Persephone Astrid's YarrJournal

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Good lord this thing feels big, Persephone Astrid thought as the neural interface inside her capsule synchronized with her brand-new Vexor. The training sims really don’t convey just how much larger they are than frigates. Persephone switched over to the secure channel for nearby Hellcats capsule pilots.

“Hey Venom,” Persephone called out.

“Heya Perseph,” came Venom Orchid’s voice. “What’s shakin?”

“Could you fit up that cruiser you stole last night and meet me outside?” Persephone asked. “I’m taking out a brand-new Vexor and I’ve never flown a cruiser in a fight before. Let’s mix it up a little and see how it works.”

“Yeah, that sounds fun,” Venom replied with her usual enthusiasm. “All right!”

Persephone signalled the station dockmaster, and was cleared to launch into space a moment later. Through the capsule interface, the Vexor felt sluggish and slow, but a new sensation also thrummed through Persephone’s body: raw power.

It’s just a cruiser, she reminded herself. Don’t get carried away.

A moment later, she got carried away.

“Hey, I’ve got a Tristan out here on scan,” she called out on the general alliance broadcast channel. “I think I’m going to go blow it up.”

Ten minutes later:

Heedless of the mess she was making, Persephone popped open the escape hatch on her capsule and leapt nimbly to the station deck below, splattering capsule slime everywhere. She wore a grin from one ear to the other (and nothing else), and to her it seemed as if someone had turned down the gravity control in her hangar bay. Giggling out loud to herself, she toweled off most of the goo, jumped into a convenient coverall, and ran out of the docking bay and towards The Fighting and Drinking Pub.

“Hap!” she shouted as she bounced into the pub through the sliding doorway. The patrons closest to the doorway looked up in surprise at Persephone’s abrupt entrance. Her hair was matted and slick with capsule slime, and she’d left a messy handprint on the door’s activation stud. She was wearing, as far as they could tell, nothing but the coverall and a smile.

Behind the bar, Hap turned at the sound of Persephone’s voice, and set the beer he’d just drawn in front of a patron.

“Good lord, Persephone,” Hap said, arching his eyebrows in startled amusement. “Come sit down and tell me what’s got you so excited before you scare away my customers.”

Persephone took a seat at the bar and brushed her hand through her bobbed black hair, and looked startled to find it still full of capsule goop. Ignoring that for the moment, she pushed ahead with the story.

“Guess what!”

“I’m going to guess that something exciting just happened in space,” Hap ventured, taking note of the obvious as he drew a mug of ale and set it on the mahogany bar in front of Persephone.

“For sure!” Persephone gushed. “I just took a Vexor out for a test flight, right? The one I just bought? While I was out I happened to scan a Tristan.”

“When did you train in cruisers?” Hap interrupted. “I thought you liked frigates.”

“Oh, I did that on the side,” Persephone replied hastily. “This is the first time I’d flown it. So anyway I found a Tristan in an asteroid belt, but it turned out to be the bait for a trap.”

Hap crossed his arms and looked down his weathered nose at Persephone. “Uh huh, a Tristan alone in a belt. Your first flight in a cruiser, and you took it into combat, into an obvious trap? Are you mental?”

“Anyway, an Incursus and a Griffin jumped in on me, so I jumped away in a hurry.” Persephone continued, dodging Hap’s pointed question and stubbornly refusing to be reproached. “I shouted to Venom and Hallan, and they joined me in frigates. We all flew back in together and took out two of them, and the Griffin escaped. Not bad for a test flight, huh?”

Hap rubbed his temple, and used the palm of his hand to hide the smile that had lifted one corner of his mouth.

“We’ll talk about why that was stupid later,” Hap decided, allowing some warmth to come into his voice. “For now: congratulations.” He lifted his right hand in an imaginary toast. Persephone returned the gesture with her real mug of ale, and took a long pull.

“Oh God, that was awesome,” she sighed into the mug as the strong ale began to work through her system, calming her post-combat shakes. Gravity reasserted its grip on her, and she began to relax.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” Hap muttered, shaking his head.

Late at night, at least according to the artificial diurnal cycle within her “home” space station, Persephone sat atop her usual stool at the bar in The Fighting and Drinking Pub, hunched over her PDA. The evening crowd had retired to their lodgings, leaving Persephone alone with the overnight bartender. Hap, the retired capsuleer who owned the pub, was away from his establishment. He generally preferred to sleep in and tend his bar in the daytime and early evening. Four empty acrylic bar mugs sat by Persephone’s right elbow, and a fifth held only a trace amount of amber-colored ale. Morosely she ignored a stray lock of black hair which had slipped from its place in her headband and had fallen into her eyes. She tapped on the PDA’s touch screen, composing poetry:

Alone in her ship,
Distant voices call to her,
Check the next system.

Laugh while your ship burns,
Tell everyone it's funny,
Cry behind your mask.

“Hey, I heard you lost another Ares, this one in Egghelende,” the relief bartender said quietly. The olive-skinned and stocky night man had watched Persephone quietly down four tall mugs without even looking up or speaking, save to order the next drink. She could use a friendly voice, the part-timer had decided. Besides, for a pirate capsuleer she was kind of cute, lacking the usual bizarre body modifications, flamboyant makeup, and extravagant fashion that commonly marked the more reckless members of that corps. Persephone preferred to shout her lunacy to the world with her actions, not her accessories.

“Did you actually fly home in a Bantam?” He asked, hardly believing that she’d had to slink back to her base in a mining frigate after her disastrous loss. He’d intended to project sympathy, but as a non-pilot he had no idea that he was treading into very dangerous territory.

“My glass is empty,” Persephone said in a low mumble without looking up from her PDA. “Get me another, and then leave me alone.” Instantly she hated herself for saying it. He’d only been trying to help, she knew, but sympathy from a non-pilot was the last thing she wanted at the moment. You wouldn’t understand, she thought. God, I wish Hap was here right now.