1-Arrival
The Bat Outta Hell's nav computer blurped a notification that the ship had arrived on the borders of Helix Sector. Already, Iruoko could feel the engines lagging from the fringe effects of the interdiction fields. She pushed the throttle lever out of the blue and into the green section, dropping out of hyperspace. Checking her co-ordinates, she found herself in ssI-3, or Sub-Sector I-3 for laymen.
Another soft noise on the comms console caught her attention. It was a Fleet gunboat, of the same class as the GB-52b "Hrunting."
Attention ship 'Bat Outta Hell' you have entered Fleet Space in Helix Sector. Please verify ID and status."
Iruoko, caught slightly off guard that a "frontier militia" was so organized, replied, "This is ship Bat Outta Hell responding, confirm status OK."
"Welcome to Helix, Bat. If you don't mind, we need to get some preliminaries over with. Prepare for boarding for a customs inspection."
Iruoko agreed, and soon the two ships were docked. Of course, Iruoko didn't have anything considered contraband, so she was cleared to enter the sector. Just before leaving the inspector smiled and said, "You here for the race?"
"Sure am."
"Aren't they all! I'll tell ya, we've had more work out here in the past month than you can imagine. You'd better hustle over to Helix if you're thinking about entering! Come to think of it, Ralos Orthan, one of the main sponsors, has been getting ornery lately. Without his funding, they may postpone the race. Or there might be no race at all! Imagine that. Well, I suppose they'll have to talk him out of his mood."
"I sure hope they do," Iruoko replied earnestly.
"Well, good luck, then!"
The inspector clambered through the hatch and sealed it. Moments later, the two ships were free again, the patrol boat heading out on its course and the Bat pointed in-sector.
No sooner had the militia ship departed than Irridan entered the cockpit, "Did we pass inspection, Captain?" Iruoko, not turning from the engine status readouts, knew that Irridan was only trying to develop her skills at small talk and knew the answer to her own question. Somehow she preferred the stalid woman Irridan was when Iruoko had first met her.
"I want to run the engines at max between here and Helix. And, I want to keep a close eye on them. I'm not sure what this interdiction field is, or how it operates. It might have a negative effect on the Bat's engines."
"Can we travel at full hyperspace speeds?"
"I don't think so. Most of the time we're gonna be at impulse. But again, I don't know how the engines are gonna perform, and we need to know exactly how they will, and what to expect before we get into this race. Or else something may happen to our engines during the race and we won't know what to do."
"Should I get Bret to start work on tweaking the engines?""No, he's working on some of the upgrades we got in Cruan'atan. I want him to finish those. Right now, let's just see how the engines respond to this interdiction field.""Shall I set course for Helix?"
"Yep, top speed."
Another soft noise on the comms console caught her attention. It was a Fleet gunboat, of the same class as the GB-52b "Hrunting."
Attention ship 'Bat Outta Hell' you have entered Fleet Space in Helix Sector. Please verify ID and status."
Iruoko, caught slightly off guard that a "frontier militia" was so organized, replied, "This is ship Bat Outta Hell responding, confirm status OK."
"Welcome to Helix, Bat. If you don't mind, we need to get some preliminaries over with. Prepare for boarding for a customs inspection."
Iruoko agreed, and soon the two ships were docked. Of course, Iruoko didn't have anything considered contraband, so she was cleared to enter the sector. Just before leaving the inspector smiled and said, "You here for the race?"
"Sure am."
"Aren't they all! I'll tell ya, we've had more work out here in the past month than you can imagine. You'd better hustle over to Helix if you're thinking about entering! Come to think of it, Ralos Orthan, one of the main sponsors, has been getting ornery lately. Without his funding, they may postpone the race. Or there might be no race at all! Imagine that. Well, I suppose they'll have to talk him out of his mood."
"I sure hope they do," Iruoko replied earnestly.
"Well, good luck, then!"
The inspector clambered through the hatch and sealed it. Moments later, the two ships were free again, the patrol boat heading out on its course and the Bat pointed in-sector.
No sooner had the militia ship departed than Irridan entered the cockpit, "Did we pass inspection, Captain?" Iruoko, not turning from the engine status readouts, knew that Irridan was only trying to develop her skills at small talk and knew the answer to her own question. Somehow she preferred the stalid woman Irridan was when Iruoko had first met her.
"I want to run the engines at max between here and Helix. And, I want to keep a close eye on them. I'm not sure what this interdiction field is, or how it operates. It might have a negative effect on the Bat's engines."
"Can we travel at full hyperspace speeds?"
"I don't think so. Most of the time we're gonna be at impulse. But again, I don't know how the engines are gonna perform, and we need to know exactly how they will, and what to expect before we get into this race. Or else something may happen to our engines during the race and we won't know what to do."
"Should I get Bret to start work on tweaking the engines?""No, he's working on some of the upgrades we got in Cruan'atan. I want him to finish those. Right now, let's just see how the engines respond to this interdiction field.""Shall I set course for Helix?"
"Yep, top speed."
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