Penny and Ken were doing most of the work on priming the systems of the Sagan by following an outdated manual of the prototype Sagan Melorian I and using their own experience when there was a deviation. It was the first time she saw a ship being started up. She took notes but soon was forced to scribbling bullet points to keep up. She hoped she could make sense of those later as her writing in the thinsuit, extra flexible spacesuits for repairs, was still very different for normal writing. They had their helmets on while the life support was not initialised and the airlock was already slowly being evacuated.
Penny winced and complained when there was again something essential missing or marked broken in the startup checklist. Which happened almost constantly. In Penny's eyes, they were in for a suicide mission: The Sagan had just a single fusion core which seemed in working order but had been only tested to 12 %. Which was not even enough power to continuously keep a single coil burning and sustain acceleration with at least one of the three plasma torches. And the single remaining coil was down to 41 % and only two of the three main plasma torches were working. The backup energy storage with its ancient cells was not enough to start the fusion core should it shut down. And even a third of the navigation thrusters were offline. It was clear to her even without Penny's complaining that the Sagan would not do any serious space travel in its current state. But compared to the other wrecks she had looked at in the shipyard so far, the Sagan was still in better shape already with a barely working fusion core. She might do a short hop close to the station even in her current state.
The switched on the life support as soon as there had been enough oxygen in the tanks. It hovered at the first orange warning level. The hull was indeed space-worthy. But the filters of the live support were expired and gave off a horrible mouldy smell, so everyone put on again their helmets and used the suits in filter mode. And with them three in the cockpit the inside temperature rose, exacerbated further by the heat from the cooling systems of their thinsuits. And the AC was offline while the main cooling system was in the superconductor pre-cooling mode.
The fusion core had passed all tests for a start that they could do with the superconductors above critical. All other essential subsystems either successfully initialised or ultimately failed. The superconductor cooling system was working and its temperature slowly moved towards the critical jump temperature. It would still take 3000 or so until all of the superconductors would be below and the vacuum in the fusion core would be clean enough. At which point the Sagan would be entering the state of cold docking standby. But they did not want to wait for this.
It was already close to midnight, 9764 to be exact. For tonight, their work was finished. They floated up through the UDA, removed their thinsuits, did a very quick wiping and headed straight for the 'Blended Followers', sweaty and tired. When there were some enthusiastic noises from a group of drunken cats, she realized that they were leading a human male to a restaurant. And not in fancy clothes but with sweaty ruffled fur and dirty workwear, so stinky that she could barely smell Ken. The drunkards probably imagined cosplay action. She chuckled as well, that had been really an unusual day.
At the 'Blended Followers", there were only two tables left with guests. The bartender took their order and probably just heated up some leftovers. They were too hungry to care.
Just when their dinner came, a message arrived at her pad. "Okay, we have a test slot from tomorrow 2500 to 3500 in the reception jump window. Oh"
"Any problem?" Penny asked, "I thought that nothing is scheduled for tomorrow morning at all."
"Just the slot's station tax is 480. I will be broke after all this."
"You can still cancel. Then the rescue teams can sleep a little longer."
"Thank you for your confidence, Penny", Ken said.
"Have you ever jumped in the Sagan?", she interjected. Otherwise, they would bicker on as they had before in the Sagan.
"Some time ago, once, when there was not even life support", said Ken. "I wanted to restore her myself and had a bet running. But lacking a real shipyard and less and less time due to family, I finally concluded that this job was too big for me. My wife will be happy when the Sagan is gone. And soon, I must pay tuition for my oldest. So, I packed the Sagan with the rest and came here. Because, honestly, all my connections at home only wanted to sell her for spares." He smiled at her. "I am very happy that you want to fly her."
“They were older and wiser”, murmured Penny.
She ignored this and smiled back at Ken. "Did you name her?"
"Yes, but not officially. That was left for after being certificated for flight."
"That will be a lot of work", Penny interjected, "not sure if you did not get more than you can bite."
"I will", she said with deadly determination, "What's so funny?"
"You are looking like a hunter out for prey."
"Yes, I prey on profits and broken spaceships." They laughed together.
* * *
She sat in the cockpit in a thinsuit from the shipyards, her helmet and gloves were dangling on her suit's clips. The expired filter of the life support still smelled horrible like mouldy vegetables but it effectively masked Ken's male scent. Only thanks to her small size, did she fit in the contour chair. In the left contour chair was Ken who wore his personal space suit and was also buckled it. The hanger airlock was already open to space, the cockpit windows showed the rotating stars framed by the rectangular exit of the airlock.
They test-fired all navigation thrusters on station power and only seven failed. There was enough redundancy to work around them for the test flight. She could almost hear her money blowing through the thrusters though. Since the Sagan was built for compactness, she used xenon for the thrusters, a dense and efficient fuel. And expensive. But the 3 % minimum filling of the tank had set her back another 1200. And then there was still the station tax for the test flight. She worried that her credit limit would be also broken with her test flight …
Ken quickly repeated the outline of the sequences one last time. Then he would just watch.
Her fur inside the suit stood up from excitement and from fear of blunder. To be stopped before that, she spoke out everything even though no AI was listening. Her fingers slightly trembled when she put them on the solid button on the fusion console.
"Priming the fusion core preheater, on station energy, routing via", she looked up on her notes, "E2 distributor."
For E2, she would have to operate a heavy manual switch. But the switch's position was already E2, she just checked again. No need to unbuckle. Ken nodded, so she pushed the button on her fusion console and a circuit came to life with a clack. A new status window popped up in green.
"Ramping up magnet confinement." Sliding her fingers on the screen.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
And so on. Even though it was only 0700 to get the fusion core ready for ignition, it felt like an eternity. Her throat was already dry. Well, the life support moisturizer was another component not working.
Finally, "Initiate core ignition."
A final nod.
She pushed the virtual button on her fusion console. The start of the microwave heater units coincided with a high-pitched whining. Numbers started dancing, the energy consumption quickly added decimal upon decimal. "Is this a normal noise?", she asked Ken.
"What?"
"The whining?"
"Sorry, my tiny human ears hear nothing", he smiled at her.
Oh. Maybe with the panels back on, the sound would be dampened enough. The noise intensified. But then it was gone and a first green bar appeared. She relaxed from the silence and the green light on the fusion console.
"Congratulations, Rerra, we are power independent. Now get us out." He pointed to the stars.
She took a deep breath. But from now it was almost a familiar sequence, even if the actual screens and controls were quite different from the simulator.
“Penny, I release the UDA”
“Yes, go on”. She heard Penny yawning over the radio.
She touched the UDA release. The clamps released from the hull with a scraping sound and the flexible tunnel retracted in the silence of space. The docking console went green too. They were now on their own. She switched channels
"Hull 472 to flight control. We are ready for the test jump. Request permission to leave from shipyard lock 1."
"Flight control to hull 472, you are clear to go. No traffic is scheduled. You have a wide corridor clear into the off-planet reception window."
"Hull 472 to flight control, confirming, heading to off-planet reception window now."
Her fur was already stuck to her body from cold sweat. She closed her eyes, took two deep breaths and put her hands around the two control sticks. A tiny tip with the left stick to the left and the bottom thrusters fired. It was minimum thrust but still, she felt the ship lurching up, no longer touching the station. Now she pushed the right stick a little forward for a moment to fire the aft thrusters. The airlock frame got closer.
"Please correct the height and tilt early", advised Ken.
Of course, she would, she intended to fly through the middle of the airlock. However, the navigation thrusters did not fire evenly. She also had to correct yaw and tilt. Which were not balanced either. And the station rotated, the small gravity she had felt earlier meant that the ship wanted to go to the right bottom corner of the airlock. To compensate she was constantly firing the thrusters until they were fully outside where she tried hard to stop their rotation.
"I am flying a ship!" she shouted, "Yes, take this Samul, I am flying!"
Ken smiled with her.
Now she accelerated a little to get some distance to the station and changed their vector towards the off-planet reception jump windows, an imaginary cube in space in a direct line above the station (assuming the planet is below). She let them drift towards the jump windows, only a few corrections were needed every tenth to keep their nose pointing towards it. The navigation screen was fully working, the only thing Ken had finished. It was not the original, a rather recent unit. Thus, she knew the design from the simulator. They were on course.
She let go of the sticks and relaxed for a few seconds. "Ugh, that was more difficult than in the simulator."
"Because she is not trimmed. If we stay out longer, we could trim her. I think Penny would be better at that than me."
Penny seemed to have heard this, she messaged her: "Your telemetry looks fine. But stop wasting xenon."
Of course, Penny had to criticize. But given the cost of the xenon, she had a point. Right now, it did not matter if they were facing forward or not as they drifted weightlessly away from the station towards the jump window.
Without further corrections, the stars slowly rotated and even the planet (good riddance) came into view. From space, it was as yellow and uninviting as it had been down there in the dusty deserts filled with low shrubs everywhere outside of the few agricultural zones and the three large lakes. Even a trillionaire like Hopkins II had not been wealthy enough to buy a nicer planet. And then stars again, more stars than one could ever see from the planet. Stars everywhere. Stars just waiting for her to come.
"Rerra, we are inside the window", Ken took her out of the daydreaming.
She hid her embarrassment. "Thank you, I will stabilise us to the new vector." She took the sticks again and worked hard to stop their slow tumbling to a standstill relative to the station and the planet below. Of course, they were still circling the planet which was circling their sun at great speed. Her pulse was racing too, worse than after her longest workout. Because again the imbalanced thrusters made this hard. Her tongue was hanging out to the side of her snout, panting.
"Not bad for your first real flight", Ken nodded, "And now, activate this."
She did. "What is this?"
"This is the autotrim. It will hold you on any vector you choose. I would have shown it to you earlier, but you did very well even without."
She was angry but at the same time felt a warmth from his compliment. She activated the system and the stars were locked solid in position.
"Rerra, congratulations, you did so well. I am really happy, I am sure the Sagan will be in good hands. We do not have to jump."
"Thanks, what, no, we are jumping! Please, so what next?"
"Charging the capacitors. That will take some time."
"Ok, let me get the list."
"That I deliberately left out. The addition to jumping with so low core power is likely illegal. But if you want to proceed, switch the auxiliary capacitor bank from the fusion core starter for the coil supply. This is done by routing the power via the ugly contraption dangling to your left. Get rid of that as quickly as possible and use the capacitors only for core ignition."
She turned the heavy switch to the handwritten 'coil' marking. It was difficult in weightlessness.
"Now we pretend to charge for core ignition using manual override."
"Ok, that was here, yes, now 3 %."
It was slow. She could fully relax for the first time since departure, no longer having to worry about thruster balance, only about the xenon it consumed ... The ship held its orientation. She was flying, a tiny speck among the stars. So many stars.
Now, there was a brighter yellowish star to the left. It looked very close. She called up the star chart on the navigation system. That was indeed a close neighbour, the Fallerian system with a yellow giant. And this ship could jump: If she slightly altered their course and aligned it properly and would jump for a day than a centi, they could be there already. If she had enough fuel, at least 50 % core power, and a 100 % coil rating, which they all lacked, and if they had a working 4D guidance to avoid debris while in 4D. There was a lot of ifs to work on.
"So capacitors are charged." Ken pointed to the yellow flashing core ignition system. "You are ready to jump on your own following the checklist."
She nodded, again tense and called up the checklist. "Fusion core power is at 12 %."
"Please, try 15 %. Should be fine too."
She rose the core to 15 %. The single working cooling pump’s temperature raised by 14 degrees, no concerns yet.
"Now, the main drive is locked by code words. Here, these are the code words."
She looked at his pad. "Really, this isn't a joke?"
He shook his head. "These are factory set."
"Cluster-Klabauter-Cloth, status."
With a ‘whump' a big console in front below the windows her came alive and the outline of a broad status bar took up a quarter of the central screen. Various indicators ramped up.
Ken smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
"Cluster-Klabauter-Cloth, standby of torch 2."
The numbers on the screen started to dance like crazy. A low humming started in the back. The fusion core flashed orange shortly with an overload warning until it stabilised and turned back to a solid yellow.
The big status bar outline changed to yellow with a ding. One main engine was ready, one of three. One was broken and they did not have enough power for more than one anyway. She grabbed the control sticks and rotated the ship so that it was pointing along the planet's orbit. If there was a problem, they could be caught easily afterwards. With the autotrim, the ship held the vector.
"For the jump, we have no patch?"
Ken laughed. "This microjump will be so short, you will hardly notice."
She nodded. No further delay then. "Hull 472 to flight control, we are ready for test jump."
"Flight control to hull 472, we are tracing you. There is no debris along your vector unless you jump longer than 0.2 pe. Good luck."
"Please take your hands off the control sticks", Ken advised, "The plasma torch is nothing for the faint of heart."
She wondered what to expect but followed his advice. "Cluster-Klabauter-Cloth, 10 %"
The ship lurched forward hard before the status bar got back to 0.3 g acceleration. The low humming went up to a higher distracting sound like a wound-up motor with a broken rotor. Even that low acceleration was not smooth, they were jerking as if they were driving through the rough desert. "Capacitors at 100 %, starting jump sequence."
The jump warning sounded like in the simulator. The jerking, rattling, and creaking noise was of course telling her that this was the real thing. Above the jittering thrust indicator, the countdown to entry and exit ran down in very large digits. At zero her insides moved out and back again.