Disaster in Space/Amy:Stealthy Landing (Manual)
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Revision as of 03:33, 24 April 2015
Fortunately, this isn't the first sneaky landing you've made, and you know all the tricks. First, you wait for the night watch when traffic is low and the largest number of landing pads are vacant. Second, you approach to a hair over ten kilometers, just outside the range of the station's automated sensors. Third, you point your ship towards a less busy part of the station so you can get there without the need for large course corrections. Fourth, you power down the non-essential systems on your ship to reduce your thermal and EM signature, to make it harder for patrolling fighters to detect you.
Now for the hard part. You fire your thrusters and the Vega lurches towards the station, on the heading you pre-steered before powering down. Then you power down the thrusters too! You are dead in the water - no engines, no communications, no sensors, no shields, no navigation. You also have no life support, which is why you can see the vapor of your breath as you exhale into the now freezing cockpit. The only things turned on are your landing gear and the heaters that keep your thrusters from freezing.
You see a few patrol craft, but they don't see you. Your running lights are off, and the Vega has the heat signature of a moderately large and shiny piece of space debris. You smirk at your own cleverness as the ship's inertia carries you all the way to the landing pad.
With only 100 meters to go, you re-ignite your thrusters again to bring the ship to a stop and touch down on the pad. Perfect! No one has seen you arrive; and on a station this busy, no one is going to bother to check if you're supposed to be here.
You restore normal power to the ship, and your cockpit becomes comfortable to sit in again. You also lower the ramp and loading elevators so you can get to work selling your cargo. How are you going to get it off the ship and get paid on the station without getting caught, anyway?
