Moving house
27 Dec 2020Teafox
Well, control of a carrier could have potential for a community of miners. Whilst the Supratech team gets their section up and running, the kid and I have been making contact with potential crew leads. Most of the day to day work on board is pretty simple and there are plenty of areas in the bubble where mining reserves are starting to deplete. Relocating a belter community to a different point in the same asteroid belt happens all the time, many belt colonies are set up to drift a little slower or faster around the planet than the belt itself does. Relocating to a different belt in the same solar system does happen, but some of the larger, older ships are often easier to transport by tearing them apart and putting them back together in the new location. Actually relocating between systems is a much more difficult prospect. More than half of the ships in an average mining colony won't have a functioning interstellar drive and without an established muster point in a belt, individual ships are vulnerable to raids.A carrier would provide an excellent base camp to relocate a colony to a new belt, and at a distance beyond the normal possible ranges. We're already getting curious inquiries about the possibility of transporting some large groups into nearby unoccupied space. In the meantime, recruiting is less of a problem of finding people for the jobs, and more about finding the right people in a long list of skilled candidates. Most of the crew we need are logistics staff, people used to operating heavy machinery and storing and retrieving cargo efficiently and quickly. Capable mechanics grow on figurative trees in the belts, so we could almost have staffed our shipyard and support crews with volunteers. Medical crew are somewhat rarer, but they exist, and are in enough of a surplus that we have an acceptable compliment for now. Some of the original, Brewer inc. crew have some reservations about recruiting from the belts. I think it's probably best if we replace them when possible, but for now? Well, our first and second jumps have been a success.
Capital ship jump drives work a little differently to those of smaller ships. Honestly, the process involves some rather unpleasant forces that feel like you're in three different gravity fields at once. Impressive to watch from outside of the carrier. I think I'll stick to watching the carrier jump and then follow up in my own ship.
Right now, we're back at Rutherford. It's been a great home base for these past few years, but I've been finding myself less and less invested in the local power struggles these days. There are two jobs we have to take care of here, however. The first job is to move out. I have a few dozen ships in storage at Rutherford, and the harbormaster constantly asks if it's possible to sell a few, or to relocate them. Today he'll get his wish, but that's only going to happen after the second job is taken care of. I've been putting this off for too long and I've finally thought of an appropriate name.
Not for a ship, this time. To me, he may be 'Kid' but that won't be good enough for citizenship papers. The database search came up blank way back in Enayex and the kid doesn't have a name that he knows about, so, what happens now?
Well, I have the form right here. The kid's getting better at reading, but he has to go letter by letter. It takes him almost five minutes to work through the words 'Citizenship and Adoption' at the head of the screen. The kid's gonna be my kid from now on, and, at least where I'm from, it's generally the father's job to choose a name. I suggest the one I have in mind, I want him to have the name of someone I respect, the first of his kind, a skilled pilot and by all accounts, a good man too. Traditionally, he'd take my family name too, but I gave him the option. We play around with how to pronounce his official name, and he's laughing at the prospect of people referring to him as "Mister". To me, he's probably always gonna be 'kid' though, and that's not going to change.
And at this point, dear reader of the future, I hope you will forgive my not writing his name. It's probably not likely that this journal would ever make it's way back to whichever department of the federal military that might take an interest in knowing the kid survived, but I'm not risking it. Sure, his imprints are on the carrier and somewhere in the Supratech central system, but the carrier data storage already has over six hundred imprints and it's growing by the hour. Identifying that one specific file without having the kid there in the first place, is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack made entirely of needles.
It's only a few million credits in a 'donation' to the local community leaders to process the kid's citizenship without a genetic profile report. He's got fingerprints, retinal, voice prints and not to mention facial recognition to identify himself with. We can't get him into the pilots federation, but an independent pilots license is practically free with citizenship.
I only wish I had thought to bring a camera along with me when I suggested that he take the Vagrant's Tale back to the carrier for me. He's flown it before, He's had a few practice runs taking off and landing on the carrier and on a few planetary bases and now ATC aren't legally allowed to stop him from launching and landing the ship in a station... As long as he files an official docking request at least. And he's going to do so solo. I hop into the Asp explorer that the insurance company provided as a replacement for Vespertillio and tell him I'll meet him at the carrier.
It's just a short hop, but they say you never forget your first time flying solo. And I remember flying that same ship my first time, way back when. It's a strangely nice feeling to share.
The kid's buzzing by the time I land. Of course he wants to go out again, and it just so happens that I have plenty of other ships to transfer and I really don't feel like piloting all the way back to Ruthorford myself right now.
The carrier ATC isn't impressed at the kid using our afterburners to dust off with, but aside from bringing the deck guns around, there's not an awful lot he can do. The kid lands us clean and smooth back at the station, in spite of the distraction. He's never seen an imperial cutter before, to be fair it's drawing the eye of a few of the locals too. The kid asks if I think he'll ever be able to fly a ship like that. They're expensive, and owning one is something of an exclusive privilege to high ranking imperial citizens. The kid stops at the landing pad perimeter barrier, but is entranced by the finely crafted curves of the ship. The ground crew lead gives me a scornful look when I ask him if perhaps the kid could be allowed a closer look.
The kid's jaw drops as Starglider's facial recognition system picks him up and opens the door. I tell him to take care with her when he's coming out of the mail slot. The ground crewman laughs and shoots me a thumbs up, approving of the joke. I wonder if he'll be so approving when the kid lifts her off... I do hope he's not going to get her stuck in the mail slot like I did my first time flying her. My fears are in vain, however. A near textbook take off and station exit, with only a slight flash of shielding as he bumped the tail.
Kid landed her cleanly, but the love affair is utterly over. It seems he prefers his girls who can dance and spin like they are on ice and doesn't appreciate the slow waltz of a lady with curves. He tries a few of the other large ships out of curiosity, and the eagle and viper are positively joyrides for him as we slowly transfer all of the collection to the carrier. It's pleasing to see that the entire collection packs down well in storage, and barely takes space in the vast storage area of the on board shipyard. We really will be able to relocate some belt dwellers if we need to.
The captain's quarters are weirdly spacious. The kid says it reminds him of Nemo's place. In a way it almost does, too, but we'd need more cat hair. It feels strange to have all of this space. The Starglider has a big, luxurious cabin, but it feels different. We gave the beds here a go, and I guess I could get used to them, but after an hour or two, the kid asks if he can sleep on the vagrant. I guess that's an advantage of owning the carrier, if we want to block up a pad for the night, no one gets to tell us to move. Kid's asleep in under a minute. I don't take much longer.