A Dark Echo
By: GeneticPredator
Part 2
Mira came down the narrow stairs into the SAR bay. "She's good to go."
I gave her the thumbs up and replied, "Good lets get going! Everyone to your stations."
As we moved to our places I noticed Thomas having a bit of trouble deciding which place to sit in. I looked at him and smiled and said, "Any chair is good, just pick one upstairs, there's a room up there with beds, table, toilet and more... And fix me some more coffee will ya?"
"Yeah sure!"
As I sat down in the pilot's seat and put on my helmet and belt, my crew started to report in.
"Power on...life support online...engines online..."
"All systems are go, ready for takeoff."
After getting clearance for takeoff from the control room the engines started revving up, and the ship slowly started to hover. The doors on the carrier's second takeoff runway slowly started to open.
The more the doors opened, one could slightly see the forcefield shimmer. It was kind of a cool blue-ish 'bending' light. The doors were now fully open and I looked out: there it was.... Space!
Dark, cold, mysterious...
We slowly approached the opening, flying through the forcefield and out into open space.
Suddenly everything was silent...and dark. The only thing I could hear was my own breath and a weak sound from the ship's computer. The engines made some parts of the ship vibrate, not much. Just so you could barely feel it.
I looked out from my cockpit and thought, "Wow I must have the coolest job ever."
After getting instructions from the control room we started making our way in to the ship formation. We positioned the ship slightly to the left of one of the four Orions. Damn those were big things!
Since they were some big mining equipment, the fleet was moving quite slowly.
In the front of the fleet were two Idris frigates, followed by Orions "Ore" 1 and 2. After that came the carrier "Hawkeye" and then the second two Orions "Ore" 3 and 4. Covering our rear was the last two Idris frigates. Constantly moving around the whole fleet were two Hornets and two Gladius fighters.
Our role here was close protection of the Orions, and rescue operations if needed. There were two Reedemers here both with the search and rescue equipment, we were hanging in formation on the left side close to "Ore 3" and the other Redeemer was close to "Ore 4" on the right side.
The first two hours passed kind of slowly. We passed a few jokes among us and soon find out that Mira was in "that time of the month" so we decided to leave her out of the jokes. Thomas was a little shy and quiet, but we could hear him laughing a little on the intercom.
Looking out into the darkness and some passing small stars I started to think. "I've never been on many exploration journeys." Sure I'd done many escort runs, but mostly closer to Terra, some in the Nemo and Ferron systems, but never this far away. Which made this very exiting!
During my little daydream, the radio suddenly started to make a lot of noise...
"Echo 5...Echo 5, respond..."
"Yeah Echo 5 here...go ahead."
"Echo 5 we have an emergency of highest priority! You are to head to Sector 1-1-5. Coordinates are being sent to your nav computer. We have received a distress call from two affiliate ships and all we know is that they are under attack and need immediate assistance. You are to head there at once! We will send two Gladius fighters with you to assist, that's all we can spare I'm afraid. At full speed you should be there in approx twenty minutes. Do you copy?"
"Echo 5: solid copy, heading to Sector 1-1-5."
Things just got really bad...
To be continued...
By: GeneticPredator
Part 2
Mira came down the narrow stairs into the SAR bay. "She's good to go."
I gave her the thumbs up and replied, "Good lets get going! Everyone to your stations."
As we moved to our places I noticed Thomas having a bit of trouble deciding which place to sit in. I looked at him and smiled and said, "Any chair is good, just pick one upstairs, there's a room up there with beds, table, toilet and more... And fix me some more coffee will ya?"
"Yeah sure!"
As I sat down in the pilot's seat and put on my helmet and belt, my crew started to report in.
"Power on...life support online...engines online..."
"All systems are go, ready for takeoff."
After getting clearance for takeoff from the control room the engines started revving up, and the ship slowly started to hover. The doors on the carrier's second takeoff runway slowly started to open.
The more the doors opened, one could slightly see the forcefield shimmer. It was kind of a cool blue-ish 'bending' light. The doors were now fully open and I looked out: there it was.... Space!
Dark, cold, mysterious...
We slowly approached the opening, flying through the forcefield and out into open space.
Suddenly everything was silent...and dark. The only thing I could hear was my own breath and a weak sound from the ship's computer. The engines made some parts of the ship vibrate, not much. Just so you could barely feel it.
I looked out from my cockpit and thought, "Wow I must have the coolest job ever."
After getting instructions from the control room we started making our way in to the ship formation. We positioned the ship slightly to the left of one of the four Orions. Damn those were big things!
Since they were some big mining equipment, the fleet was moving quite slowly.
In the front of the fleet were two Idris frigates, followed by Orions "Ore" 1 and 2. After that came the carrier "Hawkeye" and then the second two Orions "Ore" 3 and 4. Covering our rear was the last two Idris frigates. Constantly moving around the whole fleet were two Hornets and two Gladius fighters.
Our role here was close protection of the Orions, and rescue operations if needed. There were two Reedemers here both with the search and rescue equipment, we were hanging in formation on the left side close to "Ore 3" and the other Redeemer was close to "Ore 4" on the right side.
The first two hours passed kind of slowly. We passed a few jokes among us and soon find out that Mira was in "that time of the month" so we decided to leave her out of the jokes. Thomas was a little shy and quiet, but we could hear him laughing a little on the intercom.
Looking out into the darkness and some passing small stars I started to think. "I've never been on many exploration journeys." Sure I'd done many escort runs, but mostly closer to Terra, some in the Nemo and Ferron systems, but never this far away. Which made this very exiting!
During my little daydream, the radio suddenly started to make a lot of noise...
"Echo 5...Echo 5, respond..."
"Yeah Echo 5 here...go ahead."
"Echo 5 we have an emergency of highest priority! You are to head to Sector 1-1-5. Coordinates are being sent to your nav computer. We have received a distress call from two affiliate ships and all we know is that they are under attack and need immediate assistance. You are to head there at once! We will send two Gladius fighters with you to assist, that's all we can spare I'm afraid. At full speed you should be there in approx twenty minutes. Do you copy?"
"Echo 5: solid copy, heading to Sector 1-1-5."
Things just got really bad...
To be continued...
