Another Day, Another Credit Part One.
02 Dec 2024Borderreiver
The time was some ungodly hour, that much I was sure of and was quickly confirmed. In my cabin aboard my Fleet Carrier the strident note breaking through the low vibrations and the soft hiss of the great machine told me that it was an internal comms call from the flight deck. "Acccept, audio only" since why inflict the vision of their bleary-eyed just woken Captain?"Good morning Captain, Blair here, it is 03:00 local."
"Go ahead flight, what do you have to tell me?"
"An imperial courier just docked from the Pilot's Fed with a message for you."
"Personal or Ops?"
"Ops, it is eyes only and the Courier does not need to wait for a reply, she said your subsequent action or inaction is the only reply which counts."
"Okay, put it on the secure link to my ready room, I will be there in a minute or two."
Since you never know what an Opscomm will bring to your door, I stepped in to the head, did the necessary and splashed some cold water on my face. After that I stepped in to my flight suit, did a quick breat check since it was curry night in the mess last night and stepped out in to the alleyway.
This took the guard by the door by surprise so I offered a quick good morning and told them to stand down for an early break.
The elevator took me to the flight deck and I left the flight deck crew to their duties while I stepped in to the ready room, darkened all the external viewports and implemented the near field suppression.
I grabbed a coffee from the wall dispenser, hot, black and unsweetened, what I recall a Brazilian colleague from the flight training programme calling "real coffee".
Then, to the desk, into the soft embrace of the chair and opened the comms panel.
Within a second the hologram of the verification AI appeared and I entered my ID, which opened the eyes-only message intital screen. Accepting the onerous terms that I was aware of the penalties for sharing, or even opening an eyes-only message if not the intended recipient deayed the start by a couple of seconds.
"Captain, message commences. We are activating the Federal Navy reserve list for your seniority group due to a Thargoid situation in SOL. You are to make a priority commitment with immediate effect to provide a maximum ranged uplift capacity, be it passenger evac, medevac or hybrid. Combat loadout is not required for you at this time. We expect you to commence ops in SOL within the hour of receipt of this message. Your arrival at a SOL station will be analysed against the logged delivery time of the courier, a calculated elapsed time and the transit time from your flight log. Any delay will render you subject to disciplinary proceedings and sanctions by command. Message concludes.
No time to waste then. I activated the comms link to the flight deck.
"Blair."
"Captain, I anticipated that you'd want Buford so he is here waiting on the flight deck."
"Thanks, send him right in."
The door opened and my crewman Buford stepped in.
"Good morning Captain, if we can call it that."
"I guess we can, but enough small talk, when will the Pax Type-8 be ready to go, we need to get to SOL just as quick as we can."
"She will be configured for a max economy loadout within the next couple of minutes, what variations are required?"
I reflected for a moment.
"Make sure she has an FSD Booster, size 5 if possible and outfit a size 4 scoop."
"Copy, which will give her a lift of 112 and whatever range we need. Where will we go from SOL?"
"Wherever the hell Command tell us to go, which is all I know right now."
"We are one jump out from SOl with the booster, when do we take off?"
"As soon as preflights are done. I will see you at the ship in around two minutes. Dismissed"