2952-08-28 – Tales from the Service: A Pilot’s Narrow Escape 

[2952-08-30: I must confess that the delay in this item reaching feed ingest is entirely my own fault. I thought I had it scheduled properly, and Nojus and I went away from our quarters aboard Ashkelon for several days on an errand which I will perhaps be discussing in this space in the near future, and we were quite out of datasphere contact for most of that time. I returned to a very full inbox complaining about the lack of this week’s Tales from the Service.]

I found the item sitting waiting for final confirmation on my terminal when I got back to Ashkelon; it really is as simple as me failing to hit the final button. 

Though Lieutenant Livian Vega’s account is not official proof that our foe is taking captive stranded pilots, even on battlefields they are actively retreating from, it is strong evidence of such efforts. The numbers appear to be small; few enough pilots go missing after ejecting that equipment failure and other causes can explain their disappearance. What they mean to achieve by capturing pilots in this way, I cannot imagine. 

Livian Vega scanned the status panel on her wrist with a frown. There was no problem indicator for her recovery transponder, or for any other system. The only amber light was the one indicating that the power and atmospherics linkage to her Puma interceptor had been severed, but given that the Puma had exploded shortly after she’d ejected, this was no cause for concern. 

She switched the transponder off and on again several times, but it still refused to transmit the recovery signal. This meant that either there was no recovery ship in range, or that it was broken. She could activate it manually, but the transponder would drain her battery quickly. If no recovery ship was nearby to hear it, she would be down to emergency reserve power in less than an hour. 

Lilian decided to switch on the transponder anyway, but only for a minute. Sure enough, when she did, she heard a bright ping in her ears. As she watched the chrono count up to thirty seconds, she didn’t expect to hear a second chime, but sure enough, one sounded. The transponder now seemed to be working perfectly. 

Frowning, Lilian went over what she knew about the transponder. Fortunately, since she’d found herself ejected and waiting for recovery several times throughout her service with Seventh Fleet, she had been given more opportunity than most pilots to observe the device’s functionality. In theory, when a recovery craft came into range, the transponder would respond to a coded signal by activating automatically. It could always be enabled and disabled manually, but before now she’d never had to do this. 

Reaching over her shoulder, Livian verified that the suit’s comms antenna was fully extended. If this was broken off or still stowed in its spool, that would explain weird behavior of both transmission and reception. She found it locked in the deployed position, and the portion of it she could feel with her gloves was intact and undamaged. 

The transponder chirped a third time, indicating that a minute had elapsed. Livian shut it back off to save power. The recovery craft had much more powerful comms gear, so she doubted it was near enough to hear her, if her systems were not receiving its signal. As she did, a shiver started at the base of her spine and worked its way up to her head. She lacked any ability to diagnose the problem further, and in any case, it might be too late; if a glitch had kept the recovery ship from noticing her, it would be far out of range now. 

“They won’t leave me out here.” Livian’s voice sounded hollow inside her helmet. “They’ve got time to do a full sweep after the fighting dies down.” 

As she rotated back toward the local star and her faceplate began to dim, Livian thought she spotted something moving in the corner of her vision. She turned to look at it, but already the smart-glass was nearly opaque to protect her vision from the local star. Probably it was nothing more than a piece of shrapnel from her Puma catching the light, but she couldn’t be sure, and the last thing she needed was more uncertainty. 

When the faceplate cleared a little while later, Livian scanned what she could see of her surroundings without turning her face into the light again. There was nothing visible but empty space; no sign of a piece of glinting shrapnel. Livian felt a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead. What had she seen? 

Once again, her transponder emitted a bright ping, indicating that it had received the recovery signal. Maybe what she’d seen was the recovery vehicle doubling back? 

“Recovery tug, my transponder might not be working right. Do you read?” Livian tried to keep the nervous tension out of her voice. 

“We’ve locked onto your position, Lieutenant Vega.” The faint, unfamiliar voice was all too welcome. “Your biometrics are out. Are you injured?” 

“I’m fine. Having some tech issues with my suit, I think.” Livian chuckled. “Nothing serious. In fact-” 

A dark shape moved in the darkness ahead of Livian, and she broke off. The recovery tug would come in with its lights all ablaze; what was this? 

Using a little bit of her limited thruster capacity to slow her spin, Livian tried to pick out the shape in the darkness. Whatever it was didn’t reflect much starlight, and she could only estimate its size and shape by the faint stars it occluded. She could tell it was getting slowly closer; its path and hers were converging. 

Shivering, Livian wondered whether she should call the recovery ship and announce what she was seeing. Would they believe her? Could they do anything? Would raising the alarm by radio only serve to draw its attention further? 

The transponder chirped again, and Livian, already nervous, nearly jumped out of her skin. She was already transmitting for anyone to see. What if this skulker was using the signal to intercept her? The ready-room rumors of Incarnation ships spiriting away stranded pilots once again came to mind. 

“Not me.” Livian, trembling, switched off her transponder once more. “Better to be lost out here.” With a few strong bursts of her thrusters, she changed her trajectory drastically, and the dark shape began to recede once more. 

“Lieutenant Vega, we lost your transponder signal.” The recovery ship pilot sounded concerned. “Is everything all right?” 

Livian didn’t dare transmit a reply; she simply watched the dark shape slowly dwindling into the void as the increasingly urgent trasmissions from her rescuer echoed dully in her ears.