“Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”

Emily Dickenson, (1873)

In exactly seven minutes and forty – two seconds she was going to die.

Whilst she knew this instinctively, that part of her that carried the ghost of her father refused to submit to the inevitable and raged against the prospect of this imminent demise – defiant to the last and still looking for a way to cheat her fate.

Inside the cramped, coffin – like interior of the cabin, the temperature had already risen to well beyond a tolerant heat and the sweat that oozed and slicked her body underneath the single suit heralded the first stages of the onset of terminal heat – exposure.

Not that she would be long enough for that particular fate to claim her life.

No, beyond the single round porthole that was all that the Sunjammer was afforded to enable crude visual observations to adjust the trajectory of the craft (she had to use the feeble maneuvering nozzles to actually physically eject reaction mass to turn the ship around its central access to change the view) the eviscerating conflagration, that would rise to claim her soul in a requiem of nuclear annihilation, now almost entirely filled her forward view and the unimaginable gravitational pull of the dying sun gripped her tiny ship with inevitable force and drew her steadily to oblivion.

The hull of a Sunjammer was needle – thin. Clad in a mantle of duro-ferrite ceramic tiles and threaded with the veinous cooling – latticework of the heatsinks, the fragile racing vessel entirely lacked any form of navigational deflector or shielding system that could provide even  a modicum of protection from the immense flares of solar energy whose tendrils exploded from the blinding surface of the star to ensnare her in death.

That was the whole point.

The sport of solar – racing was unquestionably one of the most dangerous pursuits and individual could engage in within the known galaxy and those that chose to participate in this frequently – fatal contest, were generally held to be at least potentially mentally unstable by those without the verve or suicidal courage to take part in a regatta.

She rotated the craft through it’s axis with a couple of deft flicks of the joystick, carefully reserving whatever precious reaction – mass still remained in the bow – tanks (a synthetic silicate – bead substance that could withstand the awesome temperatures without evaporating) and the Daedalus responded sluggishly and she knew without the insistent warble of the clamoring warning alerts that vied for her attention – just from how the craft responded that the damage was bad.

Out through the porthole (the edges of which were made of coated LI-1900 silica ceramic, designed to withstand temperatures below 14,300 °F) was starting to glow a worrisome bright orange as the Sunjammer was drawn deeper into the invisible inferno of the Sun’s Corona, the hydrogen plasma starting to burn through the ultra-dense material with a mindless intensity.

She wondered if it would give and she might freeze to death instead? Sucking on hard vacuum instead of being immolated to vapor.

For some reason, she found this ironically amusing and a grim smile creased her top lip even as sweat beaded and ran down in tiny rivulets that she was forced to wipe away with the back of her hand as she strained against the glare to assess the damage to the sail.

As suggested by their eponymous and derivative namesake, ‘Sunjammers’ had neither a warp – coil nor impulse drive to insinuate their way through the firmament. Instead, they utilized a concept reminiscent of some of the earliest development of intelligent species – the use of sails.

Whereas their ancient contemporaries had utilized large canvas sheets to trap the wind upon planetary oceans and convert that airflow into aerodynamic – lift to create downforce and maximize a sailing ship’s speed and efficiency through the water – a Sunjammer modernized this concept through vast concentric arrays of solar – sails.

A solar sail (or LightSail as they were sometimes called) utilized the momentum of photons emitted by a Sun to propel a relatively small spacecraft. When sunlight hit the reflective surface of the sail, it transferred momentum to the sail, creating a small but continuous thrust.

Light itself has momentum and the daring pilots that crammed into the claustrophobic confines of the tiny needlecraft that nestled under the billowing, gossamer expanse of glittering sail spanning several square kilometers in area, used the magnificent micron – thin sheets to reflect that light and impart momentum to propel themselves past the marker buoy’s that laid out the hectic course towards the ultimate destination, where they would reverse course and make a dash for the finish-line.

The heart of a dying sun.

Unlike traditional star-faring vessels that required fuel for propulsion, a LightSail could continuously accelerate a Sunjammer as long as they were exposed to light and it was the steely resolve and iron – nerve of the solar – racer to risk their craft closer to the surface of that sun to gain a winning speed – advantage that made the sport so deadly and attracted those addicted to the win despite the deadly odds.

She looked up at the ragged flare of the broken sail as it caught the incandescent light of the looming giant, flapping and undulating in that same solar – wind, victim to the overambition and lack of skill of one of her competitors who had lost control of his own craft as he attempted to cut between her and the burning orb to rob her of speed and take the lead advantage.

That she was a person not inclined to back down from a challenge was also partly to blame for her current predicament, but then again – why engage in something as suicidally – enthralling as solar racing if you didn’t have the will to win?

For him it had been an instantly fatal mistake as his craft lost virtually all of it’s mass of sail. As his stricken Sunjammer had spiraled down toward the nuclear – furnace of the coronal mass, enveloped in the fluttering silver shreds of wrent sail that would become his death shroud, his screams of terror carried over the comm and would stop abruptly long before he reached the Transition Region.

She left that channel on, a mute witness to his demise and folly. As a fellow racer she felt she owed him that, even though his rash and ambitious action had assuredly sealed her own fate just as terminally as his own.

Looking up at the devastated sail, she suddenly felt that familiar defiance rise up in her gorge and she grit her teeth and spat determinedly.

“To hell with this!”

Decided, her hand felt along the simple controls that crowded the small control panel and instinctively found the crude mechanical – level that would eject the sail and she tugged hard on it. She was a woman who believed that, once a decision had been made, you should make it and never revert to self – doubt.

Immediately the damaged LightSail was released from the circular mooring – ring that banded the mid-section of the slim craft and the Sunjammer was thrown into a violent, yawing spin as the two remaining (undamaged) solar – sails suddenly exerted their unequal forces on the unbalanced craft.

Out of control, the Sunjammer accelerated in a wild spiral down towards the sin, where the solar winds propelled by mass coronal ejections rose kilometers towards her at temperatures in excess of 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit.

Still firmly embraced in the exorable iron – grip of the immense gravity of the Sun (somewhere north of 330,000 times that of a standard M – class planet), the tiny craft began to oscillate and shudder so hard that her view of the cockpit blurred and instantly her vision began to cloud and dim between the physical effects of blackout and then red – out as the gravity exerted on her body alternated viciously between the debilitating forces of positive and negative gee.

Her singlesuit various extended and contracted its nanite – infused layers in a desperate attempt to squeeze the blood in her body back towards her brain and stave of the inevitable loss of consciousness (and another road to death) and with almost superhuman effort, her hand crawled inch by inch along the console until it found the correct control and deployed the spinnaker.

Like the ancient ships of sail that had voyaged down through the centuries before her, the billowing shape of the spinnaker was usually intended to capture wind from behind the boat, propelling it forward when engaged in downwind sailing – enhancing speed and performance when sailing into the wind.

As the shimmering asymmetrical sail reached the end of its armored tether and snapped open like the petal of a mercury – sheened flower, the high angle at which it deployed served to physically drag the remaining two sails around, the net effect of this was to tortuously drag the Sunjammer out of its determined suicide dive and re – align the remaining sails so that they were no longer dragging the craft directly down into the heart of the sun.

All throughout the darkened cabin, the warning alarms reached crescendo and the Sunjammer moaned and flexed and she was entirely sure that the tiny craft would come apart at the seams due to the titanic forces being exerted upon its hull and superstructure.

With the promethean glare of the sun too large in the porthole for comfort, she adjusted the trim on the leeward sail, so that the camber of vast expanse of gossamer sheet was angled sufficiently to capture some of the reflected light of its twin.

This caused that sail to take on a dangerous amount of stress as it inched near and then beyond its load tolerances (the eventually shut the keening alarm off then, after a moments consideration she killed all the audible alarms – is this gambit didn’t work then she was surely dead) and with the topping life provided from the spinnaker, the second sail exerted less drag on the Sunjammers course and gradually, with painful slowness, the nose of the Sunjammer began to lift.

She quickly adjected the luff – tension on the line that led to the deflating sail and then rotated the section of the mooring collar that controlled that line.

Slowly the shortened jib dragged the LightSail down till it was almost perpendicular to the keel and then the solar winds found the angle of the sheet again and the LightSail furled and the snapped back into it’s taut taught square – further increasing the angle of attack and altering her trajectory from doom.

She laughed despite herself, the sense of elation overwhelming as she worked still to narrow the odds. The cursory glance she allowed herself as she tended to the sails told her that she had not only cheated death, but her actions had also afforded her a palpable speed advantage as her craft completed a maneuver that no sane person would rationally engage in.

She was back in the race.

She wiped the sweat from her brow and squinted at the simple navigational sensor, trying to get a fix on where the remainder of the race – participants were along the course and estimate her competitive chances in rejoining the struggle, when she was rudely interrupted by a disembodied voice.

=^= “Bridge to the Captain.”=^=

Outside the white-hot surface of the sun still roiled and rages in silent fury and Lieutenant – Commander Lane Hanley frowned with irritation and she keyed her Commbadge in response. Patrol duty was onerous but necessary and when the USS Kirk was deployed on more deep – space deployments, she was always careful to limit her recreational time in the Holosuite’s. With only two such facilities onboard, she held that the crew should have more access to their fantastic entertainments than she.

But here on ‘milk-run’ duty around Framheim station, Lane had though that she could reasonably get at least a whole hour of racing – practice in without the pressures of command interrupting?

Obviously she was wrong, but she tried to keep the irritation from her voice as she commanded the holodeck to pause the program before she replied.

“This is the CO, go ahead bridge.”

The Executive Officer’s voice at least had the good grace to carry a note of polite regret as Bohrigm reported.

=^=“Ma’am. Sorry to disturb your downtime. We’ve received a priority data packet from Stramheim Command Ops. Your eyes only.”=^=

Lane laid her head back onto the headrest and closed her eyes. Whilst she wasn’t irresponsible enough to run the solar – racing simulation with all of the safety protocols disengaged, her singularly combative nature encouraged her to enable as many features that could still maintain a sense of atmosphere and realism akin to the close thing. As a result, her singlesuit was sheathed in sweat and her system still thrilled with the rush of adrenaline.

She needed a shower.

She sighed, opening her eyes and began to unbuckle her seat restraints as she replied.

“Acknowledged Lieutenant, route it to my quarters, I’ll take it there. Hanley out.”

A datapacket could mean only one thing. A change to their deployment orders.

She cycled the Sunjammer’s tiny hatch and carefully levered herself out of its coffin – like confines. Stepping onto the hull she squinted against the simulated glare of the sun that filled the entirely of the view beneath the glowing hull of the racer and, as she looked up at the billowing expanse of the frozen LightSail above her, part of her wondered how much of her propensity to take risks stemmed from her need to escape from the shadow of her infamous father and how much was just driven by her need to win.

When they had handed her command of the USS Kirk, Lane had wondered if there was some poignancy or subtle jibe behind assigning her a vessel named in honor of one of Starfleet’s own infamous maverick risk – takers? Ultimately she concluded that maybe she was reading too much into the situation, but deep down she was secretly proud of the association.

Still, as the great man himself once said, when he was advised that insufficient facts always invite danger, Lane stepped off the hull of the Daedalus as she commanded the holodeck to end program’ and landed on the floor grid of the small suite, commenting.

“Well, I’d better get some facts.”