I was always told that in the event of being set adrift in space, I should stay calm. My hardsuit has enough oxygen for a day, and it'll automatically broadcast my position. I just need to wait for a skiff to come and pick me up.
Unfortunately, that was during a routine mission. Being attacked by pirates isn't exactly routine, and no one was going to pick me up. They were probably too busy being held at gunpoint.
I had a pretty clear view of what happened. I was on the hull, repairing a small breach from some unknown debris that hit us as we came out of warp. We couldn't activate the Johnson drive until it was patched up. And as I was working on getting it fixed, we were hit by a chariot.
A chariot is a cross between a landing craft and ballistic round. It's heavily shielded, and fired from a magnetic coil at another ship. Once it lands, it locks onto the hull and deploys anti-personnel turrets while the crew breaches into the ship and starts their operations, usually demolition or anti-AI procedures. It just so happened that the chariot landed close enough to me that the force disengaged my mag boots and threw me clear hard enough to snap my safety line.
Which is why I am now in what appears to be a rapidly deteriorating orbit around a gas giant. Since we're in uncharted space, I've decided to name it Timothy. Hello, Timothy.
Timothy is a very deep and dark red, pretty uniform across the entire surface. I can see lightning strikes in the clouds. There's one moon orbiting Timothy. It's oddly luminescent, considering the system's star is 3 or 4 astronomical units away. It's a massive red giant, not as bright as Sol.
My emergency alert starts to flash in my HUD. Turns out there's a breach in my suit. I'm leaking oxygen. Oh well.
Back to Timothy. I can see space debris from the short battle falling down and burning in the atmosphere. Does that mean Timothy has enough oxygen for a fire? I can't remember how the physics for it works. I know it means there's a decently thick atmosphere. Considering how large Timothy is, it's probably a very high pressure atmosphere. When I fall down there, if I don't burn to a cinder on my way down, I'm going to be compressed to the size of golf ball. There's a fun thought.
Something collides with my shoulder, spinning me around. I panic and try to get it off of me, but it's latched on. I spin to face it, only to find Jerome, wearing a safety harness, attached to a skiff. Becca is waving at me from the pilot's viewport.
Jerome says something, but I can't hear him. My comms must have been shorted. He pulls my visor into his, until they connect.
"You ok, man?" I can hear him talk.
"My comms are out. My hardsuit's damaged. How are you guys out here?"
"The pirates only wanted our cargo. They took the water storage, and a most of the food. We're making an emergency jump to Sirius Major. There's a supply station there." He turns to Becca, signalling a damaged comm, and she nods. The line starts to pull us in.
"So, merciful pirates. That's a first."
"Hey, if you get a break, don't question it, right?"
"Whatever. Just get me out of here before Timothy eats us."