"Pilot" is the title

Title

A title is a prefix or suffix added to someone's name to signify either veneration, an official position or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may even be inserted between a first and last name...

 of a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 in science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 author Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter is a prolific British hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.- Writing style :...

's Xeelee Sequence

Xeelee Sequence

The Xeelee Sequence is a series of novels and short stories by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The novels span several billions of years, describing the future expansion of Mankind, its war with its arch-nemesis , and the Xeelee's own war with dark matter entities called photino birds...

. Sixth in the anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 Vacuum Diagrams

Vacuum Diagrams

Vacuum Diagrams is a collection of science fiction short stories written by Stephen Baxter. The collection connects the novels of the Xeelee Sequence and also shows the history of mankind in the Xeelee universe, and ultimately the universe...

, it is a revision of a story first published as a chapbook

Chapbook

A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...

 by Novacon

Novacon

Novacon is an annual science fiction convention, usually held each November in the West Midlands, UK. It is now the annual convention of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.-History:...

 in 1993.

Set in AD 4874, "Pilot" relates the forced settlement of space pilots on the centaur

Centaur (planetoid)

Centaurs are an unstable orbital class of minor planets that behave with characteristics of both asteroids and comets. They are named after the mythological race of beings, centaurs, which were a mixture of horse and human...

-type planetoid Chiron

2060 Chiron

2060 Chiron is a minor planet in the outer Solar System. Discovered in 1977 by Charles T. Kowal , it was the first-known member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs, with an orbit between Saturn and Uranus.Although it was initially classified as an asteroid, it was later found to...

 and their use of their grounded ships' drives to escape the gravitational pull of the Solar system

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

, as well as an alien missile that is sent to destroy their new home.