The wireframe cockpit around me slowly vanished, revealing the nearly identical cockpit I had been in during my hours long venture through the virtual trainings. Nearly, because the four screens in front of me needed to be adjusted to where I had put them virtually; I had found specific angles reduced eye and neck strain. The other difference was what I could see from my viewport. The ship had been on autopilot the whole time I was training, following the vectors I had been sent.
We were, according to a system view provided by the Navigation screen, halfway between the star and the Oort Cloud, roughly in the orbit of the second gas giant that happened to be the outermost planet. Since it was on the opposite side of its orbit, there was nothing around. I was a little confused, admittedly; it had been Gravitic Solutions that released the new wave of jump drives that used gravity to allow for translation. They needed to be clear of large masses, sure, but Lagrange points were just a best practice, not a real requirement. Being sent to the furthest-out L3 in the system seemed odd.
“Theridion, why did we need to fly so far out?”
I BELIEVE IT IS AN OPSEC CONSIDERATION TUGGER. YOU WILL NEED TO VERIFY WITH DEINOPIDAE; THE TACTICAL TEAM HAS JUST EXITED THEIR OWN VR TRAINING IF YOU WISH TO SPEAK WITH THEM.
“I do. Where should I meet them?”
STANDBY.
BRIEFING ROOM 2. THE TEAM IS WAITING FOR YOU.
I got out of the cockpit and took a short elevator ride down to the personnel suite. As soon as the door opened, I could hear the siblings arguing.
“…ere’s no way I was going to be able to coordinate the drop safely and spot at the same time! I don’t give a fuck whatyou think, you’re just wrong.”
“Not only do I know that I’m not, Dysdera, I have proof. On three separate occasions you’ve lead a SUPER-HERO maneuver while also spotting the LZ with your rifle leveled. You should have…”
“Dean.” Dysdera cut him off, nodding at me as as I stood in the entrance to the briefing room.
“Tugger. Finally. Sit.” Dean pointed at the other seat in the room. This briefing room was much smaller than the one we had used before, but contained a plain table and only four chairs, constructed in the same style as the other room. I took the spot I was directed to. “Before we start, you had a question Tugger?” Dean looked at me expectantly.
“Uh, yeah. Why are we out here? Civilian jumps don’t need this much space, and this is far from a civilian ship.”
“How much do you know about Rumors Mining Corporation? Actually, disregard that question. How much do you know about Gravitic Solutions?”
“Uh…” I hadn’t had to think about corporate history since indoc. “It was an Earth based aerospace company, I think, that specialized in building and refitting spacecraft to have centripetal gravity, and then they discovered how to make and use tungstanium to produce gravity using electrical power. Protecting that secret led GS to becoming a military superpower, and buying smaller companies like Rumors to streamline material acquisition…” I petered off, wracking my brain. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”
“That’s the sum total of the unclassified history. This is a part of the real history. Gravitic Solutions, our employer, used to be Earth military. Training time is scarce when jump drives allow for near instant travel for everyone, so it became tradition to coast to jump points instead of burning to them, just for the extra training time. This tradition became policy when old style jump drives became traceable; getting too far away to see meant not being tracked. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you why military operations needed to remain untracked. Being this far out for a jump is both policy and tradition. If we really need to get somewhere, we don’t take the time, but when we can we will.”
“Uh. Alright then. Is that the only reason we’re out here?”
“Pretty much Tug. But, we have a pre-mission brief. Tell me what you’ll be doing once we jump.”
“Well…” I looked at the gunmetal colored ceiling for a second, collecting my thoughts. “I jump us in, drop you three off either on the ground or intra-atmosphere, and then pick you three up after your mission is finished.”
“And here I thought you were smarter than that.” Dean tapped at his wrist pad, and the table surface lit up with a display of what I assumed was a map of the system we would be jumping into. Dean pointed at various points on the map as he outlined his plan. “We jump into the system above this planetary ring and dive in to avoid being detected as long as possible. From there, we spend as much time as we need to observing the system to make sure there’s no actively hostile emplacements in orbit around the planet. We have telemetry from a scanning craft that was in system a few days ago, but it’s rough since the ship left as soon as it noticed the lab complex. All good so far?”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I nodded at the same time as Dysdera, so Dean continued. “Once we decide to call orbit clear, you’ll put us in a geostationary that will allow for a SUPER-HERO jump or ground insertion while giving us a better view of what kind of defenses the station has. You and Theridion will be scanning for those defenses, and depending on what you find, we’ll figure out what kind of support Wanderer 6 will be providing. Questions?”
Recluse and Dysdera both shook their heads. Dean looked at me expectantly. “Let’s hear it, Tugger.”
“What do you mean when you say that Wanderer 6 will provide support once you get to the ground?”
“Who said anything about getting to the ground? If you see heavy enough anti-air to make a SUPER-HERO too dangerous, we get to do some orbital bombardments. If there’s little to no AA, you drop us off and pull circles to provide air support while we’re grounded. Your job is what enables us to do these missions. Good enough?”
“Guess so. When are we jumping?” I stood as I replied. All I heard was that the sooner I got this done with, the sooner I could go chart the galaxy.
“We jump when you get back to the cockpit and jump us. No rest for the wicked.”
Dysdera gave me a playful salute as I left the briefing room.
“Stop that shit, Dera! We still aren’t done with your lack of confidence. Let’s start from the top. During a SUPER-HERO, the lea…” The elevator doors closed, cutting of Dean’s lambasting of his sister.
“Theridion, did you get the coordinates that we’ll be jumping to? I never got specifics, and if Dean expects me to put this ship inside the system I need something specific.
YES TUGGER. I HAVE EVERYTHING WE WILL NEED TO JUMP SUCCESSFULLY.
I sat down in the cockpit and adjusted the joystick arm. “In that case, let’s jump.”
JUMP VECTORS INPUT. GRAVITY WELL GENERATION STANDING BY.
I keyed the PA system and said “Attention attention attention, jump imminent. Secure and report.” No one had told me otherwise, so I assumed that the jump announcements I had been trained to use when there were others in my ship were good enough.
“Dysdera, secured for jump.”
“Recluse, secured.”
“Deinopidae, secured for jump. Loose cargo secured.”
Once everyone had reported back, I keyed the PA again. “Crew, stand by for jump.” I released the PA. “Theridion, send it.”
SENDING IT. BRACE FOR JUMP.
JUMP. JUMP. JUMP.
The system voice was slightly different to what I was to used to on Dusty Star, but it was close enough to not be notable. What was notable, however, was the jump itself. There was none of the twisting that I had had to grow used to; this ship’s drive produced something that I could only describe as a pulsing instead.
I had been unfortunate enough to experience uneven pressurizations few years ago. This phenomenon occurs when the atmosphere regulation has a malfunction and attempts to modulate ship pressure like normal. What happens instead is that the craft will overpressurize (a throughly unpleasant feeling), the regulator will sense the excess pressurization, and attempt to correct by lowering pressure. This ends in, at the best, extreme discomfort as the pressure in your ship varies wildly. This jump drive felt like uneven pressurization modulation, but from inside.
It was uncomfortable, for sure, but still better than that nausea-inducing twist that Dusty Star had. The feeling went away with a thrummm that echoed through the ship. Simultaneously, the view of space I had changed instantaneously to show a blue planet with a ring made of large rocky debris positioned just below the ship that looked to be at least 500 feet thick at our location. It would, surprisingly, make for a very good hiding place; most of the planetary rings I knew of were made of gravel and particulate, and usually were a few feet in depth at most.
The moment I had my bearings, I boosted straight down into the field and latched on to one of the larger rocks. Once the gravity plates on the bottom of the landing gear feet were showing as stabilized, I brought up a view of the ship’s passive scanners onto the screens in front of me according to the instructions that Theridion fed me.
While the scan display was clearing up, Dean poked his head into the cockpit. “Anything yet?”
“Not in five minutes, no. I’ll let you know what we see in half an hour or so.”
“Focus on anything in a low orbit. Debris, satellites, anything. We’ve had people killed from weaponized debris before, I don’t want it to happen this time. Let me know if you find anything in the next four hours. If not, head into the orbit we briefed earlier. Theridion should have the details.” Without another word, he spun on his heel and took the elevator.
“Theridion, are you able to intake and process information if I’m not concious?”
YES TUGGER. TO ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU ARE ABOUT TO ASK, YES, YOU CAN SLEEP FOR NOW. I WILL WAKE YOU UP WHEN THE SCANNERS PICK UP SOMETHING NOTABLE OR AT THE FOUR HOUR MARK.
“Fantastic. Naptime it is.”
I reclined my seat, and closed my eyes as I crossed my arms. Floating in space, waiting for a call; just like old times.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
TUGGER. WAKE UP.
I jolted awake, taking a second to get my bearings. “Yup, I’m up. I’m awake.” I stretched, and failed to rub my face when my helmet got in the way. “What did we find?”
HUNDREDS OF SATELLITES, AND A FAIR AMOUNT OF SMALL DEBRIS. MY RECOMMENDATION IS UTILIZING THE CIWS LASERS TO VAPORIZE ANY DEBRIS THAT WILL STRIKE THE SHIP OR ITS SHIELDING, AND TO DISABLE THE THRUSTER ON ANY SATELLITE THAT WOULD POSE A DANGER. DOING SO WILL ALLOW US TO SIT IN ORBIT AND CONDUCT ACTIVE SCANNING.
“What’s the timeline for that?”
REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS SHOULD BE TWELVE TO TWENTY FOUR HOURS UNTIL WE CAN BE SURE ENOUGH OF PLANET-BOUND DEFENSIVE MEASURES. DEINOPIDAE HAS ALREADY GIVEN HIS STAMP OF APPROVAL FOR THE LAG TIME. HE SAID, TO QUOTE, “DERA AND TUG GET MORE TRAINING TIME, I GUESS”.
“Alright then. Do we have a flight plan?”
NEGATIVE. JUMP DRIVE CHARGING.
“That works too, I guess. Have you let the other three know?”
AFFIRM. THEY ARE ALREADY SECURED.
I keyed the PA system. “Standby for jump.”
JUMPING.
JUMP. JUMP. JUMP.
This jump was even gentler than the previous one; I assumed because of the relatively short distance covered. My view winked from tumbling rocks to the planet we had been scanning. As expected, there was no ring system, and the large moon was just visible peeking over, from my angle, the right shoulder of the planet.
The planet was almost completely covered in a shallow ocean, with a mountainous archipelago that wrapped around a third of the planets equator. I wasn’t a geologist by any means, having never set foot on a planet myself, but it looked to me like the continental plates of this world were just hemispheres that were always pushed into each other at the same place.
There were bands of weather at an angle to the islands, subjecting the landmass to practically every weather pattern at the same time. This weathering was clearly hard on the mountains, as they were rounded and lacked the jaggedness I had always associated with mountains. The lab we were targeting was situated at the peak of a mountain that was so eroded it looked like more of a large mound than anything else. It was relatively secluded from the rest of the island chain; in short, anti-air defenses looked like they would be in short supply. Still, an once of prevention was worth a pound of hostile ordinance up the ass.
“Theridion, are you handling targeting for the CIWS?”
YES. COMMENCING SCANNING.
“Guess we just get to hurry up and wait.”