Get Your Kicks...
19 Apr 2022Aurora Bael
Aurora Bael resuming logbook duties like a good soldier...Heh... A good soldier... That's funny.
For what it's worth, Director Warren saw right through me. I am, admittedly, not at my best, but I didn't think my focus had slipped that much. I don't know if he has Intel experience or if it's just "Once a drama kid, always a drama kid" like he said. He does a spot-on Zachary Hudson impression, though. I'll say that. But the fact I got made so hard really bothered me. I used to be the one to get into places, that could hide in plain sight, that could break any lock, disable any security, and vanish any record we ever existed. It's why so few people even know the name "Foxtrot Company". Now old men are seeing me coming from a mile away and laughing at the idea of a successful infiltration. And I can't even tell if it's because I've gone soft or because I'm so worn from holding up the face this long or...
... I just spent the last hour throwing up for trying to finish a sentence. In private. To my own damn journal. THIS is sickening to type. Whoever did this to me isn't going to live to feel regret.
After Chilton, Mal and I made it back to the Gambit and set out for Colonia fast as you fucking please. But even with a 70ly jump range, it was clear that we weren't going to beat the carriers there. Hell, if Flemmon was going to be there for any less than three weeks, we might not make it to her at all. The fact that I had another sudden bout of amnesia and spent a whole day chasing life forms while Barrett slept for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long did not help. Night five, we were only 6000 ly from Sol, 16k to go, when lightning struck my brain. The highway. The Colonia Corridor. It isn't done being constructed yet, but the real "infrastructure" — the neutron stars that make it possible — already exist. So I pulled up a chart of the corridor and set to work manually plotting and recording a route.
Mal rolled into the Asp's lower jump-seat just as I was aiming for my first ever jet cone. For some reason he thought it was a good idea to climb the ladder up to me and try to break my concentration. "Chieeeeef... What are you doing?"
"Taking a short cut."
"Okay, Aurora? Listen to me. You are not in a state to jump a neutron star. You are barely fit to fly. That jet cone is going to toss us hard. If we hit the neutron's exclusion zone, we are cooked. I know you want to get there fast but —"
"You better strap in."
"You— What?!"
"I said strap your narrow ass into the Co-Pilot's seat or get the fuck off my bridge."
I heard him cursing as he threw himself back down the ladder and wrestled himself into the chair in the microgravity of our flight deck. "If we die, I am going to scream 'I told you so' in your ear for all eternity!"
"Fat fucking chance, I'm already dead!" As soon as his seat turned green on my hud, I pushed the throttle forward and leaned into the cone. Warnings flashed all over the display. I lost attitude control. Every adjustment I tried to make was met with a counter-adjustment from the sheer force of the plasma screaming across our outter hull. I never understood the term "dead stick" so well in my life. To make matters worse, the intensely energetic plasma and gamma rays spun the ship completely about and nosed us straight toward the body of the neutron star. Half a light second away. A third. A fifth. Mal was screaming and my knuckles split and bled as I did everything I could to orient myself away from the roiling maw of radioactive death before me. At a tenth of a light second out, I cut the throttle and suddenly the world went quiet.
Suddenly the movement was gentle. Calm. Reassuring. Without the slightest resistance we floated outward along a smoothly spinning path, away from the enormous atomified stellar core and out into calm space.
"FRAME SHIFT DRIVE SUPERCHARGED" Verity said in her delightful quasi-imperial monotone. I heard Mal below finally let out a long, relieved sigh as he pulled up a face-to-face monitor.
"Okay, what'd we learn?" He said, brow furrowed in angry concern.
I smiled at him and charged for a jump. "We learned how to do it again."
Two days later, we made Starfall in Colonia. I turned in my data, making sure to archive copies for myself, and made allies out of the local governing faction instantly for sharing no less than five newly discovered systems from below the main highway route. I haven't felt that good about a big payday in a while. But now that we're here, it's game-face time.
How do I track someone I know so little about? I'll have to check out her public logs, make sure I understand the woman behind so many humiliated, defeated meat-pies. Maybe then I'll have a better idea.
Fly Dangerous, Commanders.
-AAB