20-Valkyrie’s View: A Year Among the Stars

January 20th, 2552 Stark, grim— breathtaking
Pilot Mechanic Katherine ‘Kat’ James Reporting

I’m still a wrench monkey in training, but this… this is what I came out here for. Okay, not the grueling hours and the reminder of just how fragile life is, but for the view.

Today was a continuation of yesterday’s work, scrapping… er… cleaning away the debris from the Twilight so the mechanics can salvage the ship. (at least the parts that hadn’t been liberated by some of the other ships’ mechanics.)

I took Big Momma, the Valkyrie’s utility flatbed hauler, to the Twilight and started working on the hull. Cookie had given me a diagram of what I was to try and procure. I had a brief session of ‘how to work in a vacuum’ from him, which involved putting me in a suit, taking me to the Zero G deck and tethering me to the bulkhead.

It was a lot less involved than the training I was given pre-launch, but that was two months ago and was all theoretical. It seems Cookie prefers the ‘throw them into the deep end of the pool and see if they live’ school of training.

I survived and then I was out with the flatbed. I ferried two other mechanics to different sites and for the most part remained in the ship, until they needed a third set of hands, at which point, I got my first EVA.
I mored Big Momma to one of the Twilight’s deck plates and got my first unobstructed view of space. It was… stark, grim, and so heartbreakingly beautiful it hurt.

I could have sat there for hours in awe, but there were pilings to lift and work to be done.

I got back to my barracks exhausted and unable to move, and I can’t wait to get out there again.

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