Lt JG Imril - Fun With Oncoming Traffic
Chris Taylor
(( Cockpit - USS Perseus ))
K’Wara: Good job. Now, let’s see what else’s on the itinerary for the day...
Imril: Oh! And I also worked out how to make an energy-based freeze-ray pistol! Could be very useful if-slash-when we ever go back to Callis. Purely as a deterrent, of course.
K’Wara: ::smile:: Took a liking to the primitive lifestyle?
Imril snorted in dismissal of the notion.
Imril: Hardly. I don’t expect the Callisians are enjoying it either. I’d welcome the opportunity to go back and give them the same aid in returning to who and what they really are as we’ve received. But I’d prefer to do it with more days to defend myself and others while we search for how to do that. I am not looking forward to another weaponless crawl through the bowels of a ship.
So far as weapons that produced cold went, there were already ones that could fire cryo-gas or super-cooled liquids. Such weapons could be stripped of any computerized gear, so they could function in the field away from any Faraday shielding. But they relied on fuel tanks, which made them bulky and therefore problematic in the close quarters of a shuttle let alone Jeffries tubes.
K’Wara shrugged slightly in response.
K’Wara: Nah, not for me, but... I don’t know. Leaving questions unanswered doesn’t sit well with me.
K’Wara’s answer didn't seem to sit well with them either.
Imril: Starfleet is at its best when it’s helping people, I think.
K’Wara: :chuckles:: It’s a blessing and a curse. All right, time to get this exercise underway. ::slides fingers across the console:: First step, planning and executing a flight plan. I think the second moon’d be good.
Imril: ::Tapping console:: Accessing local navigation buoy for updated telemetry and routing vectors. Plotting course.
Imril plotted a no-frills route that would get them to the moon and in orbit around it. No sightseeing detours or other frills.
They sent a copy of the planned route to K’Wara’s station for approval.
K’Wara: Response
By the time they had an answer, the shuttle had moved far enough away from Artemis to kick up the speed and move into one of the planet’s assigned traffic lanes.
Imril: Aye, Lieutenant. Proceeding at point-oh-five impulse. ETA Four minutes.
Aside from a very minor course correction here and there, Imril kept the ship steady and on even speed and that was all. They weren’t there to show off, and the Lieutenant would provide specific challenges when it suited them to.
… Unless someone else beat K’Wara to it. Say, for example, the luxury vessel which was headed their way on the opposing lane, to port of the Perseus. It had a stately silver prow and huge rose-gold sails that glittered in the starlight. And was beginning to hug the starboard side of their lane, closing the lateral distance between the two vessels. As could be seen in better detail on a sensor display.
Imril: ::Pointing to navigation screen:: That solar yacht is veering a little too close for my liking. Pulling up the local solar eddy chart and adjusting course.
The engineer didn’t know anything about flying a solar sail ship, but they’d learned enough astrophysics to identify a solar eddy when they saw a diagram of one. They set a new course that gave the alien vessel more room to maneuver within it while also placing the Perseus as high as they could relative to the other ship while keeping within the traffic lane. Which would allow for the yacht to see it better and pull off its own stellar-wind-driven maneuvers.
K’Wara: Response
The vessel continued its off-kilter drift. If this were a two-dimensional road, Imril would say they were riding the center line. Just in case they needed to hail the ship, Imril commenced a digital handshake.
Imril: Pinging transponder. Ship’s name is Utaalagarro. Grazerite registry.
K’Wara: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12