RavensDagger
Chapter Eighty-Eight - Ready to Go
"We're ready to go, captain!" Twenty-Six said. Her face was dispyed on a little s currently capturing the inside of the engineering room at the back of the Sappho. She grinned and gave them a wave before falling bato a seat and bug herself in.
The bridge retty quiet at the moment. Ivil was in the captain's seat, legs crossed while she ighe little fshing light that was remindio put on her seat belt--such things were for mortals. She surveyed the room.
Aurora had found her pce behind the unication's sole again, though she had one of her many little tablets with her so that she could do work while they were in-flight. Ivil wao be a little exasperated, but Aurora was a very career-minded woman and she wouldn't get in the way of that.
Pixie was in the pilot's seat, being by far the best suited to the task. Her little fighter craft was currently docked onto the Sappho's side via an ingenious temporary dog station. It would be a nightmare for her ship to retether itself if she disected it, but until then, she could get in and ride her fighter out whenever she wanted.
The only other person on the bridge was Sonic Spectre, who was manning the gunnery station, with the ship's sensors linked in, while at the back of the bridge, sitting on a seat mouo the wall and desigo fold into itself to be tucked out of the way, epper the MINT operative whom Ivil suspected wao be elsewhere.
"Well then," Ivil said. "Detach from Driftwood station, it's time to head out tanymede."
"Space traffitrol wants us to wait ahree minutes," Aurora said. She had a pair of rather rge and cumbersome-seeming headphones on, but only over one ear. She aying more attention to her tablet's s than to what the STC was telling her.
Ivil leaned in a little and glimpsed at the s. A chat log? She noticed that several of the names in it had tags for different moons, and she even reized a name or two. Ah, so a chat el for the League of Free Moons, then?
She frowned and typed away a ent until something came in over her headphones and she jumped. "We just got permission. Pixie, enter route... Two-Five-Nine-Nine, pbound with..." Ivil tuned her out as she repeated some instrus from traffitrol.
Pixie just nodded, seeming to uand them all as she turned on some of the ship's man thrusters aly pulled them away from their berth.
The Held Together was sitting there, in the same pce it had e in, looking like the old hunk of junk that it was. There was a good ce that she'd never see that ship again, and it made her feel strangely mencholic. "Pepper," she said.
"Yes, ma'am?" Pepper asked.
Ivil made sure her voice itched low, not to interrupt the others. "Make sure that MINT knows that the Held Together is a ship of i. Maybe make sure its few jobs are safe and... lucrative?"
Twenty-Six would be upset if she learhat her home for so many years was lost to some freak act. Or lost because the ship no longer had such a talented meiboard.
"I do that, ma'am," Pepper said. "I'll have a note added to my report."
"Good good," Ivil said.
They slid out of the rather busy orbit of Driftwood station, and Ivil noticed that while the Sappho's movement away from the station didn't ge much, they weren't the only ship leaving. The rge Tech Maid of Mars cruiser undog itself at the moment was causing a bit of a stir, f flight pns to ge because of its sheer bulk alone.
"Alright," Pixie said. "We're about a quarter way around from Callisto to Ganymede, which means we've got optioher I cut in with a light, long burn, rely on the ship's ion thrust a us to Gaomorrow, ship-time, ive us a hard, speedy little burn with everything this baby's got, we see how hot we run these engines and we do a hard flip and burn halfway to slow down."
"The former sounds far more reasonable," Aurora said.
"But the tter sounds more expedient. And speed is of the essence."
"We'll be catg a lot of attention if we move so drastically," Aurora warned.
"Good. They'll see us ing, then," Ivil said. She smiled smugly as Aurave her a look, but it was a fair statement. If MINT were qui their feet, then they'd warn the Emperor of their arrival. He... or at least his staff, would likely be watg them ing.
At that point, being slow about it wasn't going to help anyone, least of all themselves.
Besides, Ivil was in a hurry to put the other Emperor in his pce, and it seemed like Pixie wao give the Sappho a proper test. "Hit it, Pixie."
"With pleasure!" Pixie said. And then she proceeded to... do very little, actually. "What?" she asked, almost as if she could sense Ivil's eyes on her.
"I was expeg a sudden burst of speed, to be ho."
"We're still close to the station, you know? I have an impeccable pilot's record and this area is very busy, I'm not going to risk anything just to shave off a few seds to our flight time. Let me get to a safe distance first."
It took another fifteen minutes of slow coasting, with only a slight bit of additional thrust from Pixie, before they were out of the immediate surroundings of the station. Ohey were free, however, Pixie started to grin and her hands skimmed over the trols.
"Alright everyone, wele aboard the Sappho, I'll be your pilot tonight. oal? Callisto to Ganymede at a speed that will have the average bulk freighter quaking in their boots. Engineering, che."
"Uh, yes?" Twenty-Six asked over the s.
"We're going to be pushing this baby hard. Is she all warmed up and finished with her stretches?" Pixie asked.
"Oh! Yeah! Engine's running at 100% pilot, our fuel's topped up, oil pressure is reading green, I gave her a proper check up and everything is shiny and new back here. Ah, we haven't done a full-calibratio on the engine running as hard as it could go, though."
"Will that be a problem?" Pixie asked.
"Shouldn't be! I'll be nosing in oats while we move, I'll let you know if I think anything looks strawenty-Six replied.
Pixie's grin, impossibly, widened. "You're the best, love," she said, which had Twenty-Six flustered right up. "Okay, everyone, belts os in the upright position--" An ironic statement from someone who wenty-Six to tie blocks to the pedals to reach them, Ivil thought--"And... we're off."
Ivil allowed the sudden momentum shift of the ship to push her bato the captain's seat. She also distractedly grabbed Aurora's tablet out of the air as it shot by, heading in the general dire of Pepper's face at the kind of speed that would definitely result in at least a split lip.
Aurora turned and probably tried to look trite and upset, but her face was currently being squeezed in a rather unattractive way and that made it somewhat difficult to read her expression.
"Watch out," Ivil warned as she stood up and walked over to pce the tablet in a small drawer o Aurora. "I'll leave this here for you," she said before returning to the captain's seat.
Pixie kept them going, pushing into the territory of a hard burn, then a little bit beyond that. Ivil kept an eye on the readouts, noting that they'd crossed the nine gravities mark a bit ago and were still climbing.
Those were dangerous levels if sustained for a long period.
Fortunately, Pixie let off ohrottle and the mood in the room, as well as the pressure, lightened. "Woo!" she cheered.
"Twenty-Six," Ivil said as she opehe s to the engineering bay. "How are things back there?"
"Good good," Twenty-Six said. Her enthusiasm was somewhat tradicted by the several arms going off in the background.
"Are you certain?"
"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be? Nothing is on fire and the emergency systems kicked ihey were meant to."
"I am not an expert on spacecraft, but I don't recall those bei to go off at all uhere was an emergency," Ivil said.
"Well, we wao test things, right?" Twenty-Six asked. "So I opened a few things back here, to give her some mas. Probably not great for fuel efficy, or, uh, the life of our drives, but we got really fast there in no time at all!"
Ivil blihen decided not to push it. "Let me know how much the repairs will cost once we reach Ganymede," she said.
"Nah, I fix all of this with a few hours and some duct tape, no problem!"
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RavensDagger
