Salvage mission (story)

Preface

Salvage mission is a piece of player-created fiction written by Casiella Truza. Originally published on the blog Ecliptic Rift.

Salvage mission

The video feed from the camera drone fuzzes in and out with the range, but the escape pods in the wreckage appear clearly. The pod pilot nudges her ship closer. Salvaging could wait; survivors from an Amarrian transport might not.

Leaping ahead almost before her command, the ship seems to want to reach them just as badly as anyone. Energy beams lance out from the destroyer, trying to lock on to the escape pods. The distance hasn’t closed enough yet, though, so the Cormorant-class destroyer and cargo runner pushes forward, afterburners blazing.

25 kilometers… 24… 23…

Casiella waits for a moment, then engages the tractor beams again. This time, they find their mark. She wonders what the people inside feel and hopes they had strapped down. The pods don’t respond to hails and haven’t broadcast anything on their own. Anyone inside the pods must have waited in terror since her own drones shredded the hulls of the transports and their escorts, knowing they only have a limited supply of oxygen and power.

But her agent assigned her a rescue mission, and so simply removing the threat won’t get the job done. The tractor beam pulls the pods closer even as the ship burns towards them, and suddenly they fly past each other in a delicate dance among the stars. She eases them together, juggling the vectors as deftly as a Luminaire clown.

Safe now, in the cargo hold.

Her medical and security squads wait outside the cargo hold as it pressurizes. The security officers enter the hold first, arms drawn. At this point, they have no idea who might be inside those pods, or what sort of disposition and condition they will have.

Plasma cutters open the pods, who’ve taken some damage during the ordeal. The security officers clear the pods professionally and quickly, but she can’t see what’s happening via the internal camera feeds. She can hear indistinct shouting and cursing, then quiet.

The bodies of four slaver hounds, burnt to a crisp by her security officers, are drug out, but behind them comes a disheveled but upright Gallente man. Mission accomplished, a reporter recovered despite her misgivings about the profession. The security squad doesn’t seem to think they’ve finished, though, clearing the other pods as well.

And with good reason. The stench of sweat, grime, and blood waft out from one more pod, but then goosebumps pop up on her skin.

Three Brutor families: two men, three women, and children ranging in age from infants to adolescents, at least a dozen of them. They stride into the light, cowering in the fear they’ve known all their lives. While they think of themselves as slaves, already she knows the truth.

She’s salvaged people straight into freedom.