On a Wing and a Prayer
25 Jun 2023Doc Scalawag
The advent of the Frame Shift Drive revolutionized space travel forever. Voyages of days to weeks were reduced to mere minutes overnight. Systems too remote to viably colonize are now homes to thriving communities. The "Bubble" has grown from several dozen worlds to several thousand and a second human civilization, far removed from the political trifecta that is the Bubble, is growing larger and more independent every day. The galaxy, vast as it is, is much smaller today than it was fifteen years ago.The relationship between Commander and vessel has evolved with the new technology as well. Whether that evolution is a good or bad thing may be a subject of debate, but the life of a space-fairer is nothing like it was before the new hyperdrive technology became commonplace. Where once a ship was home for both Commander and crew, the place where the vast majority of their time was spent and "shore leave" was a term that actually had significance, now most spacecraft and their crews have a home station from which they operate and to which they return when their shift is over. As a result of this, ships are being made smaller, with smaller crews as well. Many of them require no crew at all, operated by a sole Commander and a COVAS. Space travellers used to spend a significant amount of their time stardreaming, a state of chemically induced deep sleep. Now, many space craft don't even have sleeping accommodations, so short is the travel time between star ports.
Second Heartbeat was not such a spacecraft. The Adder had a very small living area nestled between the cockpit and the aft compartments. The space consisted of a narrow corridor with a coffin-like nook on either side, serving as bunks for the Commander and a single crewmember. Each bunk had a small rack above it for securing personal items. Attached to one of the racks was an AR-50, the only weapon on the ship aside from my sidearm. Aft of the sleeping compartments, on the starboard side, was a pop up galley, complete with an electric warmer and small pantry stocked with dry goods. Built into the wall on the port side was a pull-out commode for use in gravity, and a retractable vacuum to use without.
As Second Heartbeat drifted slowly through realspace between Korovii and Casper Ring Starport, I laid on one of the two bunks flicking through ship systems on a wall-mounted holographic display near the "head" of the bed. "Laying" might not have been quite the appropriate term, since there was no gravity and I was more or less tethered to the bunk with a series of quick-release straps, but the fact that I could stretch out fully for some rest would pay dividends for my body when I did finally get home. I stretched, yawned and then went through the ships' systems one by one: Hull integrity was 64%, thrusters were at 89%, Frame Shift Drive was 77% and power plant was 34%. I had made an error in judgement when I assumed that no hunter would trouble themselves for my paltry 1500cr bounty, and it nearly cost me everything.
It had come as a nasty surprise, two days before, when that Fer-de-Lance popped into realspace in the middle of my last salvage operation. As soon as I heard the familiar snap of a ship exiting supercruise, I retracted my cargo scoop and flipped the switch to spin up the FSD. "Frame Shift Drive, Charging." Celeste reported audibly, but an additional warning appeared in text on the information panel: Mass Locked. Factor: 7. We were going to be here for a minute.
"Scan detected." Celeste chimed, and I was already returning the gesture. Fer-de-Lance, Giuliano Brenna, Expert, clean, the scan indicated.
"Under attack!" Celeste warned as the first blue ripples danced across the canopy. Then they disappeared. "Shields off line, taking damage, hull integrity compromised, warning: hull breach attack, taking heat damage"
"Oh! Shit!" I exclaimed as I threw the ship around and raced out of the debris field, Brenna's FDL in tow. Second Heartbeat was unarmed. Fit for search, rescue and, failing those, salvage operations, the addition of weapons to the crafts tiny hardpoints seemed ridiculous at the time. They wouldn't be of any use in a fight, and would really only draw power and slow the ship down. It made little difference. Armed or otherwise, the Adder was no match for a Fer-de-Lance built with ship-to-ship combat in mind. Running was the only option, and even that was almost not viable. Nonetheless, I cursed myself for not putting some guns on the ship. Anything I could throw back at him, even just a couple of multicannons with which to put up a fight, would be better than just tucking tail and running. The feeling of defenselessness gnawed at me as I tried to shake the bigger ship. My eyes flicked around the canopy, taking in as much information about the situation as I could. The FDL was 3km away and closing. Shields were down and not coming back up. Hull integrity: 85% and dropping. FSD integrity: 89%. Thruster integrity: 90%. Power plant integrity: 65%. Frame Shift drive: Charging, about 50% complete.
Not outrunning this guy, I thought to myself. And I will be very dead by the time my drive is charged. With one eye, I watched the distance between the two ships continue to close, the other was glued to the info panel. Soon, Brenna would kill either my thrusters, FSD or power plant (or just kill me outright). Any of those outcomes would end the same. I needed to act fast. At the very least, give him something else to shoot at.
"If it's stupid but it works..." I muttered to myself before flipping the flight assist toggle to "off," pulling the throttle back, killing the thrusters but keeping the ship's momentum, then smashing the flight stick against its forward stop so hard I though the damn thing might snap off. The ship continued on it's ballistic trajectory, but pitched down into a somersault that ended with the Adder pointed directly back at the Fer-de-Lance. When Second Heartbeat's bow was oriented directly at Brenna's ship, which was still bristling with auto-cannon fire. I re-engaged the flight assist, instantly killing the rotation, then I slammed the throttle forward and thumbed the booster, sending the Adder screaming toward the FDL on a crash course that, unless Brenna evaded quickly, would end in a fiery death for both of us.
Brenna did evade. As tracers continued to pour out of his ship and into my previously undamaged bow, which had become a shield of sorts, protecting the sensitive and badly damage components aft, the FDLs dorsal thrusters fired, sending the massive warship downward (upward relative to me as I was now inverted). This allowed Brenna to dodge the suicide run while still keeping Second Heartbeat in his sights and under his guns, for as long as possible. That time made slightly longer by the fact that he had apparently killed his own flight assist, and was pitching upward in order to track the Adder as it zipped harmlessly past.
I smiled. "Then it isn't stupid," I dared to finish the thought, Brenna having taken the bait. It wasn't a suicide run at all. When Brenna's ship went to evade, I pitched up hard, cutting across the Fer-de-Lance's cone of fire for a brief time, during which, he scored several more hits on my unshielded Adder. They would be the last rounds to find their mark. I slammed the booster one more time, pouring every drop of energy into the engines. Second Heartbeat roared and groaned as the thrusters squeezed of every meter per second per second of acceleration they could muster.
For some reason, Adders have a very unique sound when the boost is engaged. The engines whine and groan, and the entire vessel rattles as though it was trying to fall apart. This tends to give Adders a bad rapport with Commanders, undeservedly giving the impression that the vehicles are shoddily built. Personally, I adore that particular quirk. It makes it seem as though the small spacecraft knows the dire straights it finds itself in, and is pushing itself to the brink of self-destruction in order to survive. In this case, the ship would have been correct.
When a starship's boosters are engaged, the main thrusters aren't the only ones receiving the surge of energy; the craft's reaction control thrusters also benefit, making the controls significantly more responsive during the boost. This allowed me to quickly bring the bow of the ship up as I raced towards the Fer-de-Lance, which was currently pitching away from Second Heartbeat. The distance between the craft was quickly reduced to zero, and Second Heartbeat, still inverted in relation to the FDL, slid beneath the larger ship, only meters separating the two ships' keels.
I whooped with delight as we swept past the bounty hunting warship. Here, Second Heartbeat's significantly smaller size gave it the advantage. Giuliano Brenna now had only two options if he wished to continue his pursuit: the best choice would have been to allow his ship to continue to pitch up, completing a 180 degree flip that would have his vessel come about behind me, but that would require enough discipline to resist trying to follow the Adder through the turn by pitching downward. Based on the holographic projection of the FDL on the targeting panel, I whooped again when I saw the hunter cancel his upward momentum before pitching down, adding several more seconds to the handful I had already bought myself.
Several more seconds for my FSD to finish spooling up. "3..2..1.. ENGAGE!" Celeste announced as the ship lurched into supercruise. In a few moments, Giuliano Brenna and his Fer-de-Lance were dozens of light-seconds behind me. A few moments after that, I was back in the Korovii system, fifteen lightyears away from the danger.
I'd opted to drop out of supercruise a few seconds after entering the system because Brenna would have a much harder time tracking me in realspace. Once my exit wake faded, it would be almost impossible to locate my ship. Sure, it would make the journey take over a week, instead of a handful of minutes, but it would all but guarantee that I would be alive at journey's end. Second Heartbeat, beautiful and triumphant as she was, was hurt. She couldn't survive another tangle, and our destinies were intertwined.
As I lay suspended above my bunk, I realized that the biggest problem with the frame shift era was that it destroyed the relationship between Commander and vessel. Ships should be loved. Ships should feel more like home than any planet or station. Commanders should feel more comfort within the corridors and cabins of their vessels than within the arms of their lovers. Any more, ships are nothing but stepping stones to bigger and better ships, explorers not withstanding. Second Heartbeat, was not a nice ship. It wasn't quick or flashy. It wasn't even very expensive. I could buy a dozen outfitted Adders with the money I have made in the last few weeks. But she was... Home. As I lay there, in that coffinlike bunk, I felt a calm sense of belonging that I hadn't felt since my son, James, left for the Pilot's Federation Training System. I reached up, placed an ungloved hand on the cold metal wall, and whispered "Thank you," before closing my eyes, and drifting off to sleep.