|
by Commander Fagnt 02/05/2015, 7:46pm PST |
|
 |
|
 |
|
I was cruising out on the edge of the sector where the stars have numbers instead of names, and I pop into a little trinary with my nav array turning up blank. The books claim there's a couple dwarf stars out there so I figure shoot, why not take a gander and maybe get some scratch selling the layout of the place down the line. The scanners on my boat can't resolve a thing but I pick out a secondary moving against the backdrop and putter on over to it, barely pushing a couple of C. It's a little red dwarf, a bright magenta, and while I'm scanning it for the log books, I figure why not scoop some free H for the tanks? I'm sitting right there after all.
Guess I should've listened more in stellography class, since little reds don't blow much gas. Before I get near close enough to rake in any, something burns out in my console and I go tumbling down the well, heat warnings screaming and the meter pegging double the rated specs for my little heap. I wrestle 'er around and point the nose to the stars, trying to burn up and out before everything melts together.
That was when the dude pounced. He got me good, interdictor nailed me before I got up to speed, pulled me down into a slow frame where he could fry me with lasers or just wait while I roasted. I punched up an emergency burn and dialed up a jump for the nearest star I was pointed at. My bucket held it together somehow, cabin filling with smoke as laser pulses splashed across the shields. I kept away long enough for the shift to kick in and then I was interstellar.
'course I land on top of the primary the next system over, a hot K-class that did no good with how much waste heat I was sitting on, and on a pirate's perch was a second schlub just waiting for a poor sap like me to come rolling in. This time I was far out enough the ship wasn't coming apart around me and I jinked long and hard enough to let her cool off, then shifted away to a nice Fed system with a nice cool O primary. |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
