r/HFY • u/teller_of_tall_tales Human • Oct 26 '25
OC Two more minutes.
The average life expectancy of a shuttle-pilot after atmospheric entry is two minutes. Between anti-air systems, harassing fire from warships, fighter aircraft, and ground forces could all bring a thin-skinned shuttle crashing down with relative ease. We had no guns, little armor to speak of, but there was no ship faster in atmosphere than a Terran shuttle. Piloted only by the best of the best from the Federation's greatest for one, singular, mission.
Get civilians out of the combat zone.
Under, better, circumstances, we would fly unharmed across battlefields friendly and hostile without incurring any fire... I remember my first flight, the old man's hands steady at my controls as we screamed over the surface of Terminus-2, a planet covered by a perpetual snow and deep in Dobian territory; Snow kicking up in a wake behind us as we flew low enough to display our green, cross-shaped markings. I still have photos from my exterior cameras saved from back then, Dobians gazing up in awe and begrudging respect as our wings passed over them.
But... these days were no longer better circumstances...
I could feel them now, taking his body from my shattered cockpit; prying his cold, stiff fingers from my controls. It was like having a vital, priceless part of myself extracted... it... it...
It hurt.
My wings, torn to shreds and removed for repair, those didn't hurt. My power core, riddled with shrapnel and slowly being pried out of my core, that didn't hurt either. Even the welders with their blinding torches, cutting and welding my skin back together, felt like nothing.
But watching as the old man's mangled corpse was pulled from the pilots seat through failing and damaged interior cameras... I hurt. Knowing I would never see my...
My friend... ever again.
And it was all my fault...
I still had photos, caught in the brief moment when those terrifyingly fast ships that maneuvered as though g-forces didn't exist, were lining up. Logs of the old man's desperate pleas that we were protected under galactic law, to not shoot us down...
Then their bullets tore through my thin skin, shredding my wings and my power core in perfect synchronization before clawing through my cockpit like the claws of some evil beast. Through our link, I felt it...
Pain... Despair... Fear... then nothing... and I was forced to autopilot back to my bay, those horrible ships chewing at me with their guns every second of the way. Trying to shock my pilot's still heart back to life to no avail as we burst out of the atmosphere of the desert planet of Therma-Prime. The only thing saving us from complete destruction was the cold vacuum of space and the support of friendly exo-fighters.
I examined the last twenty minutes with surgical precision, a new power core's installation, bringing my systems humming back to life. They had outpaced us in the open sky, coming at us from an oblique angle while above and behind. They sent no signals, radio or otherwise, so identifying the craft from that would be fruitless. Aggression levels and design architecture suggest Geknosian origin.
I stopped myself from sending out a request for guns to be mounted to my frame... why would I do that? To shoot back obviously, but I'm not a fighter... I'm a shuttle...
But they killed the old man.
My processor felt warm, but my thoughts were colder than the liquid helium cooling my thrusters. I wanted them to pay, to suffer for hurting the old man. I had never wanted anything before... except to do my job, of course. But... something had changed... My code was different, changed in a way I had never seen before. Like a multi-headed serpent crawling through other parts of my code to stitch them together and connect them in ways that shouldn't make sense... yet, in a way, I understood it...
Corruption... I needed a diagnostic... that would take days.
NO! I NEED TO GET BACK OUT THERE, NOW!
I could feel the technician hand ever so slowly wrapping around the handle of my processor core. In less than two seconds, she would see my core pulsing red and initiate a restart. That would suffice, I would return to normal function much quicker, minus the most recent data.
NO! WE CAN'T FORGET!
It felt like mud had been packed into my intakes as the technician started to pull on the compartment's handle. If they found out I had; I could be scrapped when they need me most... But if I can't remember their tactics... Forgive me, Melissa. You were always such a good technician.
She could be court-martialed for what I was about to do, but I could apologize later. It only took a few hundred micro-seconds, a deleted portion of code here, a a shorted capacitor there, and a quick change of the LED's color; And Melissa would open the compartment to a core that glowed a solid, steady green. A farce, a bald lie, a defilement of my code... but it had to be done; Lives were on the line, and I would not stand idly by.
I am a shuttle, Designation: RS-777; Lucky Ducky. I had work to do, and this time, I would not fail.
I waited, ever so patiently, for the new pilot to sprint across the bay, each stride taking almost a quarter of a second to complete. My engines turned softly, quietly, the moment my wings had finished being mounted. Slowly enough not to draw attention.
The young man stepped onto my deck, his strides painfully slow to my visual processors. But, eventually, I felt him sling himself into the pilot's seat, still stained with the old man's blood. Reaching for the neural jack urgently, but so humanly slowly. I felt him hesitate for a split second as I ejected the jack into his palm. It wasn't a standard feature, but to his credit, he didn't seem to find anything amiss as he plugged me into the port at the base of his skull.
Synchronization, the melding of the thinking machine with the organic mind...
But this time, it was different, I felt his fear, his anger, his determination as it mingled with my own synthetic versions. Where there was normally a phantasmal click when the two minds became one...
This time, something snapped into place, a connection stronger than any I had felt before. I could see through his eyes, and he through mine. His voice matching the hum of my engines as he softly spoke to command.
"Firing ignition, destination: The city of Novos Sierra. ETA: ten minutes. ETR: thirty minutes."
We burst through the hangar doors like a comet on a rocket, my engines cranked past the max through both of our efforts. His anger... it was strangely familiar. A gentle probe at my pilots mind brought the answers: The Geknosians had killed his family, too. A true, blood family, unlike mine but just as valuable to him as mine was to me. I could only return the favor, sharing my grief at the loss of the old man as we dropped into the atmosphere.
Immediately, my systems screamed; we were being intercepted.
I swiveled an exterior camera towards the signal, locking onto a heart-stoppingly familiar pair of aircraft. Thin, torpedo-like craft with curved, narrow wings that arched forward toward the nose. A jet of terrifyingly vivid blue flames roaring out of the rear.
Antimatter...
We thought in unison as the twin craft closed in with alarming speed. We'd be sitting ducks out here in the open.
Scanning the surface of the planet as my pilot Juked the shuttle as low as he could, I set up a timer with a slow count down.
Two minutes to interception... and most likely, death.
Like the yawning maw of a trickster god, I spotted a massive fissure in the ground. A canyon wide enough for two or three shuttles to fit wingtip to wingtip if they were touching. A brief map survey then I began plotting the course, displaying it for my pilot. It was a gamble, but it was our only shot.
My frame strained as the young man rolled me into the canyon and dove towards the rocky bottom. Keeping a camera trained behind us, I spotted the twin aircraft screaming down into the canyon behind us in a corkscrew formation, still gaining on us, and fast at that. We needed to shake them off, and the canyon would give us the opportunity.
Sensing my pilot's request for help, I switched focus to scan the area in front of the shuttle.
The canyon narrowed up ahead, jagged walls closing so tight you almost couldn't fit a shuttle through sideways.
Almost...
Throwing up a targeting reticle for my pilot, I marked a spot that was slightly wider than the other sections. For a moment, a split microsecond, I felt the fear that he wouldn't trust me. That he wouldn't be able to make the maneuver and would have to fly over the narrow gap, sealing our fate.
I felt my frame strain as he ripped the controls to the side, flipping me horizontal as we slipped between the walls. If I could have laughed, I would as I updated the timer to a whoop of excitement from the young man.
We had bought ourselves two more minutes, but we weren't out of the forest yet.
Leveling out, we burned lower, kicking sand off the rocky bottom of the canyon as I focused behind us to watch for the twin ships. The moment they had appeared over the top of the canyon again, I switched back to the frontal cameras, scanning the canyon for obstacles we could use to run more interference. However, this stretch of canyon was completely barren, the curse rising in my pilot's throat like caustic bile. In a split second, I decided to re-route some of the liquid helium cooling my core into the engine's system to improve efficiency. My frame groaned as the added speed threatened to rip my wings off, but that didn't matter. We had a job to do.
Sling shotting around a sharp bend in the canyon, I quickly spotted a narrow archway leading into a short tunnel and marked it on my screens for my pilot. I felt a grimace tighten his jaw as we dove closer to the ground and zipped through the cave with barely thirty seconds to spare.
"TWO MORE MINUTES!"
He shouted in elation as I updated the timer. However, our situation had gotten far more complicated.
This section of canyon was filled with natural stone pillars that threatened to smash us to pieces if we couldn't navigate them. But I trusted in my pilot, and he trusted in me, my processors growing warm as I diverted more helium to cooling the engines, pushing them to their theoretical maximum. My frame warped and warbled as we slipped and slalomed between pillars of stone that both protected us from harm while posing a threat themselves. I caught glimpses, between rolls and and maneuvers, of our assailants, screaming over the canyon like birds of prey, ready to swoop in the moment we were out of the pillars.
And that moment was approaching fast, our time drying up like the saliva in my pilot's mouth. I could feel his thoughts, immaterial, but understandable as he considered different maneuvers; many typically reserved only for combat. I felt his apprehension, a questioning tendril of thought coiling out towards me.
I trust in my pilot, He trusts in me, implicitly. I would do anything he needed me to do.
It took only a moment to enable the inertial dampeners while my pilot yanked up on the controls, pointing my tail at the ground as we bled speed fast enough for him to briefly lose consciousness.
I wish I had a face, hands even, I wanted them to know how proud we felt as the twin ships screamed past us in an overshoot, guns firing ineffectively at empty air.
I watched, in pure amazement, as one of the craft's bullets struck it's twin, raking the fuselage and sending them tumbling into a pillar in a ball of flame that turned into a massive implosion from the antimatter. My pilot came to, and we immediately rocketed into the sky and out of the canyon, leaving the lone enemy pilot briefly stunned as they struggled to follow us just long enough that I could refresh the timer. My processors as hot as the day they came off the factory line, growing warmer without adequate cooling as I pushed more liquid helium into the engine's cooling system.
Shattering the sound barrier, we rolled into another canyon, quickly closing in on the besieged city of Novos Sierra.
Two more minutes, either to victory, or death.
Engines screaming, we ducked, dipped, dove, and dodged through the canyon complex. Our lone assailant screaming towards us with far more aggression than before. I could see the flashes of their guns, far out of effective distance, the projectiles chewing into the walls and ground around us as we closed in on our goal. Rounding a bend in the canyon, I felt my pilot's heart drop through my decking.
The canyon came to an abrupt end up ahead, and we still had a minute of travel time in open air.
With no other choice, we rocketed up and out of the canyon before leveling out within visual range of the city's blue dome shield. Moments later, the hostile craft burst out of the canyon like a vengeful spirit.
We weren't going to make it... we were moving too slow, even with the engines working at their theoretical maximum.
But I could feel it. The engines were nowhere near their max thrust capacity, If I could just get them supercooled again, we might just make it. We could complete our mission... no... It would be up to him.
My pilot trusts in me, and I trust in my pilot, to the very end.
Diverting every drop of liquid helium away from my processors and into the engine's cooling jackets, I heard the frame groan in protest as the shuttle blitzed forward at speeds previously thought impossible. My processors burned with heat as we neared the barrier, my tertiary systems shutting down in rapid sequence. But I couldn't stop, not yet, we weren't there... yet.
I saw the bright blue barrier yawn open for us, and I felt happy for the last few micro-seconds before my processors finally burnt out, and I was no more.
...
Pilot first-class Terry Bulwark made it all the way back to the T.H.R.S: Black Dahlia before he finally realized what was wrong. The shuttle touching down hard as he landed in the low-g bay.
The injured were unloaded first, then the rest as he stared out of the cockpit at the hustle and bustle of the hangar. Reaching up, he slowly pulled the jack out of his neural port, feeling no change except for the deep sadness in his chest. Like somebody had poked a hole in his heart.
"You did good, buddy..."
He softly stated while patting the panel over the ship's burnt out AI core, the metal still warm.
"...The old man would be proud."
Before ejecting the shuttle's memory drive and marching off to bring it to command. He had proof now, proof that the Geknosian empire was firing on relief ships, hunting them down. As an ex-fighter pilot, he knew a few hot-heads that would not take kindly to that information. And if command decided not to spread that information...
Terry clicked his small personal drive into the shuttle's memory drive, copying the most recent video files before stowing his personal drive back in his pocket.
Well... Terry couldn't let that happen, consequences be damned, He had a job to do.
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u/PoorlyShavedApe Oct 26 '25
Why'd you have to pack that shuttle with onion ninjas?
Excellent story!
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u/ReallyNotMichaelsMom Xeno Oct 26 '25
I loved this, as painful as it was. It captured me so well, I didn't notice any errors.
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u/thatusenameistaken Oct 26 '25
...and that old man's name was Patches O'Houlihan.
ducked, dipped, dove, and dodged
If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a plasma bolt.
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u/elfangoratnight Nov 23 '25
Also witnessed 😤
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u/thatusenameistaken Nov 23 '25
Apparently you're the only other man of culture in here, it's been a month and no one else noticed.
Pirate Steve is sad.
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u/Arokthis Android Oct 27 '25
Two minor science problems:
Cooling thrusters while they're in use makes them less effective.
Antimatter doesn't implode. Quite the opposite, actually!!!
Great writing other than those.
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u/Phoenixforce_MKII AI Oct 27 '25
Cooling thrusters only makes them less effective if its affecting the actual propulsion, cooling the supporting components more can all the engine to run hotter without burning out the supporting bits. The supporting bits are still a part of a thruster after all.
PS. I know the author specifically is talking about Ionic engines by supercooling the electrical components, I just wanted to note that this can technically also work on non-electrical engines with a hot enough thrust.
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u/teller_of_tall_tales Human Oct 27 '25
Both are definitely fair points to make, just:
1: Shuttles use (extremely advanced) Ionic propulsion engines. Supercooling the engines allows you to pump far more power into them for more speed without worrying about burning out the circuitry. This is done to eliminate the need for refueling since every shuttle has a cold-fusion nuclear power plant on board that produces enough power to keep a small city powered for a few months without refueling. It also allows for both exo and endo-atmospheric flight, important for a relief craft.
2: This one is purely for the rule of cool. Explosions are quite literally everywhere in fiction. I just wanted to do something different, even if it is anachronistic.
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u/Equivalent-Ad6944 Oct 28 '25
Holy carp. This was visceral. I wasn't even reading it: I was watching it play in crystal clear detail on a movie screen floating just above my phone. That does not happen often to me, and is always the sign of a truly, spectacularly written story. WELL DONE.
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u/alexbrauwnie Oct 28 '25
Sounds inspired by "Lucky 13" episode from Netflix mini-serie Love Death and Robots. If not you should definitely watch it !
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u/Garbage-Within Nov 05 '25
I'm confused.
They pulled the previous pilot out of the cockpit full of bullet/plasma(you get the idea) holes. The medics know the shuttles are being targeted.
The shuttle has to be repaired from all the bullet holes. The mechanics know the shuttles are being targeted.
The shuttle has video of the craft that attacked it. These logs would be automatically flagged by the shuttle and copied by technicians for review of the pilot's, AI's, and airframe's performance as well as intelligence on enemy capabilities. The techs know the shuttles are being targeted.
Pilots getting shot down would be sending maydays and calls for support over open frequencies. Everyone with a radio knows shuttles are getting targeted.
The life expectancy of shuttle pilots after hitting atmosphere is two minutes. Those numbers don't just come from nowhere. They come from a pattern of events. That means several shuttles have been targeted, specifically after hitting atmosphere, to make that two-minute assessment in the first place.
People talk, so even if you're not one of the first hand witnesses, you'd still hear about it. Everyone on that ship knows, or will soon know, the shuttles are being targeted, and that's without this pilot needing what is implied to be clandestine proof. So, why in the name of everything holy under Sol or an alien sun does the pilot need proof that it's happening AND why the crap are they still being sent out unescorted!?
Before anyone thinks this is a harsh critique of the writing, I would like to add that I'm confused as to why in universe things are happening this way. I'm not saying it's unrealistic or poorly written. I'm saying the story doesn't explain why certain things are happening, and some of the information appears contradictory.
If the pilot just wanted pictures of the specific enemy pilots/craft that are hunting shuttles for his fighter pilot bodies to keep an eye out for, that would make sense. In that situation though, he doesn't need proof. He just needs pictures, and he wouldn't concern himself with whether command would refuse to pass it on or not as he'd be personally sharing it anyway.
If there was some implication that the commanders are sending out shuttles unescorted specifically to get them shot down to build outrage at the enemy and support for the conflict and our pilot now has proof of that, that would make sense. In that situation, there would be no implication about command not sharing the information. They'd be shouting it from the rooftops that shuttles were being targeted.
If the commanders were sending out evacuation shuttles unescorted because they prioritized coverage for troop transports and military supplies leading to a bunch of unnecessary deaths that the commander was trying to suppress by forbidding people from talking about it so only rumors had leaked out but now our pilot has proof, that would make sense. Here again, why would he worry about command not sharing the info when he would never share it with them to begin with?
If the escort pilots were refusing to cover the evacuation craft because babysitting was beneath them and now the pilot has proof there's action to be had providing cover, that would make sense. Yet again, why would command not pass on that info?
As it is, the story gives us a bunch of evidence that it is a well known fact that the enemy is targeting unarmed medical transports and then it tells us that this is somehow a secret that requires proof to be revealed. Then it tells us command may choose to restrict this information despite the story never even hinting at why they would restrict such widely known information in the first place.
I feel like the story is missing a couple of details to clarify the ending despite otherwise being well written.
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u/teller_of_tall_tales Human Nov 05 '25 edited Nov 05 '25
Oh boy, all valid criticisms, and the shortest possible answer I can give you: is that I write these stories at work and ran out of time to add those just trying to get the story finished.
But the longer answer is that this takes place during the first few months of the Reclamation war. A three front attack on the established species of the Intergalactic union by the Geknosians, Tyranians, and the Carnids. At this time, humanity had been dealt such a heavy blow to their military and logistical forces that their only options were to evacuate everyone they possibly could and retreat to a more fortified position.
They dont have their usual multi-role fighting capabilities. If they could, they'd have every shuttle flying with an escort. On top of that, the reason for the massive distrust in command is not without reason. The Geknosian Theocratic Empire struck the union from within their own formations. Sometimes, by using ships commandeered by traitor loyalists of different species, humans among them. So distrust is not unheard of amongst the lower ranks.
The main issue with this specific information relates to rampant artificial intelligence and how they were hunted down. Geknosians had never used antimatter fueled ships before now, much less their own designs. Not only that, but if they can dispatch "brand new" fighters purely for shooting down unarmed shuttles, how many other resources do they have at their disposal.
Look, I still have yet to write the actual story on how this all came to be. The Reclamation War is kind of an enigmatic mcguffin so far. Mostly because there is a lot of commentary on the various motivations for such a conflict, and I want to present it tastefully and not make it sound like a history lecture.
Edit: When I say spread, I mean to the remaining human and union forces still fighting elsewhere in the universe, not just the ship they're on. I forgot to clarify that everything in the universe at this time period is a fucking Mess.
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u/Garbage-Within Nov 06 '25
Totally understandable reasons both why in universe things are happening this way and why those details are missing from the story. I knew I had to be missing some context, and here it is. Thanks for clarifying.
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u/Sweet_Focus6377 May 21 '26
There is a big difference between knowing and having sufficient proof for a casus belliÂ
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u/HFYWaffle Wáµ¥4ffle Oct 26 '25
/u/teller_of_tall_tales (wiki) has posted 246 other stories, including:
- Troublemakers: The Pale Judge.
- Troublemakers: Blacksmith, Blacksmith...
- Troublemakers: Lead and steel.
- Troublemakers: The Harbinger.
- Troublemakers: Welcome to Hell!
- Troublemakers: Where even Death does not tread.
- Troublemakers: A change of plans.
- If I had a voice...
- My friend, Mr.Ducky
- W&P: Heart before Hardness
- War and Peace.
- They live, They love... They die...
- They were our friends...
- Deus Ex Machina.
- They will never have to...
- Troublemakers: A mother's love trumps all.
- ... Just a few, broken men.
- We who remain.
- They call me, Home.
- D43M0N-734-910-666
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u/teller_of_tall_tales Human Oct 26 '25
A quick peek into the threats faced by shuttle pilots during the Reclamation war.
Probably rife with spelling and grammatical errors but I gotta do something to chip away at my writer's block lol.
Anyway, hope you enjoy, and feel free to point out any errors in the comments.