NationStates Jolt Archive

Because TFU locked the previous one.....this is between me and Corneiou. if anyone else wants to join in, feelfree.
Original thread: http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=373829

"Gotcha, Aldres Prime, standing by. Use hatch two, will ya? Hatch one's got something nasty stuck to it," Lancer sent back. Uplink cables detached with soft pops from the base of his skull. He didn't trust direct neural remote protocols, especially not when the papers were full of stories featuring hacked ghosts and nerve-fried humans.

"I don't remember this ship," Goose whispered. Her voice synthesizer was acting up, so the sip's avatar set it to low.

Restraint harnesses clicked open, and Lancer floated free of the pilot couch at the front of the White Goose. "Damn paranoid f**king military," he sighed, pulling on his patched, black arachnoweave jacket, heaging to the hatch.

"Try not to piss them off," Goose whispered from the controls. Lancer grunted in reply.

Because TFU locked the previous one.....this is between me and Corneiou. if anyone else wants to join in, feelfree.
Original thread: http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=373829

"Gotcha, Aldres Prime, standing by. Use hatch two, will ya? Hatch one's got something nasty stuck to it," Lancer sent back. Uplink cables detached with soft pops from the base of his skull. He didn't trust direct neural remote protocols, especially not when the papers were full of stories featuring hacked ghosts and nerve-fried humans.

"I don't remember this ship," Goose whispered. Her voice synthesizer was acting up, so the sip's avatar set it to low.

Restraint harnesses clicked open, and Lancer floated free of the pilot couch at the front of the White Goose. "Damn paranoid f**king military," he sighed, pulling on his patched, black arachnoweave jacket, heaging to the hatch.

"Try not to piss them off," Goose whispered from the controls. Lancer grunted in reply.

Patrol Ship 7 approached slowly as a destroyer moved into position to cover it. When the ship docked, the squad moved in behind the boarding party commander.

"Greetings Captain. I am Commander Homer! If you hand over your documents so I can look them over, we can began to search and speed you on your way."

"Ah, documents," Lancer slowly pulled a bunch of mediatronic papers out of his jacket pocket. They held quite a bit of information on his craft, its cargo, and its two crewmembers. "Got some new navComs from Paradigm, two containers of ransDrive parts, and a whole load of fusactor spines," he said should the soldiers not know how to read any of the many languages that the mediatronic documents offered.

Lancer was not an imposing man, especially not when he was floating in a gravityless enviroment in just a pair of pants and an open jacket. His calloused arm gripped a handhold, and the man moved out of the way so that the inspection could begin.

The White Goose was classified as Transport Freight Intersystem Platform 2F0C94-PHX-IzraTC. One could hear bulkheads groan and mechanics scrape against one another in the fifty-year-old craft. There was no artGrav -- the artEngine was malfunctioning. A long, dim, narrow corridor ran through the spine of the vessel. At one end were two old fusactors, the cryo plant, and four drives. At the other end were the crew quarters -- consisting of a space with eight bunks, a stateroom, some storage space, the headOOC: bathroom, and the pilot pit itself. Between the drives and the habitat were connections to the pressurized containers that 'hung' beneath the spine of the craft. They were really just narrow, oval hatches too small for even a single bulky man. They contained just what Lancer said they contained.

"Well everything seems tobe in order here captain. YOu can proceed to your destination as stated on this card that you have given us. YOu can make stops along the trade route as needed but you'll have to pay a fee if your not scheduled to make a stop there. Is that clear captain?"

"Of course," Lancer inclined his head, stuffing the documents back into his jacket pocket with a free hand, waiting for the inspection team to leave before he could close the battered hatch.

"Of course," Lancer inclined his head, stuffing the documents back into his jacket pocket with a free hand, waiting for the inspection team to leave before he could close the battered hatch.

"Enjoy your visit Captain." and with that, they left the ship and proceeded back to their holding area.

"F**cking b4stards," Lancer muttered after the hatch screeched closed. Bolts thudded into place, pressures equalized.

"Ready for translation," Goose whispered on the comm.

"Yeah, yeah," Lancer responded. "What's the first stop?"

Black turned to white, white turned to black, and the universe inverted for a moment that took an eternity.

********

The White Goose came into normSpace some few hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. Drives fired, deccelerating. MacArthe -- the navCom spat out the name of the system at the bottom of Lancer's vision. The actual manipulationw as done at his visual cortex, but the effect was the same as writing a message directly across his field of vision.

"Let's hope this is worthwhile," Lancer muttered, keying in vectors and hoping there'd be customers for his cargo. High mass meant more energy needed to achieve tranSpace. The energy required to transport high-mass fusactor components across the galaxy was considerable. His transDrive didn't care about distance in terms of time -- it took a few hours to cross the galaxy or to cross between two systems; but mass was something else entirely.