Stranded in Deadspace

Sudden turbulences jolted Svea out of her daydreams while piloting the tiny frigate through warp. The ship’s hull groaned heavily while the navigation sub array indicated an abrupt and notable loss of velocity. The situation appeared unreal - nothing she would expect while travelling with essentially zero mass through space. The job, which appeared to be an easy courier errand, transporting a dated Rifter class vessel through Minmatar space classified as high security zone, just became a tad bit harder than expected.

The rusty and even for Minmatar standards antique looking ship – which obviously had been in some kind of oxygen atmosphere for several years – should act as a present for the parting CEO of Svea’s corporation, who started his own business flying this particular ship. Due to the ship’s structural integrity being intact and the working propulsion system, there was no real reason utilizing a second ship transporting it. Although some of the dock workers in that Gallantean station were obviously amused enough to place a full box of reinforced duct tape in the small cargo hold of the frigate, hidden amongst some boxes of exquisite food stuff. In addition, the ship had some old projectile prototypes fitted, but not a single bullet onboard. Svea did not expect to get into any engagement and she would not have dared to test its defensive potential, neither the ship’s shield nor its armor.

Within seconds, the small ship left warp returning to normal space about halfway between two stargates without any apparent reason. It took the young capsuleer a moment to survey the whole situation while the ship slowed down to less than half its expected top speed. Warp interdiction spheres had been banned in these systems for years, although there was not any such device or any other obvious source visible on the ship’s scanners. There was almost empty space out there, only obstructed by what seemed to be an abandoned research outpost surrounded by debris and an eerily glowing blue cloud.

It was too unlikely for the engines to fail and slow down the ship right next to a station while warping over a distance of more than 50 AU. Finally, the sensors, albeit only partially functional, supported these thoughts as they identified an anomaly inside the station as the most likely source causing the engine problems. There weren’t any reported issues on this route and it was one of the more frequented ones in this system. Svea concluded that there had to be one of two reasons for this: Either the effect didn’t influence other ships for whatever reason or it appeared just hours, minutes or even seconds ago.

At least the area appeared to be clear of any hostile forces – or any other vessel in general. The station, some asteroids, and tons of dust, small rocks and debris surrounding the station – everything seemed at peace, although telling the story of a probably violent demise of the station and its unlucky personnel. Her calls remained unanswered; nobody was still alive in there. The sensors received only a dampened automated reply containing nothing but garbage. She made a note in her personal log about the station, bookmarked its position just in case any officials would be interested in the incident and stored the sensor readings and communication and engine logs to another data core – they could come in handy later on to explain her delay.

The navigational computer locked down the position of the next warp gate en route almost immediately and realigned the vessel. Despite all systems being ready, the jump drive still kept failing, leaving the unarmed and minimally equipped frigate slowly drifting alongside the station towards its destination. “Oh, come on!” Svea mumbled to herself – a command the frigate’s systems obviously ignored silently while refusing to warp. The partially overlapped sensor readings were too vague to estimate any distance required to jump away. Judging by the distance between the point where Svea’s warp bubble collapsed and the position of the station, it was quite likely she would have to pass another 50 to 100 clicks towards her target gate before warping again.

The distance, any well-equipped frigate would pass within a few minutes, appeared to be endless. After all, the sub-light engines were poorly maintained and operating far from perfect condition. “At least, I’m alone.” Svea felt relieved and leant back, waiting for the time to pass. Slow but steady the Rifter pushed through the millions of tiny particles spread throughout the area, the distance to the ruins ever increasing. The capsuleer almost forgot the encountered problems, watching the ship’s shield displacing the dust particles along her path. The dust changed its colors reacting to both the shield energy as well as the sunlight illuminating them leaving a clearly visible trail behind the frigate.

About 10 minutes later the ship disturbed Svea’s calmness once more while the sunlight seemed to disappear around her. Alerts required attention on several displays as the scanners noticed at least two huge signatures leaving warp, approaching the station behind her and therefore blocking the light of the sun being behind them. The pilot back-pedaled for a moment, hoping to see some other traders being stranded in this deadspace area. She was both disappointed and frightened at the same time, noticing both signatures belonging to Machariel class battleships obviously inspecting the remainders of the ruptured research station. They didn’t appear stranded at all and being there intentionally, rechecking their approximation vectors. Anyway, Svea wasn’t interested in investigating this – not in this dated “wreck”.

She immediately tried to assign more energy to the propulsion systems, getting more distance towards the ships identified as being loyal to the Angel Cartel. For a split second she thought about disabling most of her ship’s systems to fake some part of debris, but scrapped this idea noticing the clearly visible trail behind her written into the dust. It didn’t take the pirates very long to notice and lock the small frigate trying to get away. Seconds later they started to present the fleeing stranger with a hail of projectiles. The Rifter was still unable to get into warp, but at least the distance to the attackers was big enough to significantly lower their chances of scoring a hit. Svea feared being torn apart by a single shot of the comparatively huge guns pointed at the small boat. Some of the bigger rocks provided her with some cover, but she wouldn’t be able to dodge them forever.

The dust concentration around her got lower and lower as she tried to get away from the pirates. The missed shots pierced the surrounding clouds leaving clearly visible trails and heralding the capsuleer’s oncoming demise. Svea tried to fly a hard to predict pattern while still trying to keep her distance to the battleships as well as leaving the proximity of the anomaly keeping her from warping into safety. The shots were still getting closer quickly, noticing the battleships closing the gap with their above average drive systems. This was the moment, when Svea realized, the bad idea of flying an outdated ship without any effective weapons or defensive systems got worse after running ashore in the anomaly. Actually, it felt even worse now being under heavy fire by an enemy fielding a hundred times her ship’s capabilities twice.

Finally – and almost too late –, the navigational computer confirmed the vessel’s warp drive engaging. The second the ship left normal space, it was shaken heavily once more. Svea expected the warp drive to fail but it still activated. However, one of the shells, fired by the heavy artillery cannons, hit their target at last. Luckily for Svea, it was just a grazing shot, almost missing the protecting shield, that neutralized the single hit. The armor and hull still appeared to be intact, creaking the same way as before. She breathed deeply, overseeing her ship engaging the next gate. “Only five systems left, I don’t think there could be more trouble waiting than this,” the capsuleer assured herself as she contacted the stargate, “and no more daydreaming while piloting.”

This is my entry to the Inspired By Images Of Eve Competition 3. More details and links to all entrants can be found at Starfleet Comms.