A Cheery Note

"You are never too old to storm a bouncy castle" reads the aspirational message on logging on to the ship's network. Not for the first time I find myself grimacing at the attempt to lighten the mood and turn my attention to the message queue to try and work out what's gone sufficiently wrong in my absence to warrant someone trying to cheer me up. I suppose I could have got up and yelled at someone, but I was halfway through the connection process, with cables inserted and shock-gel sloshing into the pod at chest height and rising. Damned if I was going to get out of the pod now.

Trusting that a slightly less opaque message would have been left if there was a performance problem with the ship I closed my eyes and let my senses expand into my surrogate body. It was a feeling I would never tire of, losing the sense of constraint within the fleshy organics and slipping on a powerful body capable of conquering the void. If I had to describe it in terms of my flesh, it was like getting onto a powerful motorcycle, lying forward on it and melding with it in that position.

My engines, even on standby, were thrumming with a restrained power. The dull throb resonated through the bulkheads and underpinned every conversation by the crew. The massive hydrogen ram-scoops at the front of my arms(hull) tingled with the usual batch of expectant ozone in the hangar bay. In full flight I would feel the intakes grabbing and forcing elemental particles through the length of me and out as exhaust in a torrent. Quiescent like this, it felt like a covering of static electricity enveloping and running through me. It wasn't painful in any sense, but rather I found it lent an air of expectancy and potential. It was like the tensing of muscles before the sprint

Unfamiliar modules had replaced all but one of the usual artillery pieces and I took a moment to examine them - an energy disruption device designed to play havoc with opponents' stored battery power had been fitted. It felt like a small black hole in my belly, while and a dual set of energy drains to pull that energy into my own reserves felt like ravenous mouths.
The feeling behind the aspirational message suddenly made sense.

With the dual warp scramblers and enhanced afterburner systems this ship is designed - I am designed - to capture and confound the enemy. We will pull at their energy and leech their engines, moving faster than they can track their turrets round, while allies pound them at range. It will certainly be a bumpy ride.

Pulsing messages flicker behind my eyelids, most routine, some banter. Its a crew of volunteers for this mission and their spirits are high. I sound the general launch alarm, wait a moment and hear the comms officers begin the pre-flight chatter with traffic control while my support gantries withdraw. Drones clear the way of potential debris and light my path, acting as traffic tugs within the station's gravitational field.

We launched moments later into the clear void, the warmth of solar particles caressing my hull. A series of light thuds along my flanks confirm the micro-drones' return home and the launch of the camera drones. Almost lazily, feeling like I'm stretching after being cooped up for too long, I pirouette away from the hangar entrance to join the other ships. They are hanging in loose formation a few tens of kilometres away.

Even from a distance, I have to admire the collected lethality of looming battleships and cruisers that dwarf me. There are a few of us volunteering for this duty who flit between them like mosquitos. Our frigates are fast, nimble by comparison with these behemoths. Some have settled into the general formation, a couple orbit the group at speed, testing and boasting their speed and maneuverability. Barrelling into proximity from a nearby moon come a pair of battered destroyers, fitted as salvage tugs, and a sleek logistics cruiser bristling with antennae.

A web of communications traffic binds us, the pilots - fellow capsuleers all - to each other, the crews within and between ships. If I switch to the custom filters in my camera drones I see it as a hazy flickering cloud - a sea of information in which we swim. I pull back to a more mundane view to focus on the moment in hand, letting the glory reflect in my memory for now.
The operation begins on a word to the commander from covert ships - a terse message flashes up onscreen, matched by an audio command to align to the designated system gate, and moments later as acknowledgements scroll down my vision, the web of comms tightens to link our warp systems, pulling all the ships within moments of each other on the same directed course. We are seconds from contact.