Star date 01.31.2308
The first true star ship took its first flight. God that was almost 100 years ago now. I remember growing up watching the video feed recorded from the ISS, an old space station that was retro fit over the centuries and repaired into a prototype drydock and hub for low earth orbit. By then we had made space craft and colonized mars, but the space craft then did not have true space flight capabilities.
One of the largest influencers to the space industry and first man to send a colony project to mars Elon Musk, a legendary name amongst the history of mankind. But who would have thought that some random guy from no real scientific background could have developed and built the first hyper engines.
Even now i still don't understand how they work, i just know they do. Benjamin Harris. The father of true space flight, a man so simple he never went to college for any science classes made a prototype space ship in his garage during his free time. Modeled after some of the modern fighter jets of the time but barely big enough to hold all the electronics and flight systems, let alone a pilot. It didn't even have a presurized cockpit. The only reason he survived a flight into high earth orbit well past the atmosphere was because he squeezed into the seat with an ecternal oxygen tank. The flight almost ended in disaster as the world watched with waiting, eager and worried eyes.
The planet held its breath as he returned to the surface. That recording is what inspired me to become a star fighter pilot. I remember every second of it as if i did it myself…
"Air traffic control, this is Yankee 6, what is the current flight paths over Sacramento county over?"
"Yankee 6 this is Air Traffic control, no flights in the air for the next two hours, are you a private plane? We don't have your callsign on record or schedule over?"
"Roger that ATC, and you could say im a private flight. Monitor air traffic in the area, beging first launch of PSS-01 code name Horizon… engine ignition in one mike, launch in 3, how coppy over?"
"Uhmmmm... what…"
Silence… every second seemed to drone on and on, feeling like it all lasted minutes. Then, the videos of it from many different social media platforms all pieced together into one video posted everywhere revealed what happened.
In the middle of the city a loud explosion sounded, car alarms going off, this was captured by multiple vloggers, originating from a smaller city called Roseville. Slowly but surely, as the cameras turned around and pointed towards the sound, something out of a scifi novel began to rise, a VTOL capable craft started to rise, slowly but surely shaking violently, the rear of it had a large engine that was slowly glowing redder and redder as it heated up. Below the craft, 6 smaller downwards thrusters pummped out massive amounts of flames as the ship thrust itself into the air.
"ATC, yankee 6, we have liftoff now, beginning flight path to high earth orbit over"
"Yankee 6, what do you mean flight to… high… earth orbit… over…?"
"ATC i will perform a flyby, don't blink you might miss me. Out."
With that the rear engine engaged, another loud boom, similar to a sonic boom and the ship began to shoot off towards Sacramento airport, many different perspectives of the craft flying by rapidly, more a blur than anything else from its sheer speed, nearing mach 1 but not approaching it yet, the lower thrusters having been cut off as aerodynamics took over keeping the craft in the air. It zoomed past the tower amd began rising rapidly, finally reaching mach 1.
The reports that came in stated that it reached upwards of mach 4 before it broke through the clouds, and presumably hit mach 6 by the time it reached lower orbit, flying past the ISS.
By this point every news channel and stream and any sort of way to watch anything had its attention focused on this, government agencies went onto high alert as they wondered whether this new yankee 6 was a threat or peaceful. But by the time any sort of fighter jet response took the air yankee 6 was in space.
The recordings from the crew abord the ISS showed the craft zoom by, and fade into a small silver dot in the space background, blending in with the stars, before it zoomed back and flew circles around the ISS. After maybe a 3 hour flight the first ship failure happened. The right wing clipped some space debris, causing a massive amount of sparks to fly off the wing, like a sparkler leaving its firework trail.
Yankee 6 knew he needed to land now, and began descent. Failure 2. The heat from re-entry melted amd fried all the electronics on the ship. He was flying via mechanical and hydraulic controls only, but wothout power hydraulics were more of a hindrance than a help. And the sparkler turned into a roaring fire, as fuel began to leak from the burst fuel line, igniting from the heat and spark and rapid influx of oxygen from the atmosphere.
Everyone watched the fireball descending throught the sky, either online or those on the coast of florida witnessing this with their own eyes and sharing it online.
Local ATC towers attempted communication but no response was given. When the ship pulled up and flew parallel to the water, the canopy popped open and a seat ejected out. Yankee 6 was alive but his ship wasnt.
This was the 3 major failure, without the pilot to keep the ship level, the ship took a nose dive, and with the speed it still had, the nose hit the water turing the ocean into a solid mass, crumpleing the ship into a fire ball before it exploded in a massive shower of metal and fire. Yankee 6 was arrested upon landing, though not before receiving medical attention for some of the burns he received.
When the United States determined he wasnt an enemy of the country they released him from custody a year later. Every space agency wanted to hire him, recruit him, many offered very lucrative deals, millions of dollars for his schematics or designs, even just his brain on their projects. He refused every single one of them, and too this day his real identity was never revealed. All anyone knows is yankee 6. The hero amd legend of space pilots today. A legend to remember before each flight you take.
After this, he started a small manufacturing plant making a few more test ships until finally he released the first craft that was sold to the public, and while it was expensive, the price breakdown of all the bits and bobs on the ship proved it was a fair price. $650,000. All the components on board were simple and made by him and his team, most of them were analog to save on money, ie gyroscopes and compasses for planetary flight, etc. but the electronics needed and the heat shielding required for it ran the price of manufacturing to nearly $400k, them the framing was all custom welded and built by them as well as the paneling, bring the material cost to $500k. The extra $150k was for manhours in construction for their team of 15 people. 10k to each of them. The Yankee company was maybe the first not greedy company to ever have been made or exist.
They released their first publicly available ship exactly 2 years after the first flight, dubbed "Horizon 6" on 01.31.2310. This was a massive step for mankind in space travel.
From there they began design of many other models, none of them had more than 1,000 models made. 15 designs, 15 unique ships one for each of them, named by each of them and that was it.
Today, stardate 08.08.2400, there are less than 400 of the original 15,000 ships left, only 2 Horizon 6's, 26 Wasps, 37 Sylvari's, 40 Raknals, 6 Viper's, 8 Jackals, 11 Geyser's, 19 Leaf class fighters, 13 Teklo's, 18 Traumakas, 3 Nazul's, 15 Stingray's, 6 Daredevil's, 1 Extinguisher, and 3 Sword class Ships left to be exact. The rest are either scrap metal or just simply not able to be repaired at this point. Let alone the fact most of the technology is so outdated now they are more collectibles rather than space craft. Mementos of an age long gone now.
Or so everyone thought. I would prove them wrong. I had a viper class wreckage. And while most everything internally was pretty much useless, the framework, pannels, and fueling systems were still functional with a little work. Or at least that was the state of it all 7 years ago. My birthday present. The only one i ever really cared about honestly. My chance to explore space, and be a pilot. I worked 2 jobs, pulling 22 hour days every day for those 7 years, saving every last cent i could, buying the components i needed to retrofit the craft and repair it with some slight modifications.
In the end i did scrap the fuel system, as i retrofit the engine to be modernized, and redid the fuel because fuel had now been refined a lot more and provided 3x the thrust for half the consumption ratio. How ironic, my 25th birthday, i get to take it on its first flight, the only things left of the original ship was its shape, and parts of the cockpit.
As i hoped into the piolot seat i pondered what my callsign would be. What should i call myself? Well i was going against the norm, and there would be some who might try to shoot me down simply to prove a point… i think… yeah…
I turned the ship on, following that basic startup prceedures, first battery power, then start the generator, check hydralic levels, let all the components run their self tests and once everything is ready start my call out.
"Human Space Federation requesting registration of new starship and pilot for reccords as well as take off over."
"Unknown callsign, HSF, what ship have you acquired and what will be your callsign over."
"Viper class fighter original manufacture date 04.15.2345, callsign Rogue 6 over."
The laughter from the other side as they hot miced over the radio, let alone the fact everyone in range also began laughing over comms… i needed to prove them wrong now…
"HSF to rogue 6 you are registered, try not to have your ship fall apart in local space please…" before he cut out he lost his composure again and began laughing.
I took it as a sign i was clear for launch, i started the main engine and felt the craft rumble to life. Beefy sounding, like that of the old school muscle drag cars i saw videos of as a kid of old earth. But this was no car, this was my star fighter, madified and built by me to be fast, agile, and lethal. Once the internal pressures and temps reached optimal levels, i cut the generator and began to fly out of the hanger. The cold empty black of space stretched out before me. Some stars here and there, but the light polution from the massive space station orbiting mars… well it kind of dulled the sky a bit.
I kept the ship at a slow speed pulling away from the station, and once i reached the edge of the limit i heard over comms, "Rogue 6, don't go too fast now ok? Hahahahahah!"
'Don't worry… i wont…' i thought to myself before sliding the thrust fowards slowly, beginning a rapid acceleration forwards. The lightweight ship and powerful engine behind it, well lets just say as with cars having a power to weight ratio so too did space ships… i think the old earth equivalent would be something like a gutted miata with a 2100 horsepower engine setup inside… the ammout of acceleration i found myself going under, landed me zooming past earth within a minute… and earth was almost exactly opposite mars right now…