Utti Delegris kept her attention focused on the glowing holographic screen in front of her. The augmented reality screen scrolled black lettering over a projected white background, giving her the data she needed to do her job as the Chief Operating Officer aboard the Mackinaw Class ship today named the "Rock Muncher".
She tried not to think about it. The name changed from day to day according to the 'wit' and 'whimsy' of the ships capsuleer owner. Really, she sort of understood where he or she (or it?) was coming from. Mining wasn't expected to be a highly exciting career path. Not for her. Certainly not for a capsuleer who, she gathered, had other options available to him. Or her. Or it.
She'd never met her captain, so she didn't know for sure. There were rumours of course, but she considered herself to be a sensible, rational woman. Scientific even, as much as someone who stared at density readings and temperature scales eight hours a day seven days a week could be without going crazy.
Every three minutes, a chime would go off in her earpiece set to ring at the perfect octave for her to hear it above the roar of the ships purification engines as it tractored in the vaporized ore from the giant rocks of valuable material outside. Apparently the capsuleer pilot of the ship handled all the number crunching required for that particular job. When the chime went off, it was Utti's job to make sure to make sure that all the automatic processes of the mining lasers were going off without a hitch.
Were the heat sinks continuing to bleed off the heat produced by the mining laser? Was the laser properly drawing from the capacitor? Was the vaporized ore making its way to processing correctly? Was storage reporting that there was no more room to hold any additional ore?
Her favorite was to check outside the ship visually and by tapping into its sensors to check if the asteroid that was being mined was still actually there, or if it had finally had its useful minerals extracted and the remainder boiled off safely into the void. That's when she got to look at the stars and dream.
Sometimes she would have to send a message above, letting the pilot know that the asteroid was gone, or that the hold was full. Utti fully suspected that the capsuleer would already know, but she was supposed to do this anyways. From what she'd heard, the ship was basically the pilot's body, like they were some sort of brain in a jar wired directly into the ship. Her job inside this pseudobiological system was to act as the stomachache that let the leviathan know it couldn't eat any more.
She'd been paid in advance, of course. Sometimes, especially every three minutes on the dot when she was looking out into the depths of space, she liked to fantasize about escaping and living as free as she heard the Empyreans did. In the end she knew that such thoughts were as futile as they were prevalent.
She couldn't dare make that kind of a move anyways, even if the opportunity presented herself. Fear kept her in line as much as the paycheck she'd receive if she signed up for another contract did. Rumours of what other capsuleers had done to seditious crew members were common boogeyman stories that veterans told the greenbacks over bottles of whiskey in the off duty hours.
So she worked, and she fought back boredom as best as she could manage, and she dreamed of a better life for herself and imagined a future where she could live on a space station or maybe a shuttle, with enough money to keep ahead of the bills.
The alarm went off again. She did her checks, and since everything was fine she went back to gazing out the window, past the scrolling text floating in front of her goggled eyes. She shifted in her chair and let out a yawn, not bothering to cover her mouth because she was alone with her daydreams, and settled in for hour five of her eight hour duty shift.
Utti's reverie was shattered suddenly by a much harsher alarm than the standard three minute check. The bulk of the mackinaw shuddered as it suddenly began to fire it's maneuvering thrusters at the same time as a dull red glow replaced the dim fluorescence and bonfire glow of the mining ships innards. Fear gripped her as the mining laser suddenly shut itself off at an order from the mysterious capsuleer pilot. The data from the augmented holographic screen suddenly changed from mining laser telemetry data, to displaying a warning message.
WARNING
TO ALL NON-NAVIGATION CREW
BEGIN MOVING TO ESCAPE PODS
FIVE "THRASHER" DESTROYERS DETECTED ON SHORT RANGE SCANS
INTENTIONS UNKNOWN, ASSUMED HOSTILE
REPEAT: BEGIN MOVING TO ESCAPE PODS
The artificial gravity aboard the ship kept the sudden motion as the ship attempted to align out of the belt to a bearable level for the fragile crew inside, and Utti prayed to the winds, or the gods, that this was just a drill. Away from her screens, and removing the goggles as a useless impediment to her movement, Utti lost her view of the world outside the vessel. She began to run as fast as she could manage down the brown grated hallways of the mackinaw's interior.
The Rock Muncher let off a sudden alarmed squeal as the Empyrean pilot warned their crew of imminent incoming fire. The ship suddenly shuddered as its shields were raked by five simultaneous blasts of autocannon fire, piercing the barrier and penetrating into its armor. Utti heard explosions, echoing through the ships ductwork. She screamed to herself, tripping and falling to the metal grill that served as a floor, feeling the metal cut into the fleshy palms of her hands as she broke her fall.
In her heart, Utti suddenly understood that she was about to die. As if from outside herself, she watched herself give up, and curled foetal on the ground, her bleeding hands clasping each other around her knees. She waited for the inevitable, and wondered if she would feel the cold embrace of vacuum, or maybe the fiery inferno of the ships explosion.
Amidst the explosions and the almost inexplicable peace she felt with the inevitable, she felt the sickening pull at the bottom of her stomach as the inertia of the ship suddenly changed. Disconnected from herself, she thought almost critically that she ought to be feeling joy. This was her ship entering warp, and escape, and survival.
The only sound she heard was the sound of someone laughing through the unused shipwide communication system. A male voice, cackling with half-mad glee. The ships displays all set to show five destroyer class vessels being reduced to scrap by Concord.
Utti didn't feel anything but quiet acceptance, and a passive curiosity that her reaction should be somewhat more than this.
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Topic: Spacedust (Read 1102 times)