RavensDagger

  Chapter Eighteen - Pain Engine

  Space travel didn't open up until some crack-head two-cored madman decided that year-long trips to even the p were too damned long.

  His name was Robert Pain, and he died in agony.

  Robert was a Navy Seal of the former Uates, turned NASA astronaut, then ISA astronaut. He had four moon missions under his belt, and one Mars-Earth mission delivering supplies to the first Martian y. He was, by all ats, a genius engineer.

  Smart as a taot someone you'd want to step on.

  Rot his first core because he ear.

  He got his sed by ripping it out of the body of a crewmate in the early months of his sed trip to Mars.

  Some say the radiation got to him. Some say it was his core fug with his head. Others suspect that it was the uy's love of try music.

  In any case, being stu a small te 2000s shuttle with a corpse didn't do Robert any favours. He went a little batshit.

  And then he made it to Mars six months early, his body wired into the ion-thrust meism of his ship. He was a gibbering madman by then.

  But hey, the engiinkered up worked, and that's all that mattered.

  He'd used up the y's entire spare part supply, so a few sacrifices had to be made, but those few people who starved, or who ran out of oxygen were swept out of the history books along with Mister Pain's more etric ideas and as. The system remembered him as the guy who ied the Pain drive.

  The modern thing was nothing like what Robert had dreamed up, but some of the early principles still applied.

  "Alright, so, you've gone hard G before, right?" Twenty-Six asked. She was quickly passing a washcloth over one of the two crash seats, supposedly the ohat Ivil would be using. The seat looked older thay-Six, with cracked faux-leather and mismatched straps. Not that it really mattered to her, but she was used to people generally pushing a certain level of luxury towards her.

  The crash seat she was assigned oar Dreadnought had heating, cooling, massage therapy, its own AI sub-system, and a full eai suite. It would be able to keep an egg inta full 10G emergenbat manoeuvres without shaking up the yolk.

  Ivil didn't use it, because she didn't particurly care about momentum and iia, but she'd heless growo the luxury.

  "I've been through some, yes," Ivil said.

  "Ah, but not on a beaut like the Held Together," Twenty-Six said with a grin. "The average transport will use a slow 1G burn over a longer period so that no one's unfortable. I hear that cruise ships will only go up to .9Gs, even. This old thing will be hitting four and a half! The captain likes quick, short burns like that."

  "Any reason why?" Ivil asked.

  "It's a bit cheaper with these engines. You don't want to have them w for too long or they overheat, so it's a bang act. And it helps with pirates."

  "Pirates?" Ivil repeated. "They're an issue?"

  "Not if you're big, heavy, look like you're not worth the trouble, and are burning fast and hard," Twenty-Six said with a grin. "Don't worry about them. We hardly ever get any issues with pirates. Besides, big Martia, right? They won't try anything so close to that."

  Ivil nodded. She wasn't as fident ielligence of the average pirate as Twenty-Six was. Opportunists would oftehings that others missed. And oftehings that others knew were dumb fug ideas, then they'd do that anyway.

  The reason so few people were opportunists was because most of them silently removed themselves from the gene pool.

  "I see. I think I mawo and a half Gs."

  "It'll only be for two hours or so," Twenty-Six said. "We're lucky, Ceres is in a good spot for travelling to Jupiter. We're not as close as they get, but we're not far either, and we slingshot around Ceres for a final little boost."

  "Do you do astro navigation?" Ivil asked.

  Twenty-Six shook her head with a blush. "No. Ah, I was just listening to Missy earlier. She's really good with that kind of thing."

  "Sounds like you look up to her," Ivil said.

  "Yeah! She's like a hot older sister."

  "Hot?" Ivil asked.

  Twenty-Six's blush deepened. "Uh. You... misheard."

  "I see," Ivil said. She held back a bit of a smile. Twenty-Six's ck of self-trol wasn't something Ivil would ever accept in herself, or in a subordinate, but it was still... strangely endearing.

  "All !" Twenty-Six said as she stepped back.

  Ivil wasn't sure if she'd cim the same. The seat was still cracked and covered with old stains, but it would do.

  A tone sounded across the ship, and Twenty-Six jumped. "Gotta stow the st of my stuff, one sec! Get yourself sat down in the meantime, I'll help with the straps."

  "That's fine, I figure it out," Ivil said as she took the seat. It was mounted on a rotating pilr jammed into the floor, with two axis of motion and a pair of adjustable supports for her legs. The limited degrees of motion would mean that at certain ahe seats wouldn't be able to be iimal position to e Gs, but beggars and choosers.

  Aone came over the ship's PA, then the captain's voice. "Everyoer be in a seat. Twenty-Six, are you good?"

  Twenty-Six rao a wall-mounted PA and pressed her thumb against it. "Will be in a minute, Captain!" she said.

  " you che our passenger? We've got ay seat up here," the captain said. "Miss Ville is deying us."

  "Ah, no, Captain, she's here, in my extra seat. We're all good! Gimme two to che her a into my crash coud we'll be ready!"

  "Received," the captain said. "We're unhooking in five."

  Twenty-Six raced around the room, tossing the st few loose items into crates, then log those up. Finally, she tugged doair of ss from the ceiling and fixed them into pce above her seat.

  "Alright," Twenty-Six said as she buckled herself with one hand. The other was reag out towards the s which was at arm's length for her, and tapped a few prompts. One of them lit up with a camera feed of the ship's exterior, with more feeds along the bottom. The other opeo a diagnostics page, several small boxes with scrolling information that Twenty-Six sed with ease.

  She slipped on a microphone, oh a thin tiara that locked it in pce around her head so that it wouldn't fly off the moment they moved. "Captain, ehree's being itself again, don't let Missy throttle her too much."

  If there ly, Ivil didn't pick it up as the Held Together shifted.

  Being stu an ined seat like this reminded Ivil of being at a dentist in all the worse ways. She tilted her head to the side and watched as the Held Together was slowly pushed out of its berth by a long, telesg arm.

  Ohe ship was out of the inner se of the hangar, the rge cmps holding it in pce came loose. At the same time, the Held Together's man thrusters kicked in with a rumble that Ivil felt through the seat.

  She watched as the ship slowly turo face away from the Crevice. There wouldn't be a big boost, not just yet. They were both too close to the station and too close to the traffic around Ceres, which was still busy, even with the Martia hanging out nearby.

  The fleet was a rge, obvious blip on the Held Together's IFF-ss, but then, so were some hundred odd-other ships all within a few thousand kilometres.

  "Here we go," Twenty-Six said.

  The Held Together's engine came online fully, and the ship lurched forwards. Not too quickly, but definitely in a jarring, unfortable way.

  Ivil kept an eye on their retive speed. They were accelerating at a balmy 3.2 m/s2. Barely enough to invenience.

  "Huh, that's new," Twenty-Six said.

  Something ched, then ged. The sound travelled down the ship like something poking a stito a metal fence while running by.

  "I'm assuming that's not supposed to happen?" Ivil asked.

  "Uh," Twenty-Six said. "Well... I 't tell what broke, so I'm sure it's fine?"

  "Thank you. I appreciate the reassurance. Are there spacesuits in this ship? Emergenes?"

  Twenty-Six looked a little squeamish. "Not in here?"

  "Fantastic."

  "Don't worry! She's going to live up to her rust me!"

  Ivil looked at the young meic, then nodded. "I think I will."

  It wasn't like she'd suffer much if things went catastrophically wrong. Probably. Though she wondered if she should gh all the trouble of saving the entire crew if a disaster did happen. One of them was her soulmate, after all.

  "Almost far enough to light up the thrusters, and I'm reading... greenish-e across the board. Fire her up, Captain!" Twenty-Six said. "And Miss Ville, hang on!"

  ***

  RavensDagger

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