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A scene that came to my mind on the way to the hardware store, not necessarily connected to anything else.
Shipmaster Haern had told Kyndria yesterday that they'd probably raise ship today, as long as the last cargo contract to fill the hold closed on time. She had woken this morning with her nerves a-tingle with anticipation.
Portside matters really didn't hold any interest for Kyndria. Neither did the mechanics of buying and selling, trade and commerce, filling the hold and moving cargo. So long as it was all properly stowed and secured, it wasn't her problem. These details were beneath her. Kyndria devoted her attention to higher things, more important than the concerns of the loadmaster, the shipmaster or even the owner.
Kyndria was the Pilot. And nothing else came close.
Now, with the hold hatches sealing, running through her pre-flight checks, Kyndria felt as though she was slowly waking from a long dream. For the first time in three weeks, she connected to ship systems for more than just to do routine status checks.
The ship wasn't anything special, as ships go. She was an etheric-drive general-cargo freighter of a half-million tonnes gross or so, four hundred and seventy meters from nose to tail. Her hold would swallow thirty thousand cubic meters of cargo, through hatches that could pass it in chunks as large as five by eight by ten meters. Identified in the owner corp records by just an alphanumeric designation, the name painted on her hull was Haern's Fancy. But what did Arvid Haern know? He was just the shipmaster, and only her Pilot knew a ship's real name. To Kyndria, the ship was Dancer.
Now, she lay in the Pilot's couch, hooked into Dancer's systems, running through every circuit, feeling every valve, checking every servo and actuator, testing the flux in every coil. Occasionally she sent a command to tune out a slight drift or reset a bias. With a small part of her attention, she listened to the bustle of the crew and the Shipmaster going about their duties and the final preparations to close ship.
Finally, everyone was aboard, the cargo and loaders all locked down, every hatch sealed. She was aware of the shipmaster's voice coming to her over the com milliseconds before she actually heard him speak directly, from his own seat four meters behind her.
"You may lift ship when ready, Pilot."
She replied distantly. "Ready to lift, aye."
A gesture of a finger opened a channel to the port control tower.
"Kenneton Tower, Kirin Lines GCA-15573 requesting clearance for lift and immediate transfer to etheric."
"Kirin Five Seven Three," the reply came back, "clearance confirmed, lift when ready. No other traffic in your airspace at this time."
"Appreciated, Kenneton Tower," Kyndria answered. "Kirin Five Seven Three out."
She trickled power into the repulsors first, feeling contact with the ground lighten until Dancer floated gently into the air, slowly at first, then faster. As the ground fell away, she retracted the stabilizer legs and waited for up-and-locked status. As soon as everything showed locked, she increased repulsor power smoothly and rebalanced. Dancer rose faster, her nose starting to lift skyward. At two thousand meters, she cut in thrusters, and Dancer began to accelerate.
They broke Mach at five thousand meters, sending a long peal of bass thunder rippling over the countryside far below. By twenty thousand, the air was thinning fast, and Kyndria increased thruster power, piling the speed on. Dancer soared out of atmosphere like a breaching whale, acceleration rising to two gees, then three. The internal grav systems kept Dancer's crew and cargo from feeling any of that, of course, but Kyndria could feel it. Dancer's senses were hers, now.
"Kenneton Tower, Kirin Five Seven Three now exo-atmospheric," Kyndria sent as the last wisps of air pressure on the outside of her hull fell away. Dancer was moving at over ten kilometers a second now, starting to find her feet and aligning onto course for her next destination.
"Roger that, Kirin Five Seven Three," came the reply. "Godspeed."
"Thank you, Kenneton," Kyndria sent back. Then the world was behind her, and she fed full power to the thrusters, pouring on the acceleration. Dancer surged ahead, ten gees, fifteen, twenty, thirty. To anyone else aboard not watching a viewscreen or an astrogation console, or far aft in Engineering beyond the holds, there would be no evidence aside from perhaps the faintest vibration through the bulkheads; but for Kyndria, Dancer thrummed with restrained power. Porton's World began to dwindle astern, and Kyndria began to really wake up. She felt fully alive for the first time in weeks as she fine-tuned Dancer's heading.
Finally, the outer fringes of Porton's World's satellite constellation lay the mandated safe fifty thousand kilometers astern. Closing her mind to the distractions of the bridge, Kyndria immersed herself fully in Dancer's systems. She saw unimpeded through Dancer's sensors now. Dancer's hull was her skin, Dancer's fusors her heart, Dancer's drives her muscles. She flexed her fingers, her hands, and Dancer responded eagerly. Space spread before and all around her, a tableau that she never tired of, a velvet curtain strewn with jewelled stars beyond number, banded with the diamond-dust veil of the Orion Arm. Kyndria sighted on thirty beacon stars with a thought, confirming Dancer's exact position in space. Everything was ready.
Cutting back smoothly on the thrusters, Kyndria brought the etheric drive online. She made a final pre-engagement check, double-verified her entry parameters, brought the main fusors up to full power, and gave Dancer her head.
Kyndria and Dancer sang out as one in joy and exaltation as the etheric drive came roaring alive and plucked Dancer smoothly out of normal space. The universe dissolved into skeins of light around her, and Kyndria became whole again, for a time.
Constructive criticism welcomed.
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One nit: Kirin Lines? Any relation to the beer company?
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