Echoes of the Nexus: Encounter at Intybus (Part 2)

Echoes of the Nexus: Encounter at Intybus (Part Two)

"And when I wake up in the morning, To feel the day break on my face, There's a
blood that's flowing through the feeling, With a knife to open up the sky
space..."

The future of aviation turned out different then any one expected, carrier operations changed very little despite the fact that both fighters and small craft were being recovered from space. On remote cameras two Crewmen observed an inbound fighter, the last
of the queue flying a level and straight course for a landing in recovery bay five. At first the fighter was only visible through sensors and finally it took form emerging from the depths of space as a white dot. The dot rapidly grew taking shape rapidly becoming an S-91 'Linebacker'. As the aerospace fighter slowed its pilot utilized a series of micro thrusters to orient the craft for a landing well within speed tolerances. Moments later the sleek aircraft leveled with the deck and landed with a slight bounce its landing gear venting gasses as they took the fighter's weight. The fighter skimmed a few dozen meters
before the tail hook caught the landing bay's arrestor line and the fighter came to a gentle stop.

Some things had clearly not changed, though unlike with conventional aircraft the fighter lacked wheeled landing gear instead relying on pressurized landing struts. Coupled with the low-gravity of the bay the landing was comparable to a nautical carrier in procedure, but the bucking of the deck on an open sea was not an issue. The Bay doors that exposed
the recovery bay to space outside slid shut and the bay began pressurizing. Two crewmen
watched the landing on monitors and checked the pressurization of the bay to determine when the pilots could exit their craft safely. Behind the pair a small stereo played an old 1990's song.

"Some things will never change; You stand there looking backwards half unconscious
from the pain"

The noise of being near the recovery bay was enough to cause the two flight engineers to have to yell over the constant sound of fighters and the hum of rapid pressurization.

'Wow you know I don't think I'll get used to that.'
'What? the landings?'
'Yeah the bouncing.'
'Nah that's a career aerospace pilot there… better then that other one to the left!'

The elder of the two pointed at a crashed fighter off to the side of the bay. The fighter lay with a crushed wing and crumpled forward landing strut. Obviously salvageable but out of action, and it wasn't alone several other fighters had hit walls on the way in or otherwise had taken damage from landings. In fact the walls of the bay had numerous scuff and collision marks. In a bit of irony the Flight crews had taken to nicknaming carrier operations aboard the Umbra as 'Natural Selection' either you were good enough to handle the operations as a pilot or at worst you ended up in a box.

'Why so many? They any good?!'
'They're carrier jocks… don't know how to land a damn thing on a carrier that ain't sitting in an ocean.'
'You're shitting me chief!'
'Nah… for those carriers you gotta come in fast and hard and let the cables do the work…here you control the landing the cable just keeps you from eating a bulkhead!'

On the screen the sole fighter in the bay that wasn't otherwise damaged was already being moved by lift to the launch deck. As it passed another set of cameras the recovery crew got a final look at the craft. The S-91 was a logical extension of aircraft technology; it possessed swept wings of an angular delta form that provided an excellent surface area for lift when used in an atmosphere. The large wing area held a double purpose as the engines were embedded within as was some portion of the onboard fuel capacity. Twin tails extended over the rear of the craft in an outward lean that made the craft outwardly resemble a F-14 at a glance. The cockpit was of a reinforced bubble-canopy type composed of a special type of non-ferrous metal impregnated glass composite that took on a gold or silvery hue at certain angles. The effect of this glass often made the cockpits look uninhabited. Further up was the nose of the craft, a typical cone shaped design which housed the fighter's four ballistic weapons while the two energy weapons were housed in the wing-roots.

The two flight engineers had little time to admire the fighter as it was moved to another bay and recovery technicians had moved the last crashed aircraft out of the recovery bay on one of a number of flatbeds. It was time to recover more of the ship's aircraft a handful of which had been flying on delay since several bays had far worse crashes today. Out of the darkness another fighter emerged taxing in carefully…a competent fighter pilot.

'Hey chief...there aint one of those in the books.'
'Nah it's new. Just entered service they're gonna land one at a time…to expensive to risk a crash too heavy to land in groups.'
'What do they call these ones?'
'It's a S-4UF Stuka…The pilots call 'em Furies though.'