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Personal Log 11/25/4432 "Automation"
Ex-IDF Specialist Apex Azimuth
Personal Log
November 25, 4432
"Automation"
I entered the job fair of interstellar flight expecting to be punished by the way of the universe for attempting such a rebelious career. I've always been realistic, and when the Itani nation offers an EC-88 for aspiring new pilots for free, I maintain skeptical of the safety of such an offer. I started off doing a few simple trade runs for divinia's station reps. Having studied subspace and hyperspace physics, I was aware of the dangers of ion storms, but no one told me about the dangers of rogue combat machines. I never thought automation could be so vicious.
A station official in Divinia hired me to take a some advanced targeting systems to Jalik Garden. I was caught in a storm on my way from my third self-sustained inter-stellar jump through a wormhole. My ship shuttered violently during hyperspace travel. A little startled, but not terribly suprised, I prepared my clunky shuttlecraft to head toward the calculated ion storm exit point. I was told in basic training, that mining machines would probably be present in areas of ion storms, so I expected to see a few. Upon looking at my subspace scanner, I noticed it was speckled with red spots.
At this point I hadn't deviated my sight from the ship's navigation and scanning devices, so I looked outside into space and saw what was beautiful, inspiring and terrifying all at once. Countless autonomous spacecraft hurling through space in huge groups, forming fractal patterns as they move, weaving in between the glittering goliaths of natural space dust. The neon glow of mining beams emitting from what look like mouths of insects with gold-plated shells, as they inhale glowing particles of refined ore, siped from the huge rocks, as if drawing blood from an animal. I must have stared and marveled at this sight for almost two minutes, then my subspace vibration sensors startled me with loud popping noises, and what sounded like hornets flying into my ears. Not even a second later, I heard a wretched ripping sound from the rear of my shuttlecraft, like a giant soda can ripped by two huge scissors. This sound, obviously not comming holographic speakers in my cockpit, must have been my ship being broken as I sat. I jammed my thumb into my boost button, painfully, as I felt my blood begin to boil with adrenaline. I quickly checked my nearest entity through my scanner, and the words "Aputech-5 Gaurdian HT903J" appeared on my heads-up-display. The first words that came to my mind were "what the heck is a 'gaurdian' and why the HELL didn't my trainers tell me about them!?" Everytime I heard the popping sound emitted form my holographic speakers, I felt as if my heart skipped a beat. That doppler-aflicted buzzing sound was directly linked to the very-real feeling of fear in my gut. It must have been only three seconds that passed since I crushed the boost button under my thumb. The horrible tearing continued four times more, and once my exhaust gates even burped from the trauma of impact. At this point I had reached a velocity of 150 meters per second. The machine must have miscalculated something, because it had for some reason fallen 200 meters farther behind me.
I had reached maximum boost velocity, and the gaurdian seemed to match my speed at about 300 meters behind me, It had stopped gaining. The thought had crossed my mind to heave my ship around and face the thing, but I had been too terrified to even look back. By now I thought I had been home free, but out of my incredible state of panic, I had forgotten to consider that all this boosting had been draining heavily on my small battery charger. The storm exit point lay two thousand meters ahead of me, and it appeared that my battery only had about 5 seconds left of charge, soon the automated killing machine would catch up to me. 60% of my hull remained effective, I was already venting gases. I accepted my fate and put my finger on the trigger. By now the fear had passed, I knew that the emergency pilot teleporters were not 100% reliable, and I would very likely die. I was angry that I hadn't been informed that these machines were so lethal, but there was nothing I could do about that now. The ship's battery squealed as the boosters slurped the last bit of energy left available, the injured shuttlecraft slowed to a crawl. I gripped my controls violently and threw the ship into a spin to face my pursuer. Right as the machine came into view, I started to be hit by what looked like a steady spray of explosive shrapnel. I then futily threw pulses of plasma at my opponent, who moved out of thier path effortlessly, and continued hailing me with campfire sparks. I watched as my ship began to dissintegrate around me, and the scent of various gases surrounded me. As I prepared to pull the emergency teleport, my body was jolted and I felt excruciating pain from my left thigh. One of the pieces of shrapnel had penetrated the fore of the shuttle, as well as my leg. I pulled the teleport and my sight began to dissipate. I could still make out my ship breaking up in flames all around me. I was able to see the emptiness and feel the bitter cold of vacume.
I felt pain in my eyes as I saw bright white light all around me. I assumed I had died, but as my vision cleared, I found I was only in a med lab. A woman walked into the room as I sat up, she had a familiar face, and was clearly dressed in the garb of a station official. I soon remembered who the woman was, and dropped my head in ambrassment. She was the station official in Divinia that hired me to get those Advanced Targeting Systems to Jalik, which are now floating in space among those destructive computer-controlled monsters. She looked at me sternly, "I assume you'll reimburse me for that shipment.", "I can't." I replied. "I understand." she told me. "Consider your trading career at Coronis Watch finished." she said calmly, as she waked out of the room. I appreciated her mercy, I've dealt with collection agencies before, and i'm relieved she didn't call them. After coping with my near-death experience, I fought off tears and got into my jumpsuit. I made my way to station operations and approached the nearest combat training representative. "Sign me up."
Personal Log
November 25, 4432
"Automation"
I entered the job fair of interstellar flight expecting to be punished by the way of the universe for attempting such a rebelious career. I've always been realistic, and when the Itani nation offers an EC-88 for aspiring new pilots for free, I maintain skeptical of the safety of such an offer. I started off doing a few simple trade runs for divinia's station reps. Having studied subspace and hyperspace physics, I was aware of the dangers of ion storms, but no one told me about the dangers of rogue combat machines. I never thought automation could be so vicious.
A station official in Divinia hired me to take a some advanced targeting systems to Jalik Garden. I was caught in a storm on my way from my third self-sustained inter-stellar jump through a wormhole. My ship shuttered violently during hyperspace travel. A little startled, but not terribly suprised, I prepared my clunky shuttlecraft to head toward the calculated ion storm exit point. I was told in basic training, that mining machines would probably be present in areas of ion storms, so I expected to see a few. Upon looking at my subspace scanner, I noticed it was speckled with red spots.
At this point I hadn't deviated my sight from the ship's navigation and scanning devices, so I looked outside into space and saw what was beautiful, inspiring and terrifying all at once. Countless autonomous spacecraft hurling through space in huge groups, forming fractal patterns as they move, weaving in between the glittering goliaths of natural space dust. The neon glow of mining beams emitting from what look like mouths of insects with gold-plated shells, as they inhale glowing particles of refined ore, siped from the huge rocks, as if drawing blood from an animal. I must have stared and marveled at this sight for almost two minutes, then my subspace vibration sensors startled me with loud popping noises, and what sounded like hornets flying into my ears. Not even a second later, I heard a wretched ripping sound from the rear of my shuttlecraft, like a giant soda can ripped by two huge scissors. This sound, obviously not comming holographic speakers in my cockpit, must have been my ship being broken as I sat. I jammed my thumb into my boost button, painfully, as I felt my blood begin to boil with adrenaline. I quickly checked my nearest entity through my scanner, and the words "Aputech-5 Gaurdian HT903J" appeared on my heads-up-display. The first words that came to my mind were "what the heck is a 'gaurdian' and why the HELL didn't my trainers tell me about them!?" Everytime I heard the popping sound emitted form my holographic speakers, I felt as if my heart skipped a beat. That doppler-aflicted buzzing sound was directly linked to the very-real feeling of fear in my gut. It must have been only three seconds that passed since I crushed the boost button under my thumb. The horrible tearing continued four times more, and once my exhaust gates even burped from the trauma of impact. At this point I had reached a velocity of 150 meters per second. The machine must have miscalculated something, because it had for some reason fallen 200 meters farther behind me.
I had reached maximum boost velocity, and the gaurdian seemed to match my speed at about 300 meters behind me, It had stopped gaining. The thought had crossed my mind to heave my ship around and face the thing, but I had been too terrified to even look back. By now I thought I had been home free, but out of my incredible state of panic, I had forgotten to consider that all this boosting had been draining heavily on my small battery charger. The storm exit point lay two thousand meters ahead of me, and it appeared that my battery only had about 5 seconds left of charge, soon the automated killing machine would catch up to me. 60% of my hull remained effective, I was already venting gases. I accepted my fate and put my finger on the trigger. By now the fear had passed, I knew that the emergency pilot teleporters were not 100% reliable, and I would very likely die. I was angry that I hadn't been informed that these machines were so lethal, but there was nothing I could do about that now. The ship's battery squealed as the boosters slurped the last bit of energy left available, the injured shuttlecraft slowed to a crawl. I gripped my controls violently and threw the ship into a spin to face my pursuer. Right as the machine came into view, I started to be hit by what looked like a steady spray of explosive shrapnel. I then futily threw pulses of plasma at my opponent, who moved out of thier path effortlessly, and continued hailing me with campfire sparks. I watched as my ship began to dissintegrate around me, and the scent of various gases surrounded me. As I prepared to pull the emergency teleport, my body was jolted and I felt excruciating pain from my left thigh. One of the pieces of shrapnel had penetrated the fore of the shuttle, as well as my leg. I pulled the teleport and my sight began to dissipate. I could still make out my ship breaking up in flames all around me. I was able to see the emptiness and feel the bitter cold of vacume.
I felt pain in my eyes as I saw bright white light all around me. I assumed I had died, but as my vision cleared, I found I was only in a med lab. A woman walked into the room as I sat up, she had a familiar face, and was clearly dressed in the garb of a station official. I soon remembered who the woman was, and dropped my head in ambrassment. She was the station official in Divinia that hired me to get those Advanced Targeting Systems to Jalik, which are now floating in space among those destructive computer-controlled monsters. She looked at me sternly, "I assume you'll reimburse me for that shipment.", "I can't." I replied. "I understand." she told me. "Consider your trading career at Coronis Watch finished." she said calmly, as she waked out of the room. I appreciated her mercy, I've dealt with collection agencies before, and i'm relieved she didn't call them. After coping with my near-death experience, I fought off tears and got into my jumpsuit. I made my way to station operations and approached the nearest combat training representative. "Sign me up."
I didn't take too much time to check spelling and grammar, so I won't be suprised by mistakes
Wow, great read. Reminds me of the first time I'd ever seen an Aputech...
Nice bit of writing, cant wait for the chapter when you get tired of fighting Guardians, and start ambushing low level traders!