aimedforthemoon

10:27] young scurlock: sublight drives: spacecraft engage their sublight engines once they are well clear of any facilities or personnel that mght be harmed by the mildly radioactive emissions. a variety of sublight engine designs exploit the principle of ion thrust, achieved through various
[10:28] young scurlock: reactants and electronic accelerators from potent fuel mixtures. fuels can take the form of pressurized radioactive gas, volatile composite fluids, or explosive liquid metal. acceleration compensators
[10:28] young scurlock: project appropriately modified gravity effects within a spacecraft to preserve pilots and passengers from forceful sublight acceleration

recs from Anom

Thrawn Trilogy
SW tales - AU!comics

She leads Han up into her room, and locks the door behind them. Her room is just as (painfully) neat as the last time he was there, and she heads over to the desk. There are books stacked on the top, not to mention the spare chair.

These are all shifted to the floor.

Well, except one. Her biography (which spends its life facedown) is picked up and flicked through.

"You said you need photograph?"

Esfir was born and raised a city-girl. The city in question might have been a bombed out ruin for most of the time she was there, and there might be too many nomads in her background for her to ever shun the wide open steppes and forests, but when all is said and done, she's a city-girl.

Of course, her grandfather was a stubborn man who thought cities were the height of foolishness and, yes, it was all very well for Shostak to do well, but look what leaving the farm did for him? Crashing his plane into those fucking Germans above Moscow, that's what, and leaving you an orphan, Fira, being raised in a city. Not that the old man ever said as much all in one go. Unless he was telling stories, he barely said a word. She'd always wondered what he was saving them for. But she'd spent enough summers on the farm to know her way around animals and Vovka the mixed-breed, stubborn horse who had somehow managed to survive Nazi-occupation.

Probably the same way her grandfather had - by being too stubborn to die.

And it's partly homesickness for that collective farm and grumpy old man and stubborn horse that has the tiny pilot perched on paddock fence, watching the Milliways horses.

Prelude
Part One: in which a bored god meets a reckless pilot and makes her an offer (she left a note)
Part Two: in which the trap is sprung, the conditions agreed, and he takes her home.
Part Three: in which she spends time in the forge
Part Four: in which she takes a gamble, stands her ground, and surprises a god
Part Five: in which the question is asked - what does it mean to be Yesfir Shostakovna?
*Part Six: in which she dies for the second time and is brought back to life*
Part Seven: in which she wakes
Conclusion

*Contains: ritual strangulation, reliving of death by carbon dioxide poisoning, animal sacrifice and ritual self-injury*

So, as of this plot, Esfir is now functionally alive/immortal. Should she 'die' again, Weyland can just reset her unless she asks otherwise. Her metabolism also works twice as fast, with the appetite to match. If your character is psychically sensitive, they may pick up something unnatural about her and/or the fact that Weyland has claim over her soul - the latter would be more of a vague, weird feeling that wouldn't make much sense unless they've also met mechanicalswans.

The symbol holding her together is a bindrune (her initials interlocked), stainless steel, and is impossible to remove without cutting Esfir to pieces. It's over her heart, slightly shorter than her thumb, and is the same level as her skin - while it could be seen under thin, pale shirts, it isn't raised at all. For how it'd look without her shirt, refer here.

Any questions, just ping me at lamorgne on AIM or comment here.

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.
--- Walt Whitman, The Dalliance of the Eagles

The third day is spent much as the second: in forge.
Nine days," he says. "Nine days you will spend with me, one for each of the nine years my wife and I were together.
She's making a bird, adapted from the model planes Esfir knows so well. The radio part is easy; making it look like a swan is not. Still, she's talented, and has been throwing herself into it, and things are coming together.
You cannot escape
The swan is for not her, not for him, but for the lovely, silent woman Weyland keeps around.
and you cannot ask me to let you go.
(only half of it is because he asked to be surprised)
You will not return to the bar during those nine days
But after so many hours, her heart isn't in it anymore. She looks up, rubs the back of her neck (ignoring the oil and grime on her hands)

(nine days)
and suddenly stares at him, eyes narrowed.

When Esfir arrived at Milliways, it had been after several years of cosmonaut training and, no, it wasn't all maths and computers. They had to be able to withstand the g-force of a launch, had to be able to push their bodies until they knew exactly when they started to pass out. She was, in short, exceedingly fit when she arrived, and even if staying in shape wasn't a habit by now, it at least passes the time.

It's not surprising that she's far, far more in shape than one Calvin Chandler, and this fact has just been made effortlessly clear.

A fine early autumn morning, a moderate jog at a decent pace (she wouldn't be cruel enough to race him, just set the speed), and it wouldn't be complete without some mockery.

It's another thing she's good at, which is why the tiny woman (dressed in sneakers, shorts, and a t-shirt) is currently cocking her eyebrow at her companion.

Even though they've reached the starting point again, she doesn't say anything.

Possibly, she doesn't need to.

"Lock the door behind you," Esfir says to Cal, heading straight for the bathroom.

Her room is a normal, hotel-style room; plush carpet, plain curtains framing large windows, of which one is open. But it's very....neat. She's an astronaut, and they are always neat people, but it's still a little too neat. As if she's not planning on staying.

Her bed is made, her books and manuls either neatly stacked on her desk, or neatly against a wall.

In a slight divergence of the mood, though, she also has models on her desk; a MiG-21PF, a Soyez rocket, and an RZ-1 A-wing.