Promotion
24 Apr 2018Gosht
LOCATION: StarbuoyZONE: Imperial Stateroom
TIME: 106 Cycle:
07:28 S.O.T. [Standard Orbital Time]
She woke alone, dizzy from sex and drugging; a kicked-in-the-head feeling. The orange com-screen flashed in her face. Dir had left without waking her. She showered and shook off most of the disorientation. Spraying herself into the magenta tight suit, the newly soldered Nav-Captain insignia on her left breast gave her a nano of solid thrill. Not many held this joint rank. She packed fast, nearly forgetting to retrieve Abraaxis's disc from the holo-player in the rush to see the ship. Resealing her transfer kit, she gave the chamber one more look. Commanding the chamber door to iris, she exited the luxurious compartment for the last time. Entering the brightly lit corridor, she took the conveniently placed personnel elevator down to Black Sector reception where she got snappy acknowledgement from two E.S.S. troopers. A single purpose transportation vector with a greyling driver had been issued.
She was brass.
She boarded the open sided wheeled vector at a jump. Not inclined to conversation, she returned the Greyling's salute then sat back while it skilfully negotiated the horde in the crowded transportation corridors. It eventually deposited her somewhere signposted as, 'Junction of 'Y Axis and Beta Arm'. Disembarking, she took the Greyling's farewell salute and headed directly towards the grav-slide for Beta Arm, like she'd been ordered. The greyling returned the way it had come.
The foot traffic in Beta Arm's transportation corridor was dense. She reckoned the horde comprised of more than fifty percent military personnel. Even though she attracted some obvious stares, she avoided all attempts at eye contact. A short corridor walk brought her to a small queue at the vertical core's security check. Those in front of her were processed without incident. Without exception they were all scanned before being given permission to proceed to grav-slide access on the other side of security. When her turn came she showed the armored trooper the securi-chip she'd been issued with. The trooper immediately hovered and lifted an arm in respect then just waved her through, not asking for a retinal scan like he'd done of the others in the queue.
"Proceed, Captain Rubek. Your slide is the one at the end marked - 'No Access'".
She saluted, tried not to grin, "Thanks trooper".
"No problem, Captain", he replied in a manner that was crisp and indicated respect.
The grav-slide's doors parted. Conscious of stares from a group of diminutive green skinned humanoid civilians, she stepped onto the floor plate of the shaft. Thankfully, the doors closed immediately, leaving their stares behind. According to her directive from Command, the shaft would take her down to the security bay where INFILTRATOR-1 was docked. Suspended over clicks of space, she dialed :Level 392: on the panel grafted to the smooth cylindrical wall of the shaft. The air shuddered, grid-floor dropping away from beneath her as the shaft's gravity drive allowed a controlled free fall. The drop made her head spin but the floor eventually braked to a smooth stop with no zero-g collision. Parting, the slide's curved wall showed her the inside of a docking bay. Hitching her kit, she stepped out into strip lights and a low gravity environment. Behind the foggy transparent material of the large viewpoint, her ship hung in the vacuum. She noted its umbilicals were striated according function but that the sigil of the Empire was conspicuously absent. Instead, the letters INF-1 had been thermally stenciled on her hull.
INFILTRATOR-1 was more impressive in real time than in the holo, its silvered shape simultaneously pleasing and malevolent to her eye. She reckoned it was the ultimate in Merkabian starship design. Trying not to appear rushed, she left the viewing platform and headed across the domed space towards personnel access behind a security force field at the far side of the chamber. There were no walkways on the dock, just a cargo strip. By the time she reached security check her suit's enviro module was doing overtime. In a sweat, she ditched the kit and scratched for her security chip. The armoured trooper accepted it at a look. He saluted.
“Security is only allowing access through the tube Captain, no shuttle or gantry access allowed. I’m sorry, it’s a fair climb, Captain but my orders were specific”.
He seemed genuinely apologetic; he’d obviously been briefed. No reason to confirm that climbing the zero-g tube was hard duty. Being Captain wasn't everyone's idea of spacer heaven.
"No problem trooper".
"Thank you. Please go ahead Captain".
The force field flickered as he shut it down to let her through. Behind the field, the chamber was relatively small and there was only one exit, a zero-g airlock door with manual controls. She paused to brush her boot's gravity strips on the special piece of flooring at its entrance. A wall mounted sign flashed 'Three Safe Cycles' at her. Obviously there'd been a fatal accident here recently. She wondered what had happened, double checked her suit's seals for good measure, then sharply shrugged her shoulders to activate the vacuum shield. A slight hiss as it encased her head, completely sealing her environment. The suit was recent issue and would keep her alive for a cycle in deep space. Only issued to Execs and key personnel on the Drak, she was pleased she'd been allowed to keep it.
When the lock was correctly cycled, the suit's comp flashed: READY: in forward vision. The tongue pad extending from the lip of the seal offered her manual override control. On the other side of the lock was the tube. Boarding a first command through the emergency personnel access had a nice ring to it but didn't stop her worrying if the recent accident had been the result of a tube breach, and it was a long upward crawl to the ship. She swiped her gloved hand over the panel. The heavy door unsealed itself with an audible hiss that spoke of high pressure somewhere in the system. "Audio down", she told the suit before any other noises could spook her then stepped into the zero-g of the lock.
Infiltrator would be worth it.
Boots grip-locked to the floor, she swiped the lock's console and sealed herself in. Dialling the console for vacuum, she got blue light and the hiss of escaping air. After a moment's hesitation, the opposing lock doors opened, showing her the curling insides of the tube. When both comp and airlock's display assured her that the environment was stable, she began the crawl. Crossing the airlock, she entered the tube and resealed the lock door behind her. The narrow twisted environment swayed unsteadily. Holding onto handholds crafted to the insides of the tube, she started her way up the narrow zero-g inside of the emergency umbilical. The tube undulated around her, boots gripping and releasing the flooring as she walked. Focusing on the tube's rhythm, she tried to get in harmony with its movements, felt it steady as her step gained confidence and momentum. The transparent fabric offered her a misty view of the wedge shaped ship above. Its contours were unusual for a parsec runner.
Besides its oddly wedged shape, Infiltrator’s most notable external feature was the large spherical device mounted beneath its nose. The holo-disc had it logged as the primary snooper. The rear of the ship carried extra reactor pods, some stuff she couldn't identify. She recognized several standard weapon pod systems. Ion cannon. Plasma projector. Missile launcher. But the bubble mounted antenna and other anonymous wire scattered at various places on hull were incomprehensible to her and hadn't been covered by the holo-disc. The directive from Abraaxis had stated that the snooper system was ‘need-to-know’ and only Dir’s territory. Upwards and aft, she made out the feed coils of the ship's gravity flux chillers, their attendant thermal converters clustered outward towards the centre of the hull. The flux chillers were dwarfed by the ram scoop ingester, which ran underneath the ship from behind the nose. From the holo-disc she knew that there was another ingester on the farside of the ship. The twin ram scoop turbines would give them an edge over any sub-light traffic. Dir had said the ship was class. He wasn't wrong.
(adapted from "Return of the White Lady" - © Michael Kawitzky A.K.A. Schwann - Cmndr Gosht - 1994-2018)