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Abolisher · 01-12-2018, 04:24 PM,

Lady of the Lanes; The Enterprise of a Veteran Tradeship

Was there such thing as elegance in a cargo ship such as her?

Made veteran by long service
Amid the great chasm
Her appearance lends itself not to hubris
Rather to maturity

And in that, there was a certain kind of beauty.

Prologue

The Countess of Mercia slowly - yet purposefully - glided from the mooring point aside Planet New London, her cargo pods having been filled to capacity, her supplies having been replenished, and with passenger transfers having been completed.

Captain Yannis Rosalind-Schulze directed her course from the bridge, aiding the helmsman in steering her in quite the considered fashion.

"Clearing the planet now, Captain..."

"Excellent. Steady as she goes."

Despite the age of the vessel, the Mercian was as fast as ever.
Mercia Shipyards had built her - and their other designs - with longevity and reliability in mind; unfortunately to the point where their vessels long outlived their mother company, which had ironically not lasted long at all due to this particular design consideration requiring great amounts of time to put to the test. Seeing the Mercian vessels as they were today, perhaps this product strategy would have yielded more favourable results.
"A real shame," her crew and her observers tended to comment.

But this simply made this vessel more special. Sentimental value had begun to outweigh other value quite some time ago.

"How's our cargo faring, Cillian?"

"Non-organic cargo fares well, C'p'n, bu' naturally the 'fields may 'ave something te say abo't that..."

"Still referring to our passengers as another type of cargo then," Captain Yannis observed, silently.
His chief engineer was correct though, in that the asteroid fields they'd be traversing today may prove an issue. Her cargo shielding was significantly weaker than that of the crewed portion of the vessel, which at times had proven... problematic.

Nevertheless, the Captain remained outwardly confident as the vessel entered the Southampton Debris Field.

Progress through the field was slow. Care was taken to manoeuvre through the debris without incident, yet as the vessel fought its way deeper, the resistance only grew thicker as the scrap felt more concentrated.

"Shouldn't we fire at the debris or something? There's plenty of scrap getting in the way, not to mention the stray junk's getting harder to avoid..."

"A fair idea, but unfortunately not possible for us. We could do more harm than good by attempting to break up this scrap. Besides, our old Bolters are probably not even up for that task.
We press on."

Indeed, the old turrets attached to the Countess weren't of much use any more. They traversed slowly, had impeding firing arcs, and were long-obsolete in their firepower compared to contemporary mounts.

Even if the gunner had been on alert then, it is unlikely that he would have been able to prevent that old engine nacelle from suddenly colliding with the rear of the vessel.

"Cargo pod A-4 has been hit C'p'n! She looks a li'l shaky 'n her connector!"

Perhaps there'd be more shock amongst the crew if any tremor at all had been felt, but the impact had been softened by the connection point at the base of A-4 and of the cargo boom to the rear of the crewed portion of the vessel.
As it were, the magnitude of the situation was limited to the potential loss of the one cargo pod - non critical to the ship - but certainly a large dent in the company's struggling finances.

"Blasted cargo shielding...
Mr Kenneth and I will have to go and additionally secure A-4.

Helm, continue course to our destination. We haven't time to waste here..."

Business had been growing tighter recently, and the Captain was anxious to keep hold of his precious cargo (yet also complete the contract on time) to the point where he'd personally have no qualms in doing such work; which may be uncommon to see amongst the Captains of larger corporate shipping vessels.

He and Mr Kenneth made the journey towards the rear of the vessel, picking up various welding equipment and magnetic cabling along the way. It'd be quite the messy fix at best, but that was all they could hope to achieve on a vessel such as this; short of a visit to a dockyard.

Meeting beside the outer blast door to the aftward cargo boom, the two seasoned space-farers exchanged sighs and determined grins; cabling and tools slung about themselves. Climbing into suits, they wasted no time in exiting the crewed portion of the vessel, and making their way along the inside of the boom.

"Quite the mess we've got here eh Captain?" Mr Kenneth mused, observing the damage done to the connector as they reached A-4.

"Indeed..."

The metal surrounding the connector had been wrenched and distorted by the pressure, whilst the connection ring itself had been bent to the point of the pod no longer being sealed off from the ship it was connected to. It was unlikely that the connector could be used anymore via the usual remote means - rather the pod would need to be forced off when they reached their destination.

Not that that would come to matter.
In a stroke of ironic misfortune, the vessel would be struck again on the cargo section, by nothing other than the old remains of a scrap cargo pod.
Perhaps the two still contemplating the repair task would have been able to contemplate their ironic impending demise, if they had not been so quickly killed as the debris crashed into the boom and knocked the majority of the length - including A-4 and beyond - clean off the rest of the vessel, with the two men being dead before they knew what had happened.

The bridge crew could only go pale with shock, as the realisation of the loss reached them with the status of most of their cargo suddenly displaying as 'critical'.

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