lift off. Happy hunting. Diligent out.”
“Bring the main drive online and align the navigation system,” Jason ordered unnecessarily.
“Main drive is online and available, Captain,” Twingo reported. “You’re clear to lift.”
“Lifting off,” Jason said. “Retract the landing gear and let’s get this hunt started!” His last statement was met with cheers from the bridge as he gently accelerated the gunship to drift ahead and to starboard in relation to the Diligent before throttling up and accelerating towards their mesh-out point. The longer they served together the more these small rituals seemed to manifest as they went about the day-to-day task of their chosen profession. Being a military man, Jason knew it served to stave off complacency and instill a sense of purpose and cohesiveness. For him, they were a comforting and familiar way to either start or end a mission.
“Course plotted and entered, Captain,” Kage reported. “You’re clear to engage the slip-drive.” Jason looked down at the large blinking green button to his right. The old, boring control had been replaced with an animated switch face that enthusiastically said “Burn Baby Burn!” in dancing characters. He slapped it ; instantly the canopy darkened and there was a whine and shudder as the ship transitioned into slip-space. Now came the hardest part of the job; even travelling at well over a thousand times the speed of light, the distances were just unfathomably huge, so the crew was used to flight times lasting often more than a week. This one would be ten days. Sighing inwardly at the inevitable, Jason decided he could use some sleep and headed off to his quarters after waving to the crew.
Sitting on his bed as he pulled his boots off, Jason contemplated on whether or not he had just made another fatal mistake with Taryn by not going and saying goodbye before he left. He knew she would try to convince him to take her along, but he wasn’t sure that was because she wanted to be close to him, wanted to be there when they got revenge on Deetz, or simply didn’t want to sit on an alien spaceship with her parents. As he lay on his bed he thought back to all of the mistakes he had made, all the time he had wasted, and how things had been going along just fine for him out here before she was thrust back into his life. With troubled thoughts flitting around in his head, he finally drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 5
“Anything to report?” Jason asked as he walked onto the bridge to begin his watch shift. Kage was sitting in the pilot’s seat but had the main display scrolling a data stream at a dizzying rate. Since the new computer core had been installed in the ship, the Veran code slicer spent a lot of his free time running simulated scenarios in which he would have to defeat the computer’s security measures.
“Nope, all quiet here,” he said distractedly. “Twingo and Crusher are sleeping and Doc is messing around in the com room. Oh … there were some message fragments from the Diligent , but we’re running so hard right now that the slip-transceiver is having trouble compiling the data.”
“That’s a thing?” Jason asked, surprised.
“Only when we’ve got her really cranked up,” Kage answered as he hopped down from the seat. To Jason’s annoyance he didn’t bother to return the displays to their previous settings. “It’s the interference from the fields when the engines are nearing maximum output. When we slow down for our first maintenance check they should come through … if the Diligent keeps transmitting them.”
“Should we slow down now? It could be important.”
“The message header had it marked as normal priority,” Kage said. “I decided to leave it up to you rather than command a velocity change without asking first.”
“ Okay. Go ahead and get out of here, I’ll call you if I need you,” Jason said as he climbed into the seat to reconfigure his displays. Once Kage had left, he
“Bring the main drive online and align the navigation system,” Jason ordered unnecessarily.
“Main drive is online and available, Captain,” Twingo reported. “You’re clear to lift.”
“Lifting off,” Jason said. “Retract the landing gear and let’s get this hunt started!” His last statement was met with cheers from the bridge as he gently accelerated the gunship to drift ahead and to starboard in relation to the Diligent before throttling up and accelerating towards their mesh-out point. The longer they served together the more these small rituals seemed to manifest as they went about the day-to-day task of their chosen profession. Being a military man, Jason knew it served to stave off complacency and instill a sense of purpose and cohesiveness. For him, they were a comforting and familiar way to either start or end a mission.
“Course plotted and entered, Captain,” Kage reported. “You’re clear to engage the slip-drive.” Jason looked down at the large blinking green button to his right. The old, boring control had been replaced with an animated switch face that enthusiastically said “Burn Baby Burn!” in dancing characters. He slapped it ; instantly the canopy darkened and there was a whine and shudder as the ship transitioned into slip-space. Now came the hardest part of the job; even travelling at well over a thousand times the speed of light, the distances were just unfathomably huge, so the crew was used to flight times lasting often more than a week. This one would be ten days. Sighing inwardly at the inevitable, Jason decided he could use some sleep and headed off to his quarters after waving to the crew.
Sitting on his bed as he pulled his boots off, Jason contemplated on whether or not he had just made another fatal mistake with Taryn by not going and saying goodbye before he left. He knew she would try to convince him to take her along, but he wasn’t sure that was because she wanted to be close to him, wanted to be there when they got revenge on Deetz, or simply didn’t want to sit on an alien spaceship with her parents. As he lay on his bed he thought back to all of the mistakes he had made, all the time he had wasted, and how things had been going along just fine for him out here before she was thrust back into his life. With troubled thoughts flitting around in his head, he finally drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 5
“Anything to report?” Jason asked as he walked onto the bridge to begin his watch shift. Kage was sitting in the pilot’s seat but had the main display scrolling a data stream at a dizzying rate. Since the new computer core had been installed in the ship, the Veran code slicer spent a lot of his free time running simulated scenarios in which he would have to defeat the computer’s security measures.
“Nope, all quiet here,” he said distractedly. “Twingo and Crusher are sleeping and Doc is messing around in the com room. Oh … there were some message fragments from the Diligent , but we’re running so hard right now that the slip-transceiver is having trouble compiling the data.”
“That’s a thing?” Jason asked, surprised.
“Only when we’ve got her really cranked up,” Kage answered as he hopped down from the seat. To Jason’s annoyance he didn’t bother to return the displays to their previous settings. “It’s the interference from the fields when the engines are nearing maximum output. When we slow down for our first maintenance check they should come through … if the Diligent keeps transmitting them.”
“Should we slow down now? It could be important.”
“The message header had it marked as normal priority,” Kage said. “I decided to leave it up to you rather than command a velocity change without asking first.”
“ Okay. Go ahead and get out of here, I’ll call you if I need you,” Jason said as he climbed into the seat to reconfigure his displays. Once Kage had left, he
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