Personal Log, 21 October 3303
25 Oct 2017User78245
I've finally been cleared to fly again. They can find nothing wrong with me. Psychological interviews, brain scans, toxicology tests, all of them turned up nominal. I just had some weird episode. I see they reported it in my service record though. That'll be a hurdle to overcome, any potential client that cares enough to look in my record will see that and might have second thoughts. I may have to try and fiddle with that later. Potential silver lining though: if the ADF tries to recall me, they'll see I was once certified crazy by Mic Turner Base. They won't like that.I was thinking about Campos today. Or maybe I have been for awhile and never noticed, if I spent a full shift and a half hallucinating about her. I remember this mission we flew together, about 14 months ago. I remember it clearly because she was pissed at me by the end of it.
We were two Asp Mk II's from the 351st (Valkyrie Dash 1 and Dash 2), an Anaconda from the Dagr Space Navy (the Abigail Cage, the pride of the locals' meager fleet), and a two Taipan detachment from the Dagr Marines. We were practicing long distance combat operations with the locals, for whenever the Alliance needs to pull together its adhoc navy. Antique surface navies called it "blue water ops". The ranking FTS officer present is always the one in command, and that was Campos since she was a Frigate Lieutenant. The other three of us spread out in the Asps were Corvette Lieutenants, one rank below (sometimes called a "jig" ). She was manning my copilot seat. Even though she never wanted to serve more than the minimum of her time, she was more of a capable officer than she let on.
We got a call that there was an ADF Type-7 codenamed Longhorn coming in from Colonia bringing in a very important and highly classified cargo. Colonia was still a relatively new thing back then, so who knows what they found out there that the ADF wanted. Command lost contact with the ship two hours before contacting us, but its rescue beacon was going off in a system 500 light years from our position in the direction of the core. We were to head there with all haste, then help facilitate repairs and escort it in, or transfer its cargo to our ships and bring it in ourselves to orbit above Lave 2 and await further instructions.
I didn't know how they expected us to do this. First, the Abigail Cage's jump range was horrendous, and we were all fitted out for combat, not long distance travel, so "haste" wasn't on the table. It was going to take some time getting there, just like it took time to get where we were now. None of us knew how they expected us to help with repairs. The Anaconda had an AFMU, but we didn't have the equipment or expertise to pull off a module swap over to Longhorn. Also, if Longhorn really was carrying 256 tons of cargo, we didn't have enough room amongst our three ships to safely carry it. Campos made the call early on to dump the fighters to save on weight. We'd probably need the SRVs to transfer cargo though. The Dagr crew was pissed as they should've been, but Campos sent a message to Command to see about transferring two of our own Taipans to them once we got home as recompense. We'd figure the rest out when we got there.
We eventually made it, but the days ran together so I can't remember how long. Pilots and co-pilots swapped between sleeping and sitting in the hot seat, pulling 16 hour shifts. We were all hopped up on stims. Tempers ran hot. It was a nightmare.
We found Longhorn right where we expected. It was scooping from neutron stars to get home faster, but it screwed up it's final push. It looked like the pilot panicked, tried to land on the nearest planet to reconnoiter, and nosedived into it instead. The pilot was dead when we got there, and the co-pilot was barely holding on. We put him on a bench in the Cage's troop compartment with the two Marines and surveyed the situation. There was no way we were going to get that Type-7 into the air, so we were going to have to take the cargo ourselves.
The cargo transfer went relatively smoothly with four SRVs. When we ran out of room in the cargo holds, we started stuffing canisters into the Cage's fighter hangar and tying them down with spare cargo straps. When we ran out of room in there, we opened the canisters and started stuffing the metal boxes inside where ever else they could fit. Inside the troop compartment, stacked up in the ships' passageways, whatever worked. One of the jigs from Dash 2 started spazzing about security of classified material, but Campos shut him up with a glare. We were long past regulations at this point, and it's not like we could open the boxes anyway. They were sealed shut with a code we didn't have. When we were done, Campos called for a meeting on the Cage's bridge to plan our return home.
"First off, we're dumping the SRVs. That'll give us a bit more jump range."
The Ship's Master from the Anaconda turned bright red at that. "Hold on just a damn-".
"Alliance headquarters will reimburse you for both the lost SRVs and the Taipans, I've already alerted my superiors," Campos said. "Also, we're hitching a ride from the neutron star. That'll get us home quicker, and I think we all have the necessary experience to pull this off safely. Does anybody have any concerns?"
All the other pilots had done a real life neutron star boost at least once, but I'd only done it in a simulator. "Yeah, I really don't think I can handle that."
"Bryn, you've done it ten times in the simulator and passed with flying colors each time. You can do this."
"No, I really-"
"Lieutenant, you're doing it. We don't get many live situations like this and you need to be at the controls for the experience. I'll be monitoring you the entire time." She rarely switched into full on command mode at me in front of people. The strain was getting to all of us. "Is there anything else? Then let's be about it."
The Abigail Cage and Dash 2 scooped with no incident and held station waiting for us. "Alright Bryn, approach at 90 degrees from the jet. End of the jet above you. Good. Ease the throttle down and pull back on the stick as you go in. You're going to want to hang on, it's about to get wacky."
Alarms started going off. FSD out of safety limits. The prox alarm. Gear down indicator? The ship started bucking. What if I lost the cargo? The ship? What if I killed us both? I'm 700 light years from home. What if? What if what if what if...
"BRYN!"
"I can't do this."
"Yes you can!"
"No-"
"Take the stick and move us into the jet!"
"I-"
"Now!"
"-"
"Log: Dash 1 control switched to co-pilot."
She moved control back to me once she scooped the neutron star, and spoke not a single word to me that wasn't directly involved with operating the ship the rest of the way back. We made it to Lave with no further incident and transferred the cargo, whatever it was, to another Type-7 waiting at Castellan Station. They didn't want us anywhere near Lave 2. And the Nobles of Dagr were livid that we took their flagship on a thousand light year joyride without telling them first.
Campos took a week to finally calm down enough to speak to me again. That was the last mission we ever flew together.