set down in the station not more than a few moments ago and saw the hundreds of people trying to get away, he was in awe of the humanity. Humans have conquered the stars, conquered technology, conquered all of the hurdles placed before them and yet here, at their most vulnerable, humans were left with the most base of emotions. Fear. Scared of the Thargoid threat, scared for themselves, and scared for their families. As he watched them board, Cmdr Oak7603 felt that he was helping humanity itself.
"INCOMING MISSILE" said Verity smoothly and without panic, bringing him out of his memories. He hated that voice sometimes. Show some concern for once!
Missiles from a Thargoid - that can only mean Scythes. Designed for only one purpose - harvesting humans. He quickly fired off his ECM, the seconds it takes to get it to 3000m power seeming like eternity. Glancing down at the ship hull temperature, he fires off a heat sink as he presses the boost control. Switching to the next fire group with a new ECM and heatsinks, he repeats that same process - ECM - heat sink, boost. Nervously he looks over that the FSD indicator to see that there is still a third of the cooldown left. "Hurry up!" he shouts at the display, sweat beading in his forehead.
"INCOMING MISSILE"
ECM. Heat sink. Boost. Switch fire groups. No heatsinks. Switch fire groups. One heatsink left.
He glances up and sees the FSD is ready. Stow hard points. Jump. Boost. Then the fear gripped him as he realises that he'd messed up the system. He forgot an ECM launch in the rotation.
"FOREIGN BODY ATTACHED"
"Nooo!" screamed Cmdr Oak7603. The last time this happened, his hull was breached and passengers were torn out of his ship within seconds. Harvested and no doubt ending up on a Titan somewhere. This time however his luck had paid off. As the missile attached, the jump to hyperspace started. He had made it again. His hull was down to 85% but all of the passengers were safe.
He wiped his brow as his ship entered hyperspace, and dropped into his seat, breathing heavily. Two more jumps and he would be at the rescue ship. 160 human lives saved. A quick turnaround and then he'll do it all again.