A Canvas of Black

The vibrations became more violent, and then subsided quickly as Cheery tested the thrusters whilst the ship sat in its cradle in the launch bay. She was currently in a lying position in a similar but smaller space to Veese's just forward of his own capsule. He often though it strange that two people occupied the same vessel, and in al the time flying never had any contact. He couldn't think of any practical reason for this, except for the simple fact that if one of them were to be killed, the other could operate the ship with minimal loss of efficiency.

Cheery had a small metal stick in each hand which controlled the ship movement and weapons, though Veese would take control of the weapons under normal circumstances, it was designed so that one or the other could control the entire ship when circumstances dictated.

Apart from the array of screens in front of her, the entire wall of the cockpit displayed a flawless 360-degree view of the external environment, combat at the speeds they would be travelling made visual navigation and piloting virtually impossible, but the view outside looked pretty, well at least the view in open space did. Identical fighters stood in ranks to the left and right, in the huge hangar space, shaped like flattened eggs. Four spherical thrusters mounted on rails running around and over the craft positioned 2 at each end facing down in the launch position.

Disrupting the symmetry of each craft, a huge cannon ran the length of the hull, slightly to the right of the apex and disappeared into the structure at the rear. The Magnetic Acceleration Cannon, or MAC as it was commonly referred to, was one of the most feared weapons a large ship would ever face.

The MAC's design is simple, using small projectiles that are magnetically accelerated down the barrel to a relativistic speed. Kinetic impacts caused by the MAC are devastating, it has been considered a small mercy to those on the receiving end that their range is so small due to the energy falloff during flight. For the cannon to be truly effective the fighter would have to manoeuvre the entire ship to within 100km of the target, then have them pull out in time, all too often the impact of the vicious projectiles were followed by the larger slower impact of a fighter failing to alter course in time.

Cheery shuddered at the thought of a 'MAC run', her minds eye visualizing the target filling the forward view and passing below in the blink of an eye. She had seen too many comrades wink out of existence on the scanner view, too few returned afterwards. She knew there would be quite a few required, and she knew Veese craved the kind of accelerations that would see them through the defences of a capital ship safely. No, acceleration wasn't what he wanted. She corrected herself. It was the damned drugs that came with the accelerations.

Cheery was close to Veese, they had flown over 200 missions together, and had been flying together for over 5 years. They were as close as two people could be without being a couple, though even there the lines sometimes blurred. She knew his moods and character traits, the way he never quite knew what to say when confronted with a crowd of people, making his briefing sessions quite comical at times, and she instinctively when something was bothering him, just as she knew a year and a half ago that he was addicted to the drugs the ships computer administered to combat high gees.

Cheery knew he was suffering, had seen his condition repeated over and over again in fellow pilots. It started with a missed medical, where a precautionary counter to the addiction would be administered, a simple shot was all that was required. From there, cheery knew, Veese had started editing the records to show that he had attended following medicals, and she had been with him during periods of cold turkey, sworn to secrecy by him, and had watched the nightmares and disturbing hallucinations take effect.

Silence descended in the small confined space. There was always something quite sinister about the pre-launch silence. It was the same every time of course, but each time it shocked her none the less.