shadows
these shadows we hold so dear
Writer's
1,000 wds.
11:00 AM Wed. 12/13/06
begining of a story.. posting as it might end up cut as it's already at 600 words
She had gone up in a puff, the M-wave had cut a line down the belly of the scout hitting it's fuel; making the craft another cloud of space junk. We could only hope it hadn't had time to transmit a signal back to mama for support. We cranked it to .75 of full thrust and headed toward the rocks.
Speeding out of the inner system and into the A-belt, we inserted M'Ry-ah into a trajectory and put her into automatic for landing into the base. It had to be on auto as running without lights on the dark side of an asteroid made manual navigation impossible. So we plodded along at some minute fraction of C; insulting her engines, the computer making adjustments that lurched our craft away from chunks that we would have never seen or collided with; as it brought us in.
We were running silent now; Rick and I at the controls and Martinez and Chapman back with what passed as engineering and damage control, not that there was much room to do either in this bucket.
The sudden shifts in the weightlessness did enough to counter the effects of the Dramamine, but on this occasion we avoided making a mess. All we could do is monitor the radar and keep the weapons ready if the bugs managed to find us. It's hardly a time to relax in this tin can - we need to get this load there in one piece; and if the bugs spot us it could put the whole base in jeopardy.
"Any on your scope Rick?" I asked.
"Clear over here. No trace of heat. You?"
"Clear. Looks like engine 3 needs tweaking. It's still flaring. She's compensating for the twist but that's why my stomach isn’t happy."
Ah space. I wondered to myself if we'd ever see gravity again; like I always do on this approach. The sluggish pace always strains my patience. Hiding the base in the A-belt was a necessary thing to do - you can't fit much fuel on most of the courier ships if you want any stealth and speed out of them; and if we left it easy to access; we'd have another Jabberwocky crisis.
Who had named an asteroid that anyways?
"Discrepancy logged. The ants can fix it when we get in."
I briefly contemplated why we called the Aliens bugs, and our Techs - Ants, the similarities in how they swarmed and took care of "business" as I stared at the various screens showing what was out there in the darkness. That brought me to thoughts of our engineer and wondering how she was fairing in the bowels of our craft.
It still took a half hour for M'Ry-ah to get us to the airlock, and another 20 minutes for the dock to close the doors and pressurize the bay; but it beats having to suit up to come in. The ants were in the bay on the green light, poking and prodding our ship down and tethering her to the deck before we popped the hatch and we climbed down. A moment later the cargo bay door clanged and whirred as it opened and lowered the load to the floor of the bay. Chapman was already floating there.
"Nice flying Cap. We have a few new scars but nothing that cant be fixed here."
She was being nice of course, the damage wasn't critical but I knew she had to Scotty the batteries at one point. The scout we had encountered had hit with a lucky shot.
"Thanks kid, You did good back there. " an inside joke, as she was older than I was; and a great tech. I couldn't help notice the curves of her face, and that look in her eyes, that haunted look I couldn't figure out.
She leaned into me (the best she could in the fractional gravity) and sighed before she headed to the inerior of the base for our debriefing.
Writer's
1,000 wds.
11:00 AM Wed. 12/13/06
begining of a story.. posting as it might end up cut as it's already at 600 words
She had gone up in a puff, the M-wave had cut a line down the belly of the scout hitting it's fuel; making the craft another cloud of space junk. We could only hope it hadn't had time to transmit a signal back to mama for support. We cranked it to .75 of full thrust and headed toward the rocks.
Speeding out of the inner system and into the A-belt, we inserted M'Ry-ah into a trajectory and put her into automatic for landing into the base. It had to be on auto as running without lights on the dark side of an asteroid made manual navigation impossible. So we plodded along at some minute fraction of C; insulting her engines, the computer making adjustments that lurched our craft away from chunks that we would have never seen or collided with; as it brought us in.
We were running silent now; Rick and I at the controls and Martinez and Chapman back with what passed as engineering and damage control, not that there was much room to do either in this bucket.
The sudden shifts in the weightlessness did enough to counter the effects of the Dramamine, but on this occasion we avoided making a mess. All we could do is monitor the radar and keep the weapons ready if the bugs managed to find us. It's hardly a time to relax in this tin can - we need to get this load there in one piece; and if the bugs spot us it could put the whole base in jeopardy.
"Any on your scope Rick?" I asked.
"Clear over here. No trace of heat. You?"
"Clear. Looks like engine 3 needs tweaking. It's still flaring. She's compensating for the twist but that's why my stomach isn’t happy."
Ah space. I wondered to myself if we'd ever see gravity again; like I always do on this approach. The sluggish pace always strains my patience. Hiding the base in the A-belt was a necessary thing to do - you can't fit much fuel on most of the courier ships if you want any stealth and speed out of them; and if we left it easy to access; we'd have another Jabberwocky crisis.
Who had named an asteroid that anyways?
"Discrepancy logged. The ants can fix it when we get in."
I briefly contemplated why we called the Aliens bugs, and our Techs - Ants, the similarities in how they swarmed and took care of "business" as I stared at the various screens showing what was out there in the darkness. That brought me to thoughts of our engineer and wondering how she was fairing in the bowels of our craft.
It still took a half hour for M'Ry-ah to get us to the airlock, and another 20 minutes for the dock to close the doors and pressurize the bay; but it beats having to suit up to come in. The ants were in the bay on the green light, poking and prodding our ship down and tethering her to the deck before we popped the hatch and we climbed down. A moment later the cargo bay door clanged and whirred as it opened and lowered the load to the floor of the bay. Chapman was already floating there.
"Nice flying Cap. We have a few new scars but nothing that cant be fixed here."
She was being nice of course, the damage wasn't critical but I knew she had to Scotty the batteries at one point. The scout we had encountered had hit with a lucky shot.
"Thanks kid, You did good back there. " an inside joke, as she was older than I was; and a great tech. I couldn't help notice the curves of her face, and that look in her eyes, that haunted look I couldn't figure out.
She leaned into me (the best she could in the fractional gravity) and sighed before she headed to the inerior of the base for our debriefing.