New Beginings
09 Nov 2015Michael Darkmoor
25 May, 3301Having been born and raised in the LHS-3447 system on a medium-sized frontier agricultural planet, one might think that “space faring” was the last thing a young man with his whole life ahead of him would do. That is unless that young man had a pilot for a father and was an avid reader of anything “Not of This World”. I have seen some of the wonders that my father and others brought here from far afield, but they were only things. "Where did they come from?", I always wondered. The galaxy is huge. What else could be out there? New challenges, new friends, new cultures, Aliens and their artifacts or even places and things that no one else has ever seen before. It was the year I turned 14 that my father was reported missing. All they would say was that he was on a survey mission some distance spin-ward toward the core and that he had missed several scheduled check-ins. There was no ship's transponder signal to locate or SOS from some makeshift transmitter to track down... he was just gone. Things changed for me then... how could they not?
When I turned 16, I went to the local spacing guild, applied for an apprenticeship and was accepted as a crewman on a Lakkon 6 cargo ship by the name of “Sequester”. My mum cried for a few days while I prepared to go, but she told me how proud she was of me and how much I reminded her of my father.
Reporting aboard the Sequester, I learned all that Commander Corrigan and his crew could teach me about the Frame Shift Drive, reaction engines, life-support, power distribution, shields, and even the ship’s limited defensive weaponry. Most of these lesson happened in the wardroom under the tutelage of the ships First Officer (another Commander by the name of William Ravel) , but there were practical experiences as well. Those real-world things included the basics of the stellar economy, ship repair, politics, and of course, pirates.
In the five years I crewed for the Sequester, I became a Journeyman and even began to get a small share of the profits. It was enough to live on, barely, but life trading among the dozen or so systems in the local star cluster had its own kind of serenity.
It was on my 21st birthday when I received notification that I now, unexpectedly, had my own ship. That was the 25th of May, 3301. The Mysterious Benefactor’s only note to me said, “You have potential, consider this an opportunity to develop it and a test of things to come.”
The ship itself wasn’t much more than enough to move around the (LHS-3447) system, and barely at that. A little Sidewinder… Four cargo slots, basic FSD, engine and life support as well as the cheapest multi-purpose package available.
To celebrate, I used some of my earnings to treat my mother to a short trip up to the local station, Dalton Gateway. Whatever she wanted, I ended up pulling out the credits. We had done this a couple of times before, so when we made the turn toward the Hangar, it might have just seemed that we were on our way back planet-side. She seemed happy to be spending time together as well as with the trolley of off-world treasures I toted. When we arrived at bay 4, I went up to the pressure door to begin punching in the access code.
"What are you doing?", she asked. "I thought we were heading to the shuttle in bay 8. That's the next one over, isn't it?"
As I finished inputting the code, the door clicked, gave off a "hiss" as it equalized and proceeded to open slowly. "It's just a quick stop, mom. I have something to show you."
As we stepped into the hangar, I pointed toward the Sidewinder and said, "This is my new ship, mom!"
I heard the sharp intake of breath and turned, fully expecting to see a look of genuine astonishment. Instead, what I found waiting for me were the twin beam lasers of motherly ire. Her sharp voice cut through my confused mind, shredding all my good intentions, leaving only the pain of memory.
"That is exactly how your father started." She said, coldly, then spun around to walk briskly out of the bay.
No more was said about it on the trip back down to the surface. Even though we sat side by side, I could feel the distance between us growing. In some ways, I even understood that it had to be like this.
As we finished putting away everything I bought for her and I got ready to depart, she shared this last bit of motherly advice. "Michael, there were things your father was involved in that... I didn't even want to know about. I don't want to know what you do out there either. But if you find him.... bring him back."
She gave me a long hug, and, as I saw the few tears trickle down her cheek, lead me out the door of my childhood home.
Perhaps, for the last time.
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The trip back to Dalton Gateway seemed to take a little longer than usual. Or, more likely, there was just much more on my mind to think about this time around.
Arriving back at Bay 4, it was time to check out this new... well, not so new actually... ship and get her space worthy.
The control board was a mess. In trying to figure out what button or control did what, I inadvertently activated the “boost” command… You can imagine my surprise as high pressure flames burst from the exhausts and plastered the hangar wall behind the ship. It set the old paint and grease stains on fire for a bit. While the station alarms began to blare, the Hangar Chief, spouting a long line of non-repeating obscenities, directed his crew in putting out the hot spots.
As messy as it was, at least the ship was still hard-docked when it happened. I had to pay a small fine and clean up the black streaks left behind on the hangar walls. If that had happened trying to enter or leave the station, it would have been disastrous. Even if running into the side of a station didn’t hurt the ship enough to rupture it or flatten me like a pancake on an internal bulkhead, it’s likely that the automated defenses would have kicked in and shot my new acquisition to hell and back.
All I could think about was, “Who in their right mind puts finesse controls, like thrusters, right next to the high powered ones, like Boost or Throttle. Finesse controls just have to be separated, especially when it comes to manual docking”
It took me the better part of 2 days to re-wire, work out all the bugs and settle on a control configuration that offered the best in both safety and utility. I also repaired and configured a by-pass for the boost circuitry if the landing gear or scoop were deployed.
It did eventually dawn on me that specialized control configurations tend to prevent just anyone from flying off with your property. The fact that the previous owner might not have wanted the culprit to survive was my first real glimpse as to the menacing brutality awaiting me out there in the greater galaxy.