Setting Up the Ship
Velia, Fihlyn, Mark, Ginny & John
(Cowritten by
@InfamousGuy101,
@Pragia12,
@Terrans,
@Bentus)
The bridge of the ESS 3822-01 was in the same off-white colour pallette as most of the rest of the ship. Panels, screens and touch-pads lay pristine and dark, waiting for someone to turn them on, their surfaces barely showing a hint of dust or smudges. Only the barest minimum were active, the communications array, and a few others. A wide window at the front opened up to show a vista of space and the edge of the orbital shipyard. The, more useful, view screen was dark, a red standby light glowing in the corner. Nobody had turned it on yet.
The furniture was new as well, comfortable, if a little utilitarian - the CSF didn't have an infinite budget. Velia led the pilots onto the bridge, shuffling across to the communications array, "So, this is the bridge," she said, glancing to Fihlyn, then to Lockman, then back to Fihlyn, "I'll leave this in your hands." She paused, then pressed a button on the comms panel, "Is anyone down in engineering?"
Mark’s voice crackled over the comms panel, rough around the edges but clear enough to make out the hum of active systems in the background, “Lopez here, in engineering. Systems are green across the board so far but I’m not trusting the readouts just yet.” There was a pause, followed by the faint sound of a tool clinking against a panel, “New ship or not, these drives need to be run through a few cycles to get the kinks out. Half of this stuff looks like it just came out of the box, which is nice… but nothing runs smooth until it’s had a little bite taken out of it.” Another pause, longer this time, “I’ll give you a full report in five, but for now... yeah. I’m running things.”
Ginny, and several others had taken up position on the bridge during the conversation. She looked up from a panel, the system alignment on screen. "We're 'posed to run all these to local maxima," a growl in her tone, "
before we try to do anything." The redheaded foreigner tapped a couple icons, the metallic whine of valves opening and the almost-deafening hiss of steam and low chugging of coolant being picked up over the comms. "Think we can delay a few hours? We need to load the ship up anyways."
"I don't know what any of that means, so yes," Velia replied, "Like you said, there's no hurry... but to be clear to everyone," she added firmly, "we get the ship ready to move,
then we start loading. You don't want to let people onboard then have a delay. They're fractious and unhappy enough as it is.
As test pilot, John was used to a mix of cutting edge and roughshod construction; so this was a nice change, “What station do we need to get underway?” He glanced at Fihlyn.
Fihlyn's eyes sparkled as she took in the sight of the bridge, although it could have also just been the light refracting through her helmet. She felt a mixture of emotions fighting each other in her chest. Excitement, of course. Excitement for finally being able to fly a
true ship through the interstellar ocean. But she felt trepidation as well, a gnawing, and deeply unwanted, unease as the shuttle pilot turned to ask her for instructions. Yes, she had scored well in the simulators. Yes, she had been waiting years for this moment. And yes, she couldn't think of anything else that she'd rather be doing. But what if it didn't turn out how she pictured it? What if she fell flat at this final hurdle?
"Station?" Fihlyn frowned as she glanced around the bridge. A ship this size was supposed to be flown by a bridge crew of a dozen, but they'd just have to get by with a skeleton crew. "At a minimum we will need comms, navigation, and helm. That should be enough to get us moving." It looked like Velia had already taken her position on the comms, which left navigation and helm.
Fihlyn's eyes rested on the pilot's seat, a pained longing in her chest. "Mr. Lockman, you should take the helm. You have experience with flying the shuttle, yes?" It stung, by the gods, it stung. But once Fihlyn had uttered the words, she knew that it was the right choice. Someone had to plot the course on Navigation and get them to the appropriate coordinates for a jump, and that wasn't something that you ever had to worry about on smaller craft. Besides, it was likely that the Edenite was going to be better at the helm than she'd be, anyway.
Forcing a smile on her face, beating back the voice that railed against her decision, Fihlyn finally thought to pull out her tablet and open her copy of the manual for the colony ship's helm. "Mr. Lockman, you asked for a manual earlier. My apologies for not sending it sooner." With a few quick taps, she'd transferred the document. Every page had been meticulously marked up, and painstakingly organized with annotations and notes. It was no small feat for such a large tome, but it was evident that someone had poured countless hours into going over every detail.
Taking her place at the navigation station, Fihlyn had to pause for a moment. She felt a twist in her chest as realization struck her. Of all the competing emotions that she'd felt when they'd walked into the bridge, sadness or empathy for all those suffering on the planet below hadn't been one of them. The apocalypse unfurling at this very moment had slipped her mind. The guilt settled in her stomach like a stone.
John took his position with a unique mix of arrogant trepidation. Dropping in with a confident swagger that still avoided hitting something potentially important, “Let me see what the pre-flight looks like on this tub.” The manual displayed the basic rundown; though selecting a step brought up a very technical walkthrough. “Alright then….” A pause as he retrieved the whiskey bottle and took a swig. He was going to need it. “…time to work.”
Screens flickered to life and readouts begun to spin into existence. Familiar and yet so dissimilar. It was jarring. Yet beneath the guilt and primal fear. There was that spark. The one John always tried to downplay; that feeling of anticipation. The one before the first flight in a new frame.
Thoughts of new frames struck him then. John half twisted in his seat towards Velia; who was apparently some sort of comm officer, “Could you hail Bay 12? Have them send a tow drone to bring my shuttle over?”
She nodded, "We can do that, though they might ask for paperwork," she gave a small laugh. It seemed ridiculous with the word falling apart, but some people still followed the rules.
“Just tell them personal orders of Admiral…. White .” John was matter-of-fact as he flipped a few switches. “No one questions an admiral’s personal orders. At least for the short time we need.” A reading caused him to consult the manual with a frown. A few attempts to modify caused the frown to deepen, “Portside maneuvering power draw is too low. We have engineering on the line?”
Mark’s voice came through over the comms, the background hum of active systems still clattering behind him. “Yeah, I see it, portside draw’s under spec. Looks like a regulator didn’t seat right or the bypass was never finished during install, wouldn’t be the first time someone in a factory rush job half-assed a grounding point.” A short pause. The sound of him flipping something open, followed by the faint clack of tools shifting. “I can chase it down properly once we’re clear, but for now I’m rerouting power from non-essential systems, deck lighting, water heating loop and the tertiary climate ring. That should give you what you need on maneuvering. Just don’t lean too hard on it till I’ve had a look inside.” Another pause, then the hum of a subline cycling, “Give it ten seconds. You should see the power jump.”
"I'm telling you, few hours, we can get systems aligned," Ginny declared from where she was now looking at diagrams, "Get the batteries charged so we don't fry anyone's brains, let people load up?" she seems almost pleading over the swooshing of flushing filters.
“Look, I’m all for doing things by the book, but the bugs aren’t gonna wait for us to run pretty little alignments and top off the batteries. Every minute we sit here is another minute they’ve got to crawl up the station’s ass and tear this place apart,” Mark growled irritably.
There was a metallic thunk over the channel as he sealed the panel he’d been working in.
“We can load people while I keep the systems in the green," Mark said, "As long as we’ve got enough power to maneuver and kick the drives, we can finish fine-tuning once we’re moving. But if we take our sweet time in port and the Metacer get within spitting distance, all this prep won’t mean a damn thing. We’ll just be the best-tuned corpse in orbit.”
Ginny rolls her eyes "The bugs
are going to wait on the ground, if they were up here they would have shown themselves by now." she says flatly, tapping on the glass of her vodka bottle-to-go, "Know we're all on edge right now, but no need to jump the gun."
Mark exhaled slowly through his nose, a faint scrape of his glove against the console as he spoke, “Fine,” he said at last, edge still in his voice, “We’ll do it your way.” There was a short pause, “But if this bites us in the ass, I’m buying the first round in the afterlife just so I can say ‘told you so.’”
“Reading looks good for now.” John’s voice sounded distant; already moving down the checklist. The readouts looked acceptable… at least according to the manual and the shakedown log that were helpfully added into the helm’s menu. He switched of the intercom and addressed the bridge this time, “Should be good to move in a couple hours if we don’t need to rush it.”
"Great!" Velia looked up from her console, setting down the headset she'd been using to talk to Bay 12, "Once everything is clear we can start loading. By the way, John, your shuttle is ready to pick up, but nobody is flying it over so you'll need to go for a walk... fancy some company?"
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