1
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!
Last post by Dumedion -[Show/Hide]
Once Atlas had settled in the box, Shadow followed up the ladder. A shoulder twitched at his question while she synced up her own preflight checklist to her ship, that way they could both launch together. Talia hesitated a second before she replied, her voice modulated back into a tone of blunt professionalism in an effort to reign in her impatience. Most of the Wolves and crew that had met her would recognize it as her ‘default’ approach to people; a monotonous drawl clipped with her Arabic accent.
“I have yet to run into any issues, personally. R&D split plenty of hairs testing this platform. Every lesson learned from the 307s was incorporated into the mk. III design; software, hardware, the works. Corsair can and will tell you all about it, given the opportunity. He was one of the test pilots. Good guy, friendly. Man is a walking tech manual,” Shadow smiled, “Decent stick, too,” she added with a respectful nod.
She smirked at Atlas' affirmation of ‘hands-on’ instruction, for Shadow felt the exact same way.
“Alright. Step one, power up safe mode – ops console, left – input key access and initialize. Verify power output and system diagnostics...”
Her arms folded upon the edge of Atlas’ cockpit while Talia walked him through preflight – working through the steps and procedures slowly and methodically. After every step, the ritual was paused in order for her to explain where each function was located, activated, then deactivated in order for Atlas to repeat the process; just like Talia had been trained. Time and repetition would take care of the rest, until he could do it in his sleep, like all the Wolves.
A few moments later, Talia watched Goldeneye's ship soar the bay and out into the void, lips pulled into a smirk. “Tessa’s antics take some getting used to, so I’ve been told. We’d better hustle before she gets bored and stirs shit up,” the pilot chuckled to herself, then returned her attention to the task at hand. Atlas’ ship hummed with readiness; only the canopy and ladder remained. “Okay, looks like you’re all set,” Talia threw a quick thumbs up. “Signal ready up to the tower and the tractors will do the rest. I’ll pop your ladder in,” she nodded to him, then dropped down to the deck. Once the ladder was stowed, Shadow flicked him a lazy salute as she backed away to her own bird, then donned her helmet just in time to hear Goldie’s voice again.
“Copy,” Shadow smirked at the excitement in her wing-mate’s voice as she climbed the ladder up to her cockpit. “We’re set for launch, Goldeneye. Be there in a minute,” the pilot grunted as she climbed in, lowering the canopy as Atlas taxied off into launch position. Talia settled in and followed seconds later.
[Space]
She stayed low on Atlas’ wing as they flew to Goldeneye’s position, dark eyes scanning the haptic projection of the system on her navigation console. There wasn’t much to see, really; a binary system of eight planets, two asteroid belts of medium density, with a ranged list of extrasolar celestial bodies – comets, some of them dozens of AUs out.
A brow arched at Goldeneye’s eccentric choice of flight plan; the erratic line glowed yellow as it zig-zagged all over the system in a hap-hazard path. Well, whatever, Talia shrugged. Not exactly conventional, but at least it’s not boring. A finger tapped open the shared coms channel between all of them.
“Coming up on your six Goldeneye. Rocks look pretty – bit surprised you’re not shooting them - easy enough to navigate through, though,” Shadow announced, then smirked at the unimpressive field of ice and rocks ahead, just within visual of where her wing-mate parked. Once they’d all lined up abreast, Talia switched over to manual control and rolled her Valkyrie in a smooth lateral arch that brought her canopy to canopy with Atlas, close enough to almost graze his shields. Her head tilted up to him with a smile.
“Throttle’s on your left big guy,” Shadow winked, then gestured ahead. “After you.”