"Lucky to be Alive..."

*** Receiving Feed ***

...hello?...lost....with fleet... some distance... bubble, they were....lucky to be alive...

I'm in my pod in UKYS-5, stranded from my gang after my ship was destroyed... I repeat; FALCON DOWN.

...Need to focus... Navigate back to fleet...

I never saw them coming; I was a fool to think the superiority of my Covert Ops Cloaking module would save my lazy ass forever. I guess it's fitting. The first rule of surviving in the fringes of space is 'Live prepared, or die surprised.' Our foraging gang departed from our home system in search of wrecks, salvage, loot, and the act of producing these commodities. We were well-informed of our surroundings, it was a well-traveled route. The pickings were slim, the practiced coordination of our pilots textbook.
*CRACKLE-Fizz*
"8 Goons entering system on local scanner! Get out of combat range!" yelled our FC.

I calmly engaged my cloak and rummaged through my belongings for a media-disk of the most recent Gallentean pop-idol. Dang, they didn't make women like that back in The Citadel. Another long op...A quick snooze and some quafe, and I was ready to go home. Local looked clear, comms were quiet. A little voice in my head whispered 'too quiet', but I disregarded it. I had Betty. I had my Falcon. And she had never quit on me when I needed her. It was going to be as simple as bravely running away the instant I saw a red.

"Kwitch, what are you doing at that Stargate!? You're not cloaked!"
"Oh, that's because I'm going through it."

The sensory overload of 15 hostile targets within a magnetic-field spatial-field-destabilizer bubble took a moment to sink in. I remember this happening before. Something very familiar, I just can't put my finger on it. Oh yes, the last time I was cloned.

No time to panic; Align, Cloak, count. 4. 3. 2. . . . Never got to 1. When I came to, I was tumbling through space without a clue what happened to Betty, where I was, or why claxons were blaring in my escape pod regarding 14% hull integrity.

I'll make it back to the fleet, but I'll be leaving behind my trusty wingmate.

R.I.P. - Betty
Beloved Falcon
Don't stop Jammin'
4/20/158-3/7/159