Dateline: The Galactic Enquirer. January 15th, 3304. Blackmount Orbital, HIP 17692, Pleiades sector.
“War,” Winters once famously said, “brings out the worst and the best in people.” Nowhere today is that more evident than in the space around Blackmount Orbital. The heroism and selflessness being shown by independent pilots in this star system are inspired and inspiring.
Laser beams and multi-cannon tracers lace the void surrounding the local star, HIP 17692. Interstellar war is raging with growing intensity. Brave pilots have come from both Federation and Empire territories in a coordinated attempt to slow the seemingly inexorable Thargoid advance toward the heart of human space. Countless pilots have sacrificed their ships and, in too many cases their lives, trying to turn back the implacable march of these megalithic aliens.
But there’s another breed of hero rising from the wreckage of these desperate fights. They come from an unlikely source – pilots that have neither the qualifying ship nor experience it takes to fight and win against a Thargoid interceptor. In response to word of the tragic combat losses stemming from this system-wide battle to push back the Thargoid invaders, these unlikely pilots answered the call for anyone willing to assist in the massive search-and-recovery effort for pilots whose ships have been destroyed.
This is literally a race against death. When a Thargoid wins a fight, any humans who survived long enough to eject in an escape pods are far from out of danger. The very first thing a Thargoid does after destroying human ships is use a tractor beam to pull in any functioning human escape pods. Then, as far as we know, the Thargoid consumes them.
Enter the “Podsnatchers,” as some have begun to call them. These are the brave daredevils who’ve answered the summons for help. Despite being offered little or no monetary compensation, they’ve come willing to risk their ships and perhaps their lives solely to save others.
It goes without saying that there’s unquestioned bravery being shown by the elite combateers who’re taking the fight to the marauding Thargoids. The Galactic Enquirer would never presume to diminish those pilots’ efforts. But it’s one thing to form up into a flight with a slew of squadron mates and fly into combat with a reasoned expectation of overcoming a deadly but outnumbered Thargoid. But it takes quite another mindset to fly alone, without support of any kind, into a battle’s aftermath, expecting to find a malevolent Thargoid picking over the flotsam of one or more vanquished ships. And then, while the Thargoid attacks the Podsnatcher’s rescue ship, focus solely on rescuing any survivors’ escape pods before that Thargoid can suck them in and subject the helpless occupant to a horrible fate.
These Podsnatchers are doing just that. Even knowing that every rescue attempt will, at a minimum, cost them in ship repairs and SLF replacements, if not in their very lives, these rescuers are diving in to help without hesitation, betting their ship and their skills against the most deadly alien life ever discovered.
The Galactic Enquirer caught up with Cmdr Talion Camisade who, with his longtime SLF teleoperator Scarlett Stuart, had just unloaded several rescued escape pods at Blackmount Orbital, finished some field expedient repairs, and were about to head back out into the black, searching for more pilots in need of rescue.
[Galactic Enquirer]: “Commander Camisade, do you have a minute for an interview?”
[Talion Camisade]: “On that last foray, we arrived at the scene of one battle just as the Thargoid pulled the last survivor’s escape pod into its maw. We were ten seconds too late to save that pilot. At another wreckage site, we ducked around an attacking Thargoid fast enough to catch a damaged escape pod with a limpet while trying to evade that Thargoid’s Thargon swarm. But the Thargoid snatched the escape pod back from us just a few meters before we got it into our cargo hatch. It was gone before we could do anything about it. So that pilot died and we barely escaped with our ship intact. That’s why we only unloaded six escape pods instead of eight this last trip. Seconds matter out there. So, no, we don’t have the time for an interview.”
To Cmdr Camisade and his SLF pilot Scarlett, and all the other Podsnatchers out there, the Galactic Enquirer offers a sincere o7!
“War,” Winters once famously said, “brings out the worst and the best in people.” Nowhere today is that more evident than in the space around Blackmount Orbital. The heroism and selflessness being shown by independent pilots in this star system are inspired and inspiring.
Laser beams and multi-cannon tracers lace the void surrounding the local star, HIP 17692. Interstellar war is raging with growing intensity. Brave pilots have come from both Federation and Empire territories in a coordinated attempt to slow the seemingly inexorable Thargoid advance toward the heart of human space. Countless pilots have sacrificed their ships and, in too many cases their lives, trying to turn back the implacable march of these megalithic aliens.
But there’s another breed of hero rising from the wreckage of these desperate fights. They come from an unlikely source – pilots that have neither the qualifying ship nor experience it takes to fight and win against a Thargoid interceptor. In response to word of the tragic combat losses stemming from this system-wide battle to push back the Thargoid invaders, these unlikely pilots answered the call for anyone willing to assist in the massive search-and-recovery effort for pilots whose ships have been destroyed.
This is literally a race against death. When a Thargoid wins a fight, any humans who survived long enough to eject in an escape pods are far from out of danger. The very first thing a Thargoid does after destroying human ships is use a tractor beam to pull in any functioning human escape pods. Then, as far as we know, the Thargoid consumes them.
Enter the “Podsnatchers,” as some have begun to call them. These are the brave daredevils who’ve answered the summons for help. Despite being offered little or no monetary compensation, they’ve come willing to risk their ships and perhaps their lives solely to save others.
It goes without saying that there’s unquestioned bravery being shown by the elite combateers who’re taking the fight to the marauding Thargoids. The Galactic Enquirer would never presume to diminish those pilots’ efforts. But it’s one thing to form up into a flight with a slew of squadron mates and fly into combat with a reasoned expectation of overcoming a deadly but outnumbered Thargoid. But it takes quite another mindset to fly alone, without support of any kind, into a battle’s aftermath, expecting to find a malevolent Thargoid picking over the flotsam of one or more vanquished ships. And then, while the Thargoid attacks the Podsnatcher’s rescue ship, focus solely on rescuing any survivors’ escape pods before that Thargoid can suck them in and subject the helpless occupant to a horrible fate.
These Podsnatchers are doing just that. Even knowing that every rescue attempt will, at a minimum, cost them in ship repairs and SLF replacements, if not in their very lives, these rescuers are diving in to help without hesitation, betting their ship and their skills against the most deadly alien life ever discovered.
The Galactic Enquirer caught up with Cmdr Talion Camisade who, with his longtime SLF teleoperator Scarlett Stuart, had just unloaded several rescued escape pods at Blackmount Orbital, finished some field expedient repairs, and were about to head back out into the black, searching for more pilots in need of rescue.
[Galactic Enquirer]: “Commander Camisade, do you have a minute for an interview?”
[Talion Camisade]: “On that last foray, we arrived at the scene of one battle just as the Thargoid pulled the last survivor’s escape pod into its maw. We were ten seconds too late to save that pilot. At another wreckage site, we ducked around an attacking Thargoid fast enough to catch a damaged escape pod with a limpet while trying to evade that Thargoid’s Thargon swarm. But the Thargoid snatched the escape pod back from us just a few meters before we got it into our cargo hatch. It was gone before we could do anything about it. So that pilot died and we barely escaped with our ship intact. That’s why we only unloaded six escape pods instead of eight this last trip. Seconds matter out there. So, no, we don’t have the time for an interview.”
To Cmdr Camisade and his SLF pilot Scarlett, and all the other Podsnatchers out there, the Galactic Enquirer offers a sincere o7!
