Figured I'd add some drama to L'Kas's story, some narrative, and maybe some romance. We'll see where it goes.
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L’Kas had awoken early. 1130 hours Zulu. For L’Kas, that was early, but then his day usually went from 1230 to 0400 Zulu. A full 16 hours, just like most everybody else. After his usual routine, L’Kas began to meditate. Izumi had taught him how many years ago, and he kept it up. It centered him and kept him balanced throughout the day so that his fuse would be harder to light. It kept him out of trouble, and saved him more than a few times. Otherwise, he’d be rotting away in the brig of some station or another.
His meditation sessions usually lasted a couple hours, but this one was cut short. A metallic thud reverberated throughout the little Diamondback Scout. Since L’Kas was suspended in the null-gravity of a planetary orbit, he only heard it, not felt it. His instincts kicked in. He pushed against the wall toward the hatch leading to the cockpit. He opened it and killed his forward motion using his chair. He checked the hull integrity readings, as well as the module integrity readings. The cargo hatch went down by 1 percent, 97 from the previous 98. He pushed off from his chair toward the cargo area.
It may have been packed full with the ADS, DSS, fuel scoop system, AFMU, and food cartridges, but there was enough room for maintenance work. He sealed his flight suit, closed the cabin hatch, depressurised the hold, and opened the cargo hatch. He saw an escape capsule drifting away from his ship. “Oh, no you don’t.” he said as he grabbed the grappling tether. He activated the micro-thrusters on his suit and aimed for the pod. When the magnetic hook had a good seal, he climbed the tether back to his ship and reeled it in as far he could. No cargo room meant no room for the pod, but he could at least see if the pilot inside was still alive, and take them aboard.
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Rakhi didn’t know how long she had been drifting. Hours, days, weeks, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t help that the escape capsule was so cramped that you couldn’t get good sleep in one. She felt the thud of her pod hitting something. It didn’t feel like it was that hard of a hit, but she had a finger hovering above the sealing activator on her helmet just in case. She turned off the automation, so as to conserve her emergency supply of air. She didn’t need her emergency supply to run out before there was an actual emergency. She waited for the tell-tale hiss of atmosphere escaping into the void. She instead heard another, lighter thud, then a latching sound. Someone must’ve found her.
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L’Kas activated his suit’s comm system and broadcast on all frequencies to make sure the pod’s transceiver picked it up. “If you’re alive in there, seal your suit. I have to open the pod up outside.” He repeated the message and gave the pilot time to follow his instructions. L’Kas felt three knocks from the pod. He took it as a sign that the pilot did what he said and opened it. The first thing he saw coming from the pod’s hatch was a gun. He raised his hands and said, “Woah, there. No need for that, I’m not a pirate.”
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“I repeat, If you’re alive in there, seal your suit. We’re still in vacuum.”
Rakhi heard the command the first time and hit the sealing activator immediately. She drew her sidearm, just in case, and knocked on the pod’s wall. Before the hatch opened, the pod was depressurised. As soon as it opened, Rakhi wormed her gun through the opening and pointed it at the commander outside. His hands were up immediately. “Woah, there. No need for that, I’m not a pirate.”
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A woman’s form emerged from the pod, gun still trained on L’Kas. “Prove it.” she commanded
“Can’t say I know how.” He quickly remembered how his ship was configured, so he went with that. “I can say, though, that my Diamondback has no room for cargo and no weapons. She’s configured for exploration only. No defensive or offensive units at all, other than the sidearm on my hip and the knife on my back.” He twisted so that she could see exactly where his personal weapons were, but kept his hands up where she could still see them, too. She stared at him, probably weighing his words. L’Kas checked the timer on his helmet’s HUD. Twenty minutes left. Having a high-grade life support system came in handy. He nodded up to the ship. “I’ve got twenty minutes of emergency air left. I can stay out here a while, provided you don’t shoot me. You?”
After a few more long seconds, she nodded and grabbed the grappling line. L’Kas slowly moved to the hook, released the pod, and pushed it away from the ship. The woman started climbing, keeping her gun on L’Kas. He looked up at the woman and asked, “Permission to come aboard?”
“It’s your ship, isn’t it?”
“You’ve got the gun.” A few more seconds crawled past before the woman holstered her piece. L’Kas climbed the tether, reeled it in, shut the hatch, and re-pressurised the hold. The woman waited to unseal her helmet until L’Kas unsealed his. Despite their meeting, L’Kas showed the first sign of trust by turning toward the cabin hatch and opening it. “She’s only a Scout, so there isn’t a lot of room. Only one set of quarters and one chair in the cockpit. I can’t imagine you got much sleep in that pod, I never did, so feel free to use my bunk. I promise that I won’t try anything stupid.”
“You better not. I’m a light sleeper and have seen my fair share of hand-to-hand combat.”
“Not to mention I’ve got a couple mean swords in easy reach from the bunk. I’m not stupid. An attitude like that, I’m going to assume you are not one piss off.”
“Good assumption. Keep it in mind. I’ve got a short fuse, and my little pod trip made it even shorter. You headed home?”
“Sagittarius A, actually. And I don’t really feel like turning around yet. Unless you decide to insist.” He pointedly glanced at her sidearm. Yet another few seconds crawled by as she thought about it.
“No, that’s fine. Honestly, I haven’t been there yet, and wouldn’t mind seeing it at least once in my life. And I do believe you’re not a pirate, by the way. You’re ship’s way too clean for that kind of life. Anyway, stay out of your room until I tell you otherwise.”
L’Kas gave a mock salute and said, “Yes, ma’am. Name’s L’Kas, by the way. L’Kas Rykr.”
“Rakhi Victoria. Try not to make too much noise out here.”
L’Kas nodded and Rakhi slipped past him and into his quarters.
The quarters, if they could be called that, were small. The sleeping area took up half the room, and no doubt the sink and toilet drawers took up the other half when opened. Rakhi saw the swords L’Kas had mentioned. They were indeed mean-looking. Too bad she wasn’t good with a sword, but then L’Kas didn’t need to know that. If he thought she could defend herself, he wouldn’t mess with her.
Rakhi climbed into the sleeping bag. As per usual, it was stuffy. That was okay, though. A modern Pilots Federation flightsuit was designed to keep the pilot comfortable and protected in all but the most hostile environments. Corrosion was about the only thing it was vulnerable to. Vacuum, heat, cold, radiation, even a decent amount of pressure were shrugged off by a pilot wearing this suit. Since L’Kas was also wearing a tailor-made suit, he had to have been in the PF recently, maybe even still. She let a little smile come across her lips as she inhaled the scent of her rescuer.
It wasn’t that Rakhi distrusted men. In fact, she rather liked the idea of a young, male commander coming to her rescue. But out in the black, you never know what or who you’re going to find. She may have been a romantic at heart, but she wasn’t going to let her guard down. At least not until she knew L’Kas better. Seeing as how they were headed to the core and only 4,000 lightyears away from home, not to mention in a Diamondback Scout, they’d have plenty of time to get to know each other. She drifted off to sleep rather quickly. It was about time someone found her.
It had been a few hours since L’Kas rescued Rakhi. As far as he knew, she was still sleeping. He wasn’t going to check, as she did tell him to keep his distance. He wasn’t sure what to make of this situation, and meditation wasn’t helping. He decided that for now, it was probably a good idea to just go about his business and let her do any talking. If she wanted to interact, she would. Most people willing to go this far from civilization tended to be that way. He posted his log entry then went back to checking his modules.
L’Kas probably didn’t need to do manual, hands-on diagnostics, but being that this was just a Diamondback Scout, he wasn’t taking any chances. Between meditation, logging, and eating, it usually took him a good several hours to check everything. He looked down the corridor and saw Rakhi floating across to the kitchen closet. She started rummaging around and said, most likely to herself, “Please tell me you have some coffee.”
L’Kas answered, “Other pantry, middle shelf. Wouldn’t dream of leaving home without it.”
She found it quickly enough and began to process some of an already-opened cartridge. As usual, it came out in a dark gelatinous blob. Being a space pilot, Rakhi wasn’t at all bothered by that. Zero-Gee, and the required procedures therein, tended to grow on you pretty quick out here. After several minutes of her wake-up routine, Rakhi pushed off the bulkhead and floated to the cargo hold. She knocked to let L’Kas know she was there so as not to startle him. She looked at the equipment he had outfitted his ship with.
A fuel scoop, a standard for any long-range configured vessel. An Advanced discovery scanner. Beat her Intermediate scanner, for sure. An automatic field-maintenance unit, another standard for long-range flying. A detailed surface scanner. Yeah, this Scout was configured for pure exploration. No shield generator, most likely a high grade frame shift drive and the powerplant to match. A seemingly high-grade life support module as well, considering L’Kas had at least twenty minutes of emergency air by the time they entered the ship. The paint looked a bit worn from what she could see, but everything else was well taken care of.
“Told you, no cargo room. Barely enough room to get around.” The voice came from next to her.
“Definitely not a pirate’s setup. What do you do back here anyway?”
L’Kas braced himself between the AFMU and the ADS blocks. “I check my modules by hand. It’s my first time out, and Izumi’s Intrigue is a small ship.”
“Izumi’s Intrigue? Interesting name.”
“Named after my late adoptive mother and mentor. I may have lost her physically, but I keep her memory alive through my ships’ names.”
“Names, plural? as in more than one ship?” Her eyes widened at that. This kid must’ve been doing pretty well for himself if he had more than one ship.
“Yup. This DB Scout, a Cobra Mk.III, and a Vulture. Izumi’s Intrigue, Favor, and Ire II, respectively. The Vulture just recently replaced my Viper, Izumi’s Ire.”
“So an explorer, a fighter, and a… light trader? Not sure what you want to do yet?”
“Actually, the Cobra’s an armed courier. I take a faction’s product from A to B. I don’t deal with commodities yet. I might later, when I have my Anaconda. And yeah, I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do. I’m hoping this trip will give me some insight. Meditation, contemplation, soul-searching, that kind of thing.”
“And you’re going to a supermassive black hole for this why?”
“Call me superstitious, but I see it as the greatest example of balance in nature. It destroys everything unfortunate enough to get too close, but it also holds this entire galaxy together. I plan on using it as a divination tool of sorts.”
Rakhi almost laughed, but caught herself when she read L’Kas’s face. He looked so serious, and a little embarrassed. This was supposed to be a personal, spiritual trip for him. His seriousness almost made her regret being rescued. She cleared her throat, acknowledging the sudden awkwardness. “Well, a supermassive black hole is certainly a hell of a divination tool. Sorry for the smirk. I saw pretty quickly how much your mission means to you.”
L’Kas waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. To be honest, on any other trip, I’d think it was ridiculous too. I’d like to think I’m a rational thinker, but even this means more than I’d have ever figured it would.”
Rakhi nodded in thanks to the forgiving gesture. “Don’t let me stop you. Speaking of, where to next?"
"Good question. Let's see what's next." With that, L'Kas pushed off toward the cockpit.