Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Loss #9: Finally, the Heritage Two

The warning lights flashed in the darkness; my eyes could have been open, but my view was still blank save for a single red warning. I must be in my pod, as I couldn’t see or feel my body.

Warning: Auxiliary life support will fail within four hours.

My pod’s computer was trying one last attempt to wake its unconscious pilot, and it seemed to have worked. I mentally queried the situation, and the computer responded. The camera drone was offline, likely lost. My location was about 100 AU out from Intaki and drifting. My aux life support was down to four hours left.

Strange. A pod’s life support system should last weeks..

I checked the date and the pieces rushed back together. I had been tracking another target in the Intaki system, when I had been caught off guard by a Thorax-class cruiser. I had gotten lazy under the impenetrable (or so I thought) Khanid armor of the Vengeance I had been so successful with, the Heritage Two. My pod hadn’t been properly secured, causing my ejection from the exploding ship to fail and send me rocketing off-course, unconscious. I must have been floating out here for weeks.

I commanded the pod to find the closest station beacon and set a course for docking. Hopefully, flying blind without a camera drone wouldn’t be a liability with the automated docking procedure, but I braced myself anyway…

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