Jake regained his focus and ran through the systems check as he had done in several tutorials and simulations over the weeks he had given the crew to train, knowing that at the very least Deck Chief Angelo Vercelli was listening. Other officers who had access to Flight Deck Control may have been eavesdropping and watching as well, and when he was sure everything was in order he contacted Flight Control. “Ready for launch.”
“Everything checks out fine on our end, Captain. Good hunting. Punting in five, four, three, two, one.”
As the fighter was ejected nose first out of the bottom of the ship, Jake was thankful for the inertial dampeners, keeping him from being crushed into his seat too hard. In under two seconds he was five kilometres away from the Triton and he gently turned his fighter so he could watch it shrink off into the distance. It was true, no simulation could prepare you for the rush of being forcibly ejected out of the bottom of the ship. The Triton was nothing more than a speck of metal glinting under the light of a thousand new stars in the nebula behind him.
He looked over the Navnet broadcast the Triton's flight deck was maintaining and verified he was clear of the four fighters patrolling nearby before checking other systems.
“Jake?” Alice said on his personal comm.
“Hi Alice,” he responded as he checked his course. It was preset to take him directly to Pandem, but double checking the math was a good habit to maintain.
“Are you all right?”
Another simple question that reaches deep, he thought to himself.
“I mean, you've put the ship in order, given us time to train and even gotten us organized enough to take on recruits without breaking a sweat. Triton is just about ready for anything, but are you okay?” Alice asked quietly.
In that moment, a split second of clarity that was as surprising as it was rare, he knew what to say. “I'm more myself every day. Now I just have to find out who that is.” He began the reaction inside the extra fusion reactor he had installed in the small optional component bay of the Uriel fighter.
“You know I'm here, right? I might not be installed in your C and C unit, but I'll never be too far off.”
“I know, thank you Alice. You've got a handle on the Triton?”
“A death grip. We'll be here when you get back.”
“I wouldn't feel the same with anyone else in the command chair,” he said through a smile. “Nothing like leaving family in charge. I'll see you soon.”
“Good hunting Jake,” she said before closing the channel.
Jacob Valance locked his course in and began pouring all of the main and secondary reactor's energy into the wormhole generator to create the most highly compressed passage through space possible. After a few seconds the energy was released into the space in front of the fighter and a wormhole entry point formed. Jake fired his engines and disappeared.
A Good Vantage Point
Ashley couldn't help but take a good look at Alice as she walked towards her along the long padded railing guarding the edge of the top level overlooking the massive park and garden. It took only weeks for the woman looking over the Botanical Gallery to become as iconic and well known on the Triton as the Captain himself. Overhead was the holographic facade that simulated a calm evening. The false sky was starry, featuring a waning moon crossed by a few white clouds, the digital representation warned anyone inside that the massive botanical gallery would be watered soon. It would be raining in just under an hour.
Alice was in her old fashioned flight jacket, a weathered garment that looked like it was made of real leather. Her sidearm, the same heavy weapon the Captain used, was strapped to her leg, and her brown hair hung around her shoulders, stirring a little in the slight breeze. She was as mysterious as the Captain. Looking at her, listening to her getting along with the night crew on the bridge when she was around for the early portion of the evening shift demonstrated two sides of the woman that were distinct, completely separate.
On one hand she was a calculating commander, always watching the general status display. On the other she was easy going, didn't mind having a laugh with the bridge staff as long as they were still doing their jobs. The real puzzle was that she could switch between the two at a moment's notice. That was the only part of Alice's personality that convinced Ashley that she was once an artificial intelligence.
Other than that, she was a confident, intelligent, often charming woman. If Ashley could choose a big sister, or even a young mother, it would be Alice. She was noticed as she came within a few meters of her and Alice looked up from the view below and gave her a slight smile before returning her attention to the people far below.
“I tried finding you at your old spot, but they put a table there,” Ashley shrugged as she closed the distance and settled in beside the other woman, leaning on the tall railing. The top of the rail was thinly padded with transparesteel panels beneath.
“Everything all right?”
“Yup, just thought I'd say hello on my off hours. Not that I really have off hours now. I feel like I'm always attached to the bridge.”
“That happens when you're the Master of the Helm, especially on a ship this size. How are you finding it?”
“The other helmspeople always have questions. It keeps me learning about this ship. It's challenging, I like it though. How do you like being acting Captain?”
“It's different. I envied Jonas' experience on the First Light before, learned a lot from him in a short time. It's surprising how much of it just comes back to you even though it feels like that was a different life. Part of me loves being at the center of things, but sometimes I miss the Clever Dream. There was nothing like being on a fast ship bound for wherever I wanted, not that it was safe, but it felt freeing.”
“That's how I felt when Captain let me loose on the Samson. I wasn't picking what star to go to or anything, but we didn't see many places more than once. Feels like a lifetime ago.”
The pair stood in silence, looking down at the Botanical Gallery's East Park. It stretched across the center of the ship, finally grown in with banyan, peach, apple, pear and plum trees. There were so many other plants lining the paths, interrupting the dark green sections of grass, and maturing in multi-levelled hydroponic stands. The majority of the crew was at rest while the remainder were performing maintenance, training, or keeping their watches.
The garden was as much of a social place as any, especially for crewmembers who had befriended the few civilians aboard. Something Ashley had neglected to do. Crew members who had planetside clothes often wore them in the garden. The old fashioned manual instruments came out too; flutes, guitars, she'd even seen a violin. The last time she'd taken a walk there were three musicians teaching each other to play a song called freedom. One tall woman was a violinist, the instrument seemed like a part of her when they finally played the tune, the melody seemed simple to her and after the first chorus she spun, whirling her floral skirts outward, revealing that underneath she still wore her vacsuit, even though it was reshaped so her shoulders and arms were bare.
The other two were guitarists, the one teaching was one of the new starfighter pilots, a soft spoken fighter jock from the far outer fringes who had come aboard during her recruiting run. She hadn't noticed him before, when he was just a part of the crowd. He was bald then, and as she watched him quietly show the other two musicians their parts she noticed stubble on the top of his head.