=/\= USS Charon, Shuttle bay =/\=
She couldn't help it. Even Vulcans cannot always resist temptation, not when it is this marvelously sweet. Barely a split second after flight ops had cleared them for launch, the fighter shot forward and raced through the forcefield in a shower of rainbow sparks, impulse engines howling with delight.
Another split second later every atom in her body vibrated as they passed through Charon's warp field and the awesome power of their own warp engines hummed to life, hurtling them away in a spiral that would have sufficiently confused any potential attacker trying to pick off fighters when they were most vulnerable.
"Unpleasant and 'not an easy ride' being euphemisms, yes? In any case, I will try to not make this an unpleasant experience, so if my flying causes you discomfort, please do not hesitate to point it out."
As if to underline her words, Sakarra throttled back and the Valkyrie described a perfect, slow arc while in the canopy stars glittered and turned around them and Charon became visible as a tiny speck of silver traveling high above.
Brent grinned at her response. "Have you ever known me to be really boring or do things in uninteresting ways," he said to her as he dialed he camera controls in and began to look around. A few ideas wandered into his head of things that he had done that she had characterized as 'interesting' but he figured that she could understand the innuendo that he was trying to imply, and began to dial in the camera's controls and figuring out how to focus it.
It turned out that Brent had gotten the hang of it just in time, as Sakarra took off out of the ship Brent managed to capture the surprise look of one of the deck officers. "Hey now, I make a decent photographer," Brent said as he fumbled around with the controls on his RIO station until he finally was able to send the picture of the perturbed woman up to Sakarra. "Maybe I should get a camera..."
Brent heard her ask about the euphemisms and how she would try not to make him lose his lunch. "They are euphemisms yes; they were lessons in abject terror and horror, especially the hard drop. I should be fine for most of this flight though, I have an expert pilot here to give me the tour."
The picture was certainly … unique. The moment it showed up on the small auxiliary screen at her side, Sakarra felt both brows climb by a considerable margin and she had to silently agree – Brent seemed to have another hidden talent.
"To be honest, I have not. Quite the contrary, in fact." The Valkyrie lazily banked to starboard and ever so slowly began to overtake Charon still cruising above while the young woman in the pilot seat did her best not to think of the exquisitely interesting things her companion had surprised her with recently.
"I shall endeavor to keep the abject terror to a minimum, although I have been told repeatedly that what a pilot may consider a rather pleasant little spin can produce said horror in unprepared passengers."
Propelled into the vast emptiness of space by her cheerfully pulsing warp engines, the little fighter was about to overtake the shimmering blue and white speck under her wing the very moment it came into view, but Sakarra had timed their approach precisely and dropped out of warp in a flash of light before falling into a perfect roll. Right above the canopy, the comet's tail loomed, harsh and cold, illuminated only by distant stars and chunks of ice sizzled on their shields.
"Beautiful, no?"
"Good. I'd hate to think that I've been boring all of this time," he said keeping the 'sweetheart' that was on the tip of his tongue to himself. Brent watched as the stars flew by in streaks of light. He smiled, thinking that he was fairly certain that he would never see something like this ever again. Unless of course Sakarra took him out. He was interrupted when she mentioned keeping the terror to a minimum. "Thank you then. I'm loving this so far, it's amazing."
As if to punctuate his words it was then that Sakarra dove down against the comet as Brent let out a slow breath at the beauty outside of the cockpit. "That's magnificent," he managed in a soft voice. He forgot about his camera for a few moments before Brent began to take several snapshots of the comet as it passed on by.
Deeply gratified by not only the tone of his voice but the obvious enjoyment Brent was deriving from this little flight, the young Vulcan nearly did not see the brief flicker on her console.
"Hm."
To her knowledge, Charon's sensors had not detected any silithium, but for just a moment it had shown up on hers. Unfortunately, a fighter was not equipped for scientific research, but if she could get close enough ..
"Are you still interested in the 'blowing up' part of our excursion? I should point out however that the 'ride' could get slightly bumpy."
A gloved hand pointed towards a large chunk of ice trailing in the comet's wake while the Valkyrie's nose tilted downward "I would like to get a closer look at this part of the comet but we will need to clear a path."
Brent was busy taking several pictures but he immediately heard Sakarra talking about blowing something up. "Hmm explosions huh? You know that's something that we Marines pride ourselves on you know," he said in a very serious tone of voice. Brent began to fiddle around with the controls again before finally discovering the weapon systems on the fighter. He took control of the phaser turrets and moved them back and forth a few times before he let out a burst of energy from them and grinned like a child in a candy store. "Yeah I think I could get the handle of this," he said idly as Brent moved in and zeroed in on the comet.
Focusing on her target, Sakarra nodded and still had to resist the urge to comment on the most seriously presented 'pride and explosions' statement. Unseen by the Marine who was cheerfully familiarizing himself with the Valkyrie's impressive weapons array, the young Vulcan smiled.
"Tally Ho."
Her targeting system beeped excitedly and Sakarra swerved to avoid another block of ice tumbling towards them – as far away as the blue giant behind them was, its gravity well was enough to pull away considerable pieces of accumulated dust and frozen water.
"A two second burst should suffice, unless you wish to make matters very interesting indeed."
Just as Brent had figured out the weapon systems well enough he heard Sakarra speak again that they were incoming to the target and that a two second burst would suffice. Brent thought that was far too little and made a face like a disappointed child would upon hearing that. "Yeah... Two seconds doesn't sound like very much fun to me," Brent said as he found something that looked like it needed to blow up and proceeded to shoot at it for a period of time.
"The sentence 'I should have expected that' appears to become a recurring theme in this relationship."
In a mad dash, the fighter dove under splinters and massive chunks of metallic ore that had been hurtled out of their paths by debris and weapons fire. Ice and rock vaporized in a kaleidoscope of colors as twinkling running lights reflected off the ice, mingled with the far sun's blue tinted light and the phaser beams lancing out against tumbling obstacles.
"Two o'clock, inbound."
She had barely finished when the massive boulder was blown – literally – to pieces, a good portion of which were of course still aiming straight for them. Undeterred, Brent picked out the biggest chunks one by one, apparently having what humans referred to as 'a blast'.
But even though this had turned from a leisurely cruise to a wild combination of swerving and dodging, Sakarra had to admit she was … having fun. Lots of it.
And they were getting so close to the comet itself, the silithium readings showed up bright and clear.
"One might almost assume you have done this before." Another brow was quirked, unseen but somehow heard in the young Vulcan's voice when a piece of ice measuring easily 500 meters across was vaporized right before the Valkyrie's nose.
Just a heartbeat later, the fighter was skimming over the rugged surface of the comet itself, having left the tail behind and unfortunately, the readings as well. Before them, something that would have qualified as a minor mountain range on a planet, came racing towards them and Sakarra pulled the craft into a steep climb. Spiraling away, she could almost physically sense Brent's disappointment that he had run out of targets.
Brent was simply having too much fun. This was great, and he enjoyed letting the turret fire to almost the point of overheating the phase coils before he stopped for a few moments, only to start firing again as he noticed the fighter turning away. He didn't even bother commenting at her about if he had done this before. Brent was too busy having fun and laughing like a kid at his fun. It was only predictable as Sakarra turned the fighter away he had to make a comment. "Hey! I was still trying to blow it up..." he said the pout almost audible in his voice as he strove to get a lock on the comet again, the phaser trails still going off fruitlessly for almost a minute after till he gave up.
=/\= To be continued … =/\=
Brevet 1st Lieutenant Brent Warren
Marine Commander
Lt Cmdr Sakarra Tyrax
Chief Helm
USS Charon
