I Am Unafraid, part II of II

Posted on 24 Aug 2017 @ 4:10pm by Ensign Miraj Derani & Lieutenant Amaranai Franklin
Edited on on 07 Sep 2017 @ 6:04pm

3,802 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Asteroid belt beyond Mars
Timeline: MD20 1130

[ON]
Previously, on I Am Unafraid...

"Cut the crap, Derani," Bailey yelled. "I need to eject and you need to grab me before this fighter explodes."

Punching the console's eject button, the cockpit windows were destroyed and then Bailey's seat - with him in it - was launched into space. He had an idea of where Derani was and just hoped that she would make it in time. There was a glint of light catching the edge of Derani's fighter. There was hope.

And then the Valkyrie exploded. The world went white.

And now the conclusion.


Miraj shut her eyes on instinct, the brightness searing everything red through her eyelids. The force of the blast shoved the fighter sideways and she put all power to her positioning thrusters to hold position and not go crashing off into where Bailey might be. Her own shields groaned under the strength of the blast. She worked to retune her scanners, but a hot body was hard to distinguish from hot debris. "Sir? Are you there? Captain Bailey!?"

When Bailey had been ejected from the fighter, he knew what had to be done. It didn't like it, but he knew. He knew that his homing signal would immediately activate once the ejection had been triggered. He knew that his suit would provide him up to ten minutes of oxygen. He also knew, based on his last glance at the scanners, that Derani was almost ten minutes away. Plus, the push from the explosion might veer her in a different direction. Of course, he knew these things. He taught pilots how to ignore sensors in this circumstance and use their eyes. He knew a lot. And he hoped that Derani remembered being taught how to rescue another pilot in space, amongst debris.

The explosion was magnificent, if he had to say so himself. The fighter, though old and worn, still managed to provide quite the sight, even in destruction. The blinding light caused him to cover his eyes and glance away and the explosion propelled him further than even he had anticipated originally. There was static in his comm, most likely due to the nearby explosion. After a moment, he could hear Derani's voice and a smile crossed his face.

"I'm here, kid," he said. "You'd better hurry, though. I'm not going to have air forever out here."

Miraj twisted all around in the cockpit, trying to spot him. but space was space. Indescribably huge. And he was one little person. She stabbed her finger on the control panel, trying to find his subspace beacon. The heat signature of the explosion was still masking some of the spectrum, though cooling rapidly.

She finally spotted a blip, and rolled towards it, keeping her speed as low as possible. Hitting anything squishy at even a fraction of impulse would be instantly deadly. "I think I have you. You’re at my 72 mark 30, so I'll be coming at you from underneath."

Even without sensors - or a ship for that matter - Liam Bailey knew exactly where Derani was. She wasn't that far, but she was far enough.

"Copy that," he said.

As he floated in space, he looked around at the blackness. There were stars, of course, and the debris of his former ship, but other than that, there was nothing. They were far enough from the shipyards and other local traffic that he wasn't going to get hit by another ship, but even with nothing around him, he was getting nervous about just floating in space.

The radio response helped the computer narrow his position further, giving a bearing down to six decimal places, the most precise it could be and she turned towards him. A moment or so later, her searching eye caught sight of a small white shape. Her fingers tickled the controls, until she was crawling along side him, matching his speed as he flew through the void, held in the unyielding grip of Newton's First Law of Motion.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Are you going to need help?"

Bailey heard the comm from his student. He could admit a lot of things to the girl but he wasn't going to. He was too proud of a man to admit that he was ever wrong or had made a mistake or was getting too old to be flying with the younger pilots.

"I'm going to need a new fighter," he said. "Eventually." He paused. "I still have to teach you kids about the proper way to fly."

Honestly, though, Bailey knew that his time as an instructor was going to be put into question. Not for firing on Derani - they would understand that. And not even for firing on her while she navigated an asteroid field. No, he knew that his own slower reflexes were what caused the small bit of asteroid to hit his engine casing hard enough to cause damage.

"Just get me back to the shipyards. I'll file a report from there."

"You're going to have to get in. You can't just hang on at an eighth of the speed of light." She reminded him.

Bailey looked down to see Derani's ship just underneath him. He had been so focused on what had happened and how it was going to affect his career that he hadn't noticed her arrival.

"And why not?" he said. "I have a strong grip."

He paused and then moved himself toward the hatch to allow himself to get into the fighter. It would be a cramped ride, but it would get them back to the shipyards and he was safe. And that was enough for him.

She cut her engines, and dropped her shields, opened the cockpit hatch, but then a chunk of rock the size of a Klingon's fist slammed into the hull an inch from Bailey's helmet. Then another. Then another.

As Bailey was looking to insure he was aligning himself correctly, he saw the small rock hit the hull. It panicked him immediately. He knew what was coming. And they did. He pushed himself closer to the cockpit to get in.

"Hurry, Derani," he said. "Your shields need to be back up yesterday."

At the sound of impacts on her hull, Miraj looked up. Her blue eyes went wide. A hail of debris was coming towards them, rocks and debris blown off other rocks by the explosion, then knocked back towards them by the mess Bailey had made giving her a challenge. It was like throwing handfuls of marbles into handfuls and more handfuls of marbles. Rocks large enough to hurt, even kill, scattering everywhere. "Hold on!" she shouted, giving him all of three seconds to get a handhold before rolling the valkyrie to shield him from the biggest of the rocks.

Bailey, who had barely made it to the edge of the cockpit as she yelled, tried to grab onto the side as the Valkyrie began to roll. He didn't say anything because he knew she was simply helping him avoid dying. Bailey crawled into the cockpit and didn't bother locking himself in before he yelled at the young woman.

"Get us out of here!"

Miraj thumbed the cockpit close control. Nothing happened. She said something short, rude, and Anglo-Saxon. "The cockpit's stuck!" She shouted out. She felt a twinge of alarm. The cockpit was stuck open. Deflectors wouldn't come up, they only came up when the cockpit was closed.

Bailey heard the shout and looked at the cockpit. There wasn't anything visible that would keep it from shutting, so he had to assume something small had hit it and caused the malfunction.

"This isn't good!" he said with a raised voice. "We're sitting ducks out here."

"Computer, nearest ship? Time to-" her question cut off as more football sized chunks of rock came flashing past and she jagged left, right, up, down, to get out of their way. "Rendez-vous?" she asked a little out of breath.

"Nearest ship is USS Aurore." The computer was its usual calm, maternal self. "Time to intercept is seven minutes avoiding debris." Bailey didn't have seven minutes. The air in his EVA suit would be gone in four. "And through the field?"

"Five minutes and twelve seconds, at maximum impulse." The Computer replied.

Miraj looked over her shoulder. Maximum impulse was one quarter of the speed of light. Those speeds, through that amount of space crap? Anything hit them, they were both toast.

Bailey heard the computer's response to the question and knew why she asked the second. His suit was not going to have enough oxygen for either trip. He smiled and placed a hand on Derani's shoulder.

"You're one of the best pilots in the whole damn fleet, Derani," he started. "You can make it in less than four minutes." He paused. "And I'll even pick up dinner and drinks if you do."

He released her shoulder and finished strapping in.

Miraj felt his fingers on her shoulder but it seemed distant. She was watching the spinning field of crap she had to cross. She turned inertial dampeners to maximum, thank heavens they were still working, and tried to find not only her centre, but that of her nameless valkyrie. There was so much happening. What if she couldn't do it? What if her eyes were lying to her. What if she judged it wrong? She'd kill Bailey just as surely as running out of oxygen.

But he was running out of time. She couldn't wait. She revved the engine, and they shot forward.

She'd flown debris fields just as dense, in ships half as manoeuvrable. But never at speed. Sometimes she'd had to back out of nasty spaces at meters per second. Rocks zipped back and forth, knocking of each other, spinning off into new directions, criss-crossing the direct course to help. She didn't have time to think or second guess, she just dived right in, swooping left and right as the missiles whistled past. At a more cautious speed, the debris was plenty far enough part, but at full impulse.

The Aurore was just a sensor blip at this point, a red dot in the HUD that was her whole focus. The computer's course through the debris left wide margins around the rocks. It added time they didn't have. She ignored it, watching for rocks, sliding in close, only deviating when she had to. There were so many, they went by so fast she couldn't even track them. The tiny ship lurched up and now swinging wildly from left to right, and despite the inertial dampeners they were still thrown violently around in their seats.

Bailey felt the ship being hit by the rocks just as much as he sensed Derani's manoeuvres to avoid the larger rocks and still maintain course toward the Aurora.

"You got this, kid," he said.

He knew how much time it would take Derani to reach the ship as well as how much time his suit would allow him oxygen. If Derani were able to get the cockpit cover to close properly and re-pressurize it, he would be okay, but that wasn't going to happen at the moment.

"Stop talking, you're wasting your air." She dropped the nose went into a barrel roll to corkscrew around more of the debris. A shard of stone blown off a meteorite, half a meter long, shot past just over their heads. Another zipped uncomfortably close to the portside impulse output.

One grazed the underside. It was the size of a walnut, but at high speed and without shields, it left a two inch dent the length of the valkyrie's belly. The jarring knocked her off course. Her blood froze. She was making mistakes. She couldn't afford to make mistakes.

But the debris was so thick, and moving so fast, layered on itself, spinning over and under. She knew her brain was fixed, but she couldn't believe it, not now she'd made mistakes. She'd flown far more difficult courses but here she was mucking up like an amateur.

And then she realised her problem, she was thinking she, not we. She'd forgotten the one thing she needed to do was not be alone. She wasn't the only one doing the flying out here.

Miraj righted the ship onto the direct line to the Aurore and reached out to the nameless vessel. Without the canopy in place it felt very different, much more alive, more naked. And the moment she thought of connecting, she found her centre. One with the ship.

And then the flying came like instinct, listening to the ship, feeling her, and Miraj had a peace inside she'd lost when Allyndra had told her she couldn't fly all those months ago. And then it was like the debris field didn't exist, the ship told her when she needed to flip and twitch making only minimal adjustments to stay alive.

By her internal clock maybe three and half minutes has passed. the Aurore was visible to the naked eye now, just a speck of light in the far distance, like a bright star. but it was there, blinking in and out of sight as rock passed her field of vision.

"USS Aurore, This is Ensign Derani, requesting permission to dock. I have a flight emergency and I am coming in hot." She felt more than saw something come in behind her, crossing across her sensors in a blink and she pulled up sharply without even thinking about it. A large asteroid rolled towards them and she didn't even notice adjusting course, slipping round its side, close enough that she could have reached out and touched it.

"This is the Aurore," a voice broke through the comms. "We have you on our scanners and are cleared to land. Do you need a medical team standing by?"

Bailey, having heard the comm, poked Derani in the shoulder.

"Don't you dare say I need a medic, Derani," he said. "Or you'll never get to fly again. You got me?"

"What did I say about talking?" Miraj felt the slightest pressure across the fighter, moved to compensate away from the incoming rock. He knew her well; it was the most effective threat. "USS Aurore I don't think so, but I will be coming in fast. Very fast. Thirty seconds to impact."

"We'll have a team on standby just in case and have cleared the landing bay of all personnel ahead of your landing."

She shot out of the asteroid field, could clearly see the Nebula class, parked in space at a downward angle, the nacelles pointing up perpendicular to her current plane. "Hold your breath!" she shouted to Bailey, turned into a loop and nose dived down towards the open hatch of the Aurore.

Bailey never took orders, especially from a lower ranking officer and barely from higher ranking officers, but this was more of a suggestion and a good one. The oxygen indicator light was beginning to fade as his suit had expended the remainder of its reserves. Bailey looked out at the growing ship in front of them and decided to close his eyes as he took a breath, not willing to see what fate had in store for him.

Miraj kept at top speed until she could see the blinking lights inside the Aurore's docking bay. Then she flipped over so she was on the right level of the approach, and reversed thrusters. Even with the intertial dampeners, the pressure of the rapid breaking crushed her into her seat, knocked all breath out of her. "Hold the line," she muttered to the fighter. She could feel the inertia trying to break the ship apart. The structural integrity field started to give out worrying little beeps. "Almost there!"

Her speed was down to one tenth impulse with a thousand kilometers to go. This was going to sting. Thrusters were still on full reverse, but they weren't slowing down fast enough, and she could barely breathe from the inertia pressing her flat.

She felt tension snap across the hull of the fighter as they passed between the nacelles of the Nebula class, passing its structural integreity field at over a thousand kilmeters an hour, slowing down, but would it be enough over the last two hundred meters? There was one last trick to pull. "Tell me when baby, tell me when."

She knew when they'd crossed the line, felt the gravity clamp down on them, and entered the bay at just over 200 kilometers an hour. She deployed her breaking sail. It caught on the nearest shuttle, ripped free, but also tore a chunk off their speed.

The crash field engaged, absorbing their forward motion and slowing them some more. It was like flying through molasses, but the back of the Aurore's flight deck was still hurtling towards them. She put a tiny flare to the left thruster, and went into a long handbrake turn, skidding the bottom of the fighter along the floor of the flight bay in a spray of sparks before crashing into the far wall.

Bailey felt the crash before he saw it. Having kept his eyes closed the entire time, he could only feel the fighter as Derani piloted it expertly around the remainder of the asteroid field and into the landing bay of the Nebula-class ship. She really was a good pilot and he was glad that she had been the one around to rescue him. He wouldn't be alive if it hadn't been for her. But he was not going to tell her that.

As the dust settled, the klaxons still roared and Bailey could hear the damage control teams from the Aurore working on putting out the fire that had somehow started and checking the landing bay for extraneous damage. He could feel himself being dragged out of the cockpit by someone and realized it was a medical team - they had been on standby and wanted to insure the pilot and passenger were safe. Bailey pulled his arms free of the man.

"I'm alright," he said.

Miraj felt the crunch as the rear end of the valkyrie ploughed into the back wall. it jarred every bone in her body down to her soul as she knew the damage would be irreparable to the fighter, and significant to the Aurore. "Thank you, sorry. I'm so sorry," she told the stricken ship, shutting down all engines, knowing they'd never start again. She turned in her seat to check on Bailey, but a med team was already helping him clear. A moment later another pair of deck hands were lifting her clear.

Taking slow, deliberate steps, Bailey stepped down from the wreckage and surveyed the landing bay. He saw Derani and smiled.

"Minus five points for wrecking your fighter," he started. "Minus five points for an imperfect landing. Minus three points for hot dogging." He paused. "And plus ten points for surviving to tell the tale."

He took off his helmet and coughed slightly before sitting himself down on a hovering stretcher nearby.

"That gives you ninety-seven percent," he continued. "You needed ninety-five for your re-certification, so I guess you pass."

She hadn't given any thought to the reason they'd been out there, she'd been so caught up in just getting the three of them to the Aurore it had completely slipped her mind. And then the enormity of what he'd just said hit her like a tidal wave. She couldn't help it. It was like the sun coming up, there was a reason to go on living. She threw her arms round and squeezed him into a bear hug to try and hide the tearsof relief and excitement that were welling up on her pink lashes. "Thank-you."

For a moment, the gruffness of Liam Bailey faded away and allowed Derani to enjoy her moment. But only a moment.

"Alright, alright," he said as he pushed her away.

The landing bay doors opened and a woman entered with captain’s pips on her collar. She stepped in and looked at the damage that had been caused. Moving closer to the pair of new people on her ship, she looked down at the woman.

"Ensign Derani, I presume?" she said. She nodded at Captain Bailey. "I see by your companion that you must have been the pilot of that piece of junk over there." She motioned her head to the wreckage. "I'm Captain Laura Ray, captain of the ship that you used to stop your ship." Another glance toward the fighter. "I really hope that you passed," she offered. "I don't think I'm willing to let the captain here continue bringing his students this far into space."

Miraj doubted one captain's disapproval would stop the fighter school using its training ground, but she kept that to herself. "Yes, Ma'am, sorry for the damage ma'am. But my instructor could only hold his breath so long." She had to keep her face straight and not break into giggles at the pure giddy excitement of having her wings back.

Captain Ray looked at the man and shook her head.

"He can actually hold his breath for almost ten minutes on his own," she said with a wry smile. "Trust me," she continued. "He's pulled this trick on a lot of students."

She looked around the damaged landing bay and then back to Bailey.

"Not to this level before, but similar."

Bailey eyed the woman and contorted his face, as if in anger, and then softened and looked at Derani.

"My wife is correct, Derani," he said. "I would have been fine, but you needed a little kick in the pants." He paused. "And besides, you passed, so that's all that matters."

Miraj looked from one to the other, confusion on her face as she worked out what had happened. And then that look turned to outrage. "It was a trick? We could have gone the safe way?"

Bailey looked down at the girl.

"No," he said. "The route you chose was the better route. The safe route would have taken too long." He smiled. "And I did really have something wrong with my fighter. The explosion was not part of the test. Making sure you could still fly under stressful conditions, that was the test. And that's why I'm willing to give you back your wings."

"Thank you sir." she gave him a happy smile. She had almost everything she wanted. All she needed now was a ship to fly.

[OFF]

Ensign Miraj Derani
Flight Control Officer (Again, Yay!)

Captain Liam Bailey
Commanding Officer
Starfleet Flight School

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