Ravens of Eternity

171 Launching Off

The Spirit of Amelia blasted out of the hangar tube and out into space with ridiculous velocity. Eva’s face was etched with a wide grin as she felt gravity press her into her seat. The g-forces ebbed when the ship reached terminal velocity, and lifted completely once they left Helios’ vast gravitational pull.

Eva pulled the throttle down to the minimum, idled the thrusters, and set the ship drifting lazily through space.

Then she received a notification in her DI that wiped her smile right off.

“Can you believe they ticketed me for speeding just now?” she said. “They sent it straight to my DI. I even got fined 10k for it – which they automatically took!”

Amal giggled.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been going that fast in the first place,” she replied. “Serves you right for breaking the rules.”

“Pfft. I was just testing how the ship could handle the afterburners.”

“Sure, sure.”

Eva cleared her throat, then turned towards Miko.

.....

“Anything wrong with the ship at all?” asked Eva. “She feels a little bit wobblier after I put her through the paces. Hopefully nothing shook itself loose or anything like that.”

Miko scanned all her MFDs, which were filled with a numer of status windows for each module on the ship. Each one was running an active scan on itself, and reported its findings in real time to the central operating intelligence. Her fingers danced over each one and highlighted a few faults, but nothing looked significant.

“Every system looks good,” she replied. “All systems are stable. However, as I expected, there are a few problems in a few components. The coolers are reacting sluggishly, as are the gyrostabilizers inside of the graviton generator. A few submodules are also fluctuating in power consumption or output.”

“Anything we gotta worry about? Should we run the repair module?”

Miko tapped on one of her MFDs and brought up the repair functions on screen. A number of cautions and warnings immediately popped up.

“We have only a few repair ingots left,” Miko said. “We could run some repairs, however I wish to save in case of emergency. At least, until we refill our ingot bay. Once we have enough, I will initiate a full repair sequence.”

“Sounds like we made it out into space without blowing up,” said Amal. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“Agreed,” said Eva. “Let’s do a few more things, just to see how she holds up. We need to know how well she’ll handle a little hard work. How about we try to port somewhere, break atmosphere, then land? That should be a pretty good stress test for the ship, right?”

The other two audibly agreed, then focused immediately on their controls. Miko prepped all ship systems for teleport while Amal interfaced with the navigational intelligence and set their destination.

Eva applied reverse thrust to the ship, and eased Amelia into an easy stop over the course of a dozen or so seconds. The moment it did, a pleasant male voice resounded throughout the bridge.

“Teleport Drive engaged,” said the ship, “Please maintain zero velocity and acceleration for a minimum of fifteen seconds, thank you.”

Amal jumped slightly out of her seat when she heard it – for a moment, she thought someone had been on board besides them.

“Wh-what’s with that voice?” she said. “Is that the ship?”

“Do you not like it?” replied Miko. “It is a Vessel Interaction Intelligence. I wanted a talking ship, and so I installed one myself. I can deactivate it, if it bothers you.”

“Nono, it’s fine. Could it maybe not be a guy? I mean, it’s kinda weird to hear the Spirit of Amelia as a dude, you know? Or is that just me?”

“Hmm, I do not believe it matters. But we can change it however we want. The package comes with multiple voices.”

Miko swiftly went through the VII’s settings and made a quick adjustment. It wasn’t anything fancy – she simply picked one of the many female voices in the voicepack.

When the ship spoke again, it did so with a classic Transatlantic accent, as if the ship itself came from out of the 1930s. She sounded wise, wilful, and warm all at once. And also a little sassy.

“Teleporting now,” said Amelia.

In a single moment, the ship disappeared in a flash.

For the three inside, it was as though the galaxy spun around them while everything turned to liquid. Everyone and everything swirled down to a single point in space, then suddenly expanded again.

They came back to reality with another brilliant flash, but over a hundred million kilometers from where they started.

Below them was the beautiful blue and green planet of Venus. Around them were a number of other ships who had ported to Venus as well, and even more showed up in various flashes. There were all manner of ships, too. Many were cargo or trade vessels, some were passenger liners, some were construction or industrial platforms, and the rest were some mishmosh of random small ships.

Just like the Spirit of Amelia.

Most of the ships that ported in headed directly for the planet’s orbital station high above, but a few headed for one of the many major port harbors down below.

Eva tapped one of the controls on one of her MFDs, and retracted the guns inside the nose. Afterwards, thick metal strips slid across and sealed the slots shut.

Then she turned to Amal with a grin on her face.

“Wanna take us down planetside?” she asked.

“What? Me?” said Amal. “I don’t think I could. I’ve only ever landed small ships. I don’t think I could handle this.”

“Hmm, alright. How about just get us below the stratosphere, and then I’ll take over from there.”

“Well...”

“Hey, if you’re gonna be the copilot, you’ve also gotta learn how to fly. You don’t have to be an ace – you just gotta learn how to move around a bit.”

Amal sighed in resignation, but then grabbed the yoke with determination. She pointed its nose at a slight angle towards the planet, then slowly throttled up and began their descent.

“Okay, here I go,” she said. “Let me know if I mess things up. I haven’t done any g-force training like you two have... Anyway, I’ll try not to pass out, but keep an eye on me, okay?”

“Don’t worry about anything,” replied Eva. “Just take us down as slow as you need.”

Unlike Eva and Miko, Amal spent most of her time on the ground, and had very little experience piloting anything larger than a personal shuttle. Her tolerance against higher g-forces was low relative to the other two, and she was certain she could only handle 4g’s at most.

Eva’s launch stunt had very nearly caused her to pass out.

She slid the throttle forward slightly and angled the ship towards the planet and lurched forward at a slow, even pace. Once she was clear of the teleport beacon’s zone, she increased her acceleration and leveled off her nose and lessened their angle of descent.

Her heart thumped in her chest as she brought the ship towards a 160 meter per second velocity, and never once exceeded 4g’s. In fact, even with a relatively minimal amount, Amal was already pressed into her seat and highly stressed. Her body had no idea how to handle feeling four times heavier.

She felt her blood rushing out and away from her hands, feet, and head. Her vision began to darken, and her heart began to pump harder and harder.

As the ship pierced through the upper exosphere, the air surrounding began to burn up from the sheer friction. The tip of the ship itself began to glow from the incredible heat. From the ground, it looked like they were a meteorite falling down to earth, a trail of atmospheric fire behind them.

The yoke shook in Amal’s hands as the ship shuddered violently. The turbulence pushed the ship around in various directions, which Amal fought hard against to keep everything steady.

She grit her teeth and fought to keep control, even as she was pressed against her seat.

“Jeez, I can hear your teeth grinding from here,” said Eva. “Keep your grip firm, but don’t seize up your muscles. You can’t control reentry with force. You gotta move with the ship, and make slow, easy course corrections. Loosen up, but not too much. Be like rubber rather than steel. And breathe evenly.”

Although the majority of her focus was on piloting the ship, Amal took Eva’s words to heart. She loosened her grip bit by bit, and relaxed her body more and more, all without losing complete control of the ship. At the same time, she put her breathing into a hard pattern – one second of inhaling, two seconds of exhaling. Over and over.

Though she still felt the pressure all over her body, her blood began to move again. The reddish-black fog lifted from her vision. As she regained control of herself, she also gained greater control of the ship itself.

This time, instead of jerking around the yoke to keep it steady, she gently added counter-thrust wherever it was needed. The ship still shuddered, but far from violently. It felt more as though they were gliding through choppy skies, and that the ship was simply being nudged by Venus’ strong winds.

Over time, the turbulence and the heat eased up as they slowly approached the surface. Once they descended down to the troposphere, the ship’s velocity had reduced to just over 100 meters per second, and was sailing smoothly under the clouds.

Amal felt how the ship glided through the air with ease, a stark difference from a few moments prior. Then, it was doing its best to shake her off. And now, it was calm as a sleeping cat.

“Hooray!” cheered Amal. “I did okay! I mean, we didn’t, like, crash or anything, you know?”

The other two cheered her on as well.

“You did great,” said Eva. “We’ll definitely need to practice more, but next time you’ll be landing, too.”

As she took control of the ship from Amal, she turned her head slightly to Miko, who had status reports flowing down her MFDs.

“How’s the ship doing?” she asked.

“The cryoventing submodule worked perfectly,” Miko replied. “Most other components are fine. However, there are multiple micro-abrasions all over the structure, at least where we do not have armor panels installed. Critically, some electronics burned out due to faulty fuses. I will repair those fuses immediately.”

As Miko initiated some critical repairs, Eva moved her yoke slightly and tested the ship’s responsiveness. It performed admirably in her hands.

“So we didn’t end up in a crater, and the ship’s still operational,” she said. “Guess it’s my turn to give it a spin. How about we see what she can do in atmo, huh?”

She cackled conspiratorially to herself as she took control of the throttle. Then, she pushed it forward to the absolute maximum, and activated its afterburners yet again.

The corvette blasted forward with great speed, and pushed everyone deep into their seats. It only lasted a few seconds, but Eva sustained an excruciating 6g’s. She then pushed it well past 7g’s by performing a hard banking corkscrew descent towards the ground.

Amal felt the world spin around her as the weight of her own body pressed against itself. Her world began to turn black, even as she tried to control her breathing. In contrast, Eva was having the time of her life and howled with excitement.

Just as the ship reached 1000 meters above the ground, Eva leveled off the ship and eased off the throttle. G-forces returned to normal as their acceleration and velocity slowed greatly.

Amal panted heavily in the copilot’s seat as her body recovered from the rapid change in her blood pressure. When she recovered, she slapped Eva’s arm in annoyance.

“Can you not do that so suddenly?” she cried.

“Sorry, aha,” said Eva. “I couldn’t help myself. And besides, you need high-g training, too. If we’re running from a bunch of crazy-ass pirates, we’re gonna have to do some crazy-ass maneuvers to get away.”

“Ugh, I know, I know.”

Amal slumped back in her chair, more than a little worse for wear.

“Speaking of ass,” said Eva, “despite Amelia having such a huge one, she sure can move!”

“Did you just say Amelia Earhart has a big butt?” asked Miko. “What would she say if she heard you?”

“Somehow, I doubt that she ever cared if she had a big butt or not.”