Ticket To Ride

Posted on Wed May 31st, 2023 @ 4:17pm by Major Samuel Braddock & Captain Benjamin Ingram Dr

Mission: S2:4: If Not Like A Mirror
Location: Canopus Station
Timeline: MD-9 10.30

ON:

"A shuttle would have been easier," Ingram groused under his breath as he strode from the suiting room and onto the flight deck. Dressed not in his white and red day uniform as Station Commander, the red piping was there on his shoulder pauldrons, but the rest was Starfleet Marine Air Corp green. From the lightweight pressure suit, life support rigging, and flight helmet tucked under one arm he almost looked the part of an aviator. He definitely had the swagger for it.

"Yes Captain, but all small craft are being used in the evacuation and deconstruction effort," his aide said before handing him a tablet. "Final authorization for dilithium transfer; just needs your thumbprint on it to lock it in."

Ingram took the tablet, read the contents, and then swiped his finger over the sensor pad.

"Get that sent off. And whilst I'm gone, set a fire under Commander Toomey to get her crews working on installing more Emergency shelters in the habitation block. We have colonists to house and not nearly the living space ready for them," Ingram huffed. He looked around the flight deck. "I somehow don't think Major Braddock would enjoy us turning his flight deck into a tent city, but it might well come to that. Where is he?"

The aide looked around.

"He said he'd meet you on the flight line," the Bolian aide said, looking around.

Sam was performing an inspection of the ordnance spaces and confirming counts of transferred torpedoes from the Normandy when he was interrupted by a text message on his wrist communicator. Turning his wrist, he read the green text as it appeared across the plastic-covered screen on the sleeve of his flight suit.

=CO Incoming. Presence requested on Primary Flight Deck.=

Fighting the urge to release a sigh, he handed the PADD in his hand over to the ordnance officer behind him.

"Mind finishing this up for me?" Sam asked.

Without a word stepped onto the massive freight lift and pressed the keypad to head upward. As he ascended into the bright fluorescent lights of Primary Flight or 'Pri Fly', he looked around until an unfamiliar sight caught his eye. Counting the red and black stripes on the epaulets and the proud expression, he recognized Captain Ingram.

Walking over, Sam snapped off a salute. "Good morning, sir."

Before the man could respond, the loud horn of a hovercart pulling an engine sounded two short blasts- the universal indicator of 'Get the hell out of the way or get crushed'. Sam moved quickly to force Captain Ingram over the painted red and black lines on the deck- handy if you wanted to avoid a grisly injury.

If Ingram was to say anything in response to the polite, and potentially life saving shove out of the way, the whine of the hovercrat and its towed engine assembly hid it well. No doubt the lineage and future prospects of the deck thumper driving the cart were now in lethal jeopardy. But then the wrathful gaze of Benjamin Ingram turned to regard Major Braddock, and did something utterly unexpected.

He smiled, appearing quite mellow.

"Good morning to you as well, Major," the Canopus CO said with a nod of recognition. "I'm ready when you are for the inspection flight. Though with one slight detour to the surface, I require a face-to-face with Maxim Babbish, the town governor, or whatever titles he's been given by his dust farmers this week. You'd think learning the sky is literally about to fall upon their heads would get them motivated, but you'd be wrong."

Sam nodded, slightly taken aback by the smile. It reminded him of a cat that was preparing to pounce on an unsuspecting canary "Aye, sir. Right this way." he said, walking towards the fighters, including his own, that had been set up for alert flights. Doing a quick pre-flight checklist, he motioned for one of the blue-shirted deckhands, who had the insignia of an Aviation Boatswain's Mate First Class. "Petty Officer, the Captain needs to do an inspection flight- mind getting my plane into the first available tubes?"

Turning back to Captain Ingram, he looked him over to fight the urge to laugh. If anyone looked out of place amongst the hustle and bustle of the flight deck, it was him. "Let's get you in the cockpit, sir." Sam deftly moved a small set of stairs on wheels and gestured toward the canopy.

"Thank you Major," Ingram said. Climbing up the stairs and then up into the cockpit. He then deftly connected the life support and comm hook-up, settling into the Gryphon's gee couch like an old campaigner.

After the Captain had settled in, Sam climbed into the front seat and began flipping switches in the cockpit in rapid succession, triggering a low hum and flashing lights as various systems engaged and the impulse engines spun up. Strapping himself in, he pulled his helmet onto his head and pressed the chin piece to activate the seal- he felt a small amount of cool air rush in as the rebreather kicked in, the inflatable ring in the neck of the helmet activated, and his Heads Up Display flashed in front of his face. Turning to the back seat, he activated his helmet comms.

"Might be a good time to slap on that helmet, sir," he said before flashing the deck crew a thumbs up. With that simple motion, a sequence of events is almost like a ballet initiated. A member of the deck crew pulled the ladder away from the fighter and checked the canopy. Then, the blue-shirted crewman made a series of hand motions, and Sam felt a thump as a tractor attached itself to the hitch beneath the nose of the fighter to tow it into position. Two yellow-jerseyed crewmen stepped in and beckoned to one of the flight elevators, and Sam could feel them ascend. As they reached the top, the tractor detached, and there was another thump, this time from the back of the aircraft as the magnetic catapult took hold, and they moved forward into the red-tinged darkness with a hatch closing behind them. The only bright light was the Catapult Officer's station, behind 13-inch thick transparent steel.

"Eagle One-Zero-Two, requesting priority launch clearance," Sam said over the comms.

"Roger, One-Zero-Two. Confirm System Check. Interlock Check," the Shooter advised.

"Interlocks Activated."

"Dynatherms?"

"Connected."

"Infracells?"

"Up." Sam said. "Thrusters ready."

The shooter clicked a few switches of his own and snapped off a sharp salute, which Sam returned before facing forward as they were catapulted into space.

Reading about the effects of rapid acceleration and experiencing it were two very different things. Even imagining the effect as a scaled-up version of the mild acceleration one might feel in a turbo lift or station tram car was doing it an injustice. Were it not for the flight suit's intelligent fabric tightening around his limbs to keep blood where it needed to be, he'd have given the Marine flier the satisfaction of seeing his CO blackout.

"That's a little more kick than my morning cup of tea," Ingram said with strain in his voice. "I was not aware combat launches were the norm."

"Yes, sir. The individual squadrons have a lot of junior officers and I like the keep them in practice. As the CAG, I've got to exemplify that." He said, giving the stick a slight push to turn the fighter up and to the right, which would give them a view of the Starbase's upper dome and communications arrays.

After a few moments, Ingram's voice cut across the internship comm link.

"Can you take us gently, I repeat *gently* around the Stations core? I want to get a proper view of the work as it stands," the CO grumbled. "Status reports say one thing but I desire the concrete assurance of my own eyes."

"You got it, sir. You may feel a little bit of a tickle," Sam said, smirking behind his visor. Gryphons were not meant for [i]gentle[/i]- anything less than Mach 25 in Zero G was tantamount to a disservice against this magnificent piece of engineering. Adjusting the inertial dampeners to overcompensate for his passenger, he pressed the stick down and left to give them the best path and viewing angle. He picked up a bit of speed but not enough that Ingram could even feel the descent.

As they approached the core, Sam throttled down to a virtual crawl so that they were running on minimal impulse power and laid in an oblong course for the autopilot to follow. Taking his hands off of the stick, he watched his gauges and sensors just to be safe as there was a lot of shipping traffic in the area that he wanted to avoid.

Ingram remained silent, looking out of the viewport at the cylindrical side of the station proper. With Tangerine Dream filling half the sky behind the station, and the sunlight of the Carpathia star illuminating everything fully, Ingram had to admit the view was stunning. From the sides of the stocky cylindrical service module of the station, four equidistant protrusions were forming out of the hull. Atop each protruding pylon was the rapidly forming fishbone ribs of warp nacelles. Trucked behind the wide brim of the station's docking module, there was the beginning of a grappling hook-style look to the station.

Though, now, with warp engines growing out of it...

"In the span of a week, the work of four months of Starfleet Engineers is accomplished," Ingram muttered. From the back seat, his fingers began to play across the sensor gear. A Gryphon might be able to land a warhead on a forehead whilst going at orbital velocities; it was not a dedicated science platform. "Two of the nacelles are completed, with Alpha and Beta nodes nearly complete. Very soon, we may need to consider rechristening the station."

"Well, the USS Canopus does have an interesting ring to it, sir." Sam asked, recalling some basic engineering knowledge as he began adjusting his flight path to avoid a workbee that was vectoring into his flight path.

"To that end, we near the end of our tenure in Carpathia. The colony is nearly abandoned, its residents crammed into the Hab Modules like sardines. And our infected Marines are being placed in stasis," he muttered. "Such a waste of potential here. We were very nearly at the point of achieving a true foothold out here. Do you not think so Major?"

"I'd agree wholeheartedly, but I'd feel a lot better with a few companies of Marines we could spread around to keep the peace, Captain."

"Spit in one hand and wish in the other, I think is the more polite version of that saying Major," Ingram grumbled. "But I'll add it to the list of things we can ask for later once we've averted the current crisis. I think I've seen enough Major, onwards to what remains of the colony."

Sam adjusted his course with a twitch of the stick. "Aye, sir," he said, flipping on a music playlist to drown out the Captain.

:OFF