The Split growled something down the local channel in its native language and pulled the trigger. I dived just in time as the energy bolt fried one of the helm consoles. It took my by surprise when I hit the floor with a thud; I had expected to drift out of the line of fire and shoot back. Instead I found myself lying on my belly with the weight of the cumbersome suit and propulsion unit making it difficult to role over. I heard the bang of Jo flachette gun and the detonation as the metal balls exploded on impact. But impact on what? I unclipped the propulsion unit and tossed it off my back. Now able to move freely with as much agility as the bulky suit could offer, I rolled over to my right and ended up on one knee, quite an impressive feat which made me feel quite proud. My celebrations were very short-lived however as the console behind me exploded in a shower of sparks that rained down, singing small back specks on my visor. I stood up and leveled my gun at Split. It was taking cover behind the command chair. Damn, I thought, no cover for us. I shot the chair a few times and small section of the soft, fabricated pads disintegrated into little showers of fluff.
“Quick, out the window!” I yelled over the comm. I thrust my finger at the shattered main screen and saw Jo nod her helmet in acknowledgement. I clomped as fast as I could towards the window and took a blind leap, hoping that the lack of gravity on the other side caught me before I slit myself in two on a jagged piece of plasteel. I flew through the air and out into space. It was at that precise moment I remembered I had left my propulsion unit on the deck…
Last edited by RSDark_Angel on Wed, 20. Jul 05, 23:33, edited 1 time in total.
I stared in horror as the Dragon receded at a painfully slow pace. “Jo” I yelled down the comm. I saw her space suited form fly out of the window, thrusters flaring. Her bulbous helmet angled to see me drifting away. “Hang on Joules” She replied, firing a shot back through the window.
“To what” I muttered as turned and flew up to me. The Split was now at the window behind her, firing shots out into the mists. Then the Dragon faded from view as Jo reached me and we came to a stop in the swirling orange, guns raised in the direction we had come from.
“The cloud must be dense here; the Split won’t be able to see us either” Jo grabbed me by the arm “Come on, let’s go.” She holstered her weapon and manipulated her control arm. We began to fly back to the Dragon. Jo aimed for just above the window and we came down onto the metal surface with a thud. Jo grunted. “Hard to control when you’re lugging dead weight”
Stung by her remark I replied “Hey, be careful what you say”
Turning to me so that I could see my visor in hers, she said “Jesus, cant you take a joke boss?”
“Didn’t sound like a joke to me” I said as Jo unslung her gun once more. The Split was nowhere to be seen, and neither was my propulsion unit.
“It’ll be coming around the hull” I warned Jo. “It’s got my propellant pack.”
“Ok” was all she said.
On instinct, I turned around fully to look behind me and saw a hatch on the top of the Dragon; a few metres away open out into space. I leveled my gun on the hatch and saw the Split fly out with my backpack attached to his. Its little surprise attack had failed however, as I shot it in the leg. It jerked and grabbed for its injured limb. I pulled the trigger two more times, scoring a hit on the chest unit and another to the faceplate. The chest unit exploded in a shower of sparks, sending the Split drifting away from us. There must have been a rush of air out of the melted visor because the split began to tumble in slow motion back flips.
“Good shooting” Jo praised. “I’ll go get you propulsion tank.” She jetted off, gun still raised, to the tumbling Split. When she arrived, I saw her detach the unit and fix it securely under one arm. She then thrusted back down to the surface of the Dragon and handed it to me. I took it and strapped it to its connectors with a little bit of help from Jo.
“When this is all over, let me buy you a drink” I said to Jo as she checked all the connections were right.
“I don’t drink” She said mischievously “But you can take me out anyway.”
We went back inside through the window as soon as we were fully inside, the ArtGrav plonked us roughly on the floor. Jo managed to remain upright but I fell flat to the floor. Thank god the suit hid my rapidly reddening face. I heard Jo giggling down the comm.
“Come on” I huffed “Let’s go check downstairs.”
Downstairs was worse than upstairs. The fire from Alpha one’s BHEPTs has scored deep gashes in the hull, one deep enough to penetrate and kill the three Split in that compartment at once as the air rushed out. The three bodies lay sprawled on the floor from when Jo had activated the GravTech system. We stood in that compartment. At the head of she ship. This section held the sensor equipment, main radar computer bank and for some reason two long range telescopes. Why a Split Dragon was carrying long range telescopes I did not know. Jo was full of ideas however.
“Maybe they were planning to send this Dragon through the gate. These scopes could see a Boron swim 5 metres.”
“Perhaps they think there could be a planet through there” I replied
“Maybe there is! Maybe they’ve sent a probe through already and have spotted a planet”
“But what’s the point in sending a probe through if you’re going to investigate yourself?” I asked “The probe would easily be able to take all the readings and take the measurements by its self”
“Perhaps it wasn’t a very sophisticated probe”
I thought about it for a while and then said “Enough of this, there are more important things to be done, let’s go check the engines”
We turned to the bulkhead that separated this compartment from the next. The door was already open so we stepped through and clomped off down the corridor towards the engine room.
I apologise for not posting chapters of the story as frequently as before, I have been ties up with family business. My Great Uncle has become ill.
I will carry on with the story but there will probably be big gaps in between post.
regards, Dark_Angel.
P.S. KiwiNZ, all M6 interiors are the same. If you look about you will see the comand chair and two spaces in front for helmsmen. Its a small space but I think you can picture the fight easily enough!
The engines were piles of scrap metal. The Mass Driver rounds had punched through the one of the coolant valves, causing a massive overheating in the main tanks. Both tanks had blown up, killing the operator currently on station. There was frozen propellant scattered across the floor in random blue globules along with the ex Split operator who sat slumped where he had landed against the wall across the far side of the chamber.
Jo finished examining the wreckage and announced “We’ll need a hauler to get this out of here, that or new parts for the engines will have to be brought out here.”
“I don’t think our reputation with the Split is good enough to allow either of those transactions.”
“Maybe we could give her back to the Split in good faith” Jo mused
“What, one battered Split Dragon for about 30 Split lives, naw I don’t think so, Have you ever heard the term, ‘No ship is worth the loss of a Split life’?”
“I suppose…” Jo turned away from me to look at the ruined engines “Anyway, we have more important things to worry about than this: The Gate” She turned back to me. I could see a sly grin on her face through her helmet visor.
I returned the grin “We’ll be the second living beings through this gate apart from Chianna for a long time”
“Imagine what we’ll find!” Jo’s eyes were distant, deep in thought. She was anxious and excited about crossing a new frontier. So was I.
We left the engine room and clomped back down the corridor. The dull glow from the backup power glinted off our white space suits. When we reached the outer airlock again, I clamped my boots onto the hull and swung the outer hatch shut.
“Right, I’ll meet you on the other side!” Jo said down her microphone.
“Roger that” I replied. I stayed on the hull and watched her form thrust gently away to the distant silhouette of Reaper . When she disappeared into the mists, I activated my propultion unit and scaled the top of the Dragon. There was Alpha 1, waiting for me where I had left her. It was strange, a part of me felt this dreadful feeling that she wouldn’t be there anymore, and I would be stranded far from civilization in nothing but my space suit. I sighed in relief and jetted over to the waiting Nova.
I hung my propellant unit on its rack and maneuvered myself back into Alpha one’s cockpit. My fat space suit squeezed into the seat. Any wider and I would probably be stuck. I activated the main power generator and watched as the systems monitor went from red, to amber, to reassuring green. The fuel indicators showed full power to all four engines and shields and weapons were outputting at maximum. I flicked a few switches and a holographic image of the system map appeared in front of the cockpit window. The two ships my eyes sought were no longer anywhere near the main ecliptic plain. They were now a few K above, locked in combat with three Split Mambas. At least they were both intact, even though their shielding had taken a battering.
I opened their audio command console. “Helios, Prometheus, finish off local hostiles and move to position Nova Alpha 1 ”
I activated two of my monitors and tuned them in to Helios’ and Prometheus’ onboard cameras. Helios opened fire on a Mamba and I saw the unfortunate ship burst into blue flame as her miniature plasma reactors failed and overloaded. A quick look at the other monitor showed Prometheus was hot on the tail of another Mamba. Satisfied, I closed both monitors and opened a comm. with Jo.
“Jo, Helios and Prometheus will be joining us shortly, what is your status?”
“Sorry Joules, Reaper’s having some problems with her fourth engine conduit, the one on the damaged arm .Seems to be a minute puncture in the metal”
Damn, I thought to myself, I didn’t want Jo to go through the gate with a damaged spaceship and she definitely couldn’t stay here. Split reinforcements were surely on the way.
“Try and override the conduit, the surge of plasma into the tubes might fuse the rupture shut.” I said. I switched one of the monitors back on and tuned it into Alpha one’s starboard camera and thumbed the zoom control until the black outline of Reaper was visible through the mists.
“Right, I’ll give it a go” Jo replied. I watched the monitor intently as Jo flooded the damaged tube with white hot plasma.
A jet of gas erupted from the lower of Reaper’s four arms and Jo’s triumphant call made me wince inside my helmet. “Yeehaa, it worked boss, you’re a genius. All workable systems in the green”
“Well let’s hope it holds until this is over” I said down the comm., suppressing the urge to take off my helmet and rub my sore ears. I rested my gloved right hand on the control stick and my left on the throttle control. They both felt reassuring under my grip. I called up the system map once again and gaped at what I saw. Two squadrons of Split Mambas were converging on the gate. What was worse though was that they were being followed by Rhy’s Desire’s Split Raptor. I swallowed my fears and radioed to Jo “Get in formation with me, we’ve got incoming!”
“Where?” came the reply “My navigation computer’s just failed on me!”
I gritted my teeth “Doesn’t matter Jo, just get in formation! Were going through!”
I opened the audio command for Helios and Prometheus once again and took in a deep breath.
“Helios, Prometheus, new commands. Fly through west gate and rendezvous with Nova Alpha 1 and Reaper on the other side.” The two icons flashed showing orders received and understood. I quickly checked that Jo was in formation and pushed the throttle lever as far forward as it could go.
Last edited by RSDark_Angel on Tue, 26. Jul 05, 12:59, edited 1 time in total.
Alpha 1 surged forward under the power of the thrusters. I was forced back into my chair as the momentary G forces were taken into effect. I targeted the West Gate and swung Alpha 1 around in its direction. The spinning crosshair on my visor circled around a misty form in the distance and the onboard computer chimed “Gate: Unknown Sector.” I raised my eyebrows as the immense form swirled into recognition through the nebula. I checked the system map; the Mambas were only about 20k from our location, and Helios and Prometheus were even further away. Tensing my jaw muscles and narrowing my eyes, I focused on the view in front of me. The gate was looming up ominously, waiting to swallow our two fragile ships in one mighty gulp. I plotted a trajectory that would take us straight through the center of the swirling vortex.
“Aren’t we waiting for your two M3’s?” Jo asked over the comm.
“No time” I replied “Those Mambas will be on us in less than a mizura if we don’t get out of here”
“How many of them are there?”
I checked the map “twenty” I answered “Two squadrons”
“Christ” Jo muttered. “They’ll follow us through”
“No they wont, I took a quick look at the records on the Dragon, they haven’t even sent a probe through, Father of Rhy’s orders. Their scared of what might be on the other side.”
“Wont the Split Father order them to follow us?”
“I shouldn’t think so; they probably think we’re as good as dead on the other side of the gate anyway”
“We might well be…” Jo said quietly, but loud enough for me to hear. Always look on the bright side, eh? I thought as we approached the gate. The dark form before us took shape and I could suddenly see the textures and markings on its carapace. Jump gates were definitely alien. The metal seemed to gleam even after centuries of being exposed to radiation and micro meteors. They even looked newer than TerraCorp headquarters or any of my own stations, despite the fact they had been hung in space for such a long time. The gleaming metal ended at the dull grey coating of the twin nacelles. The strange tubular vortex generators thrummed with an alien frequency that always could be heard over your radios. It chilled me, anything alien did. But then again, that was probably human nature; to be afraid of anything different. I remember when I had to go out in my space suit up close to one of those nacelles; the humming in your earphones could drive you crazy.
I checked the system map once more, the two Mamba squadrons were at the fringe of the nebula and my two Khaak ships were still a long way away.
“Ready Jo?” I said into the comm.
“Ready as I’ll ever be” she said in return. I gripped the control stick tighter as we flew into the void. This was it, the reason we were here. We were about to cross an unknown boundary into uncharted territory, oblivious to what was on the other side. And I don’t know about Jo, but I was eager to go through, brimming with excitement. We were going to recover Chianna Danar and Scorpion and see what had attracted them here in the first place. Or failing that, find out the cause of their demise…
Very good continuation! Nice tension throughout. I presume it'll still be a bit of a mission for the KM3's to get by the Split but perhaps they will just let them pass through the gate to their certain demise.
The hyperspace vortex swirled around my little fighter as I was hurtled light-years across the galaxy away from Rhy’s Desire. The blue glow of the maelstrom cast an eerie light across the glowing dashboard. My knuckles were clasped together, so tightly I could hear the servomotors on the backs of the gloves straining to keep the fabric from ripping.
As soon as it had started, the warp closed up around us and we were dropped out in deep space. The cabin suddenly went dark. My helmet visor must have been tuned to the glare of the orange nebula and had glazed over to protect my eyes. Now we were in this unknown system, the visor had to attune itself to the surroundings. I waited a sezura for the visor to clear up and then gazed out into this new system. The view made me gasp. The system was a murky, dark navy blue in contrast to the glare of the orange nebula. In the distance I could see lots of dense particle clouds that covered most of the system. Two huge asteroids could be seen silhouetted against the dark blue background, I was eager to get closer to them to find out what secrets they held, stored deep within their rocky innards. They were definitely large enough to hold a network of volcanic tunnels to be sure! In the mists of one of the nebulas I could dimly make out a metal form glinting in the dim sunlight. A thought struck me, what if it was another gate? The system was clear of bases and stations so the east side was visible. What if Chianna had gone through? Maybe there were a whole network of undiscovered gates and Scorpion had flown into them and out beyond reach!
Well there was only one way to find out. I brought up my system map; luckily I had recently installed a Triplex scanner to Alpha one’s mainframe. I could see another two asteroids along with the two clearly visible leviathans. Out near the east edge of the ecliptic plane however, there blinked a symbol consisting of four dots surrounded by the four corners of a square; the sign for a jump gate, but not an active one.
I called up the comm. to Jo.
“Reaper, testing comm. systems. Jo can your hear me?”
“I hear you loud and clear boss, what we got?”
I gave her a detailed description of what was on my scanner and told her that the best thing to do was search the nearest asteroid. Scorpion’s signature was not in open space; therefore the M4 should be around or inside one of the asteroids. I throttled up and headed forward. That’s when I saw the Rhy’s Desire gate in my rear monitor and remembered Helios and Prometheus.
“Jo, my Khaak ships!” I pulled back on the throttle to stop the ship.
“Oh yeah” Jo replied “Are they through?”
“No not yet, I want to wait for them, they should head through the gate and meet us here”
“Ok, but if any Split ships come through, were outta here.”
“Roger that”
I turned Alpha 1 away from the view before me and swung her round to face the gate. Beyond the mighty circle, I could see more of those gaseous nebulas. No, I thought, not more, this must be one BIG gas cloud. I must have whistled because Jo said “What?” over the comm.
“Oh, nothing, just whistling.”
“Right”
I turned my attention back to the gate. There was no sign of the Khaak ships. Maybe they had met their end back in Rhy’s Desire. I waited, my knuckles clenched once more. I stared hard into that vortex, willing the two M3’s to shoot out of its depths. The warp made my eyes blur. I shut them tight and tried to shake off the dizzy sensation that swam about my head. When I opened my eyes again my vision was just as blurred, but when I looked harder, I saw that it was in fact, the hyperspace vortex that was distorted. I gasped as the wide disc contracted and spat out a pyramidal object. I sighed in relief and checked the system map. Prometheus’s icon moved across the small space between Alpha 1 and the gate and spun gracefully into formation. I then realized that it was only Prometheus. I turned back to look at the gate, no Helios…
I stared at the gate, silently pleading the M3 to appear. For a few seconds there was nothing, just the huge disc slowly rotating in space. Then it began to slur, the huge circle contorted into a funnel and another pyramidal shape shot out to gracefully arc round and move into formation. I gave out a sigh of relief and looked a Helios’s stats. Shields at 11%! Phew, close shave or what?
“That was close!” Jo said over the comm.
“Yeah” I was still checking all of the systems on my two battle weary M3’s. Seeing that they were both ok, I opened the audio command channel “Right, um. Prometheus remain at the gate, if any hostiles come through you are to engage. Helios get in formation” Then to Jo I said “A little bit of life insurance for incase they do follow”
“Understood” came the reply “Now where too?”
“Er, I reckon we should start with the asteroids, if Scorpion is still in this system then she should be near or inside them”
Jo chuckled “I see you’ll get to have a poke about inside one of those asteroids! Careful though, goodness knows what we might find.”
“Yeah” I agreed “if were lucky enough, we might find a hidden Khaak hive!”
“Now there’s a nasty thought!”
I grinned inside my helmet “What, I’m sure the Khaak would welcome us in open arms”
“Who says they have arms?”
“That’s true; no one has ever captured one alive”
“Oh well, there better off dead, that way they can’t go on planet obliterating rampages!” Me and Jo both knew that the battle for Omicron Lyrae was no joke, billions of people could have been ruthlessly murdered. But it had been prevented, at a cost. The whole crew of the Argon Navy’s M2 A.P. Retribution had been lost in that skirmish as well as many good fighter pilots and friends. I took a little moment remembering Bret. He was just a space pirate, scum to many people; he had saved billions of lives by giving his own. I felt bitter hatred for those Khaak boiling inside me. It should have been me who flew into that generator, me who saved my father. Bret was too young to die. Jo must have guessed my train of thought as the comm. had gone silent. She had never known Bret; I had hired her after his passing.
I pushed the throttle lever all the way forward and we were soon under way, Alpha 1, Reaper and Helios, all flying into the unknown. I checked the system map and targeted the nearest asteroid. It was a small one, roughly the size of a Solar Power Plant. I could see it now, through the view screen: a black smudge in the murky blue soup of the nebula. We were still in open space, heading away from the Rhy’s Desire gate. There must have been a small gap in the gas field where the gate was, how intriguing.
We came up on the fringe of the gas cloud and I felt a shudder pass down my spine as the misty swirls enveloped the cockpit. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and our little trio were fully smothered by the strange alien nebula. I looked at all my monitors; there was nothing but misty blue all around. I could clearly see Reaper in my port monitor and Helios in my right. The nebula swirled and danced in the gap in between our ships like some elegant Teladi female performing a native Teladi mating dance. Of course their old traditions were no longer used now and the thought of a female Teladi dancing and spinning was amusing to most, yet it was still a graceful, elegant activity.
I could no longer see the Rhy’s Desire gate in my rear monitor. But I could however see the huge bulks of the two gargantuan asteroids in my forward monitors and even through my view screen. Our target asteroid however, could net be seen either through the view port or the monitors. But the crosshair was fixed on its location and the proximity sensors would tell me if I was in danger of collision. I sat back in my chair, satisfied, not knowing of the perilous dangers that lurked just outside the hull.
The asteroid was a skimpy little thing. Its outline gradually grew larger as we approached it through the mists. It was an unnerving place to be, surrounded by swirling blue fog with the vague silhouettes of those leviathan asteroids. I was eager to go and investigate but I concentrated my mind on the job at hand. The small asteroid slowly took form on my forward monitors. As it came in to range, I scanned it with Alpha one’s mineral scanner. It had a silicon yield of 31, not bad considering its size.
We slowed down as we approached the rock. It slowly rotated around its centre point, making it relatively easy to quickly scan the surface for any traces of Scorpion or any human activity. The cameras searched and scoured the surface for anything, but they produced nothing, not even a boot print in the fine dirt.
“Well, that’s a negative” I sighed over the channel.
“Don’t get so down straight away!” Jo replied “It’s only the first one”
“Yeah, ok, let’s move on then” I throttled up and head around the asteroid. That’s when the Triplex scanner picked something up right on the edge of the range, behind the nearest huge asteroid to our left. It was faint, a small blip on the scanner and barely staying a constant blip at that.
“Jo” I said, forgetting that her navigation computer was down “Can you see that?”
“See what?” she said sounding inquisitive.
“The blip on your ma… oh sorry, I forgot. There’s a small signature on the edge of my range”
“Is it Scorpion?” She asked
“I don’t know, the signal isn’t giving off any data. No telemetry, no I.D. Its too small for a ship’s signature, might be debris” I looked at the map once more and noticed that it wasn’t far from the other artificial icon on the map. “It’s near that other icon I told you about, the one that could be another gate.”
“Well, we can do a sweep, scan the next asteroid, and check the two mysterious blips on your scanner in one foul swoop!” she sounded excited, eager to go.
“No” I said “The next closest thing to us is an asteroid, but its one of the big ones, we’ll have to check the debris first and then go check it out.”
“How many more asteroids are there on your scanner?”
“Four, two big, two little, well one little, I don’t know about the other, those two big ones are blocking it out.”
“Right” Jo said “and the big ones probably have tunnel networks in them?”
“Probably, I’m not close enough to use mineral scanner yet.”
“Ok then, first the debris, then the fat ‘roid”
I confirmed and pointed Alpha one’s nose in the direction of the ‘gate’. It took us a while to fly across space. Reaper seemed to be having engine trouble again and her speed was slowly dropping, even though Jo reported that all the coolant tubes were in the green. Alpha 1 wasn’t looking too great either, with her rear turret smashed and turret port screen badly scarred, there was a lot of red lights on the turret systems and every now and again another red light appeared, just for an electronics connector or a small sensor, it made me uneasy. Thankfully I didn’t have the cabin pressurized so if the glass in the turret view port did crack, I would still be relatively safe inside my suit. There was also some trouble with the exposed plasma feeds on my starboard BHEPT. The cables were overheating, this was sure a strange occurrence but I had other things to think about so I let it slip to the back of my mind.
We flew quietly through endless blue for a few more mizuras until Jo broke the silence.
“I’ve got a problem here Julian, ah, what the…”
“What, what is it?”
“I don’t know, the heat sensors on the starboard side of my cockpit are, oh no…”
“What?” I repeated, more urgently.
“Joules, I’ve got a hull breech!”
if you actually tried space wlaking in this system in X2, you would be dead in minutes. But Julian survives because hes the main character and it just wouldnt be fun if there were no tension of the suit breaking down over a long period of time now would there!?!?!?
Silence. “Jo” I yelled into the comm. “JO!” I just gaped at my starboard monitor, watching Reaper advance on her set course. After a few painstaking sezuras Jo’s voice crackled over the comm.
“It’s ok Joules, I got into my suit.”
“Are you Ok” I blurted “How bad is the breech?”
“It’s only a small one, don’t worry. I took a lot of hull damage while you were handling that Dragon”
“Still Jo, we’d best stop and take a look”
“Once we reach our destination. Then we don’t have to make two stops. I’ve depressurized my cockpit so I’ll be fine.”
“Well, ok, but I want a look at that too!” I said, sounding a little too demanding I thought
“Nah, no need boss, it’ll patch, I’ve got some epoxy in the repair canisters.”
“Well I’ll take a look from the outside, see how bad it is.”
We flew on, Jo gave me a full description of Reaper’s status. The Bayamon was in a bad way. There some moderate damage to the hull and the lower engine duct as well as the out of order Navigation computer and the hull breech. Also, for some reason, the starboard BPAC was showing red and amber lights in the power conduits. Alpha 1 was getting a little weary too. I was startled when I looked at the ship’s status report. More systems were in the amber than the green. This majority of system damage was only on the small things like the proximity sensors or the floodlights. My port camera was down as well, which annoyed me because now I couldn’t see Helios. I ordered the M3 to change formation and fly behind me. I gave a satisfied click of my tongue as the Khaak ship idled into view on my rear monitor.
We ploughed on through the nebula, admiring the musty blue hue that swirled around us. Those huge, dark asteroids loomed ominously in my starboard and port quarter monitors. I wondered what secrets were concealed within the bellies of those beasts for the umpteenth time.
As we came within visual range with the object ahead of us, its dark form began to materialize through the mist. It was definitely a jump gate, but the thing was a ruin. The main circular disc had been separated into three smaller pieces, like three uneven sections of a scruffin pie. The two nacelles were drifting freely, detached from the main body. One was floating in the centre of what was left of the disc. The other had drifted quite far away. Smaller chunks of debris floated lazily through the wreckage. I gasped in awe, the only other gate I knew of like this was the one in Brennan’s Triumph and presumably it had led to Earth. Who knew where this one went? Well, it definitely proved one thing, Scorpion was still in the sector.
I throttled down, checked all around on my screens and raised an eyebrow; my starboard quarter monitor was down.
“Jo, my monitors seem to be being swatted like space flies over here, what about yours?”
“No, there probably about the only thing that is working Joules.”
“Strange, hey what’s that?” something weak, weaker than the other signal a few K away, had appeared on my local scanner. “Another signal”
“What is it?”
“This ones identifying itself, it’s a distress pod, but it’s not moving”
“Where abouts?”
“It seems to be coming from that other nacelle, I’ll identify it on your HUD, proceed with caution”
“Roger that”
We both turned toward the second, more distant nacelle. The cylindrical vortex generator was slowly rotating on its axis. I could make out bad scarring down the length of the body work; the suspicious remains of a volley of blaster fire. There were also several unusual brown patches all the way down the nacelle’s length. The patches were a strange rusty color and they slightly indented the metal of the areas which they covered. It was strange, but they stirred a memory, a vague picture of something I had seen. I screwed my eyes shut, trying to remember, but nothing came. I opened my eyes again and activated the Triplex scanner and adjusted it to structure scanning mode. A blue schematic of the battered nacelle replaced my system map and I searched it intently.
“Anything?” Jo said over the comm.
“No, not yet, oh, wait, there’s something lodged into the surface around one of the warp rings.”
“Can you see it?”
“Wait” I checked if it had any electronic signatures and, seeing that there were none, tried to zoom in on it with my forward camera “Ach, my cameras out!”
“What?”
“My forward camera, it’s not working!”
“There’s something going on here Joules and I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to go out and check it myself.”
“Be careful Joules” She sounded truly concerned for my wellbeing “You don’t have to go out there”
“Well, like they say, curiosity killed the man, nice to know you care by the way”
I closed the comm. before she could protest any more and pushed the throttle lever forward a couple of centimeters. Alpha 1 nudged closer to the nacelle, close enough for me to be within suit range of it but not so close that it collided with my Nova. I checked all my seals, mentally slapped myself because I was in vacuum anyway and I would be dead if any of the seals weren’t tight enough and unstrapped myself from the chair. The lack of gravity propelled me slowly up and I kicked off from the view screen to the back of the cockpit. Taking my propulsion tank down from the wall once again I maneuvered it around me and strapped it into place. I then activated the hatch lever and the two metal bulkheads swung outwards into space. I took a deep breath and slowly descended down into those swirling blue mists.
Good one. Systems slowly winkin out in that sector sounds familiar. The gate leads to Kingdom's End, btw Like all of the broken ones, so must be a default in the code.
So he is gonna expose his valuable self now to a toxic nebula
Good one. I did wonder what he was gonna do without propulsion. 
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