Resting in Awareness (WT)

[Emanon]

“The darkness can be overwhelming at times. When you really think about what is between you and the empty void of space, it can also be maddening.”
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The scans came back empty again. No return pings or blips on the cortal display, nothing to pay attention to. Even the heading azimuth, coordinates, and flight speed readings where inconsequential these days. The only gauge that consumed most of Ezara's thoughts was the fuel, or more aptly, the backup fuel stores.

“Come on baby, squeeze out another day”, Ezara softly willed to Corlia’s panel as he tapped his index finger in sync with the blinking low fuel warning indicator. He had long ago muted the alarm that squawked with each pulse, but his nervous tapping helped break up some of the eerie silence. Ezara even considered unmuting the damn thing so he could hear something besides his own unanswered whispers between him and Corlia, but he knew that only a couple minutes of that would drive him over the edge.

Ezara unbuckled his seat harness and stood up just enough to get somewhat of a stretch, easily reaching to the cold canopy of his Cobra MK III. His 6 foot frame wasn’t overly large by most standards, but in this ship he had to cautiously traverse to keep from bumping into the entry and connecting bulkheads.

Ezara walked back into the dark interior of the ship making his way to the sleeping quarters. He swiped his finger across his forearm’s digital display panel just for it to light up enough to make his way deeper into the ship. At that moment he thought it was kind of funny that he sometimes used this expensive tech as an illumination device, especially when he knew practically every inch of this ship’s interior and didn’t really need to light his way. Granted most of the time she was all lit up and welcoming, but for the past several hours Corlia has been running in minimal systems mode quietly drifting through space.

Ezara checked another digital panel near the bed before stepping in just to make sure the ships systems were still all running minimal as he had last set them. Nav and shields were at minimum, thrusters were set on a timer, oxygen and anti-grav were still full, and weapons, along with other systems, were all completely powered down. He let out a nervous sigh as he dimmed the panel and shifted the curtain aside to slide into his bed.

Sleep did not come easy these last 16 hours or so. Ezara’s mind would often wander on all the different possibilities of how he would continue to float off in space until his last conscious thought faded, either due to lack of sustenance or oxygen, none of which were pleasant thoughts.

He tapped his TriCal forearm panel again to bring up some items to distract him from those grim thoughts. He had already read the news articles that his ships comm system had last uploaded before losing all communication relays. Ezara tapped on the series of menu options to go into the ship’s comm directories and ensure everything was set correctly. He scanned all the options, for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last day or so and the distress message was still set to 4 minutes and all other relays were off or at minimal connectivity for conservation purposes.

He tapped into the message just to double check that it was clear, “Mayday, mayday, this is Empire civilian Explorer vessel Corlia II, piloted by Ezara Lesher, broadcasting all comms for immediate support.” The short pause in the recording was when Ezara was trying to gain some composure and not sound so nervous in his broadcast, but he again felt the nerves welling up in his throat as the message continued, “Last ship sensor coordinates pre-hyperspace jump H2, SMOJOOE Sector AA-A. All systems checked clear for jump, but jump sequence failed. Critical ship damage taken to Supercruise, no repair bots or module, operating on thrusters only. No other known ship damage taken, only minor power surges. Now all nav readings failing to register any known location, fuel capacity low, operation capacity minimum, please respond. Repeat mayday from Corlia II, location unknown, ship capability minimized, need assistance, out.”

Ezara tapped off the recording playback button to stop the message before it looped and made sure the logs were listing each broadcast. There were 235 listed in the total down at the bottom of the screen and another queued up to silently broadcast in 1 minute. Never before had any of his mayday broadcasts gone unanswered for this long, and he had an uneasy feeling that they would continue to be unanswered long after his rationed food, water and Lavian brandy was no more.

[Flip]

Nice! But where did he get an anti-grav? It hasn't been invented yet in the galaxy I'm from. Maybe he ended up in some parallel dimension and it's the reason why his mayday remains unanswered?

[Emanon]

This story takes place post ED 2.0.1b when we can walk around in our ships and anti-grav is part of our systems.

[Straylight0]

As for walking around the ship... just add Magnetic Boots! It's what they do in the novels, althugh I have my doubts they would work in reality

As for the anti-grav... what do you need it for, in the story? Of course, if you go by in-game physics, we must have something like that anyway, although it's never officially mentioned