ILLUMINARRPG: (1-0825) Pilots Lt. Arthur ‘Snoopy’ Corday and Ensign Alexander 'Snoopy' Corday

[Al Muir]

Mission: Prelude

Day: 1

Stardate: 2446.03.23


(USS Illuminar - Deck 10- Flight Simulators - Pilots Lt. Arthur ‘Snoopy’ Corday and Ensign Alexander 'Snoopy' Corday - 0825)


Arthur watched as the new guy, Dyson, began his simulation.  He looked on his PADD and accessed the simulation that he had initiated and frowned.  He looked at Dyson’s history and his frown deepened.  With a deep sigh, he tapped an abort key on his PADD to end the ensign’s simulation and stepped over to the simulator, waiting for the confused pilot to show his face.


Alex’s stress levels were dropping slowly. The storm inside his head was being leached out by the storm moving the ocean going vessel, which he identified as the USS Enterprise CVN-80. Then the ship and the sea around it dissolved as somebody aborted the simulation from the outside.


“Ensign Dyson,” he said, “Lt. Corday.” He stepped on the closer to the simulator and continued.  “I got an interesting message from Lt. Grey Wolf.  Apparently there was a little incident this morning?”


He and Corday had met before, but Alex was in the mood to remind him about that. “Morning, Lieutenant. And yes, there was. I put the details in the audio message I sent to the Lieutenant.”


“Yes, I heard the details,” Corday said.  “Sounds like they were having a little fun at your expense, Ensign.  You should probably expect that as the new guy.”


“What can I say ? I take my job seriously.”


Yet there had been part of him that had thought sending that message had belonged in the category known generally and universally as Bad Ideas. ~You never wanted to do this discipline stuff, it’s one of the reasons you joined a civilian vessel, instead of Starfleet.~


And why he had kind of fudged the final exams at the Mars Freighter School. Alex had graduated 25th in his class (of 350). But he had deliberately not done his best, because Starfleet always approached the top five graduates and tried to recruit them.


Corday shrugged, “As do our pilots, son, however, falling asleep in the staging room isn’t a very serious way of treating that room, now is it.”


“I was born on Mars, where not all the problems have been solved. On Earth, there is no crime, no poverty, no war. You look out the window at Starfleet Command and you see paradise. Well, I didn’t grow up in paradise. I’m a count, not a saint.”


The last bit was a quote from a movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo. But everything before that was paraphrasing Ben Sisko’s first rant about the Maquis. At school, they had been made to study all Starfleet greats.


~Archer, Pike, Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway.~ After hearing all about how great Starfleet was for years, Alex had been pretty fed up with the organization. It was another notch on the list of reasons he had not joined back in the day.


Arthur looked at the new guy, not understanding what he was saying, Count?  Saint?  Not sure what you’re talking about.  All I care about is what kind of a pilot you are.”


“If you want to know that, then why did you abort the simulation ?”


“Well,” Corday said, “I noticed that the majority of your simulations have you flying antiquated flying machines, not what you’ll be flying now.  If  you’re going to spend hours in here, you need to simulating with starships, not airplanes.  Would you like to try the real thing?”


“Yes,” Alex began. “The thing is, Lieutenant, I know how to fly starships. It’s fighters that I need to log hours on.”


“ “That is exactly my point,” Arthur nodded, “you are spending all of your time working in machines that fly on two dimensions.  You need work on something and in a scenario that requires you to thing three dimensionally.  Airplanes are all cute and fun, but if you fly in space the way you fly in an airplane… well, you won’t last long.”


He stepped away and tapped his PADD.  “Load Corday, Mako 1.”  He moved over to the second simulator.  “Try this on for size.  You don’t have to worry about anything fancy.  There’s no neural interface or AI to worry about.  You aren’t ready for that anyway.”


As the simulator began to hum, loading the program, “Saddle up cowboy.  Let’s see how you ride.”


“Okay, Lieutenant.” Alex said and grabbed the controls.


The scene shift to an open area of space, with just the two Mark 4 Makos. =^=Okay E=Ensign, we’ll start with a simple game of tag.  Pedals act as rudders, handles control yaw and angle and speed.  The phasers send out a marker.  Ready?=^=


Without waiting he spun his ship round and fired.  A big red mark appeared on Dysons nose.  “Tag, you are it.”


With that he turned the ship again and sped up into the open space. Alex punched the speed to full, but did not follow Corday in a straight line. Instead, he took the ship up and rotated it so that it was facing the Lieutenant’s course at an angle. He unleashed a salvo, covering a section of the course.


Corday smiled and hit his retros and dropped ten meters under the onslaught.  He rolled over and then changed his angle.  “Nice shooting Ensign, but I’m not going to sit still for it.  You have to anticipate the movement of your target.”


~Think like a Viper pilot, Shep.~ He heard Emile say in his head.


Corday maneuvered his ship up behind Dyson, and turned on his targeting computer.  ~Let’s see how he handles getting a little spooked.~  He knew that the targeting lock would sound an alert in the other Mako.


Alex heard the locking on sound, but didn’t flinch. Instead he turned the ship a full one eighty and let the Lieutenant have it. This time he scored a hit.


=^= That’s the risk of the targeting computer, it can give your position away.=^=


=^=Good.  You’ve got nerve, Dyson.  And I’m sure that turn didn’t feel good.  But now I’m it.  Better move. =^=


They were literally looking face to face through their view ports and Arthur smiled and waved.


Alex gave the lieutenant a nod, then dove down the Z-axis, while turning the ship at the same time. ~Okay, Lieutenant, let’s see if you know this one.~ He fired the thrusters and moved the fighter sideways. This was going to be an interesting session.


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(Posted by Al and Ruben)


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