Cohost writing prompt: @make-up-a-starship-pilot — Starship pilot whose ship is, frankly, more engine than anything else
"That's — that's a D50," Jooma says, sounding vaguely upset.
"Yeah, it is."
"That's the primary drive for a ship a hundred times your tonnage."
"Yeah." Barley smirks, a perfect oiled curl falling over her forehead.
"This is barely a ship, this an engine and barely enough everything else to make it go. This is — this is an abomination. What the fuck."
Barley preens.
"What are you even planning to do with this monstrosity?"
"You know the Asimov-Smith AutoNav Games?"
"The autonomous ship tech challenge? Fastest competitor to deorbit an arbitrarily designated iceteroid, sort of thing?"
"Yeah, so the meta for the past few years has been heavily into these low-power wide-area botswarms that pitch the rocks around and catch them with buckyline cargo nets. Lotta heavy-duty work on smart pathing, minimal-braking catch slingshots, that kinda thing."
Jooma looks down at the purchase request for a standard asteroid mining self-tapping rock grab.
"Oh, you spotted a cheap low-tech way to annoy people with just an oversized torch and off-the-shelf autopilot," she says; deeply, wearily resigned.
"To win," Barley says smugly
Jooma folds her arms over her work tablet and gives her a look. "Annoy people," she says, and Barley's smile doesn't contradict her at all.