Sahna felt like something was amiss. She felt the subtle sensation of movement and wondered if she had fallen asleep in a vehicle or if she was in flight, but no, the sensations weren't right.
Mentally, she tried to extend her senses while she struggled to open her eyes. She felt the sensation of clothing around her but an odd lack of pressure on her back. There was nothing beneath her, but she wasn't standing up either.
Sahna's eyes opened in a panic and she saw nothing but sky. Air began to rush past her, layers of cloud flying by as she fell towards a burning jungle far below.
She managed not to panic, manipulating her arms and legs to try and stop her tumble, but every time she was on the verge of gaining control a gust of wind tossed her around.
The ground kept coming closer, towers of smoke rising up to meet her as she plummeted. The wind kept howling, the clouds kept rising above her, and there seemed to be nothing she could do.
She frantically searched herself, looking for anything that might be helpful. No parachute, no rocket pack, no glider, what had happened?
Panic finally broke through her barriers, she completely lost control, tumbling end over end through the air, helplessly.
"Scar? Sahna!"
Sahna jerked and would have banged her head had a pair of strong arms not kept her restrained.
"Sahna, it's okay. You're okay, you're not falling, your just floating. You're in space, remember? In space."
Sahna calmed down and blinked her eyes clear, finally recognizing Callie's face right above hers, looking down at her with firm but compassionate eyes.
After a second, her own eyes looked around, finding herself within a rectangular capsule just big enough for two people to squeeze into, her body snuggled into a bag, tied to the inside of the capsule by straps. Callie was floating above her, back pressed against the top to help keep her restrained.
Sahna put a hand on her chest, trying to get her hearts to stop racing, taking deep, controlled breaths to try and settle down.
"What happened?" She asked breathlessly.
Callie released her shoulders and brought her hand to Sahna's mantle in soothing, gentle strokes. "You had a falling nightmare. It sometimes happens to people not used to sleeping in zero gee. You're floating so some people's subconscious assume they're actually falling."
"A nightmare?" Sahna's mind was still trying to lift out of the fog. She wondered if the stress of the past few weeks was part of it.
"Don't worry," Callie whispered. "It's all over now and it's time to wake up anyway." Her face split with a big grin. "Come on now, up."
Callie retreated behind the privacy curtain and Sahna groaned softly. She unfastened the zipper and wriggled out of the bag, rubbing her head and glad her hearts were finally back down to a more restful cycle.
She was dressed in dark blue Marine pyjamas, the standard thing to wear in space since ships tended to be more on the chilly side.
With one last yawn and stretch, Sahna gently floated feet first towards the curtain and into a well-lit chamber.
The chamber they were in was one of Audacity's bunk rooms. It was several stories tall and Sahna had to fight the sense of vertigo she experienced as she looked down several stories below. Several lattice frames secured rectangular sleeping pods that, in an emergency, could be used as a shelter, each with their own limited life support system. There were hundreds in this one room alone, all for the officers of Beta Squadron and their support personnel.
Sahna grabbed one of the handholds on her sleeping pod and saw several people looking at her. She looked away, flushing, feeling like the kid at camp who had soiled their bed.
"Morning!"
Hypori emerged from her pod, stretching, her mantle bright and sunny as ever. As someone who had been Hypori's roommate the entirety of her career as a mobile suit pilot, her cheer first thing in the morning no longer bothered her. Seeing her like that helped give her a sense of normalcy on this first morning aboard a ship in space, not that she intended to admit that to a single living soul.
"Now what?" She asked.
Callie was floating just outside her own pod, going through one of her small pouch bags. She looked at her for a second and then realized, "right, you need a tutorial. Tog, you up?"
Dirk emerged slowly from his own sleeping pod, looking as though he'd already been up for a while.
Probably reading again.
"Hippie," Callie called. "Can you and Tog show Scar how to get ready."
"Sure thing," Hypori replied cheerfully. "Come on, Scar, Big Sis will show you how it's done."
Sahna and Dirk shared a look of exasperation between them but said nothing. Being ignorant as she was about living in space, Sahna had to rely on help from Hypori. That wouldn't be a problem if the other girl didn't ham it up so much. She retrieved what she needed from her duffle bag, fastened to the far wall of her sleeping pod.
Hypori emerged a short time later with a small pouch and her personal water packet. "It's not much different from doing it under gravity," she said. "Just get your beakbrush and start as usual. Add a dab of water from the packet, make sure it's just a little bit. The brush actually absorbs the water pretty well if its dried properly. Then you can add the beakpaste."
"Remember to scrape," Dirk added, demonstrating as he pushed just a small gob of beakpaste onto his brush, using it to scrape against the tubs's throat before shutting the tub up again.
Sahna did as she was told. While she did, Hypori took a small mirror out of her pouch and looked into it as she began brushing her beak.
Sahna took out her brush and retrieved her water packet from one of the cargo nets inside her pod. She copied Dirk as precisely as she could and watched as the other two brushed, not noticing anything different about the actual brushing method.
As she brushed she noticed Hypori glancing at her and her mantle turning a shade darker.
"What?" She asked through her mantle.
Hypori flashed purple. "I don't know how you can brush your beak properly without a mirror."
Sahna gave her an odd look. "I know where my beak is in my mouth. I don't understand how people need a mirror."
"Don't talk while your brush," Marie scolded them. "You'll end up spitting gobs all over the place."
Admonished the two dropped their argument.
After Sahna had finished brushing she looked around and suddenly realized there was no sink. She looked at Dirk who had finished completely but she hadn't seen what he did.
"What's with you?" Hypori asked. But Dirk realized it almost immediately.
"You have to swallow it," he said. "Then use some water to clean the brush and suck it dry."
Hypori grimaced. "Ugh, I forgot, Terrans spit. Gross."
Sahna ignored her and fought her almost instinctive resistance to swallowing beakpaste to do as Dirk instructed. She gagged and took a long gulp from her water packet to get rid of the taste.
"That's why we told you to get a good tasting one," Hypori said in a sing-song voice.
"Ugh, what difference does it make? They all taste bad."
"Uh, uh." Hypori showed her tube and pointed to the spot on the label that read, "Banana Breeze".
Dirk showed off his own tube of cinnamon toast flavour.
"Don't buy 'original'", he said.
"Alright, enough fooling around," Major Rancher announced. "Everyone get to the showers. We've got a lot to do today."
Sahna hurriedly put her things away and took out her bathroom supplies and fresh clothes. Her towel was not one of the nice, fluffy ones she preferred but a kind made for zero gravity, with virtually no fluff at all, but highly absorbent.
Unlike the locker rooms, the bathrooms were separated by sex. The room was narrow and two stories tall, with cubicles stacked in pairs lining every wall, and a single line of grab poles dividing the room down the middle.
The bathroom was already quite busy with members of the crew already there and the roar of fans drowning out any attempt at conversation. This didn't look like any of the showers she had seen before or that her mother had told her about.
Sahna and Hypori grabbed onto a pole and waited for one of the cubicles to be freed up. A lot of eyes began staring in their general direction as people realized they'd shown up. Of course, it wasn't her or Hypori they were looking at.
Callie and Marie pretended to not notice all the attention they were drawing, instead, they were trying to have a conversation with Kelper. In all the noise, Sahna wouldn't have bothered, but maybe they were just trying to ignore the awkwardness.
Sahna and Hypori were glad to finally gain access to a cubicle. It was big enough for about three people. Unfortunately, Sahna wasn't sure how it actually worked.
As the two of them undressed, Hypori noticed her confusion. "Oh, I get it, you've only seen the hose showers."
"I guess?" Sahna had to speak up to even hear herself. "It's a double hose with a nozzle that sprays water and a hose in the same nozzle sucks it up."
"Right, that's the old kind. Most people like these ones better for ships with big crews." She grabbed her soap bottle and gestured for Sahna to do the same. "Just remember to start at the top and work your way down."
Hypori found a large button on the side of the stall and slapped it with her palm. There was a whine from the grate at their feet and air started to move, sucking them down to the grate just before cold water started to fall on both of them.
Sahna realized that the shower was using air currents to draw water down from the shower heads above them to the floor, effectively mimicking a shower in gravity but without having to actually simulate gravity.
"Hurry, there's a time limit of just over five minutes," Hypori warned. "She was already scrubbing her head. Sahna hurriedly did the same.
When the water stopped, Hypori told her it was important to dry herself before the fan ran out to avoid leaving water droplets hanging in the air.
They left the cubicle as soon as they were done and dressed; and because the room was so busy they left the showers rather than waiting for everyone else and relieved themselves at the toilet stalls before heading back to their pods to change into their flight suits.
Breakfast was also an interesting experience, but at least this time Sahna had an idea of what to expect.
Upon arriving at the officer's mess, they were all given trays with magnetic feet and strips on top to hold onto their utensils. They had compartments to hold onto the plastic containers that held their food. In this case, Sahna had a container of powdered eggs, a brick of sausage meat, and a circular piece of unleavened flatbread onto which she began spreading some of the peanut butter attached to their table.
"How different is this from the other ships you've been on?" Sahna asked. "It was mostly directed at Hypori but she'd left it open for anyone else to respond.
"In terms of facilities, I'd say it ranks pretty high," Marie said. "But I haven't served on many ships. The worst was a ship we used during fighter training school, an old freighter that didn't even have showers. We were stuck on there for a weak. They called it the "smell boat."
Sahna wrinkled her nose. "I can imagine why."
"There's worse," Dirk replied. "Lunar Army Training. Entire week in spacesuit. Worst feeling ever."
Callie made a disgusted face. "Please, not while we're eating. Why don't we talk about what we're doing today instead?"
Rancher chuckled. "Well, I'm going to be in a meeting later with the other senior officers to learn about the specifics of our orders. Whatever it is must be important if they're keeping it secret for this long."
"Oh, and I have to show you guys the Balls in the other hangar," Hypori said excitedly. Her eyes shone brightly with eagerness. "You gotta see what they actually did to those things to make them dangerous."
"For pilot or enemy?" Dirk asked.
Hypori ignored his remark and looked down the table at Major Rancher. "That's okay, right Ma'am?"
Rancher pulsed grey. "I suppose there's no harm in learning more about the other unit we'll be working with. I've never worked alongside Balls myself, so as long as it doesn't come at the expense of your training you can go ahead. We need to do a lot more physical exercise." She looked pointedly as Sahna, as if she needed to emphasize it for their squadron's youngest marine.
"Awesome!" Hypori shouted. "You're up for it, right guys?"
Dirk calmly flashed green and Sahna did the same. She had to admit she was curious to see what the big deal was about the Balls. When Hypori had first described them they'd sounded like deathtraps. She might as well see what Hypori was so excited to show them.
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Audacity's conference room was the fullest it had ever been. Her own senior officers in addition to the representatives of all her new acquisitions were crowded into the room, insufficient seating leaving some floating freely..
In addition to Captain Strabland and Major Rancher, there was the addition of Major Starko, commander of Audacity's compliment of Marine troops; and Lieutenant Sealer, commander of the 52nd Ball Squadron.
Varmos felt sorry for the young Lieutenant. He looked quite out of his depth among so many senior officers, and he was too young and inexperienced to be a squadron commander. It was a sign of just how desperate the war situation was. Normally, one had to be at least a lieutenant-commander to command a squadron.
"I'll be explaining our mission to you all now," Varmos began without preamble. "Colonel, Lieutenant, I know you're a little behind everyone else right now so I'll just have to ask you to pick things up as we go and frankly accept how things are. Believe me, I'm well aware of how crazy it all seems."
To avoid confusion, Starko, as the senior Marine officer aboard ship, was by tradition, referred to as Colonel to avoid being confused with Major Rancher, despite being in different chains of command. It was similar to how Captain Strabland was referred to as "Boss" by the pilots to avoid confusing his and Varmos' positions.
"At present, we're en route to the Elysian Current. Our mission, in general terms, is to go there and knock out a few pirates that have been harassing our shipping along the route. That's one reason we're going in alone, we're bait to lure them out and hope they won't be too scared of our big guns to try taking us on."
"Pirates, Sir?" Stoker gave him an odd look, not that Varmos blamed him. Sending a carrier to go pirate hunting seemed like a waste of resources, especially given the assets they were carrying.
"It has to be done and we're the best able to do it. Besides, if the prototype mobile suits need to be tested, it's best to do it against something less threatening at first and away from enemy eyes."
Starko and Sealer's eyes went wide. They had been brought on last minute and nobody had found an appropriate time to fill them in after they got underway. Varmos didn't want to waste time going into detail about it now though. They would have plenty of time to learn the details.
"But that's just the surface-level part of our mission. The real reason we're going is a little more involved."
Varmos pressed a button on the console in front of him and the monitor on the wall displayed the image Admiral Blackhill had shown him of Wayward's remains.
"This is what's left of a freighter that recently appeared from the current. Intelligence's best guess is that it was taken out with a single blast from an energy weapon, but it doesn't match the profile of any weapon we know about. Their concern is that the enemy is field-testing a new weapon and using pirate activity to hide it. Their other guess is that they may have salvaged a mega particle cannon from a wrecked warship on either side and have gotten it working, but not properly. They see this as the less likely possibility though."
"So we're going out to break one of the enemy's new toys?" Starko rubbed his chin as he stared at the image. "Given how much traffic goes through the current, I'd be surprised if we didn't find more wrecks on the way."
"It's certainly possible," Varmos agreed. "Wayward is estimated to have been floating aimlessly for weeks before we found her.
"I'm not sure they would come back so quickly," Stoker argued. "His eyes were studying the image of Wayward intently. "If they took all the cargo, they'd need quite a while to ship and then sell it. They usually try to ransom the crew too."
"Not this time," Varmos said darkly. "There were no survivors of this attack. Anyone who survived the initial blast was killed in their pods."
Everyone's expressions showed some form of strong emotion, ranging from horror to contempt. Destroying survival pods of any kind, whether they be the sleeping pods or lifeboats, was against every law and sense of decency known to sentient life. Even pirates were usually reluctant to commit such acts. Only the most desperate and reprehensible would do such a thing, which narrowed the list of suspects.
"In addition to the pirates," Varmos went on. "We're to investigate the possibility of an Octarian facility hidden in the Knossos Asteroid Field. It's possible it's been abandoned and used as the base for these pirates or where this new Octarian weapon is being developed."
Clutchguard stared at him in disbelief. "They expect us to search the asteroid field for this base? Just us? Sir, unless the pirates are especially stupid, they aren't going to lead us there."
Varmos smiled tightly. "You're right, Commander. Fortunately, intelligence has decided to live up to it's name this time and realize the same thing."
He switched the image on the main screen to a simple map of the asteroid field. Any kind of accurate map was impossible. Asteroid fields were far too chaotic to map, other than some of the especially large bodies. The view then zoomed in on a rectangular section of the map, which showed a handful of large bodies and the distance to the approximate perimeter of the field.
"I don't know how many of you remember the Mackdall Incident where someone tried to assassinate Dr. Minovsky, but it was thought at the time he was on his way back from Elysium when it happened. Now though, they think that was a cover since nobody actually saw him at Elysium. Instead, they think that at some point during the trip, he was dropped off around this area and then picked up around the time the incident occurred. Using that, they've made their best estimates as to where a base might have been set up."
The officers around the table looked at the map with renewed interest, no longer seeing an impossible task but one that had plausibility for success, everyone except Major Rancher.
The Marine's clouded expression and distant eyes clearly indicated her thoughts were elsewhere, not out of boredom or disinterest, she was too professional for that. Something had triggered a memory or other priority in her mind and she was working through that in her head. Varmos wondered if it had anything to do with why she or her unit had been assigned to space.
"What's our timetable?" Stoker asked.
"Limited. It'll take us at least week to get to that spot to start our search, and that's assuming we don't run into pirates along the way, though I'm willing to bet they'll be waiting for us not far from the exit. I don't want to be there any longer than we have to because if the enemy does have a base there, they'll probably cry for help if they think we're after them, and they probably have a cruiser or two not too far off to provide support as well, and that's too close a fight for my liking."
Mantles flashed green around the table, understanding. Major Rancher also seemed to have come back from whatever far off thoughts she had been sorting through earlier.
"What happens if we do find the base?" Strabland asked. "Unless we could somehow navigate the ship to it, I don't think we'd have the firepower to take it out."
"I know," Varmos admitted. "Ideally, I'd like to knock it out if we can, but if possible, I'd like to find out what's going on there. If we're risking our funnels all the way out there, I want it to be worth as much as we can get. If we're lucky, maybe we can stage some kind of raid to disrupt their operations, maybe get some Marines in there to see what they're up to, but that's a lofty goal for the moment."
"We don't have any specific instructions?" Stoker asked.
"Not really. Our primary mission is to find out what knocked out Wayward and learn as much as we can, while knocking out as many pirates as possible. Everything else is secondary. Understood?"
Mantles flashed green again and Varmos nodded. "Good. Lt. Commander Glaskin, how are things looking in engineering?"
The stocky engineer scratched his head. "Well, I wish we'd been able to test her at long duration cruising speed, Sir. I'm not sure how she'll behave since so much of her is new. Things are looking good so far though and…"
As Glazkin continued his report and they moved on to other operational topics, Varmos fought the guilt stewing in his gut, guilt for lying to all these people who had been placed under his command, his responsibility.
The truth was that the pirates were also a secondary concern for this mission, but as far as he was concerned, they were the most important thing. Because he knew the pirates that would use these kind of tactics, they were the same ones that had murdered three star liners worth of people and most of Thunderhead's crew.
He still owed it to his old crew, to the Federation as a whole, to deal with that threat and kill as many of them as possible. He was finally being given the opportunity to get revenge – to get justice for his old crew, and his last act as their captain would be getting it. If everyone else had to be placed in danger for this mission anyway, then they might as well help. That kind of guilt was easier to live with.
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Rauld struggled a bit as he conducted his external pre-flight checks. The techs working on their Balls were good, probably the best they'd ever worked with, but even the best could miss something occasionally.
He glanced over at the rest of his flight, each going through their own procedures. Because Sunni tended to take so long with hers and he'd gotten sick of trying to hustle her, he'd elected to show up early to get ready for their first patrol instead. They would be the first ones to conduct a patrol for Audacity since they'd left Gibraltar more than a day ago. Nobody else had wanted to do it but Rauld considered it an honour to be the first, even if nobody else thought so.
As he was finishing up his checks, he spotted a trio of figures floating across the hangar in his general direction. They were wearing pilot suits, so they weren't techs, and they weren't any member of his flight, so who were they? Could they actually be pilots from the mobile suit unit that Sealer had told them about?
None of them had been able to fully believe that they would be entrusted with escorting a team testing a prototype mobile suit, but the idea thrilled Rauld. That they were finally going to start fighting the Collective at their own game and he was going to see some of its early steps first hand filled him with pride and satisfaction. Maybe this was his chance to learn a little something.
The three pilots latched onto the frame of the alcove before one of them floated down towards him and grabbed onto the gun of his Ball to stop herself, flipping around it until she was upside-down relative to the other two following her.
They were close enough that his proximity comm triggered, carrying a sweet, cheerful voice through his helmet speakers.
"Here we are, the RB-79 Ball, made to counter the pressing threat of the Octarian mobile suit forces. And this," she patted the side of the gun barrel, "is a 180mm low recoil cannon, with enough punch to knock out a Zaku in one hit if you get it in the right place."
"Low recoil," a male voice responded. "Slow round, easier to avoid."
"Hey, at least this hurts when it hits. The fighters don't mount anything heavier than thirty-mill that isn't a missile."
So they were trying to learn about the Balls? This was his chance to introduce himself and get a conversation going.
Popping out from behind his machine he waved. "Hey there. Um…" he realized he didn't know their ranks. "If you have any questions, I can answer them."
They faced him. The girl who'd been talking twisted in place without letting go of the gun, looking at him with bright yellow eyes and a bright smile, the kind of smile he hadn't seen directed at him in a long time.
"Hey there," she said. "Sorry, didn't realize you were here. Didn't mean to borrow your ride for a bit. I'm just trying to show my comrades here the attributes of the these little beauties."
Rauld had never heard the Ball referred to as a 'beauty' before. Was she really one of the mobile suit pilots?
"Well, like I said, I can answer any questions since I do pilot these, uh, beauties." He extended his hand. "I'm Rauld. 52nd Ball Squadron."
Extending her own hand, she awkwardly shook his from her inverted position. "Hypori. These are Scar and Tog." She indicated her companions with her thumb. She never mentioned rank so he assumed they had to be no higher than him. "We're with Rancher's Reapers."
So their unit had an actual name or at least a nickname. It certainly sounded cool and Hypori didn't come off as arrogant or superior as he might have feared from an elite squadron, though he was perhaps making an assumption on that front.
"So, you're the mobile suit unit?"
"Sure are." Hypori grinned. "Bet you weren't expected any wartime wonders like us, huh?"
"I didn't know what to expect," Rauld admitted. Still, knowing that at least these three were wartime recruits like him meant that maybe there was a chance for him to get into a mobile suit squadron, assuming he survived in this one long enough. Being a part of this mission had to increase his odds for selection, right?
"How'd you get selected? Did you place high in training?"
Hypori shrugged. She had to be a spacer to make such a gesture. It was easy for people to forget that it was virtually impossible to see mantle displays when one was wearing a helmet, so alternative body language had developed over time.
"Not sure, really. I was about middle of the road as far as my training goes. I was actually worse when learning to fly the Ball. I actually never finished my Ball training 'cause they pulled me away for this job."
Rauld's eyes went wide. "You were a Ball pilot?"
"Sure was. 33rd. I'm the only one in our unit who knows anything about Balls so I'm doing the introduction. Figured it was important people should know if we're going to be working together."
"That's true," Rauld agreed faintly. He felt like his world was whirling around him. Hypori was a former Ball pilot and she hadn't been high in terms of marks either. Everything he was hearing seemed to increase his odds of becoming a mobile suit pilot himself. That would be something much more worthy of a Millihelm.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. He glanced left and saw Mouse's helmet next to his, but she wasn't looking at him, she was staring straight at Hypori, her usually pleasant countenance replaced with a hard expression.
"Sir," she said, without taking her eyes off the other inkora, "we should be getting ready for our patrol. Even if we have plenty of time, Lieutenant Sealer might mistake this as slacking off."
Rauld grimaced. She was right about that. Sealer looked for any opportunity he could to get at Rauld and he didn't want to leave a bad impression or spoil his first patrol.
"Sorry," he told Hypori. "Maybe we can talk another time."
Hypori was staring back at Mouse when he looked back at her, her own smile gone until she looked back at him. "I guess I can't argue with that." And she pushed off gently from his machine, heading feet first towards the hangar ceiling. "I'll just have to show them a different machine."
Her companions followed her up towards the ceiling then they headed further down the hangar, leaving Rauld feeling as though he'd missed an opportunity. Mouse was right though, it probably wasn't worth Sealer's wrath. He would have other opportunities to talk to Hypori now that he'd started a dialogue.
"What were they doing here?" Biter asked caustically. Rauld looked down and saw him checking his own machine at the bottom of the alcove. "Why are they allowed to swim around our hangar but we get shot if we go near theirs?"
"That's not their fault," Rauld insisted. "Anyway, they only came because they wanted to learn more about the Balls."
Biter snorted. "Sure they did."
"They sounded okay," Tank said from the slot directly below Rauld's machine. "I caught bits and pieces of what they were saying. The one doing all the talking seemed nice enough. At least they weren't as bad as the Lieutenant made it seem they'd be. I feel better knowing one of 'em was one of us once."
"She says," Mouse countered. "She might have been lying."
Rauld looked at her, puzzled. "Why would anyone lie that they were a ball pilot?"
Mouse looked at him, seeming… hurt? He wasn't sure how to read the emotion on her face, but she said nothing and floated away from him across the hangar to her own machine, leaving Rauld wondering what that had been about.
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Sahna was surprised to be called alone to Major Rancher's office. She'd actually never seen it before now and she wasn't sure why she'd been called.
After a brief search, she found the right door and pressed the door chime. A second later the door opened, revealing the Major behind her desk and Marie floating next to the wall, arms crossed and eyes half-lidded. She tended to do that when she had something on her mind.
Sahna floated into the room and saluted. "Reporting as ordered, Ma'am."
Rancher casually returned the salute but the there was nothing casual about the way she looked at her. Her gaze was not stern but there was an intensity to it she didn't understand. She got the impression she hadn't been called here because of any offence on her part, but what could it be then?
"How was Hypori's tour?" Marie asked.
Sahna blinked, a bit surprised that Marie spoke before the Major. "Um, fine, I guess. They had to go out for a patrol so we weren't able to talk with their pilots much. Hypori convinced the techs to let us into the cockpits and look. Actually, a lot of similarities to the GM's cockpit. Might be easier to train Ball pilots into mobile suits than fighter pilots."
Marie smirked. "Dangerous words there, Scar. You sure about that?"
"No, but I remember how worried Captain Skour was about training new pilots. He might have enough mobile suits to train instructors but not whole units of pilots. It might not be ideal, but it's better than nothing."
"I'll log that for future consideration," Rancher interrupted. "Right now, there's an issue we need to discuss with you, Second-Lieutenant Starburn."
Sahna faced her commander squarely, standing at attention with her foot hooked into one of the floor loops, waiting.
Rancher's mantle pulsed blue. "I'll be briefing the rest of the squadron later, but Lieutenant Sansea and I thought we should give you a bit of a preview."
A series of bug bites travelled up Sahna's back and pricked the skin on her arms, a feeling of dread. She clenched her jaw to help maintain as impassive an expression as she could manage.
Rancher leaned forward and placed both hands on her desk, looking Sahna squarely in the eye. "We're heading for the Knossos Asteroid Field to do some pirate hunting and locate a secret enemy base."
Rancher's words hit Sahna like a club on the back of the head. Knossos? That was where her mother had died, where the Mackdall Incident had taken place.
Images of her mother flashed in front of her eyes along with memories of when Callie and Marie had first told her about it to clear up the issue of why the CSF had rejected her. She remembered what had gone through her head after that startling revelation, the idea that her mother and the mistake she'd made that day may have been responsible for how bad the war was going for the Federation.
The latter point, she had dismissed, knowing that her mother had been trying to save civilian lives, even if they were contracted by the military. But the memory of her death, the memory of herself as a child realizing that her mother would never again walk through the front door and give her those crushing hugs she loved so much, still had its thorny tendrils around the most tender parts of her soul.
As memories and feelings washed over her, she also remembered that the information around the Makdall Incident were classified and nobody except Colonel Argent, Callie and Marie; and herself were supposed to know. She gave Marie a questioning glance.
Marie flashed green. "The Colonel and I told her before we left Black Butte. I don't know if he thought we would end up with this mission but whatever the case, he thought she needed to know."
Shame and guilt washed across her mantle before she managed to get it back under control but Rancher turned a reassuring green.
"I'm not trying to treat you like some kind of problem child, Starburn, this is just us trying to be considerate. Anybody would feel a little emotional if they were brought to the place their mother was killed. We just wanted to tell you now so it wouldn't come as a shock to you in front of everyone else."
Sahna grit her beak then forced herself to relax. She didn't want to give her commander reason to worry about her. She had accepted her mother's death a long time ago, but the fact that they needed to take this step, even if it was just out of consideration, made her feel like she was being treated with kid gloves.
"Thank you, Ma'am, I appreciate that. My mother spent her career as a pirate hunter. If we're going to be hunting pirates then I'll think of it as carrying on that duty in her absence."
Rancher and Marie studied her at least ten seconds before Rancher flashed green. "Very good then. You're dismissed."
Sahna saluted and then left the room, her mind working quickly.
Rancher and Marie were clearly worried about her emotional state, no doubt on top of worrying about her performance. She had performed adequately in the exercise against the heavy fighters and warships, but they probably still saw a lot of question marks as far as her overall performance in space combat was concerned.
When the time came to fight, she couldn't just do adequately, she needed to excel. She hated being treated like the kid who required special consideration. That wasn't what her mother would have expected of her, not what she expected for herself: one of the elite who who had bred fear in the hearts of the enemy.
The pirates had to be a big group if the CSF was sending them to deal with it. If she could kill more of the pirates than anyone else, that would be a fitting tribute to her mother's memory. She would make sure of it.
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The Elysian Current wasn't hard to spot at this range. The way it subtly warped space like peering through heat haze was something to see. The occasional wisp of green energy helped it stand out from amidst the black.
The ship was currently at condition amber, standard procedure for transitioning into an aetherial current. Audacity's mass would make this a smoother transition than for most ships, but one still had to be prepared.
Varmos triggered the PA system for the entire ship. "This is the Captain. All hands brace for transition into the current."
"Here we go," Daxter announced, a slight tremor in his voice.
Varmos gripped both his armrests and waited. Seconds passed, a minute. Just before they reached the two minute mark, he felt a gentle surge of acceleration that gradually increased as the mouth of the current sucked the ship in.
The ship began to shake and tremble, veering slightly as she tried to find her place in the current drawing her in. Gradually, the shaking diminished and Varmos let out a breath.
"Nicely done," he said. "Navigation, is it safe to stand down from Amber?"
Lt. Hurler glanced at one of her monitors. "I'd like to wait another eight minutes, sir. Current's a little rough this time of year and with everything that'll be going on in the hangars I want to be sure."
"Understood."
Hurler's caution was not unwarranted. The current's temperament changed depending on the position of Terra and Elysium relative to each other. This and the fact that it was next to impossible for ships to stay close in the current without banging into each other was one of the reasons combat engagements were almost unheard of within the current. That made it probably the safety place in the universe for them at the moment. Varmos would enjoy that while he could, because when they emerged on the other side near the Knossos Asteroid Field, things wouldn't be nearly as relaxing.
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Another disadvantage of being in the current was that sensors didn't work the same way. Radar signals, for example, might be sent out but be unable to catch up to their ship of origin, so most ships turned it off, relying on passive sensors and sight to see things. Unfortunately, Audacity didn't have as many facilities for this as most warships, thanks to her civilian origins and compromises made in her design, so she didn't notice the ship that entered the current not long after her, keeping its distance but watching every move she made.
Author's Notes:
Sorry again for the late update, I got wrapped up in things yesterday.
So a lot going on in this chapter. Rauld sees a chance at greater glory, Sahna getting used to living in space, and Varmos sneakily planning his vengeance. Drama and battle ahead!
I had to do a bunch of research for this chapter about living in space. Chris Hadfield was very helpful with his videos about living in space. Yeah, I don't like the idea of swallowing toothpaste either.
What did you find interesting about this chapter? What issues do you see going forward?