Lieutenant jg. Mi'shune sh'Sonora - No Odes to Launchpad McQuack
d.reinhart
sh’Sonora: =/\=This is your pilot speaking. Please secure all loose and vital equipment, secure yourselves, and hold onto your butts ‘cause things are about to get interesting in the Tamarian proverb kind of way. Sparrow out.=/\= ::blip:: Just say when, Captain. And seatbelts everyone!
Foster: Alright, take us into the cluster, following the corridor. Destination Asteroid.
Ysatch: If any of those mines does more than twitch, you'll know because I'll start screaming. In a different way from how I do from the lieutenant's piloting.
sh’Sonora: What? You never rode on a rollercoaster before? It’ll be like that, only more free-form and high stakes. ::She pats Ysatch on the shoulder, returning her hand to the flight controls.:: We’re going in.
The trick to flying, one had to remember, was the bigger the ship, the less you had to do with more.
When it came to the MFT Maximum Thrusters, a top-speed heavy muscle-shuttle of a freighter, it was remembered that she was no fighter despite her souped up performance. She was big by her class standards. Which meant anticipating movements several times past their present step.
At least she wasn’t trying to navigate the minefield on the Narendra. That would have been a lost hope, and several limpets up the port bow for their trouble. But it was still incredibly difficult, calling on all the excitable Andorian pilot’s intuition, speed, timing, and ability to predict what would happen, when it would happen.
By the time the MFT Maximum Thrusters turned and drifted to port around a nearby asteroid, nearly kissing the freighter’s bumper, Mi’shune was too busy cutting power to the port thrusters and giving the starboard thrusters a serious kick in the seat, while angling the nose so the spinning hunk of spaceborne ferrous iron wouldn't spark off the deflector dish and scream their location to every mine in the vicinity.
It also meant the inertial dampers were being pressed to its limits, until she could feel the strain of her own bodyweight pressing against her seat.
Less with more.
Almost like drifting in one of her holoprogram automobiles.
Foster: So far, so good. Keep her steady.
Ysatch: Nothing funny on sensors, it looks like they're letting us in.
sh’Sonora: That’s because we’re not in the difficult part yet. Hold on…
Two asteroids, both spinning in opposite until their rough, jagged surfaces resembled a pair of gnashing, rough-hewn turbines, were the final gate. For this she had to cut acceleration, crushing everyone into their seats, so she could properly make a dash between the two while not being smacked in the back by the asteroid she left behind.
A press of the accelerator at one quarter impulse, and the Maximum Thrusters dashed past the deadly obstacle without scraping shields.
Their destination, a cluster of hab-domes centred around the old, battered remains of an incredibly large structure with the biggest retro-rockets she’d ever seen.
Or were those deflector plates for nuclear propulsion charges?
Either way, it was one huge sub-light ship turned into a massive habitat.
Foster: That looks like our destination. Mi’sh, find a good place to land and take us down. Tori, send a standard signal announcing our and that we’re here to trade.
Ysatch: Aye Captain!
sh’Sonora: Aye, Sir!
Foster: We’ll have teams disembarking with the Angry Pidgeon – but we need to dig through that drone data. As we’ve already covered, no one puts mines in a trading area for no reason. I want to know what’s hiding out there.
Ysatch: I wonder if our new friends down there will have anything to say about it.
A console light flashed red. Mi’shune recognized it as the universal ‘doorbell’ command.
sh’Sonora: I think we’re about to find out. Hope they got a parking spot or we’ll be dodging mines all day.
Foster: Yeah, if we can also figure out what triggers the mines without setting them all off, that will only benefit us.
Ysatch: I'll starting looking into it. And worst case scenario, I do think the lieutenant's idea from earlier would still work if we need to make a hot exit.
sh’Sonora: ::Smirks:: What’s the point of having multi-million EC equipment if we can’t find new and interesting ways to use it?
Ysatch: ::Glancing over at the ‘doorbell’ readout on the console.:: We have ah ... well they've given us permission to land in trade hanger three. ::pause:: I don't know where that is? ::points at the obvious landing spot to the front and side of the main settlement:: Is that trade hanger three? It looks like the only open spot, but then why would they call it "three?"
sh'Sonora: ::Grins.:: You know, you can always ask them.
Foster: ?
Ysatch: ::embarrassed:: Oh yeah, sure, I can ask them. Yeah, I'll just ask them. That's what I'm gonna do.
The look on Tori’s face when the trading post gave them an answer didn’t fill Mi’shune with confidence.
Ysatch: ::sheepishly:: They say they're blinking the light off and on. Don't look at me like that, it's just what the message says! Literally all it says!
sh'Sonora: Seriously? Signal lights? Like the primitive jet age? And they’re not even telling us what color or sequence? What in the ghetto colonist planet bulldren are they doing down there? ::She shakes her head.:: Alright, eyes, ears, and antennae folk. Let’s see what they’re talking about.
Foster: ?
A cursory glance and she saw the pattern of lights, flashing in sequence as two horizontal and two vertical lines meeting at the center. There could be lots of ways to interpret a landing signal, but that one seemed almost universal.
Ysatch: ::pointing at the blinking light:: Well either that is the place or they need to change that lightbulb.
sh'Sonora: One way to find out. Setting her down.
sh’Sonora’s Inner Dialogue: oO Do not Launchpad McQuack this. Oo
Foster: ?
Now that she was within the trading post’s defense perimeter, she had a lot more room to move, and more leeway on how she could use her thrusters and engines to handle the warp-capable brick into its designated landing zone. Not wanting to hot-dog it after nearly testing anti-matter for its deconstructive properties, she brought the MFT Maximum Thrusters on a downward landing trajectory, gentle and soft as if it was her first landing flight with an instructor behind her.
When the landing struts extended and clamped onto the landing pad’s magnetic grapples with a shift and a clunk, she allowed herself to relax and breathe.
sh’Sonora: Any landing we walk away from, amirite? ::She claps her hands together.:: We have officially landed, Sir.
Any?:
TBC
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tags/tbc
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Lieutenant jg. Mi’shune sh’Sonora
Helm Officer
Starbase 118 - Ops Department
O240208MS1