Fic: Altered Trajectory, cont.
Oct. 9th, 2009 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalAnd Mac is back. I love the little guy. And I'm probably the only one.
It actually took Mac a couple of days to drop in on Rufus. Given the size of the Claw this was likely due to a remarkably well developed sense of self-preservation. Rufus wasn’t exactly sure what he would have done if the irritating little security officer had shown up earlier, but it likely would have involved craniums and blunt objects. As it was, he’d had two days to calm down and consider the situation. Crying and cursing the Holy Den Mother had never worked before and he was going to be damned to the Cold and Dark before he started wallowing in self-pity again. If he could get his brain to work like a Vulpine’s, then he’d have to train it to work like someone else’s. Which meant he’d have to first build the equipment to train himself.
When Mac did catch up with him, Rufus was in the small cargo hold he’d commandeered, finishing the final welds on the curious frame he’d been constructing from spare support ribs he’d acquired from the ship’s emergency repair stores. It consisted of three nested circles, ranging from nearly three meters to a meter and a half in diameter, the largest attached to a base firmly welded to the deck, and the center circle containing a roughly built seat with five point safety straps and a crude control panel in front.
“You’ve been busy, Milord,” Mac said cheerily, leaning against the doorframe. Rufus shut off his plasma welder and pulled up his safety goggles to look back at the security officer. The little ass never seemed to stop smiling, as if he was the only one who’d heard a remarkably funny joke. “What’s this rig for, and why did you make the poor quartermaster shift all that cargo so you could have this room to yourself?”
“It’s a six degrees of freedom chair. The humans used something like it back when they were exploring their solar system, before the Dominion showed up,” he explained. Rufus gave the chair a shove and watched as it spun wildly sidewise, backwards and upside down until it ran out of momentum. “It was designed to induce spatial disorientation in a subject to see if they could handle spaceflight.”
Mac stepped inside the hold, looking it over with evident interest. “Well, I suppose they’d have to have something like that, since they aren’t lucky enough to have a Vulpine’s sense of orientation. What are you going to use it for?”
Rufus took a deep breath and reminded himself that the little security officer’s job was to get a rise out of people. “Are you actually going to pretend you hadn’t heard about my little incident earlier?”
“Welllll it would be horribly rude to mention it,” Mac drawled, giving the rings a spin. “Though it does give me understandable concerns about the mission.”
“Our mission is to contact the Dominion and the Galapagos, a diplomatic duty,” Rufus said. “We’re playing mercenary fighter pilots as a cover for that. If we actually find ourselves in combat it’s going to mean thing have gone very pear shaped. And at any rate I’m going to be Lt. Swiftfoot’s WSO, so my own piloting abilities, or disabilities as the case may be, are not a factor anymore.”
“And yet you went to all this trouble to put this device together anyway.”
He nodded sharply. “I have a problem. This is a potential solution, or at least part of a solution. At the very least it’s better than sitting on my ass until we reach the next port of call.”
“I see.” Mac walked around the chair, giving it another idle spin. “You’re very curious, Milord, you know that don’t you?”
Rufus grabbed the center ring with his artificial arm, killing the spin. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t act like a noble. I read your service record. You enlisted in the navy as an ordinary spacehand and worked your way up as a tech, instead of just waltzing in and asking for your own fighter command.”
“I probably could have, yes, but what would have been the point? I wanted to be judged on my own merits, not just because I had the Brushtail name and a title to go with it.”
“Why?”
Rufus gave him a long stare. “That's my business, and none of yours. Do you have anything else you'd like to say to me?”
Mac gave him his irritating smile and said, “Not at this time, milord, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Be seeing you.”
TBC
It actually took Mac a couple of days to drop in on Rufus. Given the size of the Claw this was likely due to a remarkably well developed sense of self-preservation. Rufus wasn’t exactly sure what he would have done if the irritating little security officer had shown up earlier, but it likely would have involved craniums and blunt objects. As it was, he’d had two days to calm down and consider the situation. Crying and cursing the Holy Den Mother had never worked before and he was going to be damned to the Cold and Dark before he started wallowing in self-pity again. If he could get his brain to work like a Vulpine’s, then he’d have to train it to work like someone else’s. Which meant he’d have to first build the equipment to train himself.
When Mac did catch up with him, Rufus was in the small cargo hold he’d commandeered, finishing the final welds on the curious frame he’d been constructing from spare support ribs he’d acquired from the ship’s emergency repair stores. It consisted of three nested circles, ranging from nearly three meters to a meter and a half in diameter, the largest attached to a base firmly welded to the deck, and the center circle containing a roughly built seat with five point safety straps and a crude control panel in front.
“You’ve been busy, Milord,” Mac said cheerily, leaning against the doorframe. Rufus shut off his plasma welder and pulled up his safety goggles to look back at the security officer. The little ass never seemed to stop smiling, as if he was the only one who’d heard a remarkably funny joke. “What’s this rig for, and why did you make the poor quartermaster shift all that cargo so you could have this room to yourself?”
“It’s a six degrees of freedom chair. The humans used something like it back when they were exploring their solar system, before the Dominion showed up,” he explained. Rufus gave the chair a shove and watched as it spun wildly sidewise, backwards and upside down until it ran out of momentum. “It was designed to induce spatial disorientation in a subject to see if they could handle spaceflight.”
Mac stepped inside the hold, looking it over with evident interest. “Well, I suppose they’d have to have something like that, since they aren’t lucky enough to have a Vulpine’s sense of orientation. What are you going to use it for?”
Rufus took a deep breath and reminded himself that the little security officer’s job was to get a rise out of people. “Are you actually going to pretend you hadn’t heard about my little incident earlier?”
“Welllll it would be horribly rude to mention it,” Mac drawled, giving the rings a spin. “Though it does give me understandable concerns about the mission.”
“Our mission is to contact the Dominion and the Galapagos, a diplomatic duty,” Rufus said. “We’re playing mercenary fighter pilots as a cover for that. If we actually find ourselves in combat it’s going to mean thing have gone very pear shaped. And at any rate I’m going to be Lt. Swiftfoot’s WSO, so my own piloting abilities, or disabilities as the case may be, are not a factor anymore.”
“And yet you went to all this trouble to put this device together anyway.”
He nodded sharply. “I have a problem. This is a potential solution, or at least part of a solution. At the very least it’s better than sitting on my ass until we reach the next port of call.”
“I see.” Mac walked around the chair, giving it another idle spin. “You’re very curious, Milord, you know that don’t you?”
Rufus grabbed the center ring with his artificial arm, killing the spin. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t act like a noble. I read your service record. You enlisted in the navy as an ordinary spacehand and worked your way up as a tech, instead of just waltzing in and asking for your own fighter command.”
“I probably could have, yes, but what would have been the point? I wanted to be judged on my own merits, not just because I had the Brushtail name and a title to go with it.”
“Why?”
Rufus gave him a long stare. “That's my business, and none of yours. Do you have anything else you'd like to say to me?”
Mac gave him his irritating smile and said, “Not at this time, milord, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Be seeing you.”
TBC
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-10-10 11:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 08:38 pm (UTC)=P
...just curious...
mjkj
no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 08:49 am (UTC)