NOVEL NEXT Ch 14: Up And Away
Ch 14: Up And Away
Shaksho and the other male Kafya required a few days rest in order to recover from their donations of genetic material, walking with a bow-legged limp the entire time.
Rhidi had found the surgery mostly just caused a little bit of stomach pain from the incision, her yellow fur hiding the small scar. The males, however, were drawn from directly, requiring a large gauge needle to extract the tissue desired.
Their donations required them all to update their information in the database, including changing their contact information, as their new profiles had a marker, designating them as having a portion of their genetic tissues in the medical catacombs. Rhidi had found this quite tedious, and was doubly annoyed when she had to do it as soon as she awoke from the anaesthesia.
She felt quite… at ease though, knowing that her lineage was preserved along with those of the Humans.
Auspiciously, the day after she had gotten her new identification tags and a brand new data-slate, their orders came in for them to ship out into vacuum. The entire barracks was a furious buzz of activity as the Company prepared to go aloft, and find their new home in their brand new ship.
Rhidi had been packing the entire night, and still felt like she was packing when morning came, popping a few of the energy tabs designed to keep Kafya moving when they couldn't sleep their normal schedules. Her armor and heavy weapon had already been retrieved, awaiting her on the ship, so she only had to worry about her rifle and the rest of her gear.
The chilly Georgian wind tickled at her long ears as she waited outside with the rest of her fellow drop troopers, rifle slung over the shoulder of her shearling leather jacket. The entire Company was standing at attention in civilian clothing, their bags stacked beside them as Drill Sergeant McPhiston gave them their parting words.
"You are likely heading into the outer arms of the Milky Way." He said, setting his hands on his hips. "You'll be on your own, with new NCOs, veteran shipmen, and veteran drop troopers. You will taste real combat. You will kill your enemies. You will use the skills you learned here at this Company in the environment you were trained to use them in… but now, here, this is where we part ways."
Drill Sergeant McPhiston took off his brown, round campaign hat, looking around at the gathering of Humans, Lilgara, Pwah, and Kafya as he set his jaw. He was silent for a long moment as he slowly turned, then came to a stop staring into Rhidi's eyes.
"I will remember each of your faces, the same as I remember the faces of those who came before you. For some of you, this may be the final time we lock eyes." Drill Sergeant McPhiston said in a ceremonial manner as his eyes bore into Rhidi's, then flicked away towards the incoming atmo-shuttles. He pressed his lips together, then slowly slipped his campaign hat back onto his head, sitting the tilt to an aggressive edge.
"It has been an honor training you." He said with finality, then ran a finger along the edge of his brim. "Hail, the Iron Victory."
Rhidi's voice bellowed with the others as they shouted the accompanying phrase "With fire we fall", the echo ringing out against the elder drop towers and thundered against the other training barracks.
"Final orders." Drill Sergeant McPhiston called out, tilting his brim up just enough so he could look at Rhidi one last time. "On the command of fall out, you will grab your gear and enter the atmo-shuttles, after which your new Company command will issue you further orders."
Rhidi smiled proudly at Drill Sergeant McPhiston, and he smiled back as if he were a father sending off his son on a brand new adventure. "Make me proud. Fall out!"
The answering "Hoooi!" from Rhidi and the other drop troopers was dulled out by the sound of boots hitting concrete, all of them grabbing their multiple duffel bags while their rucksacks wobbled on their backs.
The atmo-shuttles kept their engines hot and running, humming and whining with their rocket turbines as they filled with fresh drop troopers. Rhidi stood at the back near the door with Shaksho as everyone filed in, and only took a seat when they had both counted their total of Kafya. As the door began to shut, Rhidi glanced out to see Drill Sergeant McPhiston and Drill Sergeant Almoore standing at the edge of the Company gathering area, their hands in their pockets as they watched the shuttle door slam shut.
Rhidi had gone to raise her pawed hand in goodbye, but only got it up a few inches before the door hissed against the frame, sealing shut. She smiled sadly, gave them both a wave they could not see, then set her hands back down onto her duffle bags.
With little fanfare, they lifted off the ground with a vibrating rumble of the engines, the atmo-shuttle angling upwards as it began to climb. Rhidi and all the other passengers tilted to the side as gravity still tried to pull them down, but the pull lessened as they left Earth proper. They knew they were in vacuum when their bags started to float, requiring them to hold their duffels fast in place with their legs or arms.
"Does the new ship have artificial gravity on it?" Someone asked out as they all wrangled their bags.
Alias spoke up, blowing his hair out of his face as he bear-hugged his own duffel. "Yeah, they do. All ships have a gravity well generator, ours will just be smaller on our ship. They always set the gravity either at, or slightly higher, to Earth's so we maintain our bone density."
"How do they manage to create gravity anyway?" Rhidi asked him, batting her rifle back down into place beside her seat. "We just went the easy way and made the bases of stuff magnetic."
Alias chuckled. "We just floated around in our ships. Anyway the Drafritti gave Humans technology that no one else has, a way to create… something at the center of Human ships. It makes a lot of power, creates a magnetic field, and is also able to pull things towards it. From what I'm to understand, it's something called a 'blue-flash star battery'."
"They generate a star?!" Rhidi shouted, her eyes wide. "Are they crazy?!"
Shasta chuckled. "It'sss just a small one that sips on elements fed into it by tanks. If anything happensss to it, it is shut off by a series of safeties."
"It ruins the engine… battery… thing, but yeah, the Drafritti figured out how to make it quite safe. With the hydrogen and helium tanks fully loaded, it can power a Human battleship for years." Alias said as he blew his hair out of his face again.
"Why didn't you get it cut?" Shasta asked. "You are blowing more air than an exhaussst at this point."
Alias glowered at Shasta. "I don't have to, so I don't wanna."
"So Human ships are being powered by artificial stars and everyone else just gets to float?" Rhidi asked, narrowing her eyebrows at the thought.
Alias shrugged. "Mostly. There is a kill switch in all blue-flash batteries to avoid them getting into the hands of others, completely scrambles it and causes it to destroy itself. The science behind the safety mechanisms are pretty neat."
"I suppose that means Human ships can maneuver more than others…" Rhidi mused as Imridit went floating by, the pink furred Kafya after a snack one of the female Humans was offering.
"To a pretty large degree, but there are still limitations." Alias said, quickly tying his hair back in a small bun. "They can't do crazy atmosphere fighter jet stuff, and they still move pretty slow, but people can better brace themselves. Human ships have a tell when they are going to do a hard turn, as they roll and face the tops of their ships towards the direction they are going to pitch."
"Aah, because they have artificial gravity." Rhidi exclaimed with a pleased grin. "Puts all the g's directly on top of the crew so they just have to strain against the deck, and not get flung across a hallway or something."
Alias tied off his bun, but then pulled out a cheeky bang that floated near his cheek. "You got it."
"They ssstill have to watch their meters." Shasta said, his tail coiling around his own rucksack. "If they pull too many g'sss, it can damage their internals. Every turn, bank, roll, or spin has to be calculated manually under the watchful eyesss of Humans and their A.I.s. Human's believe in armor, which makes all their ships very heavy, and they have to be very mindful of how they move."
"Also why no Human ships can enter a planetary body." Alias said with a waggle of his finger. "They armor their ships so heavily that they would plummet down to the ground like a fucking meteor."
Rhidi looked up in thought for a moment, then looked to Alias. "Is that why they have so many large shuttles on their bigger ships?"
"Exactly why." Alias replied. "If they need supplies or need to drop something off, the big boat gives birth to a shuttle and sends it sputtering down. Their armor is first made up of explosive reactive tiles, married to ablative armor and sandwiched together. Layer upon layer of steel, ceramics, and composite plating."
"Then there are the shieldsss." Shasta said, and continued on when Rhidi gave him a confused look. "You will see little blisssters on Human ships, larger on the bigger ones, but they are 'plasma-bucklers'."
Rhidi found herself more confused than before Shasta had explained it; She didn't really care about this kind of stuff anyway, and found it rather boring, but there was little else to do. "Plasma-buckler? The hell is that?"
"Limited deflection shielding." Alias replied, watching as Imridit went floating back across them with a sandwich in her mouth. "They use a lot of the heat and energy from their battery to create a small area of plasma-shielding that is mostly tasked with causing missiles and other munitions to tumble. It's like seeing someone throw a rock at you, so you use a smaller rock to knock the larger rock off course."
Shasta shrugged. "Not sure why it's needed, besides maybe lasssers. They have point defense systems for missiles, and it would take a lot of pounding to get through a Human ship's armor, even the smaller ones…"
"There's a reason why Human ships were blowing through the Ur's, they sacrifice atmospheric mobility for being the hardest thing to kill in the void." Alias said, wiggling his fingers. "Only way to be safe from a Human capital ship is to have extensive ground to air defenses. Take out their shuttles, and all they can really do is turn you to dust from orbit."
Rhidi listened as Alias and Shasta began to bicker at each other about how Human ships measured up to everyone else's, and just kind of zoned out with the rumble of the atmo-shuttle engines.
It had been quite a whirlwind of months, damn near what felt like a year, and she was already off into space to get crammed into a ship. She had been hoping for a little bit more time to relax on Earth, but she supposed it didn't really matter. Her mind drifted through all her memories, all the weeks and months of training, and it lingered there for some time.
She came back to reality when a docking clamp rattled the shuttle, and Rhidi perked up her yellow ears. "We're there?"
"We're there?" Alias asked her with a laugh. "Where have you been for the last half hour?"
Rhidi blinked and rubbed at her eyes with her palms; The energy pills did have the odd side effect where sometimes, she could sleep with her eyes open, but it always made her eyes itch.
They itched really bad, which meant that she had her eyes open for a lot longer than usual.
"Keep ahold of your bags!" A voice bellowed down into the passenger area, three Void Navy shipmen floating in through the docking door. "Take hold of a drag handle, and it will take you to the reception area! When you hit the end of the rail, just let go, we have people waiting to catch you!"
Catch me? Rhidi thought to herself, puzzled as she kicked away from the deck with a soft push of her pawed feet. Her duffle bags floated around her as her rucksack bobbled on her back, and it made keeping a hold of everything quite difficult.
Rhidi started to slowly rotate as she tightened down the straps to her rucksack, pinning her rifle to her back so that way she just had to deal with her duffel bags. Rhidi, already used to stuff like this in the Kafya fleets, just slowly kicked her legs forward to keep rotating, coming around to see everyone else awkwardly making their way to the exit door.
Rhidi looked around for something to grab onto, but was in dead space. She continued to float there for a moment with an annoyed sniff of the nose, and a seat's headrest finally offered her left foot some purchase.
She kicked away again and floated towards the exit door, and despite being well within trajectory… she had to make a small detour.
"Rhidi." Morris called out, reaching out and offering his hand to her as his single duffle bag floated in his other hand. "Here, I'll pull you over."
Rhidi twisted her body like a cat, her tail whirling through the air with her duffel bags as she completely abandoned her course in order to reach out to Morris's hand. She grabbed onto it with a prickle of pleasure along her skin, feeling his strong, hairless fingers slip in between her own padded ones.
"Hi, Morris." Rhidi said with a wide smile as Morris pulled her towards him, Rhidi coming to a floating stop a mere three inches away from Morris.
Morris just laughed. "Hello, Rhidi."
"Hi, Morris." Rhidi giggled out, though she did not let go of his hand, ignoring when her duffle bag whacked her in the back of the knees.
Morris chuckled, then turned towards the exit door that led to the exchange shaft. "Here, let me give you a little swing."
Inthur, already floating by, was mouthing something rather rude in Kafya-hi as Shasta gave her her own little push towards the door.
To Rhidi's delight, Morris spun her once around on the spot, her icterine yellow tail curling around her before Morris finished the spin, sending her floating towards the exchange shaft.
Rhidi grinned flirtatiously back at Morris as she slipped inside, though Inthur made that grin die on her lips.
"You two are so gross." Inthur muttered bitterly, grabbing one of the moving rope handles that were set in sequence along a constantly humming rail.
Rhidi's face soured into a snarl as she grabbed her own loop, surging forward along with her duffles. "Mind your own fuckin' business."
"She says as a Human twirls her..." Inthur muttered, sticking her tongue out at Rhidi as she surged ahead on her rail.
Rhidi glared ahead at the blue Kafya as more people began grabbing hand loops when they appeared, the Company floating along the exchange shaft in a long double line of floating bags and bodies.
The exchange shaft had windows, which allowed Rhidi to peek out to the massive Human battleship; Their own ship was docked on it somewhere, but they likely had to make their way through the battleship to it.
The ship itself was built in a way that Rhidi had never seen before; Not only was it an absolute behemoth in size, likely three to four times the size of a Kafya battleship, but it was built long and thick, as if it was a giant sword used to slice through the darkness. With lack of proper words to describe the war vessel, it was built in a… well, bladed fashion.
The top tip of the prow angled down towards the bottom, the "blade" going all the way back to the massive engine bays at the rear. Despite being "thin", Rhidi had to wager it was still thicker than any ship she had seen besides Ur warships. More odd was that the ship was equipped with two long, armored shield outcroppings from the sides, giving it an impressive stature.
Rhidi figured the ship would be an absolute beast in action, and the large outcroppings likely rendered most early munitions moot. She spotted huge mechanical actuators at the base of the shield outcropping supports, and looked around for Alias.
He was ten troopers back, and looking rather bored.
"Hey, Jackson!" Rhidi called out. "Throw Alias up here, I have a question for him!"
"Right-o." Jackson replied, grabbing Alias and throwing him forward before the Pwah had time to turn his head.
Alias let out an angry yell as he floated towards Rhidi, looking back at Jackson through the middle of his legs. "You fucking oaf, you can't just throw people!"
"I mean, have you seen the size of these Humans?" Toibil called out as Alias went floating by, drawing laughter from everyone within hearing range. "We may as well be happy they don't use us as a melee weapon!"
Alias, eyes narrowed as he floated towards Rhidi, reached out and grabbed ahold of her rucksack, his main hand free since he only had a single duffel.
"What was so important you needed a Human to throw me?" Alias asked her, looking around as Shasta also grabbed onto Rhidi's rucksack.
Rhidi tapped at the window glass as they passed by, as there were dead spaces along the shaft with no windows. "What are those shield things?"
"The skirts?" Alias asked, leaning behind them all as he looked out the window. "Yeah, the skirts. That's passive armor."
Shasta cocked a scaly eyebrow ridge. "Ssskirts? The shipsss are female?"
Rhidi barked out a laugh along with Alias, though Shasta wasn't sure what was so funny.
"No-well… actually, don't Humans all refer to tanks, ships and such, as female?" Rhidi asked Alias, as she remembered this odd little tidbit by listening to the Humans during training.
Alias nodded. "They do. I asked about it a long time ago, and I was told 'It's because they cost a lot of money, take years off a man's life, and are prone to killing everyone when something goes wrong'."
Rhidi furrowed her brows and flattened her lips into a scowl as Shasta hissed out his own laugh, prodding Rhidi in the shoulder.
"Ha ha." Shasta mused. "Sssounds accurate to me."
Alias waited for them both to stop bickering, then pointed out the window as it passed them by. "Those are used as standoff armor, and they come close to the sides of the ship when they travel. When moving into enemy contact, they come out to give more space between themselves and the actual ship armor. When those turrets are ready to fire, the shields move down just enough to allow the rounds to pass over."
Rhidi looked away from Shasta in order to catch a glance at the ship's turrets; Judging from what she saw, each side of the ship must have bore six four-barreled turrets, each bristling with its own buckler generators and point defense systems.
There were more, smaller turrets all along the upper side of the ship, lined up like a row of studs.
"Those big ones are fifty inch guns." Alias continued on, tapping on another window as it slowly slid past. "They just straight up rip through other ships if they dont have some way to stop it. You ever watch the slugfests between Human and Ur ships?"
Shasta snorted. "May as well have been two grown Human males hitting each other with rocksss."
"Guns only stopped when one of them died or ran out of ammunition." Rhidi murmured, watching other shuttles land near the long docking shafts. "I still remember watching the Flaming Jezebel ram an Ur Eradicator Class. Their ships were small back then, nothing like this brute."
Stolen novel; please report.
Alias shrugged. "Yeah. So besides the fifty inch guns, there are small blisters of four twenty inch guns, these take care of smaller craft that get too close, or can switch to burst rounds for fighters. From there it trickles down to smaller calibers for anti-missile and anti-fighter defense, but do you see those two large holes?"
"Uh huh." Rhidi said, tilting her head past Shasta as he tried to look as well.
"Those are where the torpedoes are." Alias said with a nod. "Shield Crackers. They emit so much energy when they hit, that they will drop a shield from full power to the low tens."
Rhidi lowered her eyelids at that, glancing over at Alias. "They have anti-shield torpedoes?"
"Yep." Alias murmured. "A direct counter to nearly every ship in the IDC…"
Rhidi grimaced. "All while our most powerful weapons will have trouble buckling their armor."
"Not even Kouslin Emitters can chew through their armor fast enough." Alias said darkly. "Pwah ships would be eating fifty inch shells before we dug through the first couple of layers."
Shasta hummed to himself, then looked towards Alias. "What about boarding actions, then?"
"Boarding a Human ship and fighting Marines in closed corridors?" Alias said, then punctuated it with a laugh. "I'd rather take a fifty inch shell to my face, it will be quicker."
Rhidi watched the large turrets slip by as they entered the ship, the sounds coming at them slowly in a growing wave of noise.
When Rhidi came to the end of her loop, she just let go as instructed, Alias and Shasta holding onto her rucksack as they all floated across a great loading dock. The open area was huge, a massive bay that could have fit three Kafyan destroyers with a bit of work.
Rhidi looked down and let out a short laugh; They were floating nearly two hundred feet from the deck. All around them, long streams of personnel were floating towards the inner hulls of the docking area, and Rhidi quickly counted at least seven long floating trails of people.
Below them, supplies, ammunition, vehicles, and shuttles were being slowly transported into the ship proper, though these were strapped to rail-driven carts.
"Whoa." Shasta hissed out, his eyes wide as he looked around. "Thisss is the cargo area?! You could fit three Lilgaran carriers in thisss thing!"
Alias was looking up and over Rhidi's head, eyebrows raised as he looked down. "This is so… surreal. We have to be almost three hundred feet high, and we're just floating along!"
His sentiments were shared among the other races, though Imridit and Saffi were too busy spinning around in circles with their bags, holding onto each other's hands and cackling gleefully.
"We're coming up to our helpers." Rhidi said, watching Inthur get snatched up by a pair of rather… large, male Human Marines. They were wearing all black garrison uniforms, except that the cuffs of their sleeves and collars were trimmed in bright gold fabric.
Inthur was nothing but smiles as one of the Marines looked at their partner, then winked at Inthur. "You seem to have a lot of bags there Dropper, let me help you with those."
"Don't mind if you do." Inthur said with a frisky smile, the two moving down the pathway as the other Marine turned, hands held out.
"What the fuck Carmichael!" He shouted, then rolled his eyes with a disgusted grunt as he kept pulling the other Humans, Kafya, Pwah, and Lilgara in. "Fuckin'... whatever. Come on then!"
The Marine eventually pulled in Saffi, but threw Imridit down the passageway still upside down, the pink furred Kafya giggling the entire way.
When it was their turn, Rhidi swung Alias forward by his ankle, allowing the Pwah to grab the Marine's hand.
"On you come, Droppers!" The Marine yelled out as he pulled the trio in, shoving Shasta on the rump to keep them going.
Rhidi, Alias, and Shasta were pushed down a far smaller hallway, drifting towards a series of open, triple layered sets of bulkhead doors.
"Please be advised, gravity well will take hold near the end of the hallway." A voice called out over a speaker, clearly a rather bored recording. "Gradual gravity will come into effect."
Rhidi looked around while spinning herself into proper position, her tail fluffing out to get more drag.
"Makes me remember floating around our ship." Alias called out, also turning himself around so he was boots level to the deck. "Had handles all over the place so we could speed ourselves along."
Rhidi looked over her shoulder as she passed through the first set of bulkhead doors, her duffel bags suddenly not being as floaty as they were before. "Yeah, we had conveyors along our decks, you'd grab onto one and it would speed you along like you were running."
Rhidi felt herself gain weight, slowly, and foot by foot, she slowly started floating down towards the deck. Her paw boots touched down gracefully, and she started walking as best as she could towards the bulkhead doors.
By the time she passed through the last set, she was walking normally and blowing her hair out of her face.
"Well isn't that some neat tech!" Alias called out, trotting past the doors. "Feels like we're still planetside!"
Shasta was right behind the Pwah, shaking his flared hood. "At leassst we don't have to worry about losing our bone density. I never enjoyed the magnetic gymsss…"
"Charlie Company, Fort Benning Georgia." A Void Navyman called out in a bored tone, gesturing towards a reception desk. "Charlie Company, Fort Benning Georgia, over here."
Rhidi squinted at him; Their uniform was different from the Marines. Instead of the all black garrison uniform, they were wearing… jeans.
Not only were they wearing slightly flare bottom jeans, but they also wore a pale blue button up over a white undershirt, and a pair of polished black boots.
Rhidi walked by the Human while looking at his uniform with curiosity, but a husky giggle ripped her eyes away from the man. She stood up on the toes of her paw boots, and growled in her throat when she saw Inthur.
Inthur was already teasing up a storm, with only an inch between her chest and that of the Marine.
"Inthur!" Rhidi shouted, stepping sideways out of the line so she was hard to miss.
Inthur's ears perked, but she pretended not to hear as she continued to flirt with the Marine.
Rhidi wasn't having it.
"Inthur!" Rhidi bellowed, causing other lines full of Humans, Kojynn, and Drafritti to turn their heads, wondering what was going on.
Inthur slowly turned her head towards Rhidi, hatred pouring out of her eyes like a river. "Yes?"
"Knock it off!" Rhidi shouted again, dropping a duffel bag and jabbing a bladed hand at the blue Kafya. "Get back in line!"
The Marine, confused, looked between Inthur and Rhidi.
Inthur, her ears perking further as blood rushed into them from embarrassment, bared her fangs in a soundless growl before picking up her bags. She said something quickly to the Marine while flashing a smile, but turned to get back into line, glaring daggers at Rhidi.
"You know she's going to have sex with that Marine just to piss you off, right?" Alias said loftily, though he was smiling as Rhidi snatched her bag back up.
"Yeah, but she sure as hell isn't going to act like a tart out in front of me." Rhidi grumbled in reply, stepping forward as the line moved ahead.
Shaksho turned to glance over his shoulder at Rhidi, giving her a smirk. "I think you're going to have it worse than me."
"I wouldn't risk money on that bet." Rhidi said, then saw Saffi happily chatting up a pair of female Humans in their Void Navy uniforms. "I think my girls are going to be more of a handful than your boys."
Shaksho laughed. "We should both be blessed that none of them can get, or get someone, pregnant."
"Small miracles." Rhidi snorted, and after a little bit of time lingering in line, she herself finally came to the reception desk.
"Welcome aboard the Moose." The male Void Navyman said, his face clean shaven and eyes a pale green. "Place your identification tag on the plate, please."
Rhidi set her bags down and pulled off her tags from around her neck, placing it down on a small silver plate that had wires running under it. The plate turned red, then green.
"Priv- no, hold on." He said, squinting at his screen. "Private First Class Rhidi, SOBP-19621983."
Rhidi blinked in confusion. "No, I'm a Private."
"Not anymore." He said, rapidly tapping onto his much larger data-display. "As soon as you set foot on this deck, you were promoted."
He pulled out a small packet, handing it to Rhidi. "These are your new pins and patches, put them on when you have time. Your Company is going to be aboard The Wild Hunt, captained by Lieutenant Void-Commander Leeroy. I have sent the directions to your data-slate. You must check in by 1030hrs, which is in an hour, so… don't dilly dally too much, this is a large ship."
"My armor?" Rhidi asked.
The Void Navyman didn't bother to look up as he spoke. "Already onboard The Wild Hunt, as well as your MG-111. Next!"
Rhidi quickly picked up her bags and stepped off as Alias came up behind her, and she trudged off into the ship proper.
She passed by more bulkheads and guard stations filled with Marines, but came out onto the main combat promenade of the Moose; She figured this was where personnel ran along since it was devoid of any kind of bench or seating, and could read from the signs that many of the gun stations were along here. Sadly, as she stopped for a moment to pull out her data-slate, there were precisely no windows onboard, which was a shame since she liked looking out into space.
To her delight, a corridor leading towards the main gallery had eight sets of humming autowalks, so she hopped on one heading inward and stepped along.
Rhidi loved how these things worked, as it felt as if she were walking along at a very fast speed despite the belt doing all the work. The belt exchanged her with a hop to three different belts, the middle one being the fastest.
She was speeding along at a run despite standing still, and she just looked around while waiting. There were Humans ahead of her, chattering to each other in English, and a few other races were loitering around as well as they sped inward. A few Kojynn were arguing with some Drafritti going the opposite direction, but she didn't catch much of their conversation.
A speaker on the autowalk called out to her, causing her to look down with perked ears.
"Prepare to change."
Rhidi looked back up and spotted a Y-intersection, combining two autowalks into one.
She picked up her duffel bags, and when it came time, she gave a little hop, adding herself seamlessly to this combined track.
"Oh, hey there." Said a female Human behind her, and Rhidi turned around, flashing a bright smile in greeting.
She was a Void Navyman, her light brown hair braided behind her head tightly, and she was clearly heading in to shop judging by the empty bag on her shoulders.
"Kafya, eh? Must be one of the new Droppers." She said, holding out her hand. "I'm Voidman Kipping."
Rhidi set down one of her duffels, reaching out and taking the woman's hand. "Private Rhidi."
"I'm kinda jealous, actually." Voidman Kipping said. "You're in one of the new assault corvettes I believe. This big boat is tough as hell to get around, you'll be in something much much smaller. Plus I hear you guys are getting better food…"
Rhidi blinked. "Better food?"
"Well yeah." Voidman Kipping replied matter of factly. "See, we have a galley, but we also have this huge-ass mall in the middle of the boat, called the 'Concession Gallery'. All the restaurants there cost money, and since that generates income, our free galley chow is not as good quality."
"Do we not have one of those?" Rhidi asked, and she felt herself become mildly disappointed. "A concession gallery?"
Voidman Kipping waved a hand. "No no no, you guys just have a galley and maybe a small PX that is about the size of a gas station." She saw Rhidi's ears flop, and she waved both hands at Rhidi. "No no no, don't be like that, you're still attached to the Moose! You guys can pop over via your connection tunnel and come shop whenever!"
"Oh, that's right!" Rhidi chirped, perking up a little bit. "We're docked onto you, aren't we?"
"Currently just you, the other ones are coming in here in about seven hours." Voidman Kipping replied brightly. "Your boat is snugged down in between the other skirtshield."
Rhidi leaned her head back with an "Ah", then gestured towards where she came from. "Explains why we didn't see it on the way in."
"Kinda weird if you ask me." Voidman Kipping said. "Did you know they're all being painted different colors?"
Rhidi set down both her bags to readjust her rifle, since it was still pinned to her back via her rucksack. "Painted? Why?"
"Make them stick out I guess." Voidman Kipping said, leaning forward to help Rhidi get her rifle unstuck. "Yours is a wild looking thing, bright red and orange with these dazzle lines all over it."
Rhidi slipped her rifle around so it lay across her chest, barrel down, then puffed some breath up across her forehead to detach strands of her sweaty hair. "So, compared to this behemoth, how well are they armed?"
"Mostly anti-fighter and anti-bomber guns." Voidman Kipping replied, resettling her own bag. "Tons of point defense and raw armor, with a small buckler array towards the nose. The guns are worthless unless you guys get right up next to other ships, but I think those are just for ground pounding."
"Are they large?"
"Not really."
"Are they… large enough?"
"Oh!" Voidman Kipping said with a laugh. "You mean for supporting you guys? Oh yeah, your boat is bristlin' with one five fives. Their rounds are fired with heat shielding so they don't just evaporate on the way down, and land with a good amount of force and explosives."
Rhidi looked up for a moment in thought, remembering the time she saw the modernized M777 howitzer. "Aren't those shells kinda small?"
"Oh no no, not the Void Navy rounds." Voidman Kipping replied with a shake of her braided head. "They may be the same diameter, but the shells your boat fires are waaay longer and heavier. When they exit the barrel and are moving, fins pop out so they can maneuver."
Voidman Kipping held out her hands, making a whistling noise as she wiggled her hand like a fish.
"Comes all the way down and detonates with an impact fuse, just eradicates infantry and light vehicles." She said, flicking her fingers apart to mimic an explosion. "All an NCO has to do is light up a target with a laser designator and your boat gets a coordinate. Then the gunners hit that painted target with however many salvos your NCO asks for. Works quite well. You have to rely on those guns because even our secondary turrets will create too big of a crater, or risk throwing shrapnel all over you… unless you want to bombard a city."
Voidman Kipping tapped at her lip a few times while leaning her head from side to side. "I suppose if you wanted to just remove an entire base we could do that, just do a single barrel and let the fifty incher turn them all to atomized air…"
Rhidi did nothing but blink at the Human woman; With little thought, she was considering dropping a fifty inch artillery round on a ground target, a round designed to blow holes through enemy ships.
"Ah well, I'm sure it won't really come to that, we like to take our targets un-cratered. You can lose out on gaining critical intel doing that." Voidman Kipping muttered with a wave of her hand. "Our stop off is coming up, small steps while leaning backwards, all you gotta do."
Rhidi turned around to see the slowing belts coming up, and she readied herself.
Following the bent-knee steps of Voidman Kipping, Rhidi thought the slowing belts rather jarring, as she found herself stepping onto nearly thirteen belts before the final one. With a short hop she came down onto the decking, stalking forward a few steps until she came to a stop away from the autowalk.
"Stay safe now, your boat is probably that way!" Voidman Kipping called out, pointing down the main gallery.
Rhidi waved her goodbye, then began her way down the far right aisle of the gallery; This area was huge, a long, looping shopping mall and office area. Live plants with UV lamps cleverly hidden within the walls of the bulkheads gave pops of color every twenty feet, set beside benches or comfortable looking chairs. The ceiling was low, but there was still plenty of room to move about.
While Rhidi would not have called it a "gallery", it was more or less the main shopping area of the battleship. The signs along the walls gave hint to the entire level being rife with places to shop, eat, and relax, though there were odd things about the area that piqued her curiosity.
The entire gallery was thick with subtle fortications.
Benches and planters were clearly laid out to allow multiple troopers to hide behind them, including partitions in the wall that allowed a single trooper to gain cover while still allowing observations down the walkway. A few cutouts in the ceiling hummed with power, and Rhidi quietly pondered to herself if there was a turret hidden within.
She had a ways to walk, spying others of her Company ducking inside the shops for a quick purchase, but nothing really grabbed her attention; There were small, themed pubs and bars, restaurants that offered tastes of home, a couple of movie theatres, bowling alleys, internet cafes…
There were actually a lot of coffee places, now that Rhidi looked around and paid attention; Every tenth shop was a small barista place of one kind or another, while next to each coffee shop or tea shop was a small sliver of a store selling chocolate.
If she didn't have so many bags in her damn hands, she would have stopped and gotten one herself. As it was she was running low on time, so she continued down until she got to another autowalk.
With the ship being thin, it was far easier to not get lost, and she arrived at the docking area with time to spare. It was an awkward little space clearly carved out for the gackcan socket and a small gate area manned by Void Navymen of The Wild Hunt.
Gackcans were oddly named little things, as they had been first designated G.A.C.N.S.: General Access Causeway, Normal Socket. This evolved into calling them "gackcans" due to the rapid change in gravity between ships, the three sudden dips causing some to lose their lunch in the floating void of the causeway.
Rhidi dragged her tired body towards the ship's gate, these Void Navymen bearing the shoulder patch of The Wild Hunt. The patch was an intriguing thing; The crew of the Moose all wore patches of the creature's head on a field of black with white stars. The Wild Hunt's patch was far more intricate in its weave, some kind of Earthen hound with gnarled horns braying against a blood red and orange sky. Wrapped around the circular patch's rim was a woven spear, the tip of said spear ending at the pommeled butt of the shaft and encasing the braying hound.
"Tags please." A female Human called out to her, another male shipman pulling around a flat cart for her bags.
Rhidi sighed out happily to the man, setting down her bags before pulling off her identification tags again. "Thank you, Navyman."
"Not a problem, Dropper." He said with a wave, stepping back behind the gate desk as Rhidi set her tags down on the silver plate.
The female Human leaned in towards her data-screen, rapidly tapping on a separate input board. The plate beeped, and she nodded to Rhidi's tags. "Go ahead and slip those back on. You've been assigned to Sergeant Flores's Pod-Section. Until otherwise stated, your Company is now known as Wild Hunt's 1st Company, under the command of Drop Officer Duluth. You are going to be berthed in 4CA, single cabin."
The woman tapped a small dongle to Rhidi's data-slate as it hung on her hip, and uploaded the information while handing her a packet with her unit patches.
"You will experience two different gravity wells, we suggest staying low to the deck as you begin to float." She said with finality, then gestured to the gackcan portal. "Welcome aboard."
Rhidi waved weakly before starting to walk. "Thank you."
There wasn't a reply, so she surged on into the gackcan.
It was certainly an odd feeling, as she began to float halfway to The Wild Hunt. Before she could float ten feet, she felt the assault corvette's own gravity well snag onto her. The feeling did elicit a light jolt to the stomach, but Rhidi had been dealing with that sensation the entire time she had been in the Kafya fleet being shuttled around.
With light, tiptoeing steps Rhidi kept herself going forward, and was walking normally by the time she passed through the portal on the other side.
"Pod-Section?" A Marine called out, helping her pull her flat card over the bumpy portal lock.
Rhidi blew her hair out of her eyes; She would need a haircut before the day was out.
"Sergeant Flores." Rhidi said, tucking the sachet of patches into her thigh pocket.
The Marine smiled. "Lucky you, she's right by the galley."
"She, eh?" Rhidi asked as he pointed down the armored corridor.
The Marine broadened his smile into a grin. "Dead mean, Flores. Do your best to look down on her politely."
Rhidi was confused by that, but continued down the corridor.
The corridor turned into a criss-cross of alleyways, but following the signs Rhidi found her berthing, 4CA. She tapped her data-slate to the door's keypad, but it just buzzed at her angrily.
Rhidi furrowed her brows and tapped her pad again, but the keypad buzzed right back at her.
"It's already open."
Rhidi turned and nearly startled out of her paw boots when she found that Morris was standing right behind her, and she let out a smile that was as rattled as her nerves. "Morris, hi!"
"Hi, Rhidi." Morris said, already smiling to himself as he saw Rhidi's lips parting.
"Hi."
Morris just slowly shook his head, letting out a puff of amused air through his nose. "Hi."
"It won't uh… let me in." Rhidi said awkwardly, tapping her data-slate to the keypad again.
It buzzed, though more angrily and with a bit of back-talk chatter.
"I know, I just told you it's already open." Morris snorted, reaching over and opening the lever-handle on the door.
Rhidi dragged in a sneaky inhale; Morris was still using the same toothpaste.
The door handle clicked and swung open, revealing the room within.
"They don't allow us to lock our doors unless we are docked at a station." Morris explained, leaning back and setting his hands on his hips.
Rhidi took the moment to have her own little snort. "You see the size of that ship? It may as well be a station."
"Yeah." Morris agreed. "There's an entire town's worth of people on that damn thing. The gallery we walked through is just a giant mall… or main street. Anyway, we're all gathering in the Platoon office, look for the 2nd Platoon door."
Rhidi drummed her fingers on her flat cart, still looking into Morris's eyes and smiling to herself. The memory of his other smells slowly floated into her brain, and he really did have the prettiest green eyes, as if she were looking into a deeply green moss agate.
"Okie dokie." Rhidi said softly, still looking up at Morris with perked ears.
Morris cocked a brow at her, but smiled as he turned. "Okie dokie. See you there."
"See you there!" Rhidi called out, her tail wagging behind her from the tailored tail strap of her jeans.
Morris's low laughter came easy to Rhidi's ears, and her heart did an odd little thrum. "Okay, see you there."
"See you there." Rhidi murmured to herself, and she couldn't help but let her eyes slowly course down Morris's back; He was wearing a simple shirt pressed close by his slung rifle and loose cargo pants, but his muscles were more than enough to show through his clothing.
He turned left into another alleyway, and she hummed, annoyed.
With nothing to distract her, she threw her bags and rucksack into her room, slung her rifle across her back now that she could, and quickly returned the flat cart.
Another brisk jog brought her back to her room, and she ducked inside to look around; It was quaint, but blissfully private. A comfortable bed set in a socket attached to the wall, the edge of which was raised to give her some shelf space. There was a socket for a data-display on a desk built into the wall, a simple chair that fit under the desk, a large locker for her clothing, a ready-rack for her rifle and two slots for pistols, and a small toilet room.
The fold out toilet left… a lot to be desired; It may as well just have been a hole carved into the deck itself, adorned with a thick, self cleaning cushion to sit upon, and a few buttons to operate the bidet. Above the toilet was a foldout sink, but there wasn't a shower head.
"Looks like I'm gonna be looking at a bunch of butts again." Rhidi sighed out, tossing her bags to where they needed to be, then stepping out into the corridor to find their Platoon office.