Fiascos and progress
31 Jan 2021Akiya
Encrypted transmission receivedFrom: Pilot Federation Messaging System / Commander Akiya
To: Seega Dock Sally's Bar (a Trans Galactic Slave Corporation subsidiary) / Slave ID "Hannah"
Origin: ship Saud-Kruger AK3-1CU "Emilie du Chatelet", BD-15 447 system
Date: 3307-01-02
Dear Ano,
As promised, here are some news from me. First, don't worry, this is not a message to tell I've fled to the other side of the galaxy. I still miss you, and I still intend to visit you again.
I have been spending a lot of time in Imperial space lately, trying to advance that business project of mine. I think I have found good partners with the East-India Company. But it has not been all simple.
At first, they kept giving me some couriering missions. I like those, but I was seing all those sightseeing and adventure request that paid much more. Plus, naive me thought it would be a good way to meet some people. And yes, I know money is not the real problem here, but I thought it would be a help to grease some wheels. So I had mechanics transform a part of Sophie's hold into a passenger cabin, and advertised my readiness to lead an exploration trip (a small one mind you, just within the bubble).
--
That was a fiasco.
First, the small cabin without view. I had made it clear that it was and economy cabin, and a ship geared for adventure, not a luxurious Beluga, but they still wanted the large beds and the sipping cocktails on the observation deck part. Even when I de-activated the co-pilot controls and made it clear they were welcome to sit in the copilot seat anytime (well, not all four at once, obviously, but still).
Then I was too slow. Sorry, madam, but Sophie is robust. I had advertised that. Yes, that means she's heavy, and the FSD is not pushed to the maximum. Yes, we're still ten jumps from your first destination. Yes, we're going to have to refuel in the meantime, and, safety first, I am not going to use the fuel scoop. (At one point, I bowed to the pressure and tried it. But my scoop is a small backup thing, so it took so long they were even more annoyed by that than by stopping in a station, were at least they could go do some shopping.) And yes, I intend to crosscheck the systems maps of any system we pass, and it would go faster if you weren't bugging me about it! (no, I did not really say the last one, I am not that asocial. But I thought it very loudly).
In the end, I had to speed through the second part of the trip, just to get it done before they canceled the payment. No time for partying in stations for them, no exploration log for me. And they still left angry and miserable.
I would really have needed your people skills there!
But in the end, I still got paid, a lot, with a nice bonus for what little map crosscheck I had done. And the lady from the maps was waxing lyrical on how proud I should be to help the Empire like that, and maybe she could put me in contact with the Imperial navy for a couple of side jobs? It looked like being a recognized auxiliary of the navy would be good for the business project, so I decided to continue.
--
I bought a dedicated passenger ship. From the luxury Saud-Kruger manufacturer who makes the Beluga, a little sister they call the Dolphin. I was afraid it would be a sluggish bus, but she is actually a fun little ship to fly. I named her Emilie, in memory of a pre-space female mathematician as usual, Emilie du Chatelet. Unfortunately, the buying price and the basic outfitting left me with very little money. I know money is not the most important for my business project, but I still need some, and worse, despite the ship builder reputation for luxury, I still only had economy cabins on board!
So I was back advertising adventure tours. At least, this time, I had an observation deck for the passengers to use while I checked the maps. But I was still a bit wary when a valet announced me that they had booked my ship and I should prepare to welcome His Highness Prince David French and his friends and servants on board!
I went all "but you know I only have economy cabins" and he said it was fine, that his Highness said cabins were just for sleeping anyway, that he would rather enjoy the view. And to my surprise, he was right. Prince David proved to be a very simple person, despite his rank, and very interested in the technicalities of space travel and exploration. I had to buy an extra interface for the system scanner for the observation deck, and spent a lot of the trip there with him helping me crosscheck maps.
And before you ask, yes, he was a charming man, at least I suppose someone into men would have thought it, but I've not changed my preferences. And if he had an ulterior motive for spending time with me, he didn't show it. Or he did and I missed it? I don't have your skills for reading people. Whatever it was, he didn't press the subject. It would just have been a rebound for this lady Cheryl Phillips he'd just broken up with anyway. I don't know who this lady Cheryl was, but he was apparently quite smitten. And I must admit her photographs look good. I don't know about her character though, I'm not sure a former lover is a good source. Although David (yes, I have his authorisation to drop the formalities) seemed quite reliable, but really reliable persons don't kiss and tell, do they?
--
Then I made a mistake that nearly made another failed tour: I set the cabins on fire! Let me explain.
Ships heat while running all their systems. And space might be cold, but the void is a surprisingly good isolation, so they have whole systems dedicated to radiating heat so we (and the ship's systems) don't cook inside. And as you can guess, radiating heat to the outside doesn't work as well when something, like a big star, is radiating heat on you.
Sophie runs quite warm, so I had taken the habit of giving stars a wide berth (apart when trying to fuel scoop). But Emilie runs remarkably cooler, and so I got overconfident. Like, that jump trajectory was passing close to the star, but it would barely have time to heat us a tiny little bit before we got into witch-space, wouldn't it? What I had forgotten, is that spooling up the FSD and transitionning into witch-space generate a lot of heat. And so, suddenly, while all this strange witch-space stuff is happening, I have a cockpit full of smoke, and failure warnings from half my systems. We get out of witch-space, right in front of another big star, and while I turn away as fast as I can, I can hear all the alarms going off, and Verity warning me about some overtemperature. I had guessed, thanks!
And so, I'm here, coughing my lungs out in a cockpit full of smoke (yes, my flight suit should have an automatic helmet deployment, I suppose I made a mistake and somehow disabled it during maintenance), barely seing my instruments while I try to do some damage control, a fire extinguisher in hand but not yet sure where to apply it, when the cockpit door opens, and Andrew, David's valet, tells me the passenger cabins are on fire! I had missed that alarm within all the failure warnings.
So now, I have to finish steering the ship to a safe place, coordinate their evacuation to the cockpit, because I don't know the state of observation deck, while the cockpit itself is still smoking, put the extinguisher in the hands of Andrew and tell him to touch nothing but discharge it if flames appear somewhere, and run back, helmet on this time, to do some manual damage control, given that the automatic extinguisher seems to have failed. David decides he cannot sit still while I take risks and joins me, except he has no helmet, he's in his pyjamas! So I try to order him back, but of course, he's not used to being bossed. That's when I dropped the formalities by the way. Going from "your Highness, this is dangerous, you're not equipped", to "David, I'm the commander, you haul ass back to the cockpit!" While we're arguing, I manage to put the automatic fire extinguisher back online and it drenches everything, including him.
So I end up with damaged passenger cabins, passengers in pyjamas and night gowns all coughing, and my main customer ill from smoke inhalation and drenched in a cold mix of water and liquid fire retardant. And let me tell you that shit stinks, in addition to being a nice bright orange and very sticky.
I'm relatively preserved, thanks to my flight suit. Of course, while I had chosen a nice white suit to play the tour hostess, along with a very proper make-up, tattoos invisible of course, I'm now a mess and the suit is grey splattered with orange. Still, the interior of the suit stays comfortable. But I'm afraid this tour is going to be another failure!
I install everybody on the observation deck, scrounge some zero-g sleeping bags from the hold and my room, and open my room showers for them to clean-up, and set route towards the nearest station. There, I pay them a medical check-up, hotel rooms, and new clothes, while I have Emilie cleaned and fixed.
And to my surprise, when Emilie is ready, they get back on board! Once clean, in a comfortable hotel suite with a brandy in hand, they just see what happened as a fun adventure! David is even more friendly with me now he has seen how professionnaly I managed the situation and how concerned I was for his safety. Of course, the situation was my fault to begin with, but I don't think it would be a good idea to remind him. At least not for now. Maybe later, if we keep contact enough. Or he has guessed and is diplomatic enough not to ask for confirmation? I know I'm bad at lying, so me not being proud of what had happened must have been visible?
--
And when I came back from that trip, beside being paid enough to outfit Emilie with a luxury cabin, I got a bonus for buying them the new clothes! And the company manager took me aside, and told me that if Emilie and I were up for it, she had some Navy courier work set aside. I did that run with Sophie, of course, she's easier to defend in, in case someone doesn't want that message to arrive, but we had no problem.
So, in the end, I now have a luxurious passenger ship, I am a recognized auxiliary of the Imperial navy, and I made a high ranking friend (yes, I, little Akiya, managed to make a friend all by myself! Maybe friend is a big word, let's say have someone who respects and remember me?) I still have to work out the correct level to contact and the best angle of approach for my business project, but I think I'm making good progress.
I hope everything is alright on your side, and I can find you safe the day I visit Seega Dock again.
Love,
Akiya
Business project, what a load of crap. Will they understand I'm talking about bying their freedom? Yes, they will, they're subtler than me, and it wouldn't surprise me for her boss to have access to her crypto keys, so lets keep it like that. But still. I want to tell them I miss them! I want to read a private answer! Even if it's just to tell me to just free them and f**k off! That one-sided communication is killing me! Whatever, nothing more I can do. Let's re-read that, and check I don't tell too much.
Okay? *deep breath* Sent! Hope I'm not making a mistake.
OOC: Thanks for reading to the end! For once, something directly inspired by my gameplay. Of course, I exagerated and romanticized a lot of what happened when I got to close to that star. In game, we barely lost a few percents of hull and assorted systems, and the passengers didn't even notice. But it was a fun story to write! Plus, I had rolled a full success on the bonding roll for Prince David, so I needed some excuse for he and Akiya to bond
And I needed some drama to get out of my system the "oh shit!" moment I had when I realised this jump was going badly but didn't dare cancel because it would have dumped us right back into a hot zone.As always, please don't hesitate to reach out with comments or to point my English or lore mistakes. I know English is not my native language, so I won't get mad. And I'm always eager for suggestions to augment my roleplay or give me new in-game objectives.
As always too, if your commander wants to meet Akiya in-game, don't hesitate to send her a friend/wing/group request! She should be flying on week-end nights, holiday nights and rainy days, and even occasionally on week nights, GMT+1, real-life permitting. You can contact her in Standard Galactic English or old pre-spacefaring French. (be warned, I do not sound like her at all on voice comms - overcharge your suspension of disbelief before you open a channel)