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« Last post by DrBladeSTEEL on December 18, 2023, 11:14:51 AM »
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When asked about his experience in this evening of the class, Captain Obu Nahuumatedt gave the following account:
We knew the risks. When the 14 captains of the Khemat-re expedition met for the first time, we all knew that we would be pushing the very limits of humanity’s ability to conquer the stars. Nefemeferuaten, captain of the venerable colony ship New Horizons, had gathered us in the grand hall of The Nile’s Arms, one of the more respectable bordellos in Terra’s spaceport, and through the libations of drink and smoke revealed to us the glorious adventure the very throne itself had entrusted us.
We, the twelve captains of the Dua class, the original freighters which had colonized Mars, Luna, and Ganymede alike, were told of what we knew to be the Dua’s likely last ride of glory: the first delivery of colonists and infrastructure to Bernards II, the Pharoah’s first possession beyond Sol. The Duas were aged vessels, Macau having been laid down only ten years after the beginning of the TN era. Even my ship, the Neptuno, was 14 solar years of age and as we met the Mo class was drawing ever nearer to completion and obsolescence with it.
With tanks filled to the brim, constituting just barely enough fuel to make the round trip, we departed, sailing past Jupiter in her resplendent glory as we made for the recently stabilized jump point to Bernard’s Star. We were not the first vessel to travel through her gates, but I would be remiss to say we felt no fear upon breaching that tear through the very fabric of reality itself. One hundred and nine days to BS-II all told, the vast majority of it spent cruising through the blackness of deep space as we grew ever closer to the dim glow of the red dwarf. Soon the blue-white marble was filling our viewpoints, and the long process of unloading 38kt of infrastructure, food, supplies, and other materials onto the planets surface began.
Shuttles ran at all hours, the frenzy of activity aided by robotic lifters and material handlers as twelve freighters discharged an entire city onto the planetary surface in only two days. A quarter-million colonists, extensively trained for the roles that would be critical in the establishment of out first extrasolar world, cheered and waved as they helped unload, the masses in their exosuits working tirelessly to connect and construct the habitats and life support systems that would sustain them until enough oxygen had been added to the atmosphere for unaided breathing. The world was eerie, cast in sanguine glow from the star and almost barren, complete lack of a hydrosphere and detectable free carbon having precluded life, despite the almost ideal atmosphere and gravity.
When we departed, it was bittersweet. Even after only two days, we had grown somewhat attached to the brave new world, and as we slipped back into the void there was a foreboding realization that many of us might never see that mauve sky again. However, we now had another challenge ahead of us, the fuel margin for our return as slim as it was. At less than 20% after passing Jupiter’s orbit, fleet command had already prepared the newly launched fast fleet tankers from the first battlefleet to come fill us up if we needed. We were hell-bent though, on making it ourselves, and as the last few Hekats sloshed in the tanks, we pulled into out slipways, triumphant, at the last ride of the Duas.