Post by zunath on May 20, 2010 13:50:25 GMT -5
Author: Mercury Man
"Hang on Kellan, this is gonna get rough."
Triton flipped a few switches, then pressed a large green button. The Spacedive's hull began to shake, a low rumble sounding from below, building in intensity.
Kellan looked out the side window. The world outside was tilted up on a diagonal, with the wild green tangle of Zheckshanian jungle obscuring almost everything else in view.
A moment later, from down below a thick cloud of exhaust from the Spacedive's main engine billowed upward and blocked all outside vision entirely.
Triton looked back at her to see how she was doing. He grinned. "The first time is always the best. I'm envious, you know." He looked forward again out the front view ports, a circle of blue sky visible ahead, surrounded by the lush green tops of giant trees.
The faint crescent of one of the Avantasian star systems gas giant planets was visible through the atmosphere, dominating the sky.
She managed a nervous smile, then swallowed. This wasn't anything like the quiet, smooth inter-node transits she was used to up in Orbital city.
The vibrations became more intense. This was crazy! It felt like the whole thing were going to break apart.
She looked at Mynx. The woman didn't look worried, but it was hard to see anything like this, everything became a blur.
Triton looked at the console. "Booster ignition in, 3, 2, 1 ... "
THUMP!
She thought it was bad before, but now it felt like something had exploded beneath them. Which in a more controlled sense, was indeed the case..
Waves of thunderous sound rolled up and over her, spacesuit notwithstanding.
Suddenly Kellan was thrust back into her seat and the ring of green in the view port vanished, as did the clouds of smoke out the side port, though such was the pressure she could not even turn her head to look.
The Spacedive accelerated upward, the pressure on Kellan increasing with each passing second.
The intensity of the sensation reached a peak, then held there.
Some seconds later, "Bottom's up!" Came Tritons strained voice over the comm, just barely audible in her ear.
She felt a sideward wrenching sensation as the Spacedive slowly rolled upside down. The pressure lessened slightly and she could turn and look.
Wow! The sight was incredible!
It was like vibrant green blanket sprawled over the landscape below her, rapidly giving way to a deepening blue horizon. As the ship turned, she could just see where they had blasted off from, a trail of smoke surrounded by a ring of fire. The flames would die down fast though, so saturated was the Zheckshanian jungle with moisture.
At the bottom - or was that now the top? - of the side window, the blue horizon was fading out to black.
The vibration inside the ship began to die down.
"Disengaging." said Triton.
There sounded a loud "clunk" and the better part of the vibration immediately went away.
"Give it a few seconds, Kellan, then check the top window." Mynx spoke for the first time, looking up.
Kellan looked up too, the receding jungle now far below. The base of Zheckshan city was now visible - surely they hadn't been that close? She began to worry.
Just then, an object floated into sight outside the window. The spent booster module of the craft gracefully tumbled away below them, the base flickering with fire as the last vestiges of fuel burned away.
"Couldn't it land on somebody?" she asked.
"No, it'll burn up long before it hits the ground," Replied Triton, now looking out the top window as well. "You know they say this is a lot like how the Solarians first did it. Got into space I mean."
"I can see why they stopped." said Kellan, realising her body was still shaking, but mostly from the adrenaline now.
Triton and Mynx both laughed, somewhat more used to the experience.
"Without the tower, there's no real easy way to make it into space." Said Triton. Meanwhile the booster module had disappeared, fading into the green depths tens of thousands of metres below.
An alarm sounded. Loud, urgent beeping.
"Ah d**n it." Triton began pushing buttons and grasped hold of the flight-stick.
Mynx became intently focused upon her own console. "Its a cruiser. Five O'clock. I'm pretty sure that.. Yup, its Akzerian." she said.
"We should make it easily enough, there isn't far to go." replied Triton, his voice tense, controlled.
Kellan went cold inside. An Akzerian cruiser? "Should" make it? She didn't know a lot about ships, but everyone knew something about Akzerian ships. The lasers on that thing would cut them into tiny pieces within seconds.
She suddenly began to doubt whether getting involved with The Network had been worth this. Were they going to die? There was nothing to do but wait.
"Five seconds." Said Triton. "Prepping SSP mode."
SSP mode? Kellan sifted through her memory. A dim recollection of a Network basic ship systems briefing welled up from the past.
"The SpaceDestiny Sub-space propulsion engines," had said her lecturer "are the most predominant spacecraft engine architecture currently available. Extremely efficient and able to generate high thrust if required. . ."
She hoped it was enough thrust.
"Here we go," said Triton.
The remaining rumble of the engine died away completely, then was replaced by a low whine, a much cleaner, more sophisticated humming sound. Once again the ship accelerated.
Tense seconds ticked by. Both of her companions focused on their consoles.
Mynx: "We're clearing."
"Gotcha." replied Triton. "Hey.."
He leaned forward against his straps, as though not quite able to see something on the screen.
"What's that?" he asked Mynx.
"Sec." She replied. "That.. ahh. I think its a Casey, Sprinter-Class."
Kellan knew Casey meant Casey Kampezee's pirates, a small but infamous band of criminals, renowned for a series of high risk heists.
"Confirmed." said Mynx.
"Whew." Said Triton, relieved. "I was gonna say, I don't know how they could have tracked us down so fast, we were pretty well hidden. I think they're going to catch those poor fellas though."
He nudged the Spacedive into an arcing turn, well beyond the atmosphere of the planet now, the sky all a beautiful black ocean, twinkling with stars. The gas giant in the front view port, now sharply defined and gargantuan in proportion, began to slide sideways out of vision.
As they turned, out the side window could be seen in the distance the large and sinister metallic shape of an Akzerian cruiser. In front and by comparison, tiny, a snub nosed craft streamed away from the cruiser in a flat line.
"Where did it come from?" asked Mynx.
"No idea." said Triton. "Lets have a closer look.."
He banked the Spacedive around further and took an oblique line of approach toward the cruiser.
"Careful.." warned Mynx..
"I know what I'm doing." Triton replied. "Sides, we can use the drop-jump now."
"Just don't hang around if the Casey goes down, alright?"
"Alright, go easy girl, we're fine."
The two ships were closer now. Kellan could pick up small details, the massive scope of the cruiser becoming evident in its clarity.
Rays of light began to flash out from the cruisers forward section. The Casey ducked and weaved, its automatic defensive scramblers would not divert the cruisers aiming computers for long and those lasers would soon be hitting every time. It would only take a couple..
"They must have used their drop-jump already, to have let themselves get stuck in this kinda situation." commented Triton, watching closely with Mynx as the pirate ship desperately tried to flee.
The first beam struck the edge of the Sprinter. A spray of debris shot out and the crafts headlong flight faltered.
The Spacedive had gotten quite close now.. The next flash of the cruisers beams lit up the whole cabin. This one was dead on.
The engine compartment of the Sprinter exploded, a huge and silent ball of red-yellow fire illuminated against the black backdrop of space.
"Hmm.." said Triton as he began to bank the ship around and away. "We may be slightly too close.."
Kellan wondered what that meant. A second later, she had a glimpse of a dark cloud of small debris hurtling straight toward them.
A painfully loud clatter resounded throughout the Spacedive as bits of the Sprinter slammed into the ship like a micro meteor shower.
"Gods." said Mynx.
Triton winced. "I don't Roman is going to be too happy about the paint job."
"I thought you said you knew what you were doing!" snapped Mynx.
"I do!" protested Triton. "Its a minor mishap."
Mynx snorted at this, half-annoyed, half terrified.
"Anyway, we're outta here." Said Triton. "You ready, girls?"
Before either ventured a reply, he reached up and snapped back a large lever.
There was a muffled series of clunks from somewhere at the back, as the Spacedive's drop-jump blast shield opened up.
Kellan knew what would happen next, though she'd never experienced it before.
Out from the centre of the blast shield would deploy a small, but high energy explosive. The blast shields bay door would seal shut, and the device would detonate with extreme precision and great force.
The blast shield was designed to precisely absorb the shockwave and translate it into super-fast propulsion.
The drop-jump device was also highly illegal, so if for some reason it didn't work... the image of the Akzerian cruiser behind them loomed ominously in her mind.
Kellan waited.. One second.. two.. BAM.
Again she was shoved back into her seat, the initial pressure of acceleration so strong, she thought her eyeballs were going to sink back into her skull.
Almost as soon as it began though, the pressure was gone. In a moment they were hundreds of kilometres distant from where they'd been when the device had dropped, they'd maintain this speed for most of the rest of the journey.
"See?" Said Triton to Mynx. "All under control, my dear."
Kellan exhaled and realised she was covered in sweat.
"You can be a real idiot sometimes Triton." said Mynx, but she was smiling warmly at him as she said it.
Triton smiled back.
Kellan couldn't help but smile too. They were headed home.
"Hang on Kellan, this is gonna get rough."
Triton flipped a few switches, then pressed a large green button. The Spacedive's hull began to shake, a low rumble sounding from below, building in intensity.
Kellan looked out the side window. The world outside was tilted up on a diagonal, with the wild green tangle of Zheckshanian jungle obscuring almost everything else in view.
A moment later, from down below a thick cloud of exhaust from the Spacedive's main engine billowed upward and blocked all outside vision entirely.
Triton looked back at her to see how she was doing. He grinned. "The first time is always the best. I'm envious, you know." He looked forward again out the front view ports, a circle of blue sky visible ahead, surrounded by the lush green tops of giant trees.
The faint crescent of one of the Avantasian star systems gas giant planets was visible through the atmosphere, dominating the sky.
She managed a nervous smile, then swallowed. This wasn't anything like the quiet, smooth inter-node transits she was used to up in Orbital city.
The vibrations became more intense. This was crazy! It felt like the whole thing were going to break apart.
She looked at Mynx. The woman didn't look worried, but it was hard to see anything like this, everything became a blur.
Triton looked at the console. "Booster ignition in, 3, 2, 1 ... "
THUMP!
She thought it was bad before, but now it felt like something had exploded beneath them. Which in a more controlled sense, was indeed the case..
Waves of thunderous sound rolled up and over her, spacesuit notwithstanding.
Suddenly Kellan was thrust back into her seat and the ring of green in the view port vanished, as did the clouds of smoke out the side port, though such was the pressure she could not even turn her head to look.
The Spacedive accelerated upward, the pressure on Kellan increasing with each passing second.
The intensity of the sensation reached a peak, then held there.
Some seconds later, "Bottom's up!" Came Tritons strained voice over the comm, just barely audible in her ear.
She felt a sideward wrenching sensation as the Spacedive slowly rolled upside down. The pressure lessened slightly and she could turn and look.
Wow! The sight was incredible!
It was like vibrant green blanket sprawled over the landscape below her, rapidly giving way to a deepening blue horizon. As the ship turned, she could just see where they had blasted off from, a trail of smoke surrounded by a ring of fire. The flames would die down fast though, so saturated was the Zheckshanian jungle with moisture.
At the bottom - or was that now the top? - of the side window, the blue horizon was fading out to black.
The vibration inside the ship began to die down.
"Disengaging." said Triton.
There sounded a loud "clunk" and the better part of the vibration immediately went away.
"Give it a few seconds, Kellan, then check the top window." Mynx spoke for the first time, looking up.
Kellan looked up too, the receding jungle now far below. The base of Zheckshan city was now visible - surely they hadn't been that close? She began to worry.
Just then, an object floated into sight outside the window. The spent booster module of the craft gracefully tumbled away below them, the base flickering with fire as the last vestiges of fuel burned away.
"Couldn't it land on somebody?" she asked.
"No, it'll burn up long before it hits the ground," Replied Triton, now looking out the top window as well. "You know they say this is a lot like how the Solarians first did it. Got into space I mean."
"I can see why they stopped." said Kellan, realising her body was still shaking, but mostly from the adrenaline now.
Triton and Mynx both laughed, somewhat more used to the experience.
"Without the tower, there's no real easy way to make it into space." Said Triton. Meanwhile the booster module had disappeared, fading into the green depths tens of thousands of metres below.
An alarm sounded. Loud, urgent beeping.
"Ah d**n it." Triton began pushing buttons and grasped hold of the flight-stick.
Mynx became intently focused upon her own console. "Its a cruiser. Five O'clock. I'm pretty sure that.. Yup, its Akzerian." she said.
"We should make it easily enough, there isn't far to go." replied Triton, his voice tense, controlled.
Kellan went cold inside. An Akzerian cruiser? "Should" make it? She didn't know a lot about ships, but everyone knew something about Akzerian ships. The lasers on that thing would cut them into tiny pieces within seconds.
She suddenly began to doubt whether getting involved with The Network had been worth this. Were they going to die? There was nothing to do but wait.
"Five seconds." Said Triton. "Prepping SSP mode."
SSP mode? Kellan sifted through her memory. A dim recollection of a Network basic ship systems briefing welled up from the past.
"The SpaceDestiny Sub-space propulsion engines," had said her lecturer "are the most predominant spacecraft engine architecture currently available. Extremely efficient and able to generate high thrust if required. . ."
She hoped it was enough thrust.
"Here we go," said Triton.
The remaining rumble of the engine died away completely, then was replaced by a low whine, a much cleaner, more sophisticated humming sound. Once again the ship accelerated.
Tense seconds ticked by. Both of her companions focused on their consoles.
Mynx: "We're clearing."
"Gotcha." replied Triton. "Hey.."
He leaned forward against his straps, as though not quite able to see something on the screen.
"What's that?" he asked Mynx.
"Sec." She replied. "That.. ahh. I think its a Casey, Sprinter-Class."
Kellan knew Casey meant Casey Kampezee's pirates, a small but infamous band of criminals, renowned for a series of high risk heists.
"Confirmed." said Mynx.
"Whew." Said Triton, relieved. "I was gonna say, I don't know how they could have tracked us down so fast, we were pretty well hidden. I think they're going to catch those poor fellas though."
He nudged the Spacedive into an arcing turn, well beyond the atmosphere of the planet now, the sky all a beautiful black ocean, twinkling with stars. The gas giant in the front view port, now sharply defined and gargantuan in proportion, began to slide sideways out of vision.
As they turned, out the side window could be seen in the distance the large and sinister metallic shape of an Akzerian cruiser. In front and by comparison, tiny, a snub nosed craft streamed away from the cruiser in a flat line.
"Where did it come from?" asked Mynx.
"No idea." said Triton. "Lets have a closer look.."
He banked the Spacedive around further and took an oblique line of approach toward the cruiser.
"Careful.." warned Mynx..
"I know what I'm doing." Triton replied. "Sides, we can use the drop-jump now."
"Just don't hang around if the Casey goes down, alright?"
"Alright, go easy girl, we're fine."
The two ships were closer now. Kellan could pick up small details, the massive scope of the cruiser becoming evident in its clarity.
Rays of light began to flash out from the cruisers forward section. The Casey ducked and weaved, its automatic defensive scramblers would not divert the cruisers aiming computers for long and those lasers would soon be hitting every time. It would only take a couple..
"They must have used their drop-jump already, to have let themselves get stuck in this kinda situation." commented Triton, watching closely with Mynx as the pirate ship desperately tried to flee.
The first beam struck the edge of the Sprinter. A spray of debris shot out and the crafts headlong flight faltered.
The Spacedive had gotten quite close now.. The next flash of the cruisers beams lit up the whole cabin. This one was dead on.
The engine compartment of the Sprinter exploded, a huge and silent ball of red-yellow fire illuminated against the black backdrop of space.
"Hmm.." said Triton as he began to bank the ship around and away. "We may be slightly too close.."
Kellan wondered what that meant. A second later, she had a glimpse of a dark cloud of small debris hurtling straight toward them.
A painfully loud clatter resounded throughout the Spacedive as bits of the Sprinter slammed into the ship like a micro meteor shower.
"Gods." said Mynx.
Triton winced. "I don't Roman is going to be too happy about the paint job."
"I thought you said you knew what you were doing!" snapped Mynx.
"I do!" protested Triton. "Its a minor mishap."
Mynx snorted at this, half-annoyed, half terrified.
"Anyway, we're outta here." Said Triton. "You ready, girls?"
Before either ventured a reply, he reached up and snapped back a large lever.
There was a muffled series of clunks from somewhere at the back, as the Spacedive's drop-jump blast shield opened up.
Kellan knew what would happen next, though she'd never experienced it before.
Out from the centre of the blast shield would deploy a small, but high energy explosive. The blast shields bay door would seal shut, and the device would detonate with extreme precision and great force.
The blast shield was designed to precisely absorb the shockwave and translate it into super-fast propulsion.
The drop-jump device was also highly illegal, so if for some reason it didn't work... the image of the Akzerian cruiser behind them loomed ominously in her mind.
Kellan waited.. One second.. two.. BAM.
Again she was shoved back into her seat, the initial pressure of acceleration so strong, she thought her eyeballs were going to sink back into her skull.
Almost as soon as it began though, the pressure was gone. In a moment they were hundreds of kilometres distant from where they'd been when the device had dropped, they'd maintain this speed for most of the rest of the journey.
"See?" Said Triton to Mynx. "All under control, my dear."
Kellan exhaled and realised she was covered in sweat.
"You can be a real idiot sometimes Triton." said Mynx, but she was smiling warmly at him as she said it.
Triton smiled back.
Kellan couldn't help but smile too. They were headed home.