Commander's Log: Vin. Ongoing searches for Blue Slimy Frogs

[Vingtetun]

Commander's Log: Vin

<aka - Vin discovers Alpha>

Vin grinned as he looked at the shiny new Sidewinder docked peacefully in the station's bay. It had been far too long since he'd seen anything other than the cockpit of the beaten old Cobra and it was nice to have had a real shower and dress in something other than patched pilot's overalls.

30 years in space. An ancient wire frame computer screen instead of a cockpit. A hold full of gemstones from the outer reaches. Nice to be home.

He'd taken the prototype ship out to fly around a nearby asteroid field and revelled in seeing his surroundings with his own, unaugmented eyes.

All of these politics with the federation and that other lot were just plain confusing. Back when he started out it was him, a few pilots and a glorious free for all in space, punctuated with the odd octagonal creepie to get all gun happy about.

He still hadn't found those blue slimy frogs - they'd been absent from the universe now for decades and he was convinced they were hiding from him somewhere.

The new flight interface wasn't without its problems - he had accepted a request to go and join in a sortie or two with a few other of the prototype ships and encountered nothing but starfields and jumpy blips on the radar. The one time the Impeccable had appeared, he nearly soiled the new flight suit. Huge wasn't the word for it. It was a sight that had him mashing the new controls on the ship with panic as he realised that he was approaching at speeds that would turn him into a frozen jamsicle out in the void. Why had no one seen fit to equip these new ships with escape pods???

The choice of equipment that he had been loaned to test was mind boggling. Back in the day, all he needed was a set of beam lasers and an energy unit - now he could choose everything from a space cheese slicer to a giant spud gun, even something colloquially called a "sneeze cannon" that left funny blue and yellow lines in his vision for about 5 minutes after every shot. He had re-discovered the joy of flying whilst emptying a barrel of moonshine one glass at a time, spiralling through space with not a care in the world and issuing laser tinged death without having to target a darned thing... Gimbals. Genius.

Some guy called "Snuffler" (that couldn't be his real name, right?) had picked a fight in the station bar and somehow vanished before someone separated him from his alien items. The conversation had turned to an argument about whether Sidewinders should beep when reversing or not...

Anyway - Vin looked across at the ship, pulled out a mostly clean rag, spat on it and wiped the cockpit screen.

"I wonder when they'll fix that radar bug?"

 

[Vingtetun]

.... Vin yawned as he awoke from a computer aided sleep. Touching the pad next to the bed, the far wall of his quarters switched to displaying the planetscape below; it reminded him of a planet he had seen in his dream... the one with the frogs. Bloody frogs.

Hopping over to the desk (the floor was cold this morning, wonder if the maintenance bots were doing it deliberately), he opened the last update from his mysterious customer.

He'd been watching the video streams on the long run back and "Frontier" had been the company name the other pilots had been talking about. Radio chatter was busier than he had remembered for a long time.

His father had told him that hauls the likes of which he came back with were to be savoured, not squandered, but his own view was that life was for living.... The contract on the message boards had simply stated that ship testing was required (at a cost). What spacefarer didn't want to play with new technology?

The money had bought a long term rental of the cabin, a simulator and daily access to the new ship. He had to remind himself that it wasn't HIS ship, just the latest in a long line of prefab tests. Frontier had bought up a few areas of space for the testing - it wouldn't be "the done thing" to go blasting around the wider universe in something that could stutter and fail.

The survival gear was part of the package. Get blown to bits a thousand times over and you were as safe as a baby swaddled in a cotton wool blanket. With an oxygen mask and "The Blue Danube" on an audio loop.

He hadn't gained enough credits from the deal for any of the new flight control systems (there was a lot of one-upmanship going on in the Thargoid & FDL about this one). His trusty but slightly plastic stick felt like an old friend after all these years - he could hear them s******ing over that description in the bar. What was it with commanders that always ended up in inappropriate boys' banter?

The flight assist was an old and trusted piece of software that he remembered from his time in space. Hopping into the new cockpit felt in some ways, very close to the old Cobra. Same radar (ok, prettier colours), same seat, same flight stick and of course, same roll, bank and throttle back to catch escaping drones.

Turning the flight assist off turned him into a spinning projectile. His brain really couldn't get the hang of which way was "up" when flying with it off. Old videos of early astronaut training came to mind as he emptied his breakfast into a small plasticised paper bag every time he lost control.

Lateral thrusters? There was something he could get his teeth into. A couple of hours last night flying around the Impeccable and he felt he could apply for a DOP job in the next space epic.

The voice attack module was a little "under the radar". It wasn't supplied by Frontier - but seemed to work with both their simulator and in the new cockpit. Standard puerile behaviour had taken over at the outset and he'd programmed a few phrases from old Earth gaming into it just for giggles. Yelling "RUN AWAY!" to kick power to the engines was funny. The first 5 times. After that, he could swear that he could hear people laughing at him.

Right. Time for some practice using the new scoops. The old ones had been far easier - "fly at it" was about as hard as it got. The new ones needed opening first. That was something he had forgotten the first time he tried and ended up with Iron Ore scratches all over the nose of the ship. The new target radar for the scoop was handy - he imagined that in the larger and more unwieldy vessels they would have to fit a larger scoop, or a tractor beam. The anaconda's bridge was so far away from the scoop location that it would be like trying to play catch with 12ft arms controlled by string.

First things first - into the simulator.

 

[Minti2]

I was hoping some would put their experiences in a form of fact/fictional dairy, that was a fun read! And yeah bunch of losers at the thargoid bar

 

[Vingtetun]

Right. He was getting the hang of this one now. The lack of a deadzone in flight assist mode was his enemy. A few tweaks to the simulator and he could slap it off (Oh, dear deities, he could hear the Thargoid's regulars ering again), perform a smart about turn and hit the boosters. Mr Snuffler (REALLY? That's your name?), your time was fast approaching.... If only Frontier had seen fit to arm an area of space with nothing but indestructible nav beacons for target practice.

 

[Vingtetun]

Vin scowled as the simulator branded him a "Failure" yet again. He pulled a sticky note from his flight suit's breast pocket and scrawled a note, sticking it to the cockpit somewhere near the throttle control.

"Asteroids hurt".

 

[Vingtetun]

On returning to the cockpit, Vin noticed a second sticky note next to his original.

"See glove box for remedy".

Oh, well played, barmates, well played. Sitting on top of the Xeeslian calfskin gloves was a tube of hastily re-labelled "Asteroid cream".

After a morning of spiralling around trying to get FA off flying sorted, Vin had turned the sound up in his cabin and attempted to relax with a bit of Strauss. The difference was profound - his grip loosened on the stick, his left hand weaved a merry dance on the keyboard and eventually, finally, he managed to get the simulator combat turns using thrusters.

Getting a bead on the enemy with any kind of accuracy? Not a hope. Accelerating toward an enemy, clicking the FA off, executing a neat flip, waiting until he shot past then hitting the boosters before sticking a sneeze cannon up his thrusters - now THAT was fun. The trick was to flip until you saw your own drive trails.

Hit the brakes and watch them fly past. Probably wouldn't work on anyone with any skill, but brought out a childish giggle each and every time.

Circling an enemy to stay out of their visual range was a little harder. Approach with full lateral thrust and then yaw like mad whilst firing gimballed weapons. Anyone for tinned Sidewinder Surprise? It didn't work at under 1k, but never mind, Vin wagered that it looked stylish to outside observers.

He noticed as he went to pour another Disoan coffee that some joker had left a toy frog under the seat.

"I really must change the lock code again..." he mused.

 

[Memnoch]

<munches popcorn, occasionally reaching for beer>

 

[Kemo]

had to rep you for this... had to..

 

[Vingtetun]

Kicking back after a hard day's training in the simulator, Vin had opened his "Frontier Developments Orientation Pack" and promptly gone slightly cross eyed.

So much had changed since he left all those years ago. At the time, all he had was an instruction book for the flight console and a copy of an old legend..... The Dark Wheel had proven to be a myth (either that, or as with Flight Club, the first rule had been that no one had spoken to HIM about it). He fondly remembered climbing into that already battered old Cobra, powering up the viewscreen and thumbing the launch button.

"Data on system" had been a sparse description of each and every planet and to be fair, he hadn't needed to know much. Did they need tractors or integrated circuits? Could you buy oak panelling at a knock down price, or was it more profitable to ship a load of moonshine.

The inhabited universe had been broken along simple lines - a simple political description that boiled down to "am I going to get my **** kicked?" and an overview of the state of the planet below.

Hunting through the universe, maximum 10LY at a time, scratching a meager living and praying that the witch space drive didn't eject you into the void to be used for target practice (or lunch) by multi faceted frisbees.

This tome in front of him really was something else... So he started from the beginning.

"Right - when Frontier are done with letting me test this ship, they'll ship me out somewhere with a pocketful of change..." he commented out loud. That, at least was a familiar start.

First things first - staying on the right side of the law. The local station "Fanshawe and Brown" law chambers had furnished him with a beginner's guide. The usual stuff. Nick things - you're in the manure. Kill someone to nick them and the pile of manure is deeper. Trade in the usual illegal contents, much the same. Do any of the above in an Anarchy away from the police and as the song says: "Anything goes".

The cover of the notes had a picture of a Viper on it. Not the sexy, lean, dangerous looking viper of old, but something with softer lines and more hardpoints. So - something had moved on in the intervening years. He sincerely hoped it didn't have blue flashing lights - that would be too much.

Vin raised an eyebrow at the section marked "fines".

"Sounds more like dishing out a bribe to get away with things to me."

All in all - it looked familiar and fairly easy to grasp. Do small bad stuff and it was expensive. Do something nasty and something shooty would arrive at speed and attempt to turn you into space dust.

He cracked open another ale and swore as it sprayed over the new flight suit and dribbled down between the pads in the chair. Those maintenance bots were definitely shaking things up when he wasn't looking.

The suit was looking more worn and a little less starchy now. Isinor Brown Ale was this week's "must wear" colour, or at least it would be when he next visited the Thargoid.

The second book in the pile was the one on trading and it was this one that had him reaching for his notepad and pencil. Thousands of years of innovation and there still wasn't a good substitute for the graphite filled pencil. Zero G fluid filled pens had a habit of exploding in your flight suit pocket on sudden decompression - something that was always a hazard in the old Cobra. If you think a pocket stain is bad in atmosphere, just imagine getting a few globs of the stuff in your eye just as you're getting a bead on a Boa.

Over the decades, it looked like the basic station markets had evolved. Gone were the practically anonymous cargo pods labelled "food" and in were more specific purchases. What's more, the improvements in interstellar communications and the massive increase in the numbers of pilots had put paid to the pricing cartels that had existed before and paved the way for a proper market economy.

"Damn, I need to get out more. I'm duller than a worm shuttle's re-entry plating."

He reached for his jacket, brushed off some more spots of the ale and headed for the Thargoid.

 

[Vingtetun]

As usual, the Thargoid was brimming with eager pilots. A few of them had saved enough for Frontier's simulator runs and testing on the new ships and at each table there was a group chattering about the latest tweaks and changes.

A couple of screens in the corner were streaming live from the cockpits of the more dedicated testers. Kerrash and Vigor had headed out again with Psy and somehow all ended up in different regions of space. Kerrash was doing his daily flyby of the Impeccable hulk that had been bought by Frontier for flight training and spending his time bouncing off the top hull with his landing gear down like some strange metallic bullfrog.

Vigor had detached his flight stick from the console and was proudly holding it up to the camera to demonstrate the waggly throttle.

Whoever was in charge of the subtitles really couldn't spell and Vin's ocd kicked in, causing him to clip an earpiece in to hear what was going on.

Some joker had scrawled a new drink on the menu behind the bar. It never ceased to amaze Vin how humanity was able to manufacture intoxicants from anything that could be fermented, distilled or synthesised throughout the known universe. If it turned you into a mildly antisocial bore, humanity drank it and Vin was a dedicated follower of the cult of inebriation.

The drink in question was blue. It had something grey and congealed in the bottom of it and from the smell, it was probably flammable.

"Ale, please."

"Not trying the Blue Slimy Frog tonight?"

"Droll..."

The bartender had one of the new faction shirts on, emblazoned with neon lettering proudly claiming "Commanders Mainly Do it in Reverse".

The last time Vin had done it in reverse, he'd herniated a disc and had to spend the rest of the evening flat on his back. Not entirely a bad evening, but probably less fun for the lady involved...

He dropped the notes on trading on the table, having been careful to to wipe the dregs from the last occupant away with the sleeve of Garth's jacket.

It had graphs. Vin liked graphs. The kind that made him money were even better. As the man said - "space is big" and graphs meant you could see whether someone else had exploited the market. Most of the sheets had headings with small computer type below them "this space left intentionally blank". Rumour had it that Frontier were testing out the new trading systems and the AC's were to be given an early view some time in the next few months.

He glanced across at the screens just as Kerrash became an inferno of metal and explosive gases. Thank whichever deity was this month's flavour that the remlock had been extensively tested before we were let loose.

 

[Yaffle]

The second book in the pile was the one on trading and it was this one that had him reaching for his notepad and pencil. Thousands of years of innovation and there still wasn't a good substitute for the graphite filled pencil. Zero G fluid filled pens had a habit of exploding in your flight suit pocket on sudden decompression - something that was always a hazard in the old Cobra. If you think a pocket stain is bad in atmosphere, just imagine getting a few globs of the stuff in your eye just as you're getting a bead on a Boa.

Of course the main issue with graphite is that it conducts rather well, so having flakes of it floating around in zero-g with a lot of open electronics is, well, potentially an issue.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/

Very much enjoying your work here. Good stuff.

 

[Vingtetun]

Vin glanced over at the Professor with a cheeky grin.

"When you've been in the outer reaches of space as long as I have, you make do with what you can find. I ran out of ink years ago and had to make do. The kish from the replacement drive panels was perfect for a lifetime supply of pencils. Besides, we all have our little foibles."

Vin polished off the ale and slapped Yaffle on the back. He'd picked a week away from the simulator, planetside, and intended to do nothing more than read his way through the Frontier Guide, put in a steady 12 hour day and wait for a few more updates.

As he headed back to the cabin he wondered if the maintenance robot had stopped the heads from trying to suck his intestines out every time he sat down.

 

[SAB380]

SAB read VIn's posts. SAB enjoyed them.

 

[Vingtetun]

Last night, Vin had taken some much needed R&R planetside and stayed well away from a ship's cockpit.

The shuttle journey down from the station felt strange - not being in control of the vessel made him twitchier than normal. Even with "gravity" on board station, his body took some adjusting to being under an atmosphere.

He'd spent most of re-entry trying to get his brain around how travel was working these days. Frontier had changed the whole way that faster than light travel had worked for the last 30 years, working closely with the drive manufacturers and shipbuilders.

It appeared that hitting one button for accelerated travel in system from the beacon had been judged too unsafe and been replaced. The idea of "slaving" jumps with partnered ships intrigued him - perfect for escorted trade runs and safety in numbers in the more dangerous systems.

Stepping out into the daylight, his eyes took a while to adjust - the advantage of the old wireframe screen was that it protected him from the glare and flashes on the long journey. Glancing out of the portholes in his downtime had been enough to experience the moth eaten curtain of space.

A mild case of agoraphobia had hit him - his sense of distance and perspective had been hammered by years of passing white flashes from debris and a big blue sky overhead felt very strange indeed.

After evening fell, he had found himself on the rooftop bar staring up at the stars. Funny to think that only a year ago, he had been parked up next to one of them, looming impossibly large in the tiny viewfinder and now it was a sparkling speck in the distance.

Constellations had ceased meaning anything to him years before - every planet had its own legends and histories and these days it was just a pretty panorama.

He'd had a few e-mails from Zaonce after his report from the first test of the new ship. "We're looking into it" was about as far as it went. He still had faith that they'd knock the rough edges off before his next sortie.

"You moody son of a sidewinder. Pull yourself together."

Vin necked the last of the glass of brandy he had in his hand and headed back inside for another.

"Only 3 more days until I'm back in the cockpit."

 

[Vingtetun]

Vin keyed his code into the door lock and stepped into the spartan surroundings of his quarters aboard station.

"Bloody maintenance units have been messing with the heating again." he groaned as he changed into his flight suit.

A week planetside had allowed him to indulge in a little more food and drink than he was used to and the flight suit was a little more snug than he remembered. Either that, or the service robots had washed it on hot again.

On the ride back up to the station, he had been strapped in next to a trader who, to be fair, could probably bore his own reflection to tears.

The diatribe coming from the seat next to him had all been about Frontier - the guy had insisted that space trading and flight had to keep him wrapped in cotton wool. Apparently, during simulations, commanders had been pulling the plug on their sim rigs before being destroyed and disappearing on the spot. The trader had been insisting that the same was possible with Frontier's new comms net - in effect allowing commanders to pull their log card and net jack out mid combat and he was insisting that this simulated pilot unconsciousness and Frontier were duty bound to deliver him to the nearest station, cargo intact.

Vin had bitten his tongue at this point instead of arguing. Space was a dangerous place, with plenty of "off the grid" locations where piracy was rife. Traders were the lifeblood of any spacefaring system and whilst the law protected them, scamming the system to get a free ride past other pilots and danger seemed just a little underhand.

The law seemed to revolve around the basic tenet of "Thou shalt not get caught" - something that almost seemed to encourage piracy and rogue trading.

Preferring real flight to the sim environment, Vin picked up his remlock kit and headed for the hangar.

Reaching the ship designated to him for the latest round of testing, he keyed in the commands that would kit it out with the cheapest options - 100cr seemed plenty to be wasting after a week away.

Climbing into the cockpit and powering up the drives, he glanced over at his watch - an hour to "kill" felt about right.

"Let's see if they've ironed out that jumpy scanner."

 

[Vingtetun]

Hot damn... It was good to be back in the cockpit again. Vin keyed in the location for the Impeccable hulk test area and punched the jump button.

As soon as he arrived, he could tell that the flaming jump engines were on the blink again. There was a marker beacon, but not a ie bird on the radar. Never one to pass up an opportunity for some fancy flying, Vin began circling the beacon, trying to get a bead on it using lateral thrusters.

Seconds later, the radar blipped into life again and targets appeared. Glancing around from within the cockpit, he couldn't see a thing. Back down on the radar, a hollow triangle of company marked the arrival of another testpilot.

"I'm damned if I'm trying to pronounce that - you're called Bart from now on," Vin muttered into his freshly trimmed beard.

"Time for some fancy flying."

Bart was clearly targeting ghost ships from his radar and Vin struggled with the power controls until he could get the pilot in a sweeping arc, keeping his cockpit within sight at all times. On one sweeping pass, he caught a glimpse of the commander at the controls.

"I really hope I don't stick my tongue out like that when I'm concentrating." Vin chuckled.

Clicking the "RTB" button, his jump engines blasted him back to the station.

"Right, let's see who is in FFA".

 

[Vingtetun]

Floating in space with nothing but his suit and the pilot's equivalent of carbon kevlar underpants on wasn't doing anything for Vin's pride.

After a proper furball in the FFA test area, he was tired of not seeing any of the other commanders and had popped back to see if the Impeccable had returned.

Parked at the beacon, a warning noise had him looking around for new arrivals, and sure enough, a pair of sidewinders popped into existence.

Quick check - nothing else on the scanner and he had popped his camera out of the top pocket of the flight suit. Just as the perfect picture lined up, all hell had broken loose.

The drone targets were everywhere and the other two pilots had vanished.... Taking a bead on one close to the bow of the Impeccable, Vin had shifted power away from the engines and into the gimballed lasers and started a corckscrew run down to the target.

Just as he passed under the bow of the capital ship, a second drone target had drifted in front of his laser and then that was it - a beam laser up the tailpipe whilst trying to finish off the original target.

He had the satisfaction of seeing the first target turn into a firework before his canopy popped and ejected him out into the void.

Kevlar underpants had better be stain proof....

 

[Vingtetun]

Having been picked up by a converted cargo scow and dropped into a replacement sidewinder (complete with change of underwear), Vin had fired up the hardpoints on the ship only to discover that he had forgotten to pick the loadout.

"OK, twin beam lasers. Let's see what we can manage."

Taking a bead on the first drone, the red button was duly pressed and after a 4 second burst, shields were down and the drone had spun to return fire.

After that, it had degenerated into a game of cat and mouse. Pot shot here, short burst there, each time the hum of the beam laser accompanied a drop in the hull integrity of the target.

Just as the drone lined up for a beam laser tan, a pair of gimballed blasts from above finished the job and a sidewinder shot past the viewscreen.

Not seeing who it was, a quick spin to the side console and Vin spotted "CMDR Dave" on the panel. Glancing back to the front view, he could see the universal "Alpha tester's wave" coming from the other cockpit. He duly returned the gesture and regretted it immediately - cramp in his flight stick hand.

He resorted to playing "follow the leader" for a while, flashing the floodlights on and off in the morse code for "Foxtrot Oscar" - or at least that's what he hoped.

5 shared kills down and he was getting the hang of the beam lasers. As a tag team with a gimballed laser ship he was getting adept and knocking the shields down, only to see the other pilot finish off the kill.

Just as two more pilots appeared, the console started flashing red.

++ ERROR ++ ++ ERROR ++

Next thing he knew, everything went black........

 

[Vingtetun]

Vin's ship drifted back to the station, battered and torn. He didn't look much better.

He had finally located some of the other test pilots - Commander H. Solo's voice had appeared on the aftermarket ship comms and for the first hour, they'd been testing flight maneuvers.

"Overconfidence is a killer" Vin mused.

Solo had noted that someone had painted a blue frog on the hull of Vin's craft - something that the M'Dib had used for target practice. Even the Snuffler (Vin still couldn't believe that was his real name) had pinged projectiles off the image until the ship exploded.

"Twenty five test ships. Twenty five. One quarter of a ton. I'm glad Commander Braben is picking up the butcher's bill for this one..." Vin called to the maintenance crew in the bay. "What I want to know is HOW they knew I'd pick this ship up on the last sortie?"

He had "died" in blazes of glory in as many ways as there were thrusters on his ship. Crashing, being snuffed out by the Snuff, angry Anaconda turret firestorms and just about everything in between.

To be fair, he'd asked for trouble from the outset. Walking into the Ethics scenario in a shiny new ship, gun ports open and gaining an immediate pseudo-bounty was even better than having a blue frog painted on your hull.

He slapped the technician on the back with a big grin. "Bloody good fun, though."

Pushing his flight log card into the machine, he looked at his watch.

Just enough time for a beer at the Thargoid.

 

[Vingtetun]

The maintenance robot beeped pathetically as Vin powered it back up. His soldering iron and a set of tiny screwdrivers were scattered across the cabin floor.

"Let's see you try and eat my stuff now..." Vin snarled at it. To lighten the mood, he had pinched a marker from the pilot's briefing room and given it a smiley face and some scary looking eyebrows.

The robot scuttled back into the hatch in the skirting board, beeping all the while.

After this morning's flight training in the simulator, he was on forced shore leave again and bored. Utterly utterly bored.

The flight manuals had given him a morning's distractions, as did browsing the test pilot logs from the other commanders. Everyone was itching for the next update from Frontier and checking their inboxes for the next message from commander Braben. His beaming face and genuine gratitude had prefixed every major systems update but he and his team had been absent from pilot briefings for too long now.

After last night's extended piloting session, he'd read up on pilot grouping. This was a big change from his space flight from days of old. They had never perfected ship to ship communications and the tight-burst messages that were received were either a bounty tally, or the regular "Right on, Commander" with the green tell tale light.

As a result, his interaction with other ships out in space had been limited to a. "shoot the whatsit out of it" or b. "Ignore it in case it decided to shoot the whatsit out of me".

The advent of more advanced space comms meant that he could start running convoys with other pilots, co-ordinate their flying and load out specs and even hurl verbal abuse across the void.

Slaving drives within these convoy groups would hopefully prevent everyone ending up in different parts of the system at different times. He pitied the first one out of the jump portal into the nearest Anarchy, but at least with grouping they could determine who could take the plunge first.

He'd sent off to a contact he had met in the Thargoid for a replacement sticker for the cockpit. The "Ignore" button for ships that he didn't want to interact with would be replaced with a "Nick Off" label in angry red.

The only problem with the grouping and comms systems was one he had learned form his years out at the far reaches of the galaxy - it was a big place and you could easily lose everyone very rapidly. Of course, the standard home system trading runs would be chock full of other pilots operating the new Frontier engineered ships, but that wasn't where the fun was to be found (Or those frogs, for that matter).

He just wished that Braben would hurry up - he was beginning to hate the inside of the sidewinder and itched for some variety in the choice of cockpits.....