In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 14: Couradeen Station

Allison shifted in her seat, looking eagerly out of the cockpit windshield even though there was nothing to see yet. Joseph and Tyrone sat at the pilot's and copilot's positions respectively, waiting to bring the ship out of FTL. They were only a few minutes from arriving at Couradeen Station, potentially her new home.

"Is there a reason you switched pilots? Tyrone was flying when we left Temorran." Allison fiddled with the webbing strapping her to her chair as she asked, trying to ignore her nervousness. The restraints weren't all that comfortable. She hadn't noticed the last time she was wearing them.

"Nothing in particular." Tyrone assigned various sensor displays to the screens in front of him. "We just take turns. Neither of us is really a better or worse pilot, so it doesn't matter too much who does what. The ship could really be controlled by just one of us, but it's easier with two. It's not like I'd have anything better to do either, it's best to be strapped in for takeoff, landing, and switching between normal propulsion and FTL. The inertial drive can get a little confused."

"And that confusion is worse when you're entering zones with artificial gravity," Joseph added. "Real gravitational pull affects anything that's close enough in any direction. Artificial gravity affects anything that's in the exact right spot, and sometimes it's not as confined as it should be."

"What?" Allison frowned as she asked the confused, one-word question.

"Yeah, you might want to elaborate on that," Tyrone chuckled. "You're eloquence is missing today."

Joseph gave Tyrone a hard look and continued. "Artificial gravity can reach past the walls of the structure where it's supposed to be providing gravity. If you fly close enough above a spot where that's happening, you'll feel that gravitational pull briefly as you pass. There's also no gradual change with artificial gravity. If you fly into the right area, it's just suddenly pulling on you. We'll be flying past a few spots on the station where the artificial gravity does that."

"That doesn't sound enjoyable." Trepidation struck as Allison wondered what it would feel like to have gravity suddenly doubled for the time it would take the system to catch on and correct. She doubted very much that it would be comfortable.

"It isn't, no. We've done it a few times by accident." Joseph grimaced at the memory. "It's not especially painful, but definitely not something you want to do on purpose. Fortunately, artificial gravity does something else that real gravity doesn't: turn off when you tell it to."

"Oh!" Allison recalled what he'd said before about the starmen turning off gravity whenever it was convenient. "I'd forgotten you could do that."

Joseph chuckled, watching the screen in front of him. "Probably because we still haven't done it with you on board. Like I told you, spacedwellers tend to turn it off a lot. You'll get to experience weightlessness shortly." As he made the comment, an indicator on the screen in front of him started flashing. "Very shortly. Dropping out of FTL," he announced.

The glow in the windshield slowly dimmed and vanished as the ship decelerated. For a moment Allison couldn't make out anything at all, then the windshield brightened. She hadn't even known the computer was tinting it, and she suddenly wondered how bright FTL actually was; it had seemed as bright as a sunny day in the cockpit moments before! It certainly explained some things about the ship's structure.

Now she could see the location of the system's star, ahead and to their right. Couradeen Station was also visible, but it was still a long way off. The computer had highlighted it on the windshield, an indeterminate mass that she could cover with the tip of her thumb. It was not getting noticeably larger, either.

"We are actually moving toward it right?" Allison gestured toward the station.

"Yes," Tyrone replied. "Couradeen is a massive station, and we're a long way off still. If this was Orson Station, where we're based out of, you wouldn't really be able to make it out yet. It's a lot smaller."