[story] Saber Chase

[Dartz]

Well, we'll see how this ends.

Rob, I hope you don't mind me putting a few Stellvian's on Frigga.... since they're mentioned as being regular customers of Survival Shot, why not have Maico pick a busy day, when the future crew of Ultima are aboard for their early training. And Anika and Miyuri in the same room....

Unless you have any objections... I can switch them out for nameless warsies quickly enough.

Also. Frigga is 69km long. It's silly to assume everything's going to be clustered together.... so they have to have some way of getting around inside that isn't walking. And nobody else had one.

Someone was singing

[i“I've been from Tuscon to Tucumcari[/i]
Tehachapi to Tonapah”

A woman’s voice, with a radio’s hiss. Singing.

“Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed”

A second joined. Rougher, coarsing and more gruff. Husky was the word. She opened her eyes, to be greeted by a view of the back-seater’s instrument panel. The pain in her neck, matched the pain in her empty stomach. A pane of transparent carbon did not make a good pillow.

“And if you give me: weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a si~ign”

Both voices harmonised. Giggling cut in. Snorting, rapid, sugarcoated giggling from right in front of her, rather than on the radio.

“What’s going on?” Maico managed to slur out, still half under the covers of sleep.

“I'll be willin', to be movin'”

“We’re nearly at Frigga,” Anika announced. “Just picking up Ford and Jet moving the S.C. One Night into orbit.”

“I've been kicked by the wind, robbed by the sleet
Had my head stoved in, but I'm still on my feet and I'm still... willin'”

The first voice took over again.

“That them singing?”

Her brain was still struggling to catch up.

“Yup. It’s a quirk on Ford’s old truck.” Anika explained, still giddy “It tows better if both the driver, and someone on the towed vehicle sing that song in harmony.”

“Oh.... but of course,” she murmured. Not bad singing. Husky sounded like she knew what she was doing

“Now I smuggled some smokes and folks from Mexico
Baked by the sun, every time I go to Mexico, and I'm still...”

“Ford, Ford, Stop it there!” the hoarser voice interrupted. “That’s bang on,”

“Cut engines!” the first voice called out.

The music stopped. The music seemed to run into a wall.

“Firing anchor cables.” A pause. “And we’re done. Frigganstationary orbit and stable.” A deep breath, “And about bloody time,”

“Yeah,” the first snorted. She sounded American. Chicago? “Fucking thing, At least the junk-heap should stay there now.”

“I’ll be at the airlock, waiting,”

“Keep your panties on. I’m not going to forget you can’t just scoot over this time,”

“Again...” the husky voice added with a growl. “Poxy touchscreens.”

“Don’t start!” the Chicago voice snapped her down. “You’ve had that body for six years and you still haven’t stopped bitching about touchscreens,”

“Because of the amount of gobdaw’s out there who insist on still using the things because they’re lol-futuristic,”

Maico had this image of a woman rolling her eyes. That was Jet? So, Chicago would be Ford. She trawled back through her memories, to that image of Jet in her mind from seven years earlier. Big, armoured... but most of all cheery, good natured and earnest. Ford; active... very active with a metal arm. She was always moving.

“Frigga control, this Little Cool Rider, I’m on my way in,”

“Little Cool Rider. Side door’s open. Just park up on the porch and wait a little for the Dragon Wagon,”

Jet’s voice. Husky, rough... on the verge of being hoarse. And coming from the control room on the asteroid itself.

“How could Jet be in two places?” Maico asked herself. On some orbiting spacecraft waiting to be picked up, and in the control room. She was just one person.

Out the window, there was nothing but stars. And a point of light that was beginning to grow

“Frigga Control, Little Cool Rider. Passing outer marker,”

“Little Cool Rider, you know the way home,”

Now why did that sound like ‘Don’t bother me, I’m busy’? She heard Anika snarl a little a mutter through her teeth, “Why did I even write those procedures if nobody follows them?”

She puffed out a sigh and slumped against her harness, throttling the engines down. The turbines whined, sending a shudder through the frame that banished the last of Maico’s tiredness.

Frigga grew from a spark, to a pebble on the window, to a sixty kilometre wide stone hanging in space. That never got old. Sparks flashed across it’s surface in the accomodation block, while a dome was visible on the horizon, the sun shining through it like an arclight for a moment before night fell and the lights came on inside.

Gunshots from thrusters aligned them up with what seemed like a small doorway at first. Maico gaped as it began to grow bigger, and kept on growing until it dwarfed the little shuttlecraft. Painted onto it ribbed steel surface in tall, faded dirty-white letters;

NEW BIRMINGHAM WELCOMES YOU.

The A-wing would’ve fit happily in the dot on top of the i. Between the legs of the H was a smaller hatchway, picked out by for throbbing red lights. Above it, an obvious patch in the distinctive shape of an old war-era ramship. That was a hell of a door

“It’s big,” said Maico.

It was big, the same way Mercury was hot.

“Wait till you see inside,” Anike promised with a knowing smirk. “It’s the oldest part of the original mine, the original lode they excavated. They built the hatchway over it when the war began so they could load up in safety, so there’s a huge chamber in there that we can pressurise.”

She was bragging about it, and Maico couldn’t blame her for it. There was something intimidating about such a big door, and mildly disappointing about the small airlock inside. Small, being a relative term, adecent sized cruiser could still get through it with room to spare.

The A-wing touched down and began to wait, a sign painted on the inner door warning them to wait until both lights were green The force of pressure on a doorway that large, even with only one atmosphere behind it, must have been immense. It made Maico shiver just a little bit.

“Frigga Control, Little Cool Rider, we’re waiting on the porch,” Anika broadcast.

“Standby Anika, we’re on our way,” Jet responded. Which Jet?

She growled, settling herself into a bitter, octopus-lipped pout.

A green pickup truck skidded to a halt beside her, smoke puffing silently up from locked tyres. It rocked on its suspension, blue black puffballs of smoke rising from stained chrome stacks. It still wore stickers advertising “Ford’s Independent Mechanics”. Had there been a time when people actually drove around in waved land vehicles?

Lights went green, and both shuttlecraft and pickup truck drove forward

Maico yelped.

The delta wing planform of a Gagarin class was parked above them, blotting out the starlight floodlights far above. The ship’s own running lights took up the slack, picking out the loading ramps and access hatchways on the walls.

The StellviaCorp logo was painted proudly, a transponder giving the craft’s name as the SCSV Rinna Kazamatsuri. Still brand new.

“Oh, they’re just dropping off a group of trainees for Survival Shot,” Anika told her.

As if a Gagarin Class parked indoors was nothing at all remarkable. A sleeker, smaller BAT Outlaw was parked hanging from an overhead crane, and obviously blocked in by the bulky explorer.

“But of course. I heard they’re a big contractor for you out here,”

They hovered across the floor on reaction control jets, the green truck just driving behind with its passenger door half open. Both stopped to wait for a break in the human traffic disembarking. A redhead in motorcycle leathers took the opportunity to bolt. Who was she?

Maico thought she looked a little like Jet.

Anika pushed the shuttle forwards, skimming across the scarred steel floor, finding her way to a partitioned sector of the floor, where it stopped.

“Wait for me,” Anika ordered, “I have to tie this down or it’ll drift when the gravity plate is turned off,”

“But of course,” Maico murmured.

She stood, shoes on the steel, just staring up, while someone was barking orders in the distance. The gravity was tangibly wrong, like just about every settlement really, but never in a way it was possible to put a finger on. And it was wrong in a way that was unique to Frigga.

It smelled industrial. It smelled of old steel and oil, and dry stone and engine exhaust.

Across the bay, two dangerous looking attack choppers flanked a larger sister, which had the distinctive three-bladed radiation symbol emblazoned on it’s flank. She recognised the type immediately.

“A Hind D, what’s a Russian gunship doing here?” she asked no-one.

And beside it, those two must’ve been Havocs then.

Behind her, she heard Anika tut to herself. “It’s part of our defense force. We don’t have pilots yet,” she stated, deadpan.

“Maico!” someone barked out her name.

The redhead was running towards her, hair billowing behind her. Blue eyes, soft smile and face.

“Mister Jaguar?” She said, half unsure.

“Yup,” she nodded with a smirk. Maico gave the woman a dubious look. Jet, wearing black padded motorcycle leathers and crash-proof boots. Maico winced as she placed a lightweight hand on her shoulder, gripping tight. But not painfully tight. “Though it’s Miss Jaguar now, or really just Jet,”

“But it says in your file...”

“I changed it,” Jet stated. “To fit changing circumstances,”

“Oh?” Maico raised an eyebrow.

“Mackie’s my Brother, I have to be his Sister,” explained Jet, as if that was the entire explanation.

“But of course,” Maico demurred, not really understanding, but knowing that was all she’d get on the subject “It’s nice to meet you again,” she managed to say.

Jet offered her a handshake, which she reluctantly accepted. It surprised her to find the grip firm, but not crushing her hand into a bloody pulp.

“The same.” said Jet, warmly “I’m assuming you’d like to rest and get something to eat before we talk?”

Maico cringed, a sharp pang of hunger slashing through her stomach. Her face scrunched up, a little ashamed. “If it’s no trouble, Jet”

“No,” the cyber shook her head. “We’ve got plenty of space. Though were a little busy right now,” she took a deep breath, looking up at the ship above her. “You know what they say about running a business. Sometimes you have to be in two places at once,”

The grin told her it was supposed to be a joke, but she didn’t quite get it. She forced herself to giggle anyway. Manners.

“Jet,” Anika called from behind, “I have an important message from Jeph,”

Jet’s answer was a quick hand signal. Maico was certain she caught it on tape, whatever it meant. Ryan would know.

“Got it,” said Anika with a grin. “I’ll go get changed. Later Maico,”

“Bye,”

Anika was gone, running towards a hatch.

“Ford’ll be along with the Warthog in a few seconds, she’ll take you up to the control room. I have to head up and meet with the Rinna’s navigator.” another deep breath. “And we’re a half hour behind schedule already,”

Jet was running fingers through her hair, and seemed to be partially mesmerised by the sensation of doing it. Maybe if she changed her gender identity, she changed her body, Maico theorised.

“Warthog?” asked Maico.

She was answered by the throaty roar of a big-block V8 downshifting as if to say ‘that’. An open-topped fat-tyres 4-wheel off-roader in grey-white military camo, with Ford Sierra in the driver’s seat, pulled to a halt behind Jet. It towered over her.

“Oh... A Halo Warthog,” she said, in a small voice. She was just below eye level with the sill.

It barked and snorted like a hog, that was for sure. She could exhaust fumes, hot carbon monoxide and carbon, mixed with the distinctive odour of genuine big-fireball gasoline. She swallowed a lump. It was the real deal...unwaved. 521cu according to a plate on the side, powered by Ford Racing.

“Hop in” Ford beckoned. “We’ll take a shortcut through a service tunnel in this,” she patted the steering wheel.

Maico tentatively gripped two cold steel handrails and hauled herself up what felt like a mountain, before settling down into a passenger seat that was snug.

The engine thrummed through her spine, a deep, sub-bass rumble that made her feel just a little queasy. She glanced at a clipboard pinned to the dash, beside a wireframe map of the station. In the back, a pair of inert CGI Exocomps and a toolbox where a gun mount was supposed to be. The floor beneath her feet was checkerplate. Something about the whole machine made it feel very dangerous.

She heard Jet shout out at Ford over the engine, but missed what she’d said. It might’ve been “Talk later.”

Ford just nodded wordlessly, then turned and grinned right at her.

“Buckle up, this thing can really move,”

Why did that sound like a threat?

Well...... they dug out a big lump of ore from the surface and stuck a door over it so they wouldn't get shot to pieces if they were attacked while digging the deeper parts on... but they could still get bulk ore carriers off the surface by opening it. I'm assuming most operating mines would have something of similar scale....
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?