Ezra's First

Part 2

The transit ship arrived at his stop and Ezra unhooked himself from his seats restraints, grabbed his bag, and headed for the airlock. It took a few moments to cycle, and he stepped into MOS11. The change from one artificial gravity system to the next always caused Ezra's hairs to stand on end, it was a feeling he was always on the look-out for, for some people the change caused them nausea , he felt sorry for those people.

As he exited the transit lounge, he stopped to re-read his orders in more detail to ascertain which exact hanger he needed to be heading too, he first made a stop at mission control where he checked in and submitted his bags for inspection, the Station master would take his bag, check it for contraband and load it onto the ship themselves – it seems drugs made their way into outer space one too many times.

MOS11 was a large honeycomb, hundreds of individual hanger bays spread out across six main sections. The centre was hollow which allowed ships to enter and exit the structure, the rule being exit from the top, entry at the bottom.

He located his hangar, E60, and headed towards the elevator between section E and D.

The elevator started its descent and Ezra stared in awe at the hundreds of hangar bays filled with ships. Some cargo vessels, people movers, assault landers, scouts, and light fighters littered his view.

The movement stopped and the doors opened out onto hangar D60 and E60. He knew instantly which ship was his. D60 contained an aging, and in multiple pieces, maintenance vessel. Not to mention the hangar lights were off.

To his right was a 375 tonne Springbok Class Scout Ship, callsign: Brigham. Built to do one thing and one thing only, move quickly. It can cross a star system in a quarter of the time most other vessels can and can jump further through hyperspace. It achieves this by two key methods, the first being its enormous twin thrusters that make up most of the ships shape and mass, the second being the ship was exceptionally light and only contained things it 100% needed. Its hull armour was light, its weapon armament bare minimum, the internals no more spacious than it needs to be. It is effectively a giant engine with a small cock pit and living quarters strapped to it.

This would be his command and his home for the next five months. He scanned the activity in the hangar and spotted a variety of engineers working around the ship, filling up its fuel cells, performing spot inspections, and loading in supplies.

One duo caught his eye, primarily because they were standing around talking and one of them was wearing a pilot's outfit. Ezra spent a few moments studying his co-pilot and subordinate from afar.

He was older than Ezra , about thirty, tall with short, dark hair and light stubble. He looked like someone who would be picked to be on the recruitment posters and Ezra briefly wondered if he actually had at some point.

Ezra had held a glimmer of hope that his co-pilot would be a young graduate like him, but always knew the chances were high that he would be paired with some grunt non-com or ageing mustang. At least it was the former, as much anxiety as it gave him to be commanding someone a decade older than him, he couldn't imagine commanding someone his dads or grandads age.

He seemed to have a great report with the engineers around him and as he was deep in conversation with the one engineer others were throwing quips at him he was easily responding to. Clearly he was a regular to these engineers.

The pilot then put the bag he had been holding on the engineers trolley and handed him a wad of credit notes, Ezra's eyes narrowed in suspicion as to what he was observing. At that point the other pilot spotted him, patted the engineer on the shoulder and started to stride towards him.

"Ah you must be my Captain, the names Daniel!" His arm was outstretched welcoming him to shake his hand.

Vital took his hand "Ezra... what did you just give that engineer?"

"Oh that?" Daniel looked back towards the engineer, the question having in the air, Ezra nodded.

"Alphie and I are in a fantasy G-ball league and I made a dumb bet and the crafty bugger knows to collect before I ship off into space for a few months."

"And the bag? We're not allowed to bring anything on the ship that's not been cleared through the station master."

"Don't worry about the bag kid, its not going on the ship, Alphie looks after my cat while I'm gone and that's a few months of cat treats, you can check it if you want?"

"No that's fine."

"I'm going to jump onboard and do some pre-flight checks", he announced as he moved past his co-pilot and towards the ship. He wanted to ask how he even got a bag of cat treats into a secure facility but couldn't actually be bothered, he could feel his anger returning, it was bad enough he'd been given such a shit mission and now his co-pilot was rubbing him the wrong way.

The ramp into the ship was located between the ships massive quad thrusters and opened up into the scout ships small and cramped engine room / cargo bay. This was only used for specific cargo as all the ships food, supplies, armament was stored in the spaces in the hull. Ezra surveyed the room as a potential work out space and moved into the ships mid section.

The ships central section was its living area. A well spaced kitchen and dining area made up half that section while two single private bedrooms flanked the bulkheads in the second half, there was also a toilet on the left and a shower on the right. Ezra could see that neither bedroom had been claimed yet and after surveying them for a few moments claimed the one of his right. They were both identical and didn't have a window or anything so it really didn't matter.

He then stepped through into the ships cock pit which was surprisingly more spacious than he expected, at the pinched nose of the ship were the controls and two seats on a slightly stepped up platform, but there were also four further stations, two along each bulkhead, one could be seated at. In theory the cockpit could fit six and there was still room left over in the middle of the room, it helped the ship not feel cramped.

The stations weren't just there for show, the scout ship was meant for reconnaissance and sported some very high end sensors and computers capable of analysing that data. While the onboard computer system could analyse it all in real time without the need for human interference, if needed, a crew of six could all be working on their own analysis as well.

Ezra sat down at one of the seats and started to pour through the computers files. He performed some pre-flight checks, re-read their orders and checked to see if any new information on their locations could be obtained from the central servers. He then reviewed the progress of the engineers who outlined they would be done within the hour and logged a request to launch in two hours time. He then opened up the personal files section and briefly re-read his own file, nothing new there and then opened up Daniels.

Age 32, Born in Sussex England, served for sixteen years, fought and was injured in the Neptune Gambit when his battleship sustained repeated concentrated fire from the enemy fleet and was forced to retreat with only half the crew not dead or injured. Highest rank held was Chief Petty Officer, current rank, Seaman.

Ezra's heart sank...this guy was a wash out, demoted more than once. Clearly couldn't hack it in the Navy any more but knows no other life so he bums around in the easiest gig he can find, no wonder he was on scout duty.

Ezra thought to check how my tours he had done as a scout; eleven, this would be his twelfth. Of course, people like this just find some comfortable job they don't have to try hard at and keep their heads down hoping no one notices.

His hands started to tremble with anger again, who had he pissed off to get sent off into the middle of uncharted space for five months whilst simultaneously babysitting someone who hasn't quite done enough to get court marshalled yet? He could feel the tears welling up again and took a few moments to compose himself, five months wasn't the end of the world, all he had to do was survive this mission and claim his next posting. Given that the two pilots had to do alternating shifts, as per regulations, his wash out of a co-pilot would be asleep for much of his time aboard and vice versa. So as long as this wash out could do his job, then Ezra could focus on getting through this mission in one piece. His mood began to settle again, he even got some joy out of the thought that he could use some of his alone time to continue drawing his comic, it might even be ready to publish upon his return.