22,000ly each way for love
12 Aug 2021Seamus Brand
"We need the enhancements and out there are the only people who can do them. It's getting scarier, the Federation is tearing itself apart and Patreus is just waiting for the opportunity to strike. I know these people, a big war is coming and we won't be safe unless we can build our ships better than they can. I'll only be gone a week." Connor had nodded like he understood and approved but he didn't. How could he? We were meant to take this trip together. When things had cooled off and the system was secure, we were finally going to finish that Anaconda and make the trip, neutron highway all the way. Together. Christ I felt like I was cheating on my husband. He was good though, he didn't agree but he knew my intentions were sound. We'd poured millions of hours and credits into our ships but we're defending against a superpower here, we can't beat them on resources or manpower. We have to be smarter, better, more ingenuity. That's why I had to go out there, find out how they tune up the boosters and the banks, hell even further range on our limpet controllers would help. We'd exhausted the help we could get in the Bubble, "the real freaks" as Felicity called them, "are a long way away."
I'd spoken to The Blaster and Lei and a few others, eventually I figured what I needed to bring with me. Took a trip out to a ring with Saoirse watching my back in the FDL. Burnt out 10 tonnes of osmium. Took the cutter on a stressful journey down to a surface, picked up 200 progenitor cells with Taidgh. Fuck did that set me back a fair few credits. We've been doing well financially with the bonds and the loops we can run on the Cutter these days but still, parting with that many credits knowing I'm taking the goods 22,000ly away felt...wrong. Brought everything back home, landed in the Mesa.
Connor had met me up on the flat top. We watched the sunset go down behind a waterfall a few km down river from the bottom of the mesa. This planet was beautiful and we needed to defend it. To defend its people. My people. We drank some wine from Achenar my brother had sent me. He said it was good. Normally I'd say that years as a federal marine and Imperial Privateer had ruined my taste for the finer things but fuck, if that wasn't the most delicious bottle my genius brother had ever grown on his estates.
Connor put his arm around me and his head on my shoulder and squeezed. I squeezed back. We ate dinner up there with the whole team. We'd thrown some raucous parties atop that mesa, the warm night and the stars making us thirsty for more Lavian Brandy or Achenar wine or whatever we had on hand. When we'd won a battle, secured the system, christened a new ship, brought in someone new. Hell the night we celebrated liberating our Carrier had given me a 48 hour hangover. Not tonight. Tonight we were solemn. I'd never been this far from home before, and they'd never been this far from me.
Booking passage on the carrier for three ships was easier than I'd expected. Taidgh had said we should take our own, that way we could all go. "If we all went", I told him, "there'd be nobody here to keep everyone safe." He hated feeling like he'd been left behind, youngest child syndrome, but he knew I was right. Captain of the chartered carrier was a nice bloke, called his ship "Racoon City" a reference to some thousand year old video game I'd never heard of. Given I was taking up three landing pads but only one berth, he gave me a nice ultra luxurious cabin he said he'd ripped out of his Beluga and jury-rigged into the Victory Class carrier he now called home. It was a nice place for one last goodbye kiss from Connor, one last hug till I got back. Three ships leaving meant four ships coming. I flew An Mícheál Ó Coileáin, my Corvette, held a special place in my heart. Saoirse took the Rinty, our Fer De Lance, and Taidgh brought the Cutter, An Anne Bonney, over for me. Connor, always dramatic, left the Mesa after us, wouldn't tell me in what. When I arrived in Panoi to see the carrier, I only see our fucking Conda sitting on top of her. Connor had secretly arranged for the FSD to be improved a lot sooner than anticipated just so he could beat me there.
After our goodbyes, I sat up on the bridge to watch them depart. The Conda still didn't have a name but she was going to need one if I was going to take it all the way to Sag A* one day with the love of my life as a co-pilot. I watched till the FSD engaged and they were gone, safely on their way back home to The Mesa. When I got back from Colonia, with the tools I needed to protect them, I was naming that ship the same way I'd named every other: what it meant to me in Irish Gaelic.
The crew and the captain started moving a bit faster as I watched the landing pads retract beneath the hull. Blast doors started to come down over the bridge window. I looked out towards where my family had just jumped away, just jumped towards home and spoke, like they could hear me.
"I love you An Teaghlach. I'll be back in a week."