Chapter Nineteen - Accel

Something like twenty percent of all deaths aboard a spacecraft happened during acceleration burns.

The stress was, for the average person, horribly dangerous. It was why larger passenger craft tended to have much longer, slower acceleration burns.

The human body was evolved to endure all of one gravity. Anything above that, if sustained, meant that every bit of blood weighed twice as much. Cells were torn apart. Skin was stretched. Blood pooled in fatty tissues and in extremities. The entire digestive system took a nasty hit.

There was nothing good about a hard burn. Worse, a hard burn that lasted several hours would compound the issues. Then the burn would stop, and the body would go from being stressed by hard Gs to being stressed by no gravity at all.

The Held Together did its hard burn for just over two hours. Then the burn stopped and Ivil felt herself starting to float out of her seat's restraints.

"Oh, thank god," Twenty-Six muttered.

The ship turned. Ivil felt the entire vessel rotating around its centre of mass so that the 'top' was now in the direction they'd been travelling in.

Twenty-Six reached up, tapping a few buttons now that she could raise her arms without fighting gravity. "Hey, Captain, we doing a gravity burn?"

"Confirmed," the Captain said. "Point-one G, from the ventral ions."

"Got it," Twenty-Six said.

It only took a moment for Ivil to see what was happening. The Held Together was facing its top in their direction of travel. The ion thrusters on its belly lit up, pushing them along faster. The amount of thrust they generated was a pitance, barely enough to accelerate the ship at all, but they were energy efficient, and most could run for days on end.

The additional thrust pushing them 'up' had the effect of making everything in the ship drop 'down.' Every loose object that had started to float up came back down, but rather gently. "This is... about a tenth of a gravity?" Ivil asked.

"Yup," Twenty-Six said. She unbuckled herself, then sat on the edge of her seat. "It'll be enough to keep us accelerating, so we'll get there just a smidge sooner, at the cost of some noble gas. But that's cheap around Jupiter. And, we get acceleration-gravity!" She jumped off her seat. It took all of three seconds for her boots to touch the ground.

"I suppose that's a decent luxury," Ivil said. "Too bad the ship's not designed to use the main thrusters for this."

"Urgh, I know," Twenty-Six said. "I'm real envious of Martian ships, with all the thrust being 'down,' it must be nice flying at 1G the entire time."

"They don't," Ivil said. "The ships change acceleration all the time, to be as efficient as possible. It's actually kind of annoying."

"Huh," Twenty-Six said. She reached up to her chest, face contorting into something uncomfortable. "Hey, does hard burn make your breasts hurt too?"

Ivil blinked. "What?"

"Urgh, nevermind." Twenty-Six said as she shifted her shoulders and adjusted her stance. She eyed Ivil's chest for a moment, then shook her head.

Ivil glanced down at herself. She... had not considered that kind of issue in a while. "Just wear good support?" she tried.

"Urgh, you say that, but do you have any idea how shit the underwear you can buy on space stations are?" Twenty-Six said. She shook her head, then she walked over to one of the cubbies and started searching for something. She found an elastic band, and soon her hair was tied up in a ginger ponytail, away from her face.

"I suppose I haven't been so unfortunate as to have to deal with that," Ivil said.

"You're lucky," Twenty-Six said. "Small boobs are an evolutionary advantage in this day and age, I swear."

"Thank you," Ivil said flatly. Her uniform was designed to suggest... more than what she had. It was a public relations thing. Though really, she never much cared for that and just wore whatever. Her current outfit was a lot less flatteringly padded. "Well, whatever," she said. Ivil didn't do self-image issues.

"Yeah, it's not a big deal," Twenty-Six said. "Just annoying at the end of every burn, you know? Anyway... let's see what broke!"

Twenty-Six grabbed one of the screens and adjusted it so that she could read it properly from her standing position. She frowned, then sighed.

"One fuel line to engine three's acting weird. I think I heard a knock last time, but I was hoping it was my imagination." She tapped a few buttons, and a fuel consumption readout appeared. There was a small but consistent bumping in the line on the graph. "Yeah, that's not supposed to be there."

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"Is that an easy fix?" Ivil asked.

"Nope. Well... maybe. If it's just a seal then it's not that bad. Drain the line, open it up, replace the seal. Five, maybe six hours of work. If it's something less fun, then that'll be... more work. I think I have everything I need to check the seal. If it's not that, then we'll have to see once we're fully stopped."

"I'm impressed that you can do that much while we're underway."

"Oh, I'm really not supposed to. But we don't spend a lot of time in docks, so a lot of repairs need to be done on the road," she said with a shrug. Twenty-Six paused, then looked over to Ivil. She met her eyes for just a moment before glancing away. "Thanks, by the way."

"For what?"

"For listening. And staying here. I know you didn't have to. This kind of stuff isn't interesting for everyone."

"It's fine," Ivil said. "Like I said. It's interesting to me."

Twenty-Six smiled. It wasn't the smile Ivil had seen so much on her, the big almost goofy one. This was smaller, more private, somehow more genuine. "Well, thanks anyway. Maybe once we're around Callisto you can show me what your work's like? I'm not big on history, but I promise I'll listen!"

"I think I might like that," Ivil said. "But... I think I should head out, for now?" She had received a small ping. A message from Sonic Spectre, asking if Ivil had time to meet.

"Is... is that a pager?" Twenty-Six asked. Her previously rather cute expression had twisted into something like horror.

Ivil looked up from her pager. "Yes?"

"Why?" Twenty-Six asked.

"Because a normal communications device would let people call me. This is better."

Twenty-Six shook her head. "I mean... I guess."

Ivil got up from her seat. The light gravity made it easier to move around. It also made everything seem lighter. She felt strangely refreshed.

She gave Twenty-Six a wave, which she returned. Then Ivil left the engineering room. She had a meeting to get to. Sonic had spent the burn with the others. It might have been enough time for Ivil's involuntary wing woman to gather some news about the other... potentials.

Sonic Specter was already waiting in Ivil's room when she arrived. Her door slid shut, and the room's sound-proofing activated.

"Hello ma'am," Sonic said with a nod of her head. "I think I might have gotten something."

"Oh?" Ivil asked.

"I met with the... people you were interested in. I managed to strike up conversations, get a bit of small talk going. Nothing too obvious. I think I can tell what each of them is like. I'm not sure how well it'll help you, but if nothing else, maybe you can use this to decide between the three of them?"

"Four," Ivil said. "I spent the burn with Miss Twenty-Six. She's... kind. Cute, even."

Sonic nodded, and shifted within the confines of her deep red maid's dress. There was a faint mechanical clinking sound at the motion. "Miss Aurora is openly suspicious of me. Miss... Missy is also suspicious, but she's better at hiding it. Mister Hawk was not. He was rather friendly."

"Interesting," Ivil said. She settled herself onto the edge of her bed and leaned forward. "Please, go on."

Sonic cleared her throat. "Miss Aurora was very... focused on her own business. I tried to talk to her, and she didn't really respond. It may be difficult to engage with her in a romantic way. On the other hand, Missy was friendly enough, but she's rather...."

"What?"

"She's rather reserved. I didn't learn anything about her that I wouldn't have known from talking to her for the first time. Mister Hawk was just kind. He's a good conversationalist."

Ivil nodded along, then narrowed her eyes. "So, how will I determine which one is the right one?"

"What do you plan on doing once you've discovered that?" Sonic asked.

"Romance them to the best of my abilities, of course," Ivil said. "Their enemies will burn, their ambitions will flourish, and I will sweep them off their feet with passion the likes of which the solar system is not ready to see."

Sonic stared without speaking for some time. "Yes, I'm certain that will work. Now... on the matter of discovery. I think perhaps it would be best to arrange it so that a maximum amount of time passes with you interacting with each candidate. As much time as possible. Even beyond the initial proposed length of this mission."

"Do you think that would be best?" Ivil asked.

"Yes ma'am, I think that would be best for everyone."

***