Flying High
Posted on Mon Jun 26th, 2023 @ 9:18am by Lieutenant Christopher Blake
Edited on on Wed Jun 28th, 2023 @ 9:36pm
1,961 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
The Sins of History
Location: Holodeck 5 - Deck 6 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD005 1100 hrs
Kelly pushed through the door of the holodeck. She was here for flight sim training. AND she was mad about it. She still had sideways feelings about flying-of course, she would-but she KNEW she needed to make this change. So here she was. Her uniform was freshly pressed, and she was the epitome of Starfleet officer. She was early. By several minutes. Which was both by habit AND design-she could see how good of an officer this Lt. Blake was-was he on time? Put together? Uniform pristine? The problem with the kids today was that they didn't take any of that seriously. She settled in, PADD in hand, firing off emails. They had a LOT to do for this new case, and she was eager to start.
Chris, for his part, walked briskly to the holodeck. He was running through the checklist in his head. He'd done this a thousand times, but still he didn't like mistakes. He reached up to the holodeck panel but saw it was already running and occupied. He tilted his head and looked at the time on the console. She was early. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, he remembered her somewhat from the meeting and she had seemed... tense.
Walking in with barely a minute to spare before the start time, Chris made a bee line to his seat in the holographic shuttle. He sat down and began setting up the controls for the training program with barely a word. Once it was set up, he gave Kelly a somewhat awkward and hesitant nod. "Let's start from the beginning Lieutenant Commander, please go over the preflight checklist."
"You're almost late," she said, her head still bent. She put it up and gave him a look. "It's important for this kind of thing to be early, Lieutenant," she said, a bit of a sigh escaping her lips. "However, ALMOST is good enough, I guess." She said. She pulled up the checklist on her PADD.
"I have already taken the liberty of checking the "weather"-for our simulation, it promises to be a nice day. As we have no baggage, that's not necessary. Let's see..internal consoles-you'll need to train me on." She HATED not knowing something, but reminded herself that that was why she was here, after all. "Astrometrics is a go." She said, holding up her PADD. "Please double-check me on those."
Chris took the padd from her and looked it over, making sure she'd paid attention to the key factors. He hadn't put in anything strange during this training session as it was just supposed to get her comfortable with the controls. "Very good Lieutenant Commander."
He handed her back the PADD and adjusted himself in the seat. "For the console, I've copied over the standard controls so both will read the same. It might look a bit cluttered at first, but the design becomes rather intuitive once you get into it." He gave her a sidelong look, avoiding turning fully towards her. "The preflight is mostly done, you'll just need to check shuttle status and then request clearance to lift off."
Pointing on his console caused the corresponding icon to highlight on the console in front of Kelly. "Pressing here will bring up a readout of all shuttle systems."
She nodded, and pressed the button. "Thank you." She said. She looked around, getting her bearings within the hologram. "Ok. "Shuttle Foxtrot requesting clearance for lift off. All systems go." This part-she remembered John prattling on about during dinner sometimes. She'd tuned him out mostly-as one did after a few years, but apparently, her subconscious mind had retained at least a BIT of information. "This isn't so bad. It's not as exciting as you flyboys make it out to be, though." Kelly wasn't an idiot; she preferred Terra Firma-why the hell would anyone fly when they could die?!
Chris looked down for a moment, she didn't want exciting. He'd seen exciting and it wasn't fun. He quickly changed the subject. "Next, you're going to set the course. It works based on two perpendicular circles; one controlling our horizontal and the other controlling our vertical. Combine that with speed and distance we get our vector."
Slowly and deliberately, he moved his hands across the console, highlighting the different aspects on Kelly's console. "Horizontal first, mark, then vertical." He did an example before wiping it out. Glancing at Kelly, he continued. "Alright, Gently bring us 10 meters above the landing pad."
She nodded. "I think I understand. The vector is the area immediately around us, correct?" She glanced sideways. This was more difficult than she'd originally thought but she was a fast learner. She slowly and carefully brought the plane up to the landing pad, hovering carefully, as her hand floated gently above the control consoles. She could see the draw her late husband had had to it; he had a knack for this kind of thing. "What now?" She asked. "Maybe just this is enough for now?" Those were her nerves talking, she knew.
Something strange happened when he realized that she was nervous. His own personal issues with flying and the incident didn't seem to matter as much to him. Someone had to be in control of the situation and it wouldn't do to have both of them nervous or shy on this training.
"Now," Chris said as he tapped in a few things to his console. "We're going to do a quick and simple patrol before landing back where we started." As he spoke, the flight plan appeared in front of Kelly. Little more than an oval shaped loop. "We're going to maintain this height, and you're going to input the flight plan into the navigation computer. It'll do the rest. You just have to monitor."
"Most standard operations and patrols are assigned by the flight controller and the nav computer only needs to be updated with the information." Chris continued. "It's only if there's a change required to the pre determined plan that you'll need to do much." He managed a slight crooked smile. "We'll get you your wings in no time."
Kelly sighed. "I just need to learn enough to keep this bathtub in the sky," she said. "I was never good at command-type things. I don't have the constitution for it. I am MUCH more suited for the courtroom." Or battlefield or something. Somewhere her "strong" personality could be put to good use. "Ok, I think I can do this," she said, moving her hands carefully around the consoles. She was nervous, and thus, overly cautious.
"You're doing fine." Chris commented as the shuttle began to move in the prescribed route. "Do you have time for a more complex route? Possibly with some manual flying?" He didn't want to push her too much, as she wasn't an active pilot there wasn't a rush to get her certified so this could be mostly at her pace.
She nodded. "Yes, the Captain gave me a full two hours for this." She'd had to leave early that day, which normally she DID mind, thank you very much, but today she had decided not to argue with him about it. "How many sessions does it usually take to get the basics down?" She asked.
"Depends on a few things; schedule, competency, and requirements." Chris rattled off while looking at the course readouts on the screen. "For you, I'd say two or three. Four at the max." Chris continued to look down as he input a slight course correction to begin the next lesson.
Just as the shuttle finished it's circuit, a point appeared on the panels, but there was no prescribed course this time. "Alright, next we have a point but no course. Can you set our heading and speed manually?"
This was somewhat relaxing for Chris. As nervous as he generally was interacting with people, he was flying. Albeit in a holodeck, but he was flying. This was his safe space weirdly enough considering the incident. He remembered Kelly from the briefing and she had seemed so sure and in charge. It had worried him when he saw her name on the training request and frankly he'd almost bailed, but so far she seemed like a good student who just wanted to learn and get through this.
She nodded. She was slowly calming down, realizing that this was just a simulation and if something happened, it wasn't real life-no one would die, no one would be hurt, no one would blame her. It was fine. She pressed a few buttons. "So, due North as the crow flies, I guess," she muttered. She tapped the speedometer and then pressed the button for the heading feature. "Does that look correct?"
"You're doing great." Chris said as he confirmed her heading. "Once we reach that point, I want you to set us to hover for a few seconds before returning us to the launch zone. That will simulate a scan and then return to base."
As they approached their destination, Chris found the courage to speak up about something not entirely about the lesson. "You seemed nervous, but you're really good." He hoped that the small comment would help her continue to relax.
Kelly just nodded. "Thank you, Lieutenant." Her eyes were trained on the screen, but a hint of a smile played at her lips. "I DID go through the Academy; it's been awhile but it has kind of come back to me," she said. "You are a good teacher; you don't get frustrated at my panic. I appreciate it." She said, sincerely. "Ok, set for hover," she said, tapping a button. "I don't remember how to do scans, so you will need to walk me through that," she said.
"Oh, this is a pilot session we'll skip the actual scan this time." Chris said somewhat sheepishly. He should have explained better. He looked down at the console and checked over the readouts. "Alright, we can head back to base at your leisure. Set any course you feel comfortable with."
She nodded. "Ok. No, you're fine. You're a good teacher, I appreciate your patience. I know I can be a lot sometimes," she said. "Alright, back to base." Confidently, she moved her hands, and soon they were airborne again, headed back in a more leisurely course. "Am I supposed to look out for bad guys or not yet?"
Chris frowned. "No," He winced slightly as he innocent question brought him right back to the incident for a split second until he could regain composure. "That would be a part of the tactical flight training once you have the basics down. I can discuss with security about setting up an apprehension simulation in the meantime if you're interested."
Soon the shuttle was back over the landing zone and Chris nodded to Kelly. "Ok Lieutenant Commander, set up for the auto-navigation to take us down and you're done."
She simply nodded, but touched some buttons and flipped a switch. "Auto-nav set. Hold on!" That last part was more for herself than him. After a moment, they were lowering onto the runway, and came to an almost imperceptible stop at the Hangar. "Landing successful," she said.
Chris smiled and did a final check before standing up from his seat. "Great landing Lieutenant Commander. I'll set up for our next lesson and send you a notification on your calendar."
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Commander Kelly Miller
JAG Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Lieutenant Christopher Blake
Chief Flight Control Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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