Useful panic!
Most times, panicking in space is a prerequisite to death. Here, it saved Tobias’s life. He could dimly perceive something happening to the outcropping of rock his hopper had just vacated, but there was no time to look, and barely enough time to flee. And even running away wasn’t guaranteed, because the horror in his head was still there, if fainter.
The proximity alarms started screaming as Tobias pushed the hopper through the sky equally recklessly and randomly. They weren’t powered missiles or railgun rounds, though. Too slow. Are those… rocks? he thought as he fought the insidious urge to flee directly back to Heinlein Station. The idea of making a beeline back home horrified the precise same instincts that were keeping him alive, if on the ragged edge of panic right now. What is down there? Do I even want to know? Then three alarms screamed at once, and Tobias desperately tried to dodge the hopper out of the way.