Original Work | Talea Drey (i)

[veryroundbird]

Rating: Piquant
Words: 736
Characters: Original Female Character, Original Male Character
Relationships: Gen
Summary: Prompt: "Starship pilot who is about to show the fighter jocks how a REAL ship flies." Freighter pilot Talea Drey isn't about to shy away from a challenge, which is good because it's kind of do or die here.

Talea Drey wasn't supposed to be piloting today at all, but a collapsing section of roof had fallen on the unlucky motherfucker who should have been here, and she was the only one left on base with the balls to try and take this last hunk of junk out past the blockade.

She slammed her elbow on the intercom button. "I'm not the regular pilot, sorry. Last minute substitution, y'all. Engineer Officer Talea Drey at your service; buckle in for a bumpy ride and prep for some very fast pressure and directional changes. We're doing a hop skip out of the system, so don't startle if we pop out of warp fast. I'm gonna do my best to keep your heads attached to your bodies, so sit tight."

Less nervous-sounding than she actually felt. Sure, she flew transports all the time, but not in this high pressure of a situation.

But it gave her a few little tricks. She started the upward thrust, eyeballed the angle of the launch tube, and then hit thrusters as hard as she could.

If she hadn't braced for it, it would have slammed her head against the back of the pilot's chair. As it was, she grit her teeth as they shot through a criss-cross of laser fire, each beam just a little too late to catch the hull.

...good. Element of surprise wouldn't last long, though, and the internal grav compensator had kicked in, but barely—hell. This thing was old, and the algorithm was really simple.

She did a brief mental calculation as to whether she could calculate the nav coordinates while also manually running the compensator, and then came to the conclusion that regardless of whether she could, she had to figure it the fuck out.

The radio crackled, and then resolved into a voice. "Sub Rosa, this is Delta One. We've got your tail. You're last ones out."

"Took you long enough, flyboy. Sure you can keep up with me?"

"I'll bet you a round of drinks I can, if you're talking like that. Don't get too eager to slip your escort, though." That would be Hawkins—and damned if she was buying him a round of drinks. Sure. She'd make this work.

"Deal," she said, and hit the unlock toggle on the g-comp manual control. "Follow my lead and keep them off of me."

Damn, she'd love a co-pilot right now. But her escort was at least keeping the fire off her—nothing that a weave pattern couldn't handle until she hit space, at which point she'd have a whole host of other problems. The capital ship gunnery was starting to track her—

...risky maneuver, but she'd practiced it in sims plenty. "Hey, Sub Rosa to One. I'm going to do a soap bar across the enemy fleet then null back thrusters to one kilo, and orient to rendezvous from there."

"You fucking what—"

"Keep up! I got a whole hold of VIPs back here." Which was why her palms were sweating. Don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up.

The thing was, once you hit vacuum, you were no longer fighting atmosphere, which meant you were going really fucking fast. Most people, at most times, would slow down for control.

This wasn't one of those times. Talea cut thrust, skating on pure momentum, and hoped she'd done her math right.

There was dead silence, without the hum of the engines coming through. Closing in five, four, three, two, one—

She could nearly see into their viewports from hers, skirting their ship right above the bridge. There was a flash, as a turret fired ineffectually straight up, and another as her escort took it out before it could recharge.

And then they were across, and Talea slammed on the front thrusters, shooting up and away at a forty-five degree angle, adjusting the Gs accordingly so as to not turn her cargo into a fine paste, and started orienting for warp. "Delta One and Two, form up on me. Transmitting telemetry now."

"Fuck you," said Delta One. "Great work. Sure you're not interested in transferring departments? Telemetry received."

"If they let me void the warranties, maybe. Preparations complete." She finished punching in the final sequence, gave in another once over, and confirmed it. "On my mark. Three, two, one, let's fucking go—"

And space folded in on itself, stars elongating, and they were free and away.