Milk Run - Part I

Posted on Sat Nov 30th, 2024 @ 7:36am by Commander Saul Whitford

1,126 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Historical Archive
Location: SS Branydwine, Earth to Alpha Centauri trade route
Timeline: 2151

::ON::

SS Brandywine
2151

Collapsing to the deck, Whitford rolled on to this back, placing his feet on the floor, and breathing hard. Wiping the sweat from his face, the bearded Junior Grade move to a set of crunches, ignoring the burn in his core, working through his last set.
His body ached all over.

Finally finishing his workout, he allowed his arms and legs to flop to the deck, taking a moment to gather himself. Getting slowly to his feet, he wiped the sweat away from his face with his fading, ripping Spartans R.F.C. training shirt. It’s too small anyway Whitford thought, made for younger person barely a man.

Stripping off his PT kit, Whitford flung them to the floor of his shared cabin, before stepping into the shower and cleaning himself up. Humming a Rigellian Synth Rock tune to himself as he stepped back out, he looked at his clothes on the floor, and wrinkled his nose. Kapanadze won’t like that, he realised, and set about cleaning up the sweat he’d left on the cabin’s floor.

He made short work of it and was getting to his feet as Kapanadze walked in, the Comms Officer’s duties done for the day. Taking one look at the rag in one hand, and Whitford’s PT gear in the other, he just snorted and shook his head.

‘You have to do that in here always?’ he asked sourly, his Georgian accent thickening in his irritation. Stripping off his duty uniform, Kapanadze was soon in his undertunic. ‘It always stinks!’

‘It would stink worse if it was me and Thandar,’ Whitford smirked as he did the opposite of Kapanadze, pulling on his uniform, and adjusting the laces of his boot just so. ‘Noisier too,’ he concluded with a tap to Kapanadze’s chest.

The Comms Officer just rolled his eyes under his heavy brows, and swung on to his bunk, grabbing a PADD to read his book. ‘Yeah, yeah, Whitford. You and Thandar. You’re all talk, you know.’ He settled an arm behind his head and started reading, pointedly ignoring his cabinmate.

Whitford chuckled good naturedly, ‘just you wait, Kap, I’ll have her purring as nicely as she gets the Brandywine’s engines to.’ Shrugging at his own awkward phrasing, and another of Kapanadze’s eyerolls, he made for the cabin door. ‘Don’t have a wild night, now, Kap,’ he called out affectionately with a backhanded wave.

‘Stuff you, Saul!’ Kapanadze called after him into the corridor, equally as affectionately.

Whitford just smiled and chuckled as the non-com passing in the corridor side-eyed him. Ignoring the screaming in his quads and back, he made for the ladder that would get him between decks. The old Ganges class vessels were spartan, primitive and cheap to produce. They were ten-a-penny for each of those shiny, new NX-class explorers that were coming online.
Relieving the officer at the Tactical station, Whitford assumed his post to the left of the Bridge. A quick scan of his readouts showed everything normal. Keying in his code changed the screen layouts to his preference, including a rundown of sensor returns from their sweeps.

All quiet on the Western Front, he thought to himself, looking over his shoulder as the Second Officer, De Beer, sighed to himself. Although the Brandywine had recently gone through a refit and upgrade, she had still been assigned to a convoy escort mission running between Sol and Alpha Centauri. It was mostly a milk run, long periods of quiet, persistent boredom spiked with sightings of Nausicaans lurking at the edges of their long-range sensor scans.

[* * *]

It was coming to the end of his shift, and it had been as exciting as porridge as usual. A few times the Brandywine had sensor pings from Nausicaan raiders at the extreme edge of their range, but there had been nothing more. The convoy had made its way through warp without incident, and most of the Ganges-class vessel’s Bridge crew had begun to relax.
‘Coming up on exit coordinates,’ the ship’s Helm officer announced to the Bridge at large. Hooking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, the pale woman from Io sounded bored. De Beer, nodded in boredom, ‘acknowledged Ensign. Comms, transmit a signal to the convoy.

‘Time to come out of Warp.’

Stephenson, the helmswoman, nodded and began to drop the ship out of warp. As the field collapsed and the stars returned to normality, Whitford tensed. From training and experience he knew this was the most dangerous time for the convoy.
As the Brandywine took up her position with the convoy, they lined up and began making their way to the colony ahead. Turanga V was one of United Earth’s newest colonies just beyond Alpha Centauri. Brandywine was assigned to protect the convoy which was carrying much needed supplies for the colony’s continued survival.

A prized target for any raider.

Moments passed without incident, and the Brandywine’s convoy passe the colony’s first marker, the outer ring of its early-warning system to protect them from predation by pirates. Whitford began to relax, the tension dissolving from his aching shoulders. No Nausicaans have come in this close to a colony.

‘Status?’ De Beer called out in his thick Afrikaaner accent.

‘Nothing on sensors, just a debris field at the edge of sensor range,’ Whitford confirmed, noting the random path of the debris, ‘it shouldn’t be much of a problem if we make a course correction in two minutes – should just brush past underneath us.’
De Beer nodded, too disinterested to enquire further, ‘so ordered, Helm, follow the recommended course.’

Whitford felt the deck under his feet pitch slightly before the inertial dampers kicked in. On his console he could see the convoy adjust course to match, moving away from the debris field that was drifting across the system. Veering up and to the right of the system’s plane, the convoy moved away from the system’s gas giant and into the orbital path of its moon, Turanga V.

An urgent pinging sounded from the sensors, Whitford looking down, brow furrowing in concern. ‘Proximity Alert!’ he barked, working the console, ‘that’s not debris, De Beer! Reading Nausicaan power-signals!’
‘Those crafty dogs!’ De Beer’s accent thickened as he grew alarmed, ‘polarise the hull, and take us to maximum alert! Get me the Captain up here fast!’ To his credit, the thick-set South African worked quick when there was trouble about. ‘Hail the convoy, eh. Tell them we’re about to hit turbulence!’

[To Be Continued …]

Lieutenant Saul Whitford
Armory Officer
SS Brandywine

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