The sound of hissing welders, the smell of oil and sweat in the air in a large hall on the Junker base in Liberty. Rochester. A young girl, smudged with oil and other dirt, was kneeling infront of a machine, which looked like a space ship engine. Although, looking rather unfinished, the young woman was smiling behind the visor she was carrying.
After several hours of hard work, the seemingly tough girl did the finishing touch and threw away her visor, grinning broadly. "Now the oh so heavy guys can see where they will remain..."
She gave a helping dock worker a sign on which he lifted the engine with a crane, into a Scimitar nearby. After some fixes were done, the ship was all ready for a test run. However, it wasn't supposed to be one. The young woman then walked away from the Scimitar, disappearing in a room not far away. After so much hard work, she would need a shower and a 'checkup' of herself before everything would get rolling.
After she took her shower and was all styled up, she looked into a mirror, at herself.
"You will win this! No problem at all. Those guys haven't seen a ship from the inside, most probably." She told herself, starting to grin. Walking out of the bathroom, she walked towards the Scimitar again in her flight suit, jumping into the cockpit. The last checks done, she closed the cockpit, staring at the yet closed hangar doors. Bringing the Scimitar in position, she looked around her ship. Several other Light Fighters to the next of her, infront and behind, all firing their engines already. "This can't get better! I will show them how to do this!" The hangar bay was empty already. Nothing except the small ships were there anymore.
A loud sound echoes through the hall and the hangar doors open quickly. In one go, everyone headed for maximum speed, bursting out of the station's hangar bay into open space.
After another hard day of welding hull panels together, extracting valuable parts out of rust old ships, repairs, oil changes and sweating, there was finally time for herself. She had finally the opportunity to throw off her smudged work suit in the next bathroom to take a hot shower. Except for spending time in a bar and getting drunk, there was nothing better than that. And she did so.
After 15 minutes of enjoying the hot water flowing down her body, washing all the dirt off, that got in touch with her skin, the girl dressed up herself for the usual bar visit on Rochester. As she looked into the mirror again, the girl let a hand run over a rather large scar on her neck. It always reminded her to be careful with anyone she would fly with. She flashed a grin, beginning to style up the rest of herself. "Faster than everyone else! Break the speed limit. Over and over again. Until you saw everything. Then do it again!"
The door of the bathroom opened up and the young woman walked towards the entrance of the lounge of Rochester, like she prefered it to call. Nightlife had begun. And that was what she liked more than just a hot shower. She walked over to the corner and ordered a bottle of liquor, looking around if she could share it with some handsome man...
It was evening on Rochester, after Manhattan time. It had been some time since someone around, working in the docks, had any sleep longer than thirty minutes. The air became hard to breath the longer the work was done. That also included the racer girl, who still seemed to be the fittest among the others. At least it seemed so.
The Junkers brought a lot of scrap the latest days. More than usual. The young mechanic already used her third work suit for doing the job in scrapping the most of the ships or that, what was left, harvesting the valuable parts. She was now already awake for longer than 48 hours and barely could held up herself to continue working. But somehow it was still fun. At least she was always seeing new ships or other technologies, she always kept telling herself, all the time she had been working on Rochester.
Even if the power was still there, the sleep caught her in the end. Her movements became wavering until she dropped on the ground to lean against the wall. When the overseer arrived and saw her state, he couldn't do more than shrugging and calling her off, allowing her to sleep. "Alright, Christy. Get out to your quarter already. Nobody can work like that." That was right before the newest find of the Junkers just have been brought into the main hall.
She stood up carefully and could clearly recognize, even with a blurred view, that that ship was completely new to her. She had never seen a model like that before. She rubbed her eyes and went closer. Most of the hull was heavily damaged, but intact. "Hey, baby...you're new here?" She spoke to the ship, half-grinning as she ran her fingers over the hull of the ship. "The pilot is still in the cockpit..." A dockworker mentioned, which led the others around to forcefully open the cockpit to get the motionless body out. The young mechanic looked at the seemingly dead man and kneeled down to feel his pulse. She simply shook her head and sighed as the responsible people moved away the body.
Against the instructions of her body and the overseer, she investigated the ship, the ship computer and what not, finding it awesome from the first second she saw it. "Onuris-class..." She whispered to herself as she made it to restore at least the computer core of the ship, for basic information. She was in love with a machine for the first time in her life. And it didn't took her long to start making plans about the repair of that vessel...
Liberty was an awesome place to live nowaydays. Almost never quiet in those parts of space, something new seemed to build up in the underground, yet invisible to anyone. The so called races, that occured from time to time became higher in their amount and frequency. From runs just through system by using tradelanes until even penetrating highly secured systems for quick cash and adrenaline, it didn't took much time for others to realize something was obviously going on.
Led by a young girl, who called herself Light Runner for claiming to be the fastest pilot in Sirius, those races were held at times, when even the house military or other lawful parties were present. As in terms of pushing the body so much with adrenaline as possible, several people seemed to be interested in those runs. However, it was quite a small thing yet.
Back on Rochester, the young woman decided to put down her 'career' as mechanic, realizing she had a nice income from the races themselves, just by winning them. It was way more lucrative for the ex-mechanic to fly those races instead of working in the docks of that scrapyard. Especially with the new, efficient ship she was flying, she gathered quite a high amount of money in no time, that she used for organizing more races all around Sirius.
Although, something, that had never changed was the place of her home. That place in New York, where she could go back all the time she wanted to. After all, everyone of the dockworkers knew her there. The girl sat in the cockpit of her Onuris, her feet on the console, holding a datapad in her hands. "What a day. Can't wait to see tomorrow. Mmmh...maybe I will even make a sirius-wide transmission some day. To find out who'd have the guts to fly those exciting races." She grinned to herself as her thoughts and ideas kept flowing, feeling more 'alive' than before, when she was still working around the place she was currently resting at. "Yep. That has to be done!"
One could think space was hot after the weapons on the weapon platforms of Melbourne were cooling down. Not a few minutes before, several vessels of the Light Fighter class had been spotted, heading into Zone 21. One of them was an Onuris, leading the top. Sitting in the small cockpit of the Order ship, a half-grinning girl was sending the access codes she got from some 'friends' to the gate, unlocking it. At the other end there was nothing but a big shipyard to see as well as the turquoise color of the cloud. In a rush, six Light Fighters emerged from the jump-tunnel, directly setting a new course further into the cloud.
"Y'know? I don't care if someone is shooting at me or so. Can't say I care much for the House laws either...if someone can have fun somehow...hell, why restricting yourself...space is so huuuuge. It doesn't really matter where I am flying...since space cannot be owned by anyone. So why caring?" A girl around the age of eighteen was saying to a bunch of people walking with her, who seemed to be her friends. They were walking through a hallway, space visible through the windows every few meters. The girl walked over to one of the windows, looking into space. A smile appeared on her face as she was about to continue with her friends. A last glance at the window, she saw herself, like in a mirror.
Not looking as young as 18 anylonger, she stepped away from the image of her in that mirror. A door opened and the person was stepping through, landing in a big hall, with dozens of ships in it. There was one ship, that looked way different from the others, that caught her attention. She looked into the cockpit, seeing the pilot sleeping. Shortly after, the pilot opened her eyes, looking into the direction of the girl. But nobody was there anymore. The pilot shook her head, turning on her side, knowing it wasn't the first time she woke up like that. Always directly focusing at one spot in the hall, directly after she awoke, she failed to make herself a picture of what was happening, not quite understanding. "Stupid dreams...leave me alone...shush..." That said, she closed her eyes again...
It was for the sake of more speed on space ships, which made her travel into Gallia. That place of totally different technology in terms of ship systems, engines and what not made the girl's heart beating faster. The most interesting thing she was looking forward to investigate further, the fuel gallic ships use, was hard to get hands on, since the language problem didn't change. Only a few of those gallics could speak understandable english, and if they could, then mostly only the basics.
Although, never giving up on a plan, that was building up in her head, she continued her search through the foreign lands and finally ended up on a planet of the Council. Planet Marne in Champagne. Before she could get there, the young woman was able to get some samples of the wide offer of fuel they had in Gallia. Oil, Liquified Petroleum Gas and Promethene.
By renting a workshop on the, from the war torn planet, somewhere on a northern continent, she started experimenting with those samples, basically to find a way to bring space ships to a speed beyond the 400 m/s limit. Though, not being professionally taught in how engine systems work perfectly, the young woman drove her plans beyond on how far she would actually go for it and decided to get in contact with a gallic company soon. People, who were way more professional than she was.
However, the young woman didn't fail at having fun in all this, additionally inviting a 'friend' to her working place, who was supporting her cause mentally. At least she was sure of that. As if all that business wasn't enough already, the girl had to organize the next race. Since the previous one ended rather lame with not too many participants, she thought. "This time it'll be better!" Was what the young woman kept telling herself and therefore went for it.
By starting over with several plans, still made in Gallia, the enthusiastic pilot of the 'Light Runner' kept pushing forwards with her ideas. Her mind as a whole, there wasn't much, that could keep the girl's focus off the designing of new ship models.
It was like some kind of the part of her dream could become true a lot faster. All she needed was the mental support of her 'friends', as well as the one from her head.
Seriously thinking about a future of those, yet, unfinished plans, it was something nothing in the girl's head was able to predict.
The galaxy would continue to turn. Whatever you would try to do about it, whatever you try to change those turns into a direction, justified enough for your own wishes. But when it came to the truth, the bitter experience, created by the strong bounds, which were holding it in it's usual rhythm, were resistant enough to back off even the strongest footsteps forwards.
The young girl's dream kept staying, but for how long? It was like everything she worked or even fought for ended up not meaning much for her, lately. At least, everything was resting to strengthen up the mind. No dreams were there anymore, driven away by a lone, yet devastating element. Everything was asleep, just the mind fighting not to freak out...
It was as if a dream was going towards its end. The moments before you would wake up and then be relieved, it was only a dream. The young woman's kept beating with the rhythm of her heart. On New London it was wondering though what should be done next. After all, the dream inside the dream almost disappeared entirely from the visions the girl had.
It was like the purpose of those ideas and the feeling she could actually help people with it, too, wasn't there anymore. Although, she could still feel something burn inside her. A small flame for something else. It wasn't all over yet, she thought.But everything would go different from now on.
The only wish that had been left was to forget or, at least, to be able to live with her experience. However, she didn't see anything around her, except for the night with a few scary figures. One of those figures was the one who brought all the darkness to the usual all bright mind of the young woman. Like fog that was blocking all the sun rays and light from reaching the girl's mind, the one was still chasing her, not giving up on clouding her mind.
Although, there was still that one sun ray that was still shining through the fog and strengthened her mind. Slowly replicating itself, the one ray become another one, until an entirely new dawn was born, the girl looking up at the sky with hope in her eyes again. Someone was standing near her, but none of the creatures she saw in the night. The night was over, for now...
![[Image: Light_racer.png]](http://i1159.photobucket.com/albums/p635/darkstar3091/Light%20Runner/Light_racer.png)
![[Image: Onuris_y-1.png]](http://i1159.photobucket.com/albums/p635/darkstar3091/Onuris_y-1.png)