by Aer-ki Jyr
“I wonder if Kara knows about this,” Boen said, throwing a glance at Iren.
“What else did you guys build?” Iren asked Mark.
“Optimus Prime,” he said deadpan. “Ah, there,” he said as the canopy on his pod began to lower down to cover him and the surrounding space big enough to fit a couch.
Iren and Boen exchanged glances.
“No they didn’t,” Boen said, with Iren nodding his agreement.
Inside the canopy it was dark aside from the illuminated controls until a hologram formed around the spherical covering that showed a decent representation of the grasslands outside, fixed in place rather than moving underneath him as if he’d been flying. Directly in front of his odd assortment of controls a menu flashed up written in the trade language offering Mark a plethora of options that he had to concentrate to read through, with some of the terms not registering in his mind.
When he got to the craft selection option he stopped there and began cycling through the presets, seeing that there were over 160 craft already programmed in. He sifted through them until he came to the Valerie, then pulled up the flight control schematics for the stub-winged fighter. While the mechanics of the craft were a bit different than their skeets, they still had the same basic functions and he was able to maneuver the control arms around into a more or less familiar arrangement, knowing that he could tweak it later. Right now he just wanted to get behind the stick…or in this case, roll bars.
On his holographic HUD another icon appeared, tagging a pod that had just come online. Mark tapped his earpiece and opened a comm line to the other three pilots. “Who else is in?”
“That’d be me,” Sam said. “Don’t know what’s taking the other losers so long.”
“Dude,” Boen’s voice came back over Mark’s earpiece, “you just called yourself a loser.”
“Did not.”
“Yeah, you did,” Iren confirmed. “Mark, you want us all in?”
“Yes please.”
“Why didn’t you say so,” Boen complained, marching over to an open pod. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back out.”
“I’ve found the Valerie,” Mark went on. “Everybody load it up and try to get the control arms situated so they’re useable.”
“Whoa,” Iren said, his voice raising in pitch. “They’ve got some sweet holos. Way better than ours.”
“What makes you say that?” Mark asked.
“The battle graphics are insane…or, wait. Maybe that’s a recording of outside the base. Actually, I don’t know. As soon as I got in it flipped into display mode and I’ve been watching about 25 fighters throw down.”
“What kind?”
“Valeries and Bsidd fighters, if I’m seeing this right. They’ve got some crazy weapon systems.”
“Oh?” Boen asked.
“Later people,” Mark said, cutting off a response. “Everyone get to the main menu and bring up a Valerie,” he said, tapping one of the now three icons present. Instead of data on that pilot he got a game prompt instead. After a moment’s inspection he realized he needed to choose a simulation before he could bring others into it.
“Ok,” he whispered to himself, selecting the default map of the base and the surrounding area, then he tagged the other three pilots, turning their icons yellow. One by one they turned red as they accepted the invite, then Mark set the simulation in motion without choosing any other options. Suddenly his view changed to the interior of the Valerie, which was hovering above their base looking down at the mountains below.
“Everyone else in the sky?”
“Right behind you, diamond formation,” Sam reported.
Mark looked around, then found his point detection sensor display, seeing the three other fighters sitting behind him in a ‘V’ formation, making him the tip of the diamond. “Got you. Break up and see if you can fly in something other than a straight line. We’ll play tag later.”
“Copy that,” Sam said, dipping down below the formation before awkwardly scooting forward and off to the left. The others broke away from Mark, who held position for a moment to let them get clear before he started playing with the anti-grav controls, finding that he could roll the ship front to back or side to side with ease as if the gravity drive was located dead center in the ship…or else they had some sweet computer control to balance it out.
Mark’s Valerie danced about in place for several minutes, then the dagger-like ship accelerated ahead with its reverse wingtips cutting into the simulated air making 4 brief contrails. As the ship’s speed rose its shields visibly altered shape, making the already aerodynamic craft into more of a needle, allowing it to slice through the atmosphere more efficiently. Mark thought the shields were computer generated rather than actually being visible, but when dealing with other races’ tech it was hard to be sure.
“Guys, are your shields opaque or invisible?”
“I haven’t deployed mine…not sure where the button is either,” Iren answered.
“I didn’t use a button,” Mark explained. “They must have auto-activated as I accelerated.”
“High speed shields?” Boen asked.
“Yeah, but I can see them. Not sure if that’s the computer or what they really look like.”
“Anyone else think these things fly weird?” Iren asked.
“Define weird?”
“Aft heavy.”
Mark turned his Valerie through a long 180 degree turn, then wiggled back and forth getting a feel for the craft. “I see what you mean. The nose seems so light it has a mind of its own.”
“Exactly.”
“Hold on,” Boen said. “There’s something here about balancing the anti-grav…yeah, there we go. You’ve probably got it all in the rear. The adjustment slider is on my left, if that helps anyone.”
Mark looked around looking for a slider and found one down by his right foot. He read the label and figured that was the one his fellow Archon was referring to. He adjusted it to the midpoint and found that the squirrely nose of his fighter settled down considerably.
“Good catch.”
“I have my moments,” he answered pithily as another icon lit up in the corner of Mark’s map in yellow alongside the three red icons for his fellow pilots.
“Looks like someone else wants to play,” Sam noted.
“I see that,” he said, reading the name tag he didn’t recognize. “Form up, we’re about to have company.”
Mark pushed the button, turning it red, and a 5th fighter appeared in the simulation.
“I see you’ve found one of our simulator rooms,” a voice said through the pod’s comm system rather than the Human’s earpiece. “Allow me to walk you through the basics. The Valerie is our standard fighter, but it has some uniqueness to it that takes a while to master.”
“Who is this?” Mark asked in the trade language.
“I guess you haven’t learned to read yet,” the voice said, laughing. “I am Lorsar of the Calavari. My user icon has my name and other data attached to it. I see you four are using generic templates.”
“We’re just exploring the system,” Mark explained. “We’re not up for any simulated combat yet.”
“I didn’t expect you to be, but if you’ll rendezvous at my position I can teach you some of our standard combat maneuvers, then you can adapt them to your liking.”
“Can you start with a demonstration? We’re having some trouble getting used to the controls.”
“As you wish,” Lorsar said, kicking his Valerie upside down and dropping towards the ground at high speed. From there he went through a series of basic maneuvering, giving the Humans a good idea of the ship’s movement profile, then he worked up into higher levels of flight, demonstrating that he was no average pilot and that the Valerie was a formidable craft to fly against…then again it had to be if they were supposed to counter the lizards’ nimble fighters.
From there they moved to basic paired flight and maneuvers, which showed Mark that the Calavari de
finitely had their tactics nailed down. Lorsar told Mark how to bring in computer-controlled targets, since he was the one who initiated the simulation, and they practiced a bit with the firing controls before enabling them to shoot back. The spherical targets fired off plasma bursts that registered as hits rather than damage, with a tally number in the upper left hand corner of the HUD.
Lorsar worked them up through the most basic of settings until they started encountering resistance, then he began giving them a few tips on how to approach the targets using the maneuvering capabilities of the Valeries. That got them up another two levels before they called an end to the simulation and cracked open the pods.
To Mark’s surprise there were several individuals from different races standing around, watching their progress on the central hologram. Among them were the Protovic, still clad in their full body suits. Across the hologram from Mark another pod opened, this one revealing a Calavari that had to be Lorsar. He stretched out his four arms and the Archon heard at least one joint pop in the process.
“They’re not bad,” he announced to the group of onlookers. “Once they get adjusted I think they’ll do fine. I saw their own ships on the deck this morning, front heavy, so cut them some slack.”
“We are merely here to observe,” one of the Protovic said. “Not to judge.”
Sam slid down from the second tier on the smooth side of two poles down to the floor and joined the other Humans in a tight knot while the rest of the crowd had them surrounded. Mark didn’t say anything, but just looked them all in the eye, trying to judge their demeanors.
“If you can get us the schematics of your own vessels, we can load them into the simulation,” Lorsar offered, “though I think in the long run it’ll be better if you learn to fly the Valerie.”
“We’ll do both,” Mark stated, crossing his arms over his chest. “But for the moment I’m going to take some of my other pilots up in the real air for some maneuvers. I’m sure there’s some cameras around here for you to monitor our progress. We’ve also got some target drones to deploy so we can have some live fire exercises. After that I’d be interested in hearing your assessments,” Mark said, gesturing to them all.
“You think your ships are superior?” a Protovic asked.
“Don’t know yet,” he answered honestly. “But I’ve put 300+ years into the design work, so I know they’ve got more in them than you’re assuming.”
Lorsar crisscrossed all four of his arms. “You helped design your fighters?”
“I helped create the original and have been refining the design ever since.”
“300 years?”
“And change.”
“How long do Humans live?” Lorsar asked.
“As long as we want,” Mark said evenly. “Those who don’t train last about 100 years.”
“How old are you?”
“377.”
“And the rest of you?”
“These two are over 300,” Mark said, pointing to Iren and Boen. “Sam is…”
“Only 121,” the Star Force pilot answered, “but I can still keep up with them for the most part.”
“That makes you three among the oldest pilots we have here,” Lorsar informed them. “The Kitot have 5 that are over 636, but I know of no others 212 years or older.”
“They don’t fly that well for being so old,” another Calavari noted.
Lorsar held up a hand to stop further comment. “Let’s observe them in their own craft first. I am interested in seeing what you’ve built, Human.”
“Happy to oblige,” Mark said, leading the other Humans through the middle of the group of onlookers and out of the simulator complex.
3
Mark climbed up into the open cockpit of his personal skeet, painted in the yellow/chrome color scheme similar to the Naboo starfighter from Star Wars, and slid his right leg over the pommel, feeling the familiar seat and chest rest as he straddled fighter and triggered the canopy to slide shut with the press of a button. When the internal atmosphere recycled, taking the harmful gasses out of the air, he pulled off his breath mask and tucked it in a small storage compartment underneath his right arm then gripped one of the ball-like joysticks in each hand down below the control board that was set just in front and below his chin.
Above that was the HUD, with both a video screen and a holographic display having replaced the previously see-through canopy. Now the pod was completely enclosed in an armor-hard carapace to protect the pilot and the visual navigation was all handled by relay from external cameras and sensors. It had been a bit disconcerting when Mark had implemented the design change, but they’d included more than 2 dozen micro-cameras around the hull, meaning that the most likely way a pilot would lose visuals would be if the craft completely lost power…during which they wouldn’t be able to maneuver anyway.
As soon as he powered it up the holographic display filled the entire cockpit, making it appear as if the skeet was invisible. Mark could see the deck beneath his skeet, which appeared as an outline before he flipped a switch and returned his viewing option to opaque. The flat T-shaped nose returned, along with the floor underneath his feet, making him feel more like he was in a fighter than a simulation. Other pilots preferred the wider view, but Mark liked to be able to see his engine pods and fuselage during flight, unless they were on a bombing run or other ground support role.
Visible over the ‘T’ of his ship were another pair of skeets, one blue and another yellow/chrome. The blue one belonged to Clan Saber, with Kara as its pilot. There was also a white/gold from Clan Mantle, an entirely orange from Clan Firestorm, two black/green from Clan Star Claw, and a dark brown from Clan Croft. The rest of the skeets were Star Force grey, both those for the regular pilots and the spares that they’d brought along. Mark could also see the pair of Canderian assault shuttles on the deck next to two gunships, two mantises, and a scattering of dropships that had remained on station rather than returning to orbit.
Sliding his left hand back into the spherical joystick he doubled up his fine-tuned control of the craft by activating both sticks…that way each directional motion was halved and if he wanted a full motion he would have to perform the same twist with both hands. This allowed him to fly one handed and manipulate the control board with the other, or to use both for precision control, such as driving around the flight deck.
Each joystick was a solid cylinder crossing from one point on the inside of the sphere to the other, allowing him to wrap his hand around it while burying his fist inside the compartment. On the outside of each there was a thumb notch with a trigger button. When using the weapons his thumb would rest there, when not his thumb would cross over to the other side and lay against the solid portion of the joystick to keep it from accidentally hitting the trigger during hectic maneuvers.
There were no other buttons on the stick, but it did roll, allowing him to turn left or right. The entire ball-like fist chamber also moved forward and back, allowing Mark to tip the craft up or down, while twisting his wrist to the side would roll the ship around on its axis. Opposite commands from the other joystick would cancel out and each one automatically recoiled to center position, with both deactivating when tactile pressure on the sticks was released.
There were other buttons inside the sphere, however. If Mark reached his fingers out from the stick they’d find four floating triggers that could be tasked with a variety of functions. That gave an available button for each digit, one of which Mark had tagged as a comm button. When he pressed his left middle finger down it changed the other 7 buttons over to preset comm channels, and deactivated when one was selected so the other button functions could be used while chatting.
Mark powered up his skeet’s anti-grav engines with another one, then brought his propulsive engines to an idle, insuring that all were functioning after their trip in the belly of a dropship. Retasking the roll of his right joystick over to anti-grav control, the trailblazer lifted his skeet up off the deck a few inches and retracted the
landing get up inside the fighter, then pivoted around using minimal propulsion from his wingtip engines until he was pointed back towards the open bay doors and staring at the side of a dropship.
Triggering the comm, he hovered in place for a moment. “Report any problems.”
“Good to go,” Kara reported, followed by similar sentiments from the other 8 pilots Mark was taking up with him.
“Take it slow and watch out for traffic,” he ordered, rising his skeet up above the altitude of the top of the dropship then accelerating at minimal speed across it and over to the distant doors. On his sensor board he saw all the ships on the deck, along with the ones rising up behind him. They were tagged with ID signatures for his pilots along with damage statistics, all of which showed full green bars beneath. The ones on the ground showed no data at all, given that they weren’t currently powered up.
Mark pressed his right foot pedal harder and his skeet zipped across the mostly open deck and out of the mountain hideaway, upon which he pulled back on both joysticks and tipped the fighter’s nose up into the air and climbed with the anti-grav automatically adjusting to the change in altitude. Once he got up to 2km he held position and waited for the rest of his squadron to come out along with one of the dropships carrying their targets.
Once everyone was aloft Mark led the group out 50 kilometers from the base where they staked out their training ground and began to go through basic maneuvers, getting themselves reacquainted with their skeets after such a long trip out on the jumpship. As the dropship began dropping floating targets a few alien fighters began to come out of the base and head near to the Humans’ position but they kept a respectful distance, Mark thought, probably so they could relay sensors and visuals back to the base.
“Kara, you’ve got Deuce. Jenna, David, Wade, and Peter are with me,” Mark said, flying a lazy arc so the others could rendezvous and form up around him. “Standard formation drills, lachars set to tickle.”
“Copy that,” Kara said, flying off to another rendezvous point where the rest of the pilots would join her flight group.