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Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

[ Nathaniel Isley | Fighter Bay ] Attn: @CanadianVet
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Nathan felt odd, he was back in a white uniform, he had his ensign pip, and he had every right to be here now that he was back as a member of the wolves. However he still didn't feel like a member of the wolves. The trust, the comrodary he had back with the pack was a little more fragmented. They had just lost another one of their original members as he had been informed that Rawley had been put into stasis and probably wouldn't be coming out any time soon.

Not that he was particularly excited to have a conversation with that wave of crazy. She had already made it clear about how far their relationship went when she had turned around and called him a murderer in front of the rest of the pack. A day ago that had been more than justified, today... well he still couldn't bring himself to fault her for that choice.

He walked, silently along the long corridor of the fighter bay, until he came to his objective. For a moment he wanted to turn, and run. If he ran fast enough he could dive into the break room, and hide from this for a few more hours, as he came face to face with the murder weapon.

He gently raised up a hand and pressed it to the nose of his plane his hand trembled like he was placating some savage animal. "Hey girl... Remember me?" It had been a week, and yet despite their need for birds to be out in the air, his had just sat here. It wasn't exactly where he had parked it on the day he had killed Skye Carver. At first he had believed that his wings had betrayed him, but as the investigation had rolled forward it had turned out to be a little more complicated than that.

Now he was back, and had to figure out how to deal with this new feeling of fear.

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #1 –
[ CWO1 Sten "Papa Bear" Covington | Fighter Bay ] attn: @Kaligos

With Theurgy's vectors separated and their current status being something along the lines of 'trying to be a hole in space' while effecting repairs, it didn't mean Sten Covington and his deck gang were idle.  While he already had a passing familiarity with that idiot Knight's Valravn design, the Chief of the Deck needed to bring himself fully up to speed on the newest addition to the fighter complement.  And also, he had to train his people on them at the same time. 

But there was something that made him turn around, a feeling his attention was needed elsewhere.  As such, leaving his people to their studying of the maintenance of the Valravn's impulse manifold (which, in essence, called for removing the entire drive from its housing to access it, a thoroughly ridiculous design flaw that no maintenance chief worth the name would have ever let happen.  But then again, Covington knew Knight, what with having been one of Reenan Cooper's fellow project directors, and he knew he put very little stock in what anyone who didn't hold a full Starfleet commission and had a strong engineering background had to say.  Which meant that while the drive was optimized for efficiency, responsiveness, low mass and minimal volume, it was a maintenance nightmare, especially in spaces where cubic footage was at a premium, such as a carrier's fighter bay. 

It was Isley, and back in a white shirt as he belonged, and he was standing in front of a fighter.  His fighter.  Granted, when he had lost his wings, the bird itself had been relegated to a standby/spare status, and it had effectively been returned to factory defaults.  Approaching the pilot from behind, Sten was wiping his hands on a rag tucked into his toolbelt, and he called out.  "Icarus, welcome home, son."

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #2 –
[ Nathaniel 'Icarus' Isley | Fighter Bay ] Attn: @CanadianVet
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"I'm surprised everyone knows the new flight name, I just submitted the papers for it this morning." Isley still faced the plane reflecting on the situation before he turned to face Convincing. Standing at attention for his commanding officer. In all honesty he had no idea how Convincing could sound legitimately happy to see him, after all the two had a history of clashes, and he had even at one point been ordered to apologize to the man by Miles. Of course the thought of the other more experienced pilot that they had left behind in the last battle was painful, but he hadn't been there to help on that day.

"Thank you Sir, it's good to be back." Isley couldn't help the smile that formed along his lips saying the words. He was finally home after all. He held out his hand offering it to Covington hoping that from this point on things would stay this way, fly smoother and higher.

His attention turned to the plane on standby. "I've been told that she's mine again. I just spent the last hour or two reviewing the manual for her, even just a week on the ground has me feeling a little nervous. You wen't over her with a toothbrush after the incident, anything that I should know about Sir?"

He looked around at the flight deck, he had practically skipped over just how busy everything was when he had come down here, almost in a trance like state after everything that he had been through. "I see you got some new birds." His eyes drifted to the really nice one however, the Reaver, begging the silent question 'when can i have a turn with that thing', it was a question he desperately wanted to ask, but was in no position to actually take it out for a spin.

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #3 –
[ CWO1 Sten "Papa Bear" Covington | Fighter Bay ] attn: @Kaligos

"First things first, son.  Next Sir I hear out of you, I'll break your jaw.  I work for a living."  That was an old joke, and Sten knew it.  In fact, he was certain there had been noncoms in every civilization since the dawn of time who had said that exact same thing at some point, and there would be more doing so until the energy death of the universe. 

And he frankly positively hated getting sir'ed.  Even if it was technically a proper mode of address.  But on the flight deck, that particular propriety was not one that was observed, and he certainly would not stand of it being thrown into his face.

But when Isley said that particular fighter was his again, the Chief of the Deck nodded appreciatively.  The lad had asked the right question, if there was anything he ought to know about his bird after it had been taken from active-assigned status to backup status.  Really, there was never much to worry about these things, at least so far as the hardware was concerned.  Most everything had to do with settings and software, interfaces and minor adjustments.  "When she went from being yours to back in the stable, she was returned to factory default.  So you'll have to re-calibrate the cockpit instrumentation and flight inputs to your specifications.  And you'll have to  be checked out again on emergency procedures and flight bay protocols.  Overall, nothing much.  Oh, and I saved a text of your settings, so you should be able to re-enter them manually."

That by itself was not exactly true. Covington was meticulous and he kept extremely accurate records.  But by only offering a read-only version of the settings at hand, it would force Isley to work his way through all the interfaces the old-fashioned way to re-input them.  And that was for training and re-familiarization value, to get him back in the cockpit and help jog his memory. 

At the mention of the other birds, he nodded.  "That we do.  Some Knight designs.  Good birds on paper, even if they don't have the staying power of the Mk III's.  But intensive in maintenance man-hours."

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #4 –
[ Nathaniel Isley | Fighter Bay ] Attn: @CanadianVet
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"Sorry Covington." Nathan said, dropping the sir, having been dropped down in rank back to ensign had him feeling odd. In all reality he had not exactly been the most respectful person when he had been  his old rank, but at least as a lieutenant he had been able to get away with some things. Now he was probably the oldest ensign in the fleet certainly on this ship. It felt weird like he suddenly had to relearn the pecking order of things and every interaction between him and others was now pulled into question.

Nathan had expected the wipe to factory settings, but doubted his bird had the 'fresh from the lot' smell to it. What actually shocked him making his mouth gap for a moment was the fact that there was a saved copy of his settings. I mean he knew there were records for these things, but after being transfered and what happened to Skye he hadn't expected to be brought back into the piloting chair so he hadn't expected for someone to save his presets. "Why did you keep them, I mean I don't think that's standard procedure to save a pilots settings if they are never gonna fly again?"

Nathan let out a low sigh as he realized that one way or another it didn't matter why they were saved, but now that he was here they had to be re put in. He made his way to the stares. "Mind if we go over it than, I could use a friend to talk too while I work." Plus having him here would verify that nothing was fucked up. Technically he was on the shift roster now, so did have a patrol later that day. Opening the canopy the first thing he noticed as he sat in his bird was that his legs were cramped.

unlocking the seat and moving it back for his legs and taller frame, leaning his seat forward so that his back was kept strait were the little things of crawling into a cockpit. "Hey Bear... we should get some air-fresheners in here, have thea replicate a few pine trees. I mean she may have been washed down, but... this cockpit stinks."

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #5 –
[ CWO1 Sten "Papa Bear" Covington | Fighter Bay ] attn: @Kaligos

Sten was not surprised when he was asked why he had kept Isley's settings on hand.  He was, after all, a pilot and not a maintainer.  And while he was expected to know a thing or three about recordkeeping so far as fighters went, Icarus was still a pilot, and entirely too many of them did not view getting their hands dirty in any way, so far as their birds were concerned, as part of their work.  As if it was beneath themselves to look after the tool of their trade. 

In a way, it was oddly aristocratic, a real oddity in today's egalitarian Federation, even within Starfleet.  But then again, pilots were mostly officers.  And officers tended to have a pretty high view of their own worth, and how some work was beneath them. 

"Son, I wrote the record-keeping requirements for these birds.  Everything that happens to them, every bit of maintenance, every setting adjustment, every scratch in the paint, every shot fired, every hit taken.  I even know every time any button or control's been hit.  Because it's all things my deck gang needs to know."  The big man offered a smile.  He took pride in extremely high standards.  Oh, there were plenty who despised the amount of reporting he required of them, but there it was, and it had a tendency to pay off at a later time.  Whether someone had to re-enter their settings in a new bird, or finding a fault somewhere. 

"Hey, last person in there was you.  That tells me you may wish to do something about your suit's atmosphere exhaust."

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #6 –
[ Nathaniel Isley | Fighter Bay ] Attn: @CanadianVet
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Nathan felt stupid for a moment as Sten pointed out that the storage of his settings was more a flight duty than anything significant. For a moment he had thought that they had been stored over some hope or foresight that he would be coming back, but not so it was more that they needed those records for the deck crew. He almost chuckled at how stupid that fact made him feel and how obvious it must have been for the aged mechanic. He sighed as he got to work on setting up the bird, starting the battery and getting her to function as he started to compare stuff on the default to his current settings.

When Sten brought up that any smell would be because of atmosphere filters in his suit he blinked for a moment. "Wait those things have filters?" That actually explained a lot, how often did he actually perform maintnance on his flight suit? Certianly not often enough as he was pretty sure he had strait up avoided that task in his previous era.

"Do you ever think about decals?" Nathan said wanting to move on from one topic. "I know that 'bomber girls' have been banned from planes since prior to warp civilization, but what about just... some repainting?"

Despite having an accurate layout of his old controls, Nathan was actively making changes to his flight controls and shifting some things, to make it feel a little more new. Not so much that his reflexes would cause him to make a mistake, since he had been with this bird for a long time, but still working on it to make a few more changes that he had long thought about but never had an actual reason to make.

"I'm not knocking the uniformity of it, but it feels like the only colors Federation ships deal with are grey's and whites. You ever think of adding some... I don't know personality to our Warp Fighters?" Of course now if anyone ever managed to break in here and do some graffity or something, than he would get blamed for it just for asking this question, but the odds of that ever actually happening were very low. "Space is already really dark, and mostly lifeless, some color would go a long way."

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #7 –
[ CWO1 Sten "Papa Bear" Covington | Fighter Bay ] attn: @Kaligos

The look on Isley's face when he realized his old settings being close at hand had nothing to do with him personally drew a rumbling chuckle from the Chief of the Deck.  Pilots.  They all seemed to think they were the center of the universe and that the ship revolved about them.  And, frankly, Covington saw it as part of his sacred duty to keep officers, especially those who flew fighters, grounded in reality.  Roman emperors had a slave whisper 'you're just a man' in their ear from time to time; Theurgy's pilots had Sten Covington. 

But what he brought up next turned that chuckle into outright laughter.  Paint and decals?  Seriously?  This was not the early days of manned flight on Earth, where fighters would stencil arts to crude flying machines.  Each of those fighters was a sophisticated machine, and even its paint job had a task to accomplish.  "You know, I thought of repainting them myself.  As soon as I can figure out how the Reaver's black paint has that kind of energy refraction index and thermal dissipation capabilities, I'll write up a proposal to replicate it so we can apply it on our birds.  But nose art?  Not happening on my watch, kid."

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #8 –
[ Nathaniel Isley | Fighter Bay ] Attn: @CanadianVet
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Nathan understood why the birds didn't get a fresh coat of paint. Going through the system check list and doing various tests, he modified his flight controls to his prefrences, and looked at Covington as he listened to the man saying that nose art was definetly not going to happen. Federation rules were basically what kept order on the Theurgy they were still Starfleet officers at heart, but he had to admit that sometimes the rules were so boring, that said he didn't want to get pinged with anything because the moment he did he would be on even thinner ice than what he thought he had been.

"Are you okay with this?" Nathan pointed to himself sitting in his old bird. "The last time I got in this thing wasn't exactly a positive experience boss. I may have been cleared, but... I'm nervious I kind of feel like the runaway who comes home after a long time."

Nathan shifted uncomfortably in his birds seat and was trying to think about what would happen next. Since he was back in tactical he was going to fly in the next fight, and considering task force archeon could easily track their warp trail that point in time could happen pretty soon. "So you flew in the reaver?... how was it? i have to admit i'm kind of curious on that thing wondering if i can get a turn."

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #9 –
[ CWO1 Sten "Papa Bear" Covington | Fighter Bay ] attn: @Kaligos
When asked about the Cinsaj, Covington just grunted and shook his head.

"It was a clear reminder why I should remain on the deck, where I belong," he said, taking a deep breath and deciding to indulge the pilot even if he had better things to do. "The Cinsaj did her job. Intuitive controls. A bloody arsenal of armament we can barely make sense of. Situation demanded her to be taken out there, against my better knowledge of my set of skills. Got back in one piece, but not because of any merit on my part. It practically flew itself. As for taking turns with it... its also evidence about the enemy, so I don't think it likely the brass will clear it. I suggest you speak with Razor. He's the one to approach Ives and Trent about that."

Seeing an array of things that he needed to tend to, Sten looked back to Isley. "Welcome back, Icarus. Don't let any others muck up your head."

That said, he stepped away - leaving the returned Lone Wolf behind.

OOC: One last from you?

Re: Day 02 [1300 hrs.] A Bird Made of Wax

Reply #10 –
[ Nathaniel Isley | Fighter Bay ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
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Nathan nodded in an understanding and slight wonderment. It did make sense that the bird could practically fly on it's own. He had never even been inside the thing but he had seen them fly in the battle against the calamity, one day the fire power of the thing might be needed, and one day he very well may get the chance to fly it. But for now he had his own bird to work on, his own set of wings that needed tending too.

It was good to have Papa bear on the deck, but it felt even better to be back in the cockpit where he belonged, ane he wouldn't be traiding his white color for another one ever again. "Thanks boss." He said with a small smile and a half hearted salute as the man got back to his rutine on deck.

Nathan for his part spent the rest of the hour going over every little detail of his bird. Happy to be back in her, but also worried about what the future would hold.

~Fin
 
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