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Post by tara on Jan 16, 2007 11:53:54 GMT -6
Though the smell of Viper fuel was like perfme to her, Shannon didnt want to be seen as a typical loser newby. She resisted the urge to look around in awe at the busy ground crews and the battle scarred Vipers. Instead she walked up to the Yellow line, dropped her bags, and waited for the squadron CO, or whoever he delegated, to collect her and inform her of her assignment. She hoped it was going to be less stressfull than the screen process that she had passed, to determine if she had the ability to fly a Viper. That test was simple, and she could have slept through it, but the waiting, and the yelling, and the confusion was stressful.
She glanced at her watch, she was five minutes early. Any earlier and she would seem too eager, too undisiplined, any closer to the appointed time, she would seem lazy or dissorganized.
She checked her uniform one last time. It was perfect, all the lose threads were cut and fastened down with a hot glue gun. The worn but serviceable gun belt and pistol were at the proper length off her hip and secured according to regulations. Her hair was pulled back into a regulation ponytail, and she had neglected to put on ear rings or make up, since they were not necessary.
Clenching her jaw to conceil any nervousness, she took a deep breath and calmed her heart, finding the calm place inside, and smiled her best smile as she noticed someone approaching her.
<Note: added chapter designation to title for continuity purposes--Lucian>
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Post by Brie on Jan 17, 2007 19:16:57 GMT -6
Lieutenant Flell saw the new cadet off in the distance. He was hating his temporary position as the head of the Callisto Training Academy, and actually missed Captain Lazant. He approached her, surprised at how young she was. "I'm Lieutenant Flell," he said, holding out a hand. "I'll be running you through your final qualifications before your promotion to Ensign." He started to walk. "Now, could you please explain to me how you've been allowed to make it this far without having attended the Academy?"
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Post by tara on Jan 18, 2007 15:33:05 GMT -6
Shannon looked at the officer for a moment, framing her question in her mind for a few seconds. She COULD come off cocky and arrogant, like so many young pilots, and probably get away with it, like they typically do. Or she could come off as quiet and confidant, like the more experienced officers. The last thing she wanted to do was drop the 20 plus names of respected officers, that would definately come off wrong, and she didnt want to screw the pooch before she even got in a real Viper. In the end she did the thing she figured her father would do... why had she not attended the academy indeed...
"I dont know sir, the screening board didnt feel the need to tell me. I suppose they might have mentioned that in my SRB (Service Record Book) but I dont have that, they said they sent it off to my command." she smiled her best smile. He didnt seem like a jerk, so he probably was cool. Somehow though he seemed like he wanted to be somewhere else, or at least not here at this time, doing this. His body posture was sleightly turned away and he was looking around like he was already bored. "I will try not to be a pain in your ass sir." She continued staring straight ahead, at attention.
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Post by Brie on Jan 18, 2007 19:22:35 GMT -6
Lieutenant Flell smiled. "Good answer, Cadet, and decent delivery too. Get used to it, because it’s going to be a question that you’re asked a lot.” He reached over and took one of Shannon’s bags. “Here, let me help you with that. In all my yahrens I’ve never heard of anyone skipping the Academy. Even men with decades of experience...anyway, I've been instructed to run you through a sim session and then to the firing range, just to see what you can do. After that, you've been assigned to Gold Squadron. You'll be able to meet Major Brie tomorrow. If you have any questions before that, either ask Captain Hawke or myself."
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Post by tara on Jan 19, 2007 11:40:31 GMT -6
*Nodding her understanding* "Aye aye sir!" Shannon suppresed a smile and picked up her bags. The bigger, a pilots bag that was designed basically to carry her helmet and knee board, slipped over her shoulder, the smaller bag, a gym bag, contained some minor personal effects, so it was a light load, and she easily kept up with the Leutenant. He was probably testing her with his fast pace, seeing if she was disiplined enough to ignore the confusion around her, but he couldnt have known that she was familiar with most of the work being done. She followed him to their destination with hardly a glance, and not a word. If he wanted to hear anything out of her mouth, he would have asked. She suspected that he knew far more about her than he let on, he seemed very smart and more observant than he seemed. She noted that he missed nothing. He seemed to see everything, and she admired his perifial vision, since that was a highly valued trait for a fighter pilot.
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Post by Brie on Jan 19, 2007 13:19:44 GMT -6
Lieutenant Flell wondered what was going on in the young cadet's mind. He was purposely walking fast, but even though she was quite a bit shorter than he was she had no problem keeping up. She also seemed to know her place, not asking a bunch of stupid questions or engaging in needless conversation. Captain Lazant would have liked her attitude.
After what must have been a near record-breaking hike across the Callisto, Flell stopped in front of the Simulator Room. The cadet wasn't even winded. "I'm going to run you through a series of different scenarios. Major Brie will want a full report on how you handle yourself in various situations." He keyed in his code and the door opened. "After you."
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Post by tara on Jan 19, 2007 15:26:30 GMT -6
The simulation was not a test of her skill, that much she figured out immediately. Then again, that test was done already at the screening. This was a test of her ability to follow directions and to stay in a formation. She was flying as wingman to an element leader, or in other words, her element leader was the shooter, she was flying behind and to the side of him to make sure no Raiders got a shot in on him. She knew the outcome of the simulation was a sure death for them both because the simulated element leader was flying a formation patern straight out of the Colonial Air Combat Manouvers manual, that the Cylons knew by heart. The typical Cylon Raider pilot flew patterns designed to defeat those ACM (Air Combat Manouvers) and so the result would be sure death to the Colonial pilot stupid enough to fly those ACM by the book. But this was not about changing the ACM, it was about does this nugget fly formations or do they go off like some TriDee movie star and get themselves and their element leader killed. Shannon was no fool. She stayed in formation, resisting several tempting chances to bank sleightly out of formation to kill a stray Raider, since she knew that was exactly the sort of cowboy manouver they were watching for. Even as her element leader banked into the path of several Raiders. She saw a last second chance she could have banked sleightly and though she herself would die, she could have saved her element leaders life, but then again, he may have been working with another element, and that sudden last second shift could have caused a collision which would kill not just herself, but all four pilots. So in the end she took the hit and died, exactly as she was supposed to do, according to the program. The sudden black screen didnt supprise her, but she worried that they might have seen her eyes and noticed her hand shift ever so sleightly during certain moments, as she debated the wisdom to save her leader, or take the hit. She counted on the fact that they were not screening her for the ability to fly, that was already established, they were checking her ability to fly in a squadron, and that meant being able to fly a disiplined pattern and to not endanger her wingman or squadron in some foolish stunt. As the simulator canopy opened, she removed her helmet, which was her mothers helmet. Perhaps it was familiar to the leutenant, perhaps not, he gave her no sign, but his face seemed somehow supprised about something, she just didnt know what.
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Post by tara on Jan 20, 2007 18:16:13 GMT -6
The second simulation was much more difficult. She was told only that it was a test of her reaction time and spatial orientation abilities. She nodded, "Aye aye sir." she said quietly replacing her helmet. The canopy dropped and the screen immediately flickered on. A conflagration of alarms and tell-tales erupted around her. Nearly every vital system was showing a red light, telling her that she was in it deep and she had NO idea why. Without really checking, she instinctively scanned the targeting display and saw four Raiders heading on a collision course with her. She had less than two seconds to do whatever she was going to do. Her hands grabbed up the stick and the throttle. She pulled the stick back with no throttle, pitching nose up and over, like a loop, only while still flying straight ahead. She goosed the throttle a bit as the Viper nearly completed its loop, which gave it momentum in an odd down but rolling motion. The Raider directly behind her passed over, which now was under to her. There could not have been more than inches between them. However, she was not safe yet. She reversed her Vipers port side engine, and went full military throttle on the starboard side, which produced a stomach turning sensation as the tail side slipped to the left, scraping paint and a few milimeters of armor plate off the second Cylons wing. The third Raider was now so close she could see the welds along the engine cowling. She pressed the firing stud flaming it point blank, the blast melting the paint off her own fighter, but also pushing her out and away from the explosion in a flat spin. She was in huge trouble, as the gee forces climbed. Already she was feeling the stress of 9 gees, and rising. The fourth Raider was circling around for the easy kill, and Shannon was counting the last moments of this simulation when she chopped the throttle and dumped a dozen pounds of fuel in a spray around her. The effect of the fuel in the cold of space was interesting in the respect that it turned to ice almost immediately. The effect of the thousands of droplets of iced fuel were dramatic as well. They flew out and away from her in a circle, making a cold wall around her. The Raider momentarily lost her heat signature, which bought her a few seconds. Shannon pushed the throttles to the limits, forcing full after burners on all three engines, and the alerts now became a solid noise, as whatever damage that had supposedly happened to get her into the situation was now being damaged further. She felt some strange sensations as the top or apex engine started to buck and tear at its mounting. That was ver very bad under the best of circumstances, but in a near flat spin, with a Raider banking in on her, it was about the worst case senario possible. She closed her eyes, letting her body orient itself, like she used to do when tumbling on the mats in the gym. Her head accepted the new virtual horizon as real and she felt the vertigo sensation lessen. Meanwhile the Vipers spin had become less a flat spin and more of a tight circle, pushing the gees up beyond the 10 gee limit that the gee meter could display. She felt the effects and the world started to close in, tunnel vision was beginning and she knew she was going to lose conciousness in moments. She pushed the nose down and began what would become a downward spiral, which would take her in a turn inside the Raiders banking turn. Since a Viper could always turn inside a Raider, it would take her out of the firing solution of the Raider. She felt her body going weak and she began grunting against the g-loc trying to sustain it for another second. She couldnt, and her Viper began to straighten, but the Raider was less successful than her and it began to roll, as its design became unstable at such high gee turns. It was losing control quickly as she was recovering conciousness. After a few seconds, she was blinking the blood out of her eyes and could see, albeit with a red tint to things. She banked lightly on the nearly helpless Raider and fired, the starboard side gun ripped open the Raiders canopy, while her port gun exploded ripping the cowling off her engine. Again the lights started screaming at her, but she pulled up and shut down the engine, looking for a place to set her bird down. She had survived a bad situation, burned and broken, but still in the fight...
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Post by Brie on Jan 23, 2007 9:46:29 GMT -6
Flell didn't pay close attention to the second simulator session, it was obvious that Shannon knew what she was doing, and the entire report would be sent to Brie anyway, his input wasn't needed. There was something else that was on his mind. Shannon's flight helmet, he could have sworn that he had seen it before...but that just wasn't possible.
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Post by tara on Jan 23, 2007 10:21:33 GMT -6
Sitting in the simulator, Shannon replayed the senario over and over in her head, trying to think of things she could have done better. It felt to her, that the simulation was designed to kill anyone who flew it, but she survived, so that couldnt be the case, she was just another ordinary pilot.... right? "Um, sir, if were through, may I take a few minutes to get a drink and stretch, please sir?" she asked. She was pretty sure he would be okay with it, as she was slipping the helmet back into her moms carry bag. The old squadron logo and her moms name and rank were so faded as to be hardly ledgeible, and Shannon had never considered taking a marker and re-freshing them, she figured it was her bag now. It was the same with her mom's gun belt. She didnt feel any need to do much to it, it worked just as it was. In fact, the other jacket she had, her moms old uniform jacket, would be serviceable too, but until she had a squadron to report to, she was not going to sport the jacket with its old tattered squadron patches and logos. Until then, she was going to stay more or less "under the radar" so that she got a fair test of her abilities. Her father had said she inherited her moms flying gene, but so far, she found only fault in her flying. She felt like it was never good enough, that her mom would have done better, would have found solutions that she could not. Someday she would be better than her mom, but until then, she felt only shame at her lack of skills. Of course, others might have a far different view of her skills, but to Shannon, it was all about flying against her mom. She climbed out of the simulation and twisted, popping her back, and stretched her arms, in the same guesture her mom was known for, but Shannon had no idea of that. The fact that she looked nearly exacty liek her mom was a secret that her dad took with him to his grave. Only those who knew her would notice that. In fact, some of her dads friends stopped comming around once Shannon started to look more adult. They swore it was as if a ghost from the past was walking among them. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail, letting it tumble around her face, like her mom always wore her hair. She turned and looked at the Lt that was checking off paperwork. "Ok, Im ready in a second sir, I hope Im doing ok, it feels like its been forever since the last time I was in the cockpit..." she said smiling, thinking about the nearly five week lag between now and her initial simulator testings.
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