[h3]September 24, 2190
Polaris System
USF Arcadian, Bridge[/h3]
After hours in hyperspace, the time to return to the real world had finally come. The transition had never been a comfortable sensation - something about crossing the boundary between dimensions always rattled her teeth - and it only got worse after her accident with the addition of the mercifully brief sensation of ice cubes being forced into every single severed nerve in Astrid’s stump. “Jump complete. Drift 89 meters port, 28 meters fore, 56 meters up.” Astrid rattled off the standard callout as she made a face. For a ship the Arcadian’s size, being 90 meters off the intended exit point was just within the margin.

Navigation computer calibrations could wait though, as Leino announced a contact almost immediately after arrival. Finding an alien ship this early felt strange at first. But then again, humanity found maybe two pieces of alien technology in the last century, so from that point of reference? It was about damn time they did.

[quote]"Weiss, make course for this ship, but be careful with it."[/quote]
“Aye, sir!” She called back

She quickly plotted an in-system jump to place them within a thousand kilometers of the unknown ship. “All hands, standby for microjump.” She announced over the PA and gave a five second countdown. The Arcadian emerged from the jump with engines burning steady, its approach slow and predictable - if anyone was home, hopefully they’d see the Arcadian as unthreatening that way. But as they approached, Astrid instinctively angled the Arcadian for maximum turret coverage on the unknown ship, holding station 50 klicks from the derelict.
“Manuever complete, captain.”

As Astrid watched the Rangers depart through a camera feed, her fingers were itching to be in one of those dropships. To do stuff. To [i]fly[/i], for real. Instead, she opened the duty roster on her PDA and quickly checked who was in those seats she coveted.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Delphine Pelletier.
Known to the other pilots as ‘Fish’ since the minute she introduced herself, of course.
A military transport pilot who spent her entire life on Earth and in its orbit. A competent one. Never had to deal with a real emergency, but did well in sims. Extremely thorough in pre-flight checks. Bit of a pushover, though. Not command material.
If Major Sadek felt like flying, she wouldn’t have to ask twice on this trip.

The XO’s drop was flown by Lieutenant Gerhard Hauer.
But his helmet flew the callsign ‘DASH’ - Dumb Ass Stabbed Himself. Because he did.
Rock solid, former bomber pilot and later wing leader from Pomona who got a posting on Mars straight out of the Tharsis Rise Flight Academy. Hauer was Astrid’s number two on the Arcadian despite being two years her senior, Astrid having put them on the same rotation to keep a more steady hand alongside a greener pilot in case something went wrong.
Being hewn from the same slab of rock as Astrid was, Gertie would no doubt enjoy having to bus Vance around.

But not being in the flight seat didn’t mean she couldn’t do anything to help, and trusting didn’t mean she couldn’t look out for her pilots.
“Sector control, Helm. Can you clear out bay two for landing?”
“That’s on the far side of the ship, Lieutenant.” The sector controller - effectively the ship’s ATC - on duty replied.
“I’m aware. We don’t know what kind of automation the target has, if the away teams have to leave under fire, bay two would allow them to approach and land while hidden behind the Arcadian.”
“Understood, Lieutenant. We’ll notify the pilots. Sector out.”