She reached for the stars, and paid the price.
The BOTV-DT Mk. II (a.k.a. “the crimbus tree”) embarked on a journey to reach the furthest known planet to the Nauvis Engineering Corps: Aquilo.
Less than a third of the way into the journey she encountered her first “big” asteroid. (A classification previously unknown to the ship-builders of Nauvis.) The pilot halted thrust, and Spee-Dee’s turbines whined as her lasers barely tickled the gigantic beasts.
It was immediately obvious that the BOTV-DT was ill-equipped for the journey. The captain ordered to reverse course, but it was too late, Spee-Dee took a huge blow across her bow. An asteroid tore through three of her laser turrets, one steam turbine, and one collector. The losses were manageable, but the crew knew her power-budget was already stretched thin at the best of times.
As they slowly made their way home a gunner spotted a big asteroid off the port side. The flank gunner laid into the asteroid with Nauvis’ finest ammunition: depleted uranium rounds. The crew watched in horror as he laid into the asteroid for half a minute, yet all he managed to do was litter the surface of the accursed rock.
The gunner was lost, and the rock knocked out the vast majority of Spee-Dee’s port-side capacity. The damage now included a reserve steam tank, a reserve turbine, along with half of the production water supply and half of her spare oxidizer. The captain now had serious doubts if Spee-Dee even had the fuel to get home, let alone the power to cut through what remains of the asteroid field.
As the ship slowly crawled towards Gleba they noticed one last big asteroid off the starboard bow. “Turn hard to port!” the captain cried out. “It’s headed straight for us, what good will it do to turn?” the pilot protested. “Just do it! We can’t lose those guns!” - The pilot begrudgingly turned the ship, the asteroid clawed its way straight to the heart of Spee-Dee.
The crew’s eyes grew wide as they stared out the windows of the bridge in horror. The lights dimmed as the giant asteroid clawed through turbine after turbine. They watched helplessly as the steam tank buckled. Not yet sated the asteroid continued to tear through the hull of the ship. The pilot was now regretting his decision to obey the captain’s orders as the asteroid appeared to be on a collision-course with the platform’s bridge itself!
The rocky menace plunged straight into Spee-Dee’s heart, which she happily gave for her crew. The vessel shook violently as the rock slammed into the side of the reactor’s containment vessel, itself a mountain of steel and concrete. Only then did the asteroid finally begin to break apart. The smaller remants scattered but many continued on their course towards the bridge - shrapnel pierced the hull of the remaining steam tank, crippling Spee-Dee’s power supply totally. The crew prepared for their final moments as they watched Spee-Dee slowly bleeding the rest of her steam into space. The hull screeched as the last of the big asteroid’s remnants clawed its way towards the crew, but thanks to the captain’s orders to turn the ship it stopped short, taking out one of the cargo bay’s and barely grazing the bridge where the last of the asteroid’s remains embedded itself.
Spee-Dee limped home on the very last of her fuel and oxidizer. Using only her guns and the last of her bullets, many of which had been stored in the lost cargo pod, she was able to successfully fend off the small to middling rocks. The crew briefly parked her in Gleba-orbit to make some emergency repairs. (Which DHL had rush-delivered to Gleba as soon as they heard the distress call.) Yet, without power, and with her fuel supply venting into space, the captain deemed it safer to press-on to Nauvis rather than wait around for further repairs. She barely made it, but she had gone far enough to be graced by Nauvis’ gravity, which gently pulled her home. The crew used the last of their emergency power to hail all ships in Nauvis orbit, on their short-distance radio, to warn them of the harrowing journey that lies in wait at the edge of their solar system.
Epilogue
Today the story of the infamous Aquilo-Nauvis-direct abort is one you will hear often at any bar frequented by shipbuilders all across the solar system. Very few new-types have been manufactured since that voyage without being fitted for rocket launchers and munitions manufactories. Some ships, like the Yamato, have been outfitted with even larger armaments; ones that were unthinkable prior to the advancements in technology made by the Elizabeth Mærsk and her Aquilo-base.
Spee-Dee was tugged into one of the dry-docks above Nauvis orbit, where she would be rebuilt (according to the plans you see here) into the BOTV-DT-3. The Mark III has seen several improvements throughout its useful service life, but with munitions and support from the ground it has now made many successful voyages to Aquilo and back.
