Elite: Dangerous

Sanctuary

When Aisling Duval woke up it felt as if she had slept forever. As felt the weight of Anwen’s arm around her waist she was surprised how much she enjoyed the feeling. She carefully turned around in the sleeping bag and faced the commander. Anwen was fast asleep, her relaxed face looked more like that of a little girl than the tough space adventurer she had been yesterday.

Aisling had insisted that Anwen, who had done all the hard work, lie down in their makeshift bed, while the commander had offered it to her, insisting on sleeping in her pilot’s chair. Aisling wasn’t gonna let her get away with that, and so they ended up sharing the bed, each of them too exhausted to argue.

After they finished filling the water tanks they had taken off from the small moon again. Anwen had decided to leave the distiller, and even the Scarab, behind. Taking off with the added weight of the water from the moon would have put a lot of strain on the already torn space frame. The ship, Anwen explained, might simply fall apart. So getting back into orbit was a delicate manoeuvre, and Aisling sat in her chair with teeth gritted and hoped for the best.

When they were safely back in space, Anwen decided they needed a rest. She opened a couple of dried rations, filled bottles with fresh water, and the two of them had a feast. To Aisling, the freeze-dried space food tasted better than any banquet she ever attended, and the water was sweeter than wine.

Now she felt a lot better, her headache was almost gone and the burning thirst had vanished. She tried to wriggle out of Anwen’s embrace without waking the woman, but when she tried to get up the commander gently pulled her in. Aisling looked at the sleeping girl’s face.

“Where in the world do I have to go this morning?” She thought, and curled up inside the sleeping bag again, closing her eyes.

“Want some breakfast?” Anwen asked. Aisling opened her eyes again to see Anwen’s face so close to her own that their noses almost touched.

“Sounds good.” She smiled. “What do we have?”

“Freeze-dried surrogate coffee and a vacuum-packed ham-and-egg-sandwich.”

“I stand corrected: It sounds horrible, but I’ll have it anyway.”

They stared at each other for a moment, until Aisling had to laugh.

“One of us needs to get up and make some coffee.” She grinned.

Anwen sighed, and turned around. Very slowly she got up. “Eek!” She cried, when her bare feet touched the metal floor. “This is ice cold. ASTRA, turn up the heater!”

“Affirmative.” ASTRA confirmed.

“And make me some coffee.” Anwen murmured.

“I’m sorry, but I am unable to comply. I have no control over coffee making facilities on this ship.” ASTRA said.

“ASTRA you’re useless!” Anwen said, grinning.

“If you say so commander”, the machine answered, and Aisling was sure she heard a slight variation in tone, as if the computer was hurt.

After having breakfast Anwen went back to work. She brooded over the star maps for half an hour, trying to figure out where to go. They desperately needed a space-dock, and they needed to go somewhere outside the reach of Emperor’s Dawn.

“OK, I know, where we go.” She finally said. “Colwyn Point!”

“I never heard of it.”

“It’s a small outpost, just outside the empires sphere of influence. It is run by a former partner and friend of of mine, Meredith Barker.”

“Former friend?” Aisling raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, we had some minor disagreements in the past, but she will help us.” Anwen tried to look more confident than she actually was.

“Do we have any other choice?” The princess asked.

“Not really, but trust me, it’s alright!”

Every time the Merope jumped, Aisling was afraid they wouldn’t make it. The shipped rattled and creaked, but it’s space frame held.

“This was the last jump.” Anwen announced.

“Praise the Holy Mother!” Aisling sighed. “Finally.”

“Let’s see. Colwyn Point.” Anwen said, more to herself. “ASTRA, plot a course!”

“Affirmative.” The spaceships HUD flickered into life, and a marker appeared. Anwen carefully turned the ship towards it, and increased the throttle.

They flew for another hour before they dropped out of frame shift.

Before them a small outpost station appeared, and Anwen set a course towards the landing pads.

Then she opened a communications port, breaking radio silence for the first time in days.

“Mayday, Mayday! Colwyn Point, this is DSV Merope do you copy?”

First, there was only static, but then a male voice answered: “This is Colwyn Point Control, we copy. State the nature of your emergency.”

Anwen took a deep breath. “This is Anwen Hunter, of the deep space exploration vessel Merope. We are heavily damaged, and in need of repairs. We have heavy hull damage, and lost pressure in about three quarters of the ship. Massive structural damage to the space frame, on starboard.”

Now a female voice cut in. “Anwen Hunter, what did you do to my ship?”

“Hello Meredith, nice to hear from you too. Can we dock? I’ll explain everything later.”

“How’s your engine status?”

“I’m going to come in a little hot, but I won’t scratch your precious station.”

“Well, then, go to landing pad three, I’ll have an emergency team on stand by.”

The zero-gravity environment didn’t make the landing any easier. Anwen had insisted they wore their space suits, just in case the space frame collapsed entirely.

The ship had lost three out of four starboard thrusters, so they couldn’t compensate for the lateral motion. Anwen corrected that by using only the port thrusters, rotating the entire ship into position.

It didn’t allow to kill all sideways motion, and when the nose gear clicked with the docking clamps, the ship rocked to the side, and, with a horrible creak, the gear was ripped off.

“Colwyn Point, give us some G’s!” Anwen cried into the intercom

“Negative, Merope! Artificial gravity is offline until you’re inside the docks!”

“Override that, if you don’t glue us down, we drift off again! And you don’t want us to crash into your comms-tower!”

The Merope had drifted dangerously close to the edge of the docking platform, and without starboard thrust, there was nothing Anwen could to to stop it. Luckily, the guy in the control room seemed not to be as much of an idiot as Anwen had feared. The artificial gravity generators beneath the docking platform send a vibration through the hull of the ship, and before the Merope could escape its grip, a gentle but relentless pull glued her to the platform. When the nose of the ship touched the metal, it made a horrible screeching sound, while the ship lost the rest of it’s kinetic energy to the metal of the platform. Somewhere behind them, the mid-ship space frame gave in to the strain, and the two space adventurers stumbled back, as the wreck of their ship fell into it’s final resting position. Almost all the red warning lights in the cockpit started flashing immediately.

“Alert!” ASTRA’s mechanical voice cried. “Structural collapse in mid-ship section! All personal abandon ship!”

The lift slowly pulled the stranded ship and its crew inside, and both women were relieved to see the green lights that indicated that the docking bay around them was pressurised.

Anwen gently put a hand on the console. “Thank you, old girl” she whispered. Then louder: “ASTRA, commence full system shutdown!”

“Affirmative!” The artificial intelligence replied. “It was a pleasure working with you, commander!”

“And you!” Anwen sighed.

“System shutdown in 5 seconds.” ASTRA’s voice said, as emotionless as ever.

One by one the three dimensional HUD’s disappeared and the lights went off. Finally even the steady hum of the life support faded.

Anwen opened the emergency escape hatch at the bottom floor of the cockpit, and Aisling followed her into a small, dark airlock. On the other side they jumped the last few feet to the flight deck, since the Merope had landed on her nose, so the small ladder underneath the cockpit was useless. Once they had worked their way out Anwen took a look at her ship, while she took her space helmet off.

“That doesn’t look to good.” She mumbled.

“And neither does this.” Aisling patted the commander’s shoulder, making her turn her eyes toward the deck. A dozen security guards with blasters guarded the platform, and a very angry looking woman stood in front of them, arms crossed and yelled:

“Anwen Fucking Hunter! What the fuck did you do to my ship?”

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