Pherik ‘Serpent’ Zail tried and failed to stifle a yawn as he walked across the docking tube from his ship to the waiting transport. It had been another long week of command, training and drilling his new crew on the CR90
Defiance. And yet, exhausted as he was, his duties with the Fleet continued.
He was the Naval Intelligence Liaison, and was required for a meeting back on Abrae in a few hours. He had no choice but to sleep on the shuttle ride there, give his presentation, sleep on the way back, and then resume his work on the
Defiance. Hardly ideal, but he would get it done.
Crossing the threshold of the
Theta-Class T-2c shuttle, he saw the young pilot standing inside the entrance salute sharply. “Ah, Mr Cranis,” Said Zail, recognising the lad, “You driving today?”
“Yes, sir,” Said the fresh-faced pilot. “We can depart as soon as you wish.”
“Sooner the better,” Said Serpent, holding up his hand to hide another yawn. “And would you mind awfully if I skipped the chat today? I kind need to... er....
read a report.”
Cranis smiled. “Certainly, sir. You and your reading can sit in back, all quiet. I’ll not disturb you.”
“Much obliged,” Said Zail, knowing that the pilot knew exactly that the Warrant Officer intended to sleep but obligingly not drawing attention to it.
Serpent headed into the comfortable main cabin, and Cranis went up into the cockpit. A few minutes later and they had disengaged the docking tube with Zail’s corvette, and then made the jump to hyperspace.
-----
There was a time in his youth when Serpent could not sleep on space trips, but an adulthood working on trade ships and then his time with the VEN had given him the ability to rest anywhere. The shuttle had barely made the jump to hyperspace when he got comfortable in a chair, shut his eyes, and drifted off inside a minute.
An unknown amount of time had passed when Zail was startled awake suddenly. The ship shook violently as it was torn with a wrenching jerk back into realspace, shaking him in his seat and snapping his head back sharply against the headrest.
“What the frak...?” He exclaimed aloud, as red lighting came on throughout the cabin and an alarm wailed in the background. Rubbing the back of his neck and thankful that he had buckled himself in before falling asleep, Serpent took stock of the situation. “Mr Cranis, report!” He said into the nearest ship’s intercom.
No response.
Zail unbelted and made his way to the front of the shuttle, hitting the cockpit door override and stepping through to see what was going on.
The pilot was there, sprawled out unconscious on the floor. There was a gash on his forehead, and Serpent saw a matching splash of blood on the nearby console. Clearly Cranis had not been so careful about seatbelts as Zail had. The Warrant Officer dropped to the floor and felt for a pulse, calling on basic first aid he had learned back in his Academy days.
The pulse was there, but it was weak. Cranis was not going to be waking any time soon, and would most likely require medical aid. With a renewed sense of urgency, Zail turned to the ship’s controls before him.
A quick glance at the console told him what he wanted to know, that the alarm in the background was a proximity alarm. Sensors were alive with multiple close objects, and together they had exerted enough gravity to create a mass shadow and wrench the shuttle from hyperspace.
A meteor storm, observed Zail, watching the fast moving asteroids in the cockpit window. It was just bad luck that the things had crossed their course. Now that they were in this mess, though, how were they going to get out of it?
Dropping into the vacant pilot’s chair, Serpent quickly familiarised himself with the controls. Unlike so many of his fellows, Zail was
not a former fighter jock, and so piloting did not come easily to him. However, no-one who had received the Star of the Academy from the VENA was without some helm know-how.
He gently throttled up the
Theta-Class shuttle and slowly began to guide it through the meteor shower that was still all around him. Glancing at the scanners, Serpent saw that the storm was long but narrow, and plotting a course perpendicular to the rocks’ heading would take him clear of them quickly.
Zail followed the planned course, taking it at a good speed but ever wary for a collision. The shuttle might withstand a small rock or two, but he knew that one large asteroid would spell the end of him (not to mention Mr Cranis too).
“Woah!” He exclaimed, as the proximity alert raged suddenly louder, and he threw the ship into a desperate turn to evade a particularly fast moving meteor on his port side. Serpent saw the chunk of rock out the side of the viewport, passing close enough that he could make out the pockmarks on its surface.
He took a deep breath to calm himself, wiped some sweat from his forehead, and pressed on.
After another couple of tension-filled minutes, Zail had guided the shuttle clear. He kept going for a while longer, until the proximity alarms had ceased, and the shuttle had enough room to make a jump to hyperspace.
Only as Pherik glanced at the Nav Computer did he suddenly realise that he would have to program the jump himself. Here, like piloting, the Warrant Officer had somewhat limited experience, but
thought he knew enough to manage. Maybe.
Serpent accessed the system, bringing up the central index of systems and their galactic co-ordinates. A quick glance at estimated distances to the nearest habitable worlds indicated that their journey to Abrae was mostly done when the comets threw them out of hyperspace, so that world was close. Knowing that there were advanced medical facilities on the Navy’s central planet, Zail selected that.
So far so good, he thought to himself, as the computer screen lit up with a suggested straight-line course from his current position to Abrae. Serpent knew that this was not right, as such a simple hyperspace corridor would take him too close to intervening stellar bodies, mainly stars but also a pulsar.
“Frak,” He exclaimed aloud, for it suddenly dawned on Pherik that he would have to calculate and input the course alterations himself.
Taking a deep breath to focus himself, and vowing not to rush despite the possibly critical condition of Mr Cranis, he took the first star. It was a ‘K’ type, based on the standard classification system he had learnt at the Academy.
That indicates that it projects a hyperspace mass shadow out to... He searched his memory, hoped he recalled correctly, and entered a course change to skirt the edge of that no-go zone.
Zail was not sure that he had got that exactly right, so after a few moments of internal debate, he re-calculated to give the star a wider birth. Still not certain, but knowing that constantly re-doing his hyperspace course would just waste time, he continued on to the next star.
In short order, he had steered his theoretical course around eight intervening stellar bodies, and all seemed fine for his course to Abrae. With a tight nervousness gripping his stomach, Serpent grasped the hyperdrive controls, cast one last look at his course on the navicomp, and pulled the lever.
The stars elongated into lines, and the shuttle jumped to beyond the speed of light.
The following twenty minutes were tense and Zail passed them in constant fear. He had to resist the urge to go back and check his calculations, for it was too late now. Instead he just sat there in the pilot seat, watching the time to arrival tick down, and hope that he did not emerge inside a star.
When finally the arrival signal lit up, it was with much relief that Serpent eased back on the controls and gently reverted the ship to realspace. He had never been so glad to see Abrae in his life.
Warships of the Vast Empire Navy orbited the planet in a defensive formation, and no sooner had Zail arrived than he was hailed by them.
“
Theta-Class shuttle,” Came a gruff voice over his com system, “Please identify!”
“This is Warrant Officer Pherik Zail, Captain of CR90
Defiance,” He replied promptly. “We have suffered an accident during our trip, and I have an injured man. Request immediate medical assistance!”
“Understood, Captain Zail, stand by,” Said the voice.
Serpent sagged back into his chair, relaxing a bit. Looking over at Mr Cranis, he said, “Hang in there, kid, you are going to be fine.”
- OOC:
- 1467 words. My story for the Astrogation Ancillary Skill.
After Action Report: Serpent is being transported to Abrae for a meeting when the shuttle is pulled from hyperspace by a meteor shower. With the pilot incapacitated, it falls to Zail to pilot the shuttle clear of the asteroids and then calculate the jump to hyperspace.
