3301-01-16: The closest call

I've heard a lot from other CMDRs about the power of turning off my ship's built-in "flight assist" feature for more powerful and creative maneuvers during combat. I've never tried flying without flight assist on, but I'd like to learn. So I headed to a nearby Anarchy system (NLTT 55164) which has a Resource Extraction Site (RES).

RESs are a favorite hangout of people who want to make money by mining minerals from asteroids. In anarchy systems, they're also a favorite place for criminals to hang out for piracy and murder. So my intent was to go between the NLTT 55164 RESs and see whether I could get in any good fights and collect some credits from bounties.

Long story short, I got my practice at flying without flight assist, and finally came up with a weapons loadout that I'm pretty happy with. I probably made 100k credits. And then...

I was in combat with a couple pirates also in smallish ships, and hadn't noticed a hostile Python that had somehow gotten on top of me. A short time later, my shields were gone... and then my Cobra's canopy. The pressurized atmophere of my cockpit rushed out into space, and my life-support system kicked in to provide emergency oxygen. But the life-support must have taken some damage too, because there were only 3-and-a-half minutes of oxygen remaining.

Shit.

I escape the fight and pushed into supercruise with my ship barely alive -- 8% hull integrity remaining. But now I had to get to the platform and dock, with little time to spare. Thankfully, the nearest outpost is only ~100 light-seconds away; my supercruise drive ought to get me there in enough time.

And then INTERDICTION DETECTED pops up on my HUD.

Shit.

Normally I'd try to fight the interdiction and get away... but while I'm doing that I'd be spiraling across the system, and probably end up further away from the outpost than I started. And even if I escaped successfully, the interdiction itself will eat away precious seconds of oxygen. So, fine.

Throttle down and submit.

And burn away from my attacker.

And re-engage supercruise as soon as my FSD comes back online.

I drop out of supercruise 8 km from the outpost, with about 40 seconds of oxygen left.

What followed was the most rushed and stressed docking attempt I've ever made. Thankfully the docking bay was on the "top" side of the platform; if it were on the opposite side, I'd have been dead.

I came in way too fast for my usual taste, and at a weird angle, and honestly it's a miracle I didn't just smash into the ground. But I landed with 11 seconds of oxygen left, and got into my hangar for repairs (and atmosphere!) almost literally at the last second.