Ocean
It sounds cliché to liken Space to an ocean, but it's actually true: it has its currents, its all too rare islands, its creatures, majestic, mythical, and monstrous all at once… Also, it can kill you in many different horrible ways.
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Sail
The Shabasch have a model of a stellar sail ship. These ships are easy to maneuver… as long as you're flying away from the star. But when you want to steer *towards* it, you have to tack, and with a 9,000-ton rig and in 3D, that's *tricky*.
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Anchor
Spaceships don't have an anchor. Because sailing in Space means being at least ten thousand kilometers from any rocky surface.
On the other hand, they have grappling hooks. Because you often need to hitch onto another ship.
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Jetty
Every deep space station jetty features a tubular rail where you can clip the bit of a lifeline, because nothing's more irksome than losing your grip 50 meters from the airlock and having the rescue shuttle pick you up and bring you back.
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Starboard
In space, just like at sea, port lights are red and starboard lights are green. But only in space, when you approach a ship that's red on the left, you must check whether it is facing away from you, or facing you but upside down.
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Storm
If I'm afraid that the Locust might get swept by a stellar storm and that I might die in the crash when it sends us right against a telluric planet?
Naaaaah.
I'll die way before, when we get through its outer Van Allen radiation belt.
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Rowing
In case the main *and* secondary sources go on the fritz, there's an emergency manifold electrical generator. Granted, yes it takes some rowing, and no it won't get the Locust moving, but at least, it provides some light and a radio link.
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Mast
Antennas, that's a problem. You can't place them on the hull, it blocks them. So you put them on a mast. But then, if you speed up or down too hard, it can break, and in Space, losing antennas is not good at all.
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Crew
The crew of the Locust? Well, there's the two of us: Val and me.
Is it good or bad to fly as a couple? How should I know? We fly in tandem, not as a couple.
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Drop
Most of my runs are about carrying equipment to terran colonies in remote systems.
And I don't just drop the cargo with a flyby either. You land, you unload, you bring news from Earth, and you collect news to bring back.
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Crutch
There's no crutch in the Locust's equipment, for two reasons. First, most of the time no gravity to use a crutch against. Second, the kind of mishaps which can happen in Space make a crutch much less useful than, say, an airtight-seal bag.
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Berth
Not all colonies have a state-of-the-art landing pad. Some just have an uneven gravel pit. I can berth the Locust there just as well. I could berth her on a rock in the asteroid belt. That's not bragging; I'd be a bad pilot if I couldn't.
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Parrot
On the other hand, we often carry a parrot on our shoulder. Well, Terrans call it a parrot, as a nod to pirates of the sea. It's the instant translator. It's vital to communicate with aliens. For instance: do *you* speak color fluently?
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Scuttle
The hull of the Locust features a scuttle every fifteen meters. They are manual airlocks that you can operate from the inside or the outside. They can't be used without me knowing, But on the other hand, I can use them without anyone noticing.
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Sloop
The Locust is too small to have a sloop. So if something needs exploring, I gotta go there in a spacesuit. Goes without saying, it takes a bloody good reason to make me do it, like a rescue operation.
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Wood
When the Locust orbits a planet close enough to its star, the constant shifts between heat and cold cause it to crack like those old sea ships made of wood. That worries the passengers, but I like it.
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Albert ARIBAUD ✎