Tianna Fenn pulled a high-G turn so fierce she nearly vomited into her respirator. Weapons fire burned the sky around her, but her bird was holding. It had been holding since the ambush, despite being a literal museum piece. Unarmed, all she could do was run and wait for the capacitors to charge - once the Swift’s plasma capacitors came back online, she’d at least be able to sting her pursuers.
80% complete, and she was fast running out of wingmen. The other pilots were all civilians, men and women who just wanted a chance to fly a legend. Eight Swifts of the Armada, destined for a dust bowl world where they’d sit in limbo for eternity. Fenn had scored the duty as a going away present, flying a ship to mothball before being mothballed herself.
90% complete. Her pursuers were Jericho Stilettos bearing the heraldry of the Cybers. They were getting bold these days. Laser beams refracted through her shields and burned the registration number off her starboard wing. Fenn had never been religious, but she was more than happy to start worshiping any deity who was willing to lend a hand.
The console chirruped. Plasma capacitor charged. Why they’d never disarmed them she had no idea, and wasn’t going to ask. She pulled an Ivan and came head on with the Cybers, focusing the plasma through the forward charge plates. It was an old trick, as old as the Federation; you overloaded the plates and the plasma would flare out like a giant sword. It was, in the eyes of many, the only design flaw the Swift had - and it was a flaw that had been weaponised and deliberately installed in almost every ship thereafter.
The Cyber fell away to aft in two scorched pieces. Just one left, and she had barely enough charge for a plasma web. She also had next to no shield energy, and her combat flying had burned through the main fuel tank. At best, she had twenty seconds of combat flight left.
She turned again, bringing the Cyber to starboard. He was coming right at her with lasers and rockets, but he was no fighter ace. She could dance with pilots like him, even in an ancient ship like this one. The plasma web discharged, making the Stiletto’s shields flare white hot. Would it be enough? It had to be! This was her one and only chance!
She counted under her breath, then turned hard and fired the afterburners. The Stiletto’s shields failed, and like most pilots the Cyber tried to activate the MSG to protect himself while the capacitors vented excess heat and restored them. There was a window of a quarter second where his sub-par reaction time left the ship vulnerable, and into that window flew Fenn and her Swift. Her nose cone smashed open the canopy and took half the pilot with her. Two confirmed kills, and all in an unarmed ship from the birth of the Federation. Not bad for a pilot on her final flight.
The other Cybers had gone by then. A routine patrol found the remains of the fight and brought them home. Safely on the ground at her destination, Fenn leaned against the laser-burned hull and gave thanks to Lt. Com. D. Boras - “Sai”, and his Mk IV Swift.
She visited it every day after that. Her twilight years were to be spend on Canothas, a waterless rock where the old ships of the Federation came to die. She walked the lines of Swifts; Mks I to VIII arranged in ascending order, pausing every time to admire “Sai”; then the A Class, the C Class, the E and M and all the R-series, of which there were so many models, but few individual ships. There were others beyond them, of course, were the Kites and the other ships that were just Swifts by another name, and beyond those the ships that replaced the Swift. In another direction were fighters, frigates, corvettes, transporters, factory ships; if the Armada had ever built it, bought it or stolen it, there was one sat out in the sand somewhere. No water to rust them, no wind to blow grit over them, these birds would sit and roost forever.
It was enough to drive a woman to drink.
She’d kind of looked forward to the posting, back when she had no idea how damn boring it would be. Nobody came, nothing happened, and she only had Minders for company - androgynous clones with the lifespan of a house cat and far less personality. She’d tried screwing one out of boredom, only to find their manufacturers had left out a few important parts. Then the drink ran out, and the supply ships were four months apart. What, she wondered, had she done to deserve this?
And just when things got so bad she felt ready to lodge a complaint with Command, the war broke out. The Network was full of talk about Precursors, of ancient technologies found out in Sector 1337. Every mercenary, every PMC, every pirate turned legit, every pirate still rogue; everyone with a ship to fight with and the means to get it out to the frontier was racing off on the biggest gold rush since, well, ever. And she wasn’t part of it.
Well, to hell with that! she thought to herself. The next morning she got a cold shower before dawn, washed her hair for the first time in a week, put on her flight suit and marched down to the maintenance shop. It had been silent since she got there - old ships didn’t need maintaining. She found the lead Minder, whom someone named Eun as a weak-xxxx joke, and ordered him to go and fetch Sai from storage.
The Minders did as they were told. It was written into their genetic code to obey orders, and she was a Colonel after all, not to mention station commander; if she wanted to work on a ship, they weren’t going to argue. She scoured the ship end to end, taking inventory, noting what worked and what didn’t. She’d not really flown the Swift outside of training, but every Armada Inty-Jock learned to handle stick in one. They were simple, rugged ships that did what you told them and did it well. Yeah, they were under-gunned, sure they weren’t ‘fast’ by modern standards, and even the rose-tinted visor couldn’t hide the energy problems, but a well-maintained Swift could still hold its own in a fight against most freelancers. She’d proved as much not long ago.
She started with the hull. She’d need more space for what she had in mind, and thankfully there were plenty of C-series to donate their extra body parts. The engines came from a Winter Fox, since they were the most fuel-efficient in the inventory. The plasma web had to go - Sai would be going a long way unsupported, so she needed to dedicate every last drop of power to travel. Thankfully, the Minders were able to locate a few stolen Dvergr-Knights and strip them of their jump systems. Fenn had them take some of the hull plating too; say what you liked about the “hammer and chisel” design ethos of the Empire, but they knew how to build ships that could survive an impact.
It took a fortnight with all the clone-labourers pitching in. They even took the spare weapons and munitions intended for the station’s Hawks - it wasn’t like they were ever going to see combat.
Finally, there she was. Resplendent in her Armada heraldry, Sai sat on the packed-down sand, shining like a new born star. She’d even installed a ram in honour of the last kill they’d made together. Besides, you never knew when you might have to improvise again.
“Will you be gone long ma’am?” Eun asked as she climbed into the cockpit and donned her helmet.
“No,” she lied, bringing the systems back online. “Just want to take the old girl up for a quick test flight. For old time’s sake.”
“I’ll note it in the log,” Eun said. “When should we expect your return?”
“Tell you what, Eun, I’ll do all the log work when I’m done. I know it’s not protocol, but I’d enjoy the paperwork. Just leave it all for me, understand?”
“Yes ma’am,” it replied.
Sai broke orbit at 11:36 standard. She turned her nose toward the shipping lanes and spooled up the Microwarp. By the time anyone got word, she’d be half way to the frontier. She’d done her duty as an officer of the Armada; it was about time for an adventure.
Thank you JasonQuinn!