Ravens of Eternity

170 Throttling Up Pt Amal slid her environmental suit’s helmet shut with a solid CLACK. Air vented out of little ports from the side with a loud FSSSH.

Inside, its HUD lit up on the heavily tinted glass in front of her face.

–

Oxygen: 96%, stable

Filter Degradation: 1%

Antimicrobial Shield: Active

–

Amal sighed deeply as resolve set deep in her bones. After a moment of reflection, she curled an open hand into a fist.

“Okay, here I go,” she said. “Wish me luck.”

.....

“Ganbare,” said Miko.

Amal fired up the plasmathrower in her hands with the simple press of a button. Its tip erupted with an intense blue energy, which she expanded out to a wide cone. Then she took the plasma straight to the heap of debris piled up a few meters away from their corvette.

The heap had all manner of disgusting debris: grime-hardened clothes and fabrics, used food containers and utensils, huge clumps of mold and mildew, bottles that had indeterminate liquids with some semi-solid masses floating in them, the great big heap of dead bugs and rotting critters, and many other things best left unsaid.

And no matter what she pointed her plasmathrower at, it disappeared in a matter of seconds. It didn’t matter if it was organic material, or solid steel. At first they would crisp up and blacken, but even those remains would wither away into dust. These things were literally atomized under the power of hyper-condensed and focused electricity.

Eva and Miko stood just inside the corvette’s entrance and watched from the top of the ramp, roughly a half dozen meters away. But even as far as they were, they still donned industrial rebreathers.

Amal’s bright blue flame of utter devastation reflected off their dark visors.

~

Stacks of the corvette’s armor were lined up horizontally against one of the hangar’s longer walls. Each of them had a little colored note attached – some had OK written on them. The others merely said REPRINT. A scant few noted USELESS.

The three had stripped the corvette bare, down to her structure. She looked naked, but also absolutely filthy.

Eva stood on top of it as she blasted it in a sealed power washing suit. In her hands was a huge gun, which spewed out water with obscene amounts of pressure. With it, she cleaned the ship’s structure of decades of caked-on gunk.

A chunk of it fell down on the hangar floor with a soul-shattering PLORP. It joined the many chunks that had already fallen. And somehow, despite the fact that these muddy blobs were something far from sentient, they began to pool together and seep into the floor. Together, they stained the hangar permanently, and remained there until the heat death of the universe itself.

In the ship’s Engineering bay, Miko (also in a sealed power washing suit) had disassembled one of the components into its individual pieces, and laid them all out over the floor. There, she scrubbed each and every piece with a portable hand-held washer dutifully.

At the same time that she was meticulously cleaning its parts, her drones zoomed around as they scanned the various pieces, appraised them, then catalogued them. Miko needed to know what could be simply repaired or reprinted, and which needed outright replacing.

She picked up one of the pieces and looked over it in detail. Because it was damaged, she quickly tossed it into a box next to her, which was half-filled with a host of cracked and bent small parts.

Amal was up on the Bridge. She too was in a power washing suit, but instead of some crazy gun, she instead had simple soapy brushes. With dutiful movements and lots of elbow grease, she scrubbed the copilot’s chair with one of those simple soapy brushes.

With deft motions, she scrubbed circles with one hand, then scrubbed circles with the other.

She had already taken care of the other three seats, which still had the foamy soap in a thick layer on them. The rest of the Bridge still needed a bit of cleaning, too. The control decks, displays, and MFDs all had a thin layer of... something sticky, the origin of which no-one wanted to know.

The entire ship needed to be scrubbed down from top to bottom. With prejudice.

~

One of Miko’s drones carefully and delicately slid a new fuse into one of the many safety circuits along one of its maintenance shafts. Though a person could easily squeeze in here, it was far more efficient if the little drones went in to do the work instead.

And after that last fuse was slipped into its slot, Miko threw open the ship’s overflow protection and allowed it to receive full power once again. Modules and systems began to hum as power coursed through them.

She reviewed the diagnostics on her datapad, and nodded with satisfaction at all the green OKs it displayed.

Far up front, Eva had crawled into the turret dome’s maintenance crawlspace, and finished bolting down a new set of guns. After she connected them back into the main power grid, she pulled aside her datapad and reviewed the turret’s system.

Everything looked great, so she climbed on out, pulled out her tools, then sealed it up and locked it.

Upstairs, Amal was in the now-spotless Kitchenette, where she and one of Miko’s cottonball drones slid an oven into one of the appliance slots with a soft CLICK. However, there was a soft buzz, and the small screen in front of it reported ERROR.

With some frustration, she pushed into it a bit more until there was a loud CLACK, which she hoped had meant it finally snapped into place. Luckily, the error quickly disappeared, and was replaced with READY.

~

Eva strapped herself into the pilot’s seat, adjusted its fit, then flicked a few controls before taking hold of her yoke. She wasn’t too familiar with yokes, which was a bit like three-quarters of a car’s steering wheel. Honestly, most of her experience was with the typical twin stick configuration of single-seat spacecraft.

This older style certainly had its merits, so she played around with the controls a bit first, before any power was sent to the engines. Best to work out any kinks beforehand.

In the copilot’s seat next to her was Amal, who was reading the manual while poring over her controls. Between the two of them was the column with their shared thruster controls. Behind Amal was Miko, who set up her Engineering station exactly how she wanted it.

There was even a little bowl where her cottonball drones could sit. They looked like robotic birds in a perfectly smooth nest, and oddly cute in their own way.

Other than that, everything all around the bridge looked shiny and spotless, almost as if it were brand new. Well, many of the terminals certainly were, along with a multitude of parts all over the ship.

“We ready for this?” asked Amal.

“Engines are primed,” said Miko.

“Yeah, let’s give it a shot,” said Eva.

She tapped a few buttons, turned a couple dials, then punched the ignition button. But nothing came from the engines but a loud whine, a mild tremor, and a soft sputter.

“One moment,” said Miko. “I have a flow failure along the secondary lines.”

She brought up the electrical system on her main screen, highlighted all of the faulty joints for review, then rerouted their paths.

“Try now,” she said.

Eva began her routine again: the buttons, the dials, the ignition. This time, the engine whined again, erupted violently for a couple seconds as power burst through, but quickly settled down to a calm vibration. And as it settled, so too did the other systems on the ship.

Lights all along the dash flicked on while gauges and meters recalibrated themselves. All manner of component diagnostic data scrolled down all of their screens as the ship woke from its long, cold slumber.

The three of them cheered happily as the ship settled into a pleasant hum. They practically felt the ship warm up around them.

“Wanna go out for a spin?” asked Eva.

The other two replied with a resounding, “Hell yeah!”

“Alright, I’ll prep. You get us clearance from traffic control.”

While Eva did preflight checks, Amal turned to her comms display and hailed Helios Traffic Control. Or at least, their district’s TC anyway.

“Helios Control Tower Theta Four-Two,” she said, “this is... uh... one moment.”

She turned back to Eva and Miko.

“What do we call her?” she asked. “She needs a real name – we can’t just give her registration number. That would be so lame if we did.”

Eva shrugged in response.

“No idea,” she said. “I haven’t thought that far, to be honest. Been super preoccupied with just getting to this point.”

“Naming is so hard sometimes,” said Miko. “How about... um... what does she represent for us? Do we name her after how we are feeling? Or perhaps another ship? Or how about a pilot?”

“Yeah, not super keen on naming her something trite,” said Eva. “Like ‘The Devastructor Prime’, or something like that. But I totally dig naming her after a pilot. Like Amelia.”

“As in, Amelia Earhart? She was an American pilot explorer, neh? That would certainly be a fitting name.”

“I love it!” said Amal. “Buuut didn’t she die in a plane crash in the Bermuda Triangle?”

“It’s not like we’re naming the ship the Hindenburg or anything,” countered Eva. “And besides, even if things did end tragically for Ms. Earhart, she was still doing what she loved to do, right? She loved it so much that she literally died for it. I think that’s more than worthy enough.”

Amal cocked her head to the side as she thought about it. She also really liked the name, but it just felt too plain to her.

“Okay, how about this,” said Amal. “How about the Spirit of Amelia?”

“Oh! From the plane – The Spirit of St Louis!” said Miko. “That plane broke records, right? I vote yes.”

Eva grinned, then nodded at Amal.

“I vote yes, too,” she said.

Amal gave a little clap, and went back to her comms display.

“Control,” she said, “apologies for the delay. This is the Spirit of Amelia, in hangar bay Alpha-Charlie-Echo Six-Four-Niner, requesting takeoff.”

After a few moments, the traffic control operator got back into her comms display.

“Roger,” he said. “Takeoff request from Alpha-Charlie-Echo Six-Four-niner received. Please wait for the necessary clearances.

The sound of tapping could be heard as the operator performed the necessary checks. After a few dozen excruciating seconds, he finally spoke again. His tone was as flat as when he began.

“And you are clear to go,” he continued. “Take it easy out in the black.”

His face winked out from the comms display as the hangar bay doors a few dozen meters above the Spirit of Amelia slid open.

Eva pulled the yoke upwards, and all three felt the ship’s bottom thrusters push them upwards. All over the bottom of the ship, they opened up and poured out transparent streams of low energy.

The ship itself groaned lightly as it lifted up off the ground. Its hull creaked from its own weight as it ascended slowly in the air.

Amal hit a button, and the corvette’s landing gear folded up and tucked away into its belly.

“It’s gonna take us forever to get out of here,” said Eva. “Our bottom thrusters are kinda hot garbage.”

.....

“According to my readouts, half are malfunctioning,” said Miko.

“Well, we might as well use this opportunity to test this thing’s limits, yeah?” asked Eva.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Amal.

Eva didn’t answer her. Instead, she pulled up and towards her with the yoke, which caused the ship to pitch upwards. The ship lurched and groaned as it swung its nose skywards.

Then, Eva pushed the throttle all the way forward, and fired up the corvette’s afterburners.

The Spirit of Amelia’s main thrusters glowed a bright blue, then opened wide as their jets maxed out. The whole corvette rushed through the hangar with speed, out towards open space above.

Amal was immediately pressed into her seat as they quickly reached 3g’s of acceleration.

“Spirit of Amelia!” cried a Traffic Control Operator. “Slow down!”

“To hell with that!” Eva yelled back, a wide grin plastered on her face.