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CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | FAB | Deck 16 | Vector 2 | The Ranger] Attn: @Krajin @Pierce
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Shadow marched from the SCO’s office, still clad in her exosuit, features set in the typical ‘resting bitch face’ most of the Wolves and crew had come to know. Annoyance simmered just beneath the façade; mostly directed at herself, but also at Janus. It shouldn’t have surprised her when the old man offered her an obligatory pat on the back for not getting herself killed during the whole crazy-squid-from-the-future sortie, only to slap her with a hey you detail – that detail being the huge new arrival she’d seen him with earlier. Allegedly, the mammoth cat-man was a pilot, and guess who got voluntold to help him get up to speed on the Mk. III’s?

Not like I haven’t lived in the damn sims for the better part of the last month, Talia grumbled to herself while she walked; helm tucked under her arm, dark pony tail swaying as she made her way across the deck to the turbolift at the far end of the bay. Dark eyes turned to her bird, attended by service crews – rearming, refueling. I should be out there not stuck in here babysitting – besides, Tessa’s got him covered, Talia’s neutral face cracked into a frown. What could he learn from me that she doesn’t already know?

Once inside the lift, Shadow took a breath and vented the tension from her body and mind; reminding herself that they were a team, and only as strong as the weakest link. The sooner they all flew together and meshed – learned each other’s style’s, strengths and weaknesses – the better chances they had at survival. It made sense, and besides, she didn’t have a choice.

Bitching about it wont help, ace. Let it go.

Her eyes lingered on her bird as the lift doors slid closed. See you soon, beautiful. “Holodeck 3,” Talia sighed, then did her best to clear her head and reset her attitude. There was a new Wolf to meet, and she didn’t want to offer him a poor first impression. Done plenty of that already, ace, she snorted at herself with a smirk.

[Training Simulation | Holodeck 3 | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | The Ranger]

Shadow walked into the simulacrum of the FAB with her head high; she even managed a slight smile – an honest attempt to appear relaxed and welcoming – as her dark eyes locked onto her fellow Wolves. The lack of the usual ambiance, all the noise that typically assaulted the ears in the real FAB, left her footsteps loud enough to echo off the pristine walls of the cavernous chamber. The closer she got, the bigger Atlas became – the newcomer towered over Goldeneye, and Talia wasn’t surprised to discover she barely stood taller than his waist. She stopped far enough away from him so as not to give herself whiplash and waited patiently for a break in their conversation.

“Goldie,” Shadow smiled and nodded to her wingmate, then looked up at the behemoth cat-man with a tilt of her head. “You must be Atlas – I’m Shadow. Welcome to the Wolves. The old man told me to give you a hand playing catch-up,” a shoulder lifted, as her eyes returned to Tessa.

“So, training wheels, or straight into the crazy," Talia asked with a smirk, already knowing which option Goldie preferred.

Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

Reply #1 –
[ Dominic Winters | Holodeck 3 | Vector 2 | Deck 21 | The Ranger ATTN: @Pierce @Dumedion

Dominic had been testing his suit out and giving it a good run through, all the systems, movements, practicing motions and making sure every motor function had worked. Wearing the helmet had been a bit of an adjustment with the impressive heads-up display that it had. However, it lacked the displays and readouts since it was not linked to his Fighter as of yet. He’d been informed that part of his duties today would be to get a crash course in flying the Mark 3 in the Holodeck. So after a good dinner and drink Dom; still in the pilot exo suit went down to the Holodeck and waited quite happily there.

Upon entry into the Holodeck, he spoke up “Computer, generate the Fighter Assault Bay. Adjust Wolf-10 Valkyrie with updated specifications in its landing bay.” He watched as the simulation adjusted the vessel to fit and honestly, it didn’t look to much like it had changed which for him was good! He began to pace around the area, his heavy footfalls echoing through the rather quiet bay as he waited for the others to arrive. Eventually, he even did some physical exercises to test how the strength enhancement systems in the suit augmented his own. Right up to pushups, pulling off a handstand, and more. His finely tuned ears picked up on the sound of the Holodeck doors sliding open and the echoing footfalls of other people walking in.

First came Goldeneye who stood easily at nearly six feet give or take several inches to which Dom with a grin on his face waved to her and adjusted his gear slightly. “Top of the evening to you!” He greets her. Feeling more at ease with fellow pilots and not to inclined to get too uptight over meeting them. Dominic turned fully to face her and tucked his hands behind his back and adopted a more at-ease stance. In part to show off his height and physique and in part to be more relaxed. With his armoured, thick tail swaying slowly behind him. His helmet sat on the hull of Wolf 10 while he watched the woman. Though his ears prickled slightly as the door hissed open and in came another, much shorter female.

Is nearly everyone in the squadron female? He asked himself silently as he studied this one. The empathic aspect of his telepathy picked up on her emotional state, as it did with Goldeneye. This one must be Shadow. She was even shorter than Goldeneye, coming up to his belly. He’s only Seven-Foot-Six after all and she is what he gauges to  be five feet tall! Maybe a bit taller. “That I am Atlas. I’m sure the moniker doesn’t need explaining but if it does. I am sure you can dig through my profile.” He responded easily. Though the next question got posed to Goldeneye he decided to weigh in for the fun of it. “I was thinking training wheels eh? Learn the basics. Turn it on, turn it off. How to land properly? Which joystick controls the throttle?” His ears twitched in amusement whilst his tail swished ever so lightly.

Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

Reply #2 –
[ Lt. JG Tessa May Lance | FAB | Deck 16 | Vector 2 | The Ranger] Attn: @Dumedion @Krajin [Show/Hide]

Tessa heard they'd gotten some new recruits and being the old dog in the group, or at least one of the few survivors of the group, she decided to show up and help Shadow school the newbie. She headed to the deck to get on the holodeck with Shadow. As she approached in her flight deck suit, she ran into Talia and Atlas.

"Nice to meet you Atlas. I'm Golden Eye or Tessa, or Blondie, or..." She laughed. "You get the picture."

"Hey girl!" She smirked remembering their previous encounter and the fact they were going to have fun as usual. She glanced at the newbie and he...was...huge...

Letting her partner make the calls, she nodded. "Let's get right into the crazy. You know how I like it." She smirked again.

The fighter assault bay materialized and she found her own Valkyrie. Feeling the edges of the ship, she realized that it wasn't quite the same but it was certainly close. Afterall she'd been through, she was one of the oldest ones still alive at this point and part of her felt sadness to that fact. But the crazy part of her was still excited for the thrill of the hunt and the speed. She'd lost a lot of friends in the line of this fight in such a short time. But hopefully she could teach the future recruits to not die.

"We don't just play with training wheels, we launch them at the enemy! We squeeze these ships with the massive fire power and take out the beasties on the field. G'argh!" She yelled as she realized she diverted to a pirate in speech as she attempted to ramp them up.

"The point is, we'll have fun." The ADHD in her caught the note about his tail and she followed it with her eyes and head in tilt before shaking her head. "The tail do anything special or is it the pew pew?" She squeaked as she finger gunned him like it was his trigger finger.

"So Shadow, what we doing today? I'm antsy and need somethin' ta shoot lad!" She rolled into a Scottish accent. "Where be me ship?" She laughed in a goofy laugh and in rare form today as she knew it wasn't going to be long before the training commenced and the crazy unlocked fully.

Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

Reply #3 –
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Training Simulation | Holodeck 3 | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | The Ranger] Attn: @Krajin @Pierce
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Her head tilted up at Atlas with a sly curl of lips. Cute, Talia chuckled, then grinned at her wing mate. Tessa never failed to deliver, that was for sure. For all the blonde’s antics, Shadow knew she was one of the most audacious pilots in the squadron; she’d paid for underestimating Tessa before and hoped Atlas wouldn’t make the same mistake – but then Goldie started speaking pirate and brought the giant cat-man’s tail to everyone’s attention. Talia couldn’t help but palm her face with a shake of her head.

Fuck’s sake, Tessa…

Her laughter at the exchange stifled, barely, Shadow busied herself by calling up the sortie catalog with her wrist PADD to select a mission. “Hm, let’s see,” her lips pursed in consideration while her fingers swiped through a few selections. “Milk run? Eh, done it too many times. Chin’toka 2?” she looked to Tessa, then grimaced with a shrug, “maybe,” then made a few more swipes. “Oh, how bout Airtight,” she grinned with a nod, then flicked the mission brief to each of their respective PADDs so both could read along as she explained the rough outline from memory.

“It’s a bombing run – based off one of the bloodiest Peregrine missions from the war, updated and turned into a Top Gun favorite; four fighters work in tandem teams of two to knock out separate targets simultaneously – each team armed with a single Hellbore torp to do the deed, along with standard munitions. Target Alpha is in orbit, a C2 node, while Bravo’s on the surface. Ingress will be at high speed through an asteroid field, then up through the planetary rings where we split off; the radiation belt of the rings masks our approach, but once we move beyond those we’ll be detected and the clock starts. We’ll have three minutes to knock out both targets before we’re swarmed with enemy reinforcements – fighters and capital ships. Once both objectives are toast we disengage and bounce the fuck out. Sounds simple, right? Here’s the catch.”

Shadow highlighted the tactical assessment of both target facilities; one was a massive station in geosync orbit of some nameless backwater deep in Dominion territory – the other was a subterranean ketracel-white production and Jem’Hadar breeding lab on the dark side of the planet.

“Both facilities have independent offensive and defensive systems; multi-layered shields, phased polaron turrets, torp launchers – as well as their own fighter escorts on standby, that will scramble the second we pop up on their sensors. To negate those, we have to upload a specific scrapcode into their systems via EWAR, which will necessitate max range of 10,000 km and 60 seconds for the upload; during which we’ll be taking fire from everything. Once the virus takes out their shields and teeth, we burn both targets and haul ass.”

She paused to smirk up at Atlas’ look.

“It’s called ‘Airtight’ because we’ll be fucked in every orifice if we lose even a single ship, fail to upload the package, or just run out of time; I sure as hell was every time I’ve tried it. Granted, I didn’t have you two. So, Goldie and I take Alpha – you and Rover, that’s the AI bot flying your wing – take Bravo? Oh,” Talia shrugged nonchalantly, “don’t be surprised if the system throws you a curve-ball or two; surprise environmental effects, system glitches, random power failures, IFE’s…its a nightmare scenario – designed to kill you, plain and simple. Sound fun?”

There were few missions as crazy, as far as Talia knew – Tessa’s recreation of that scrap with the Borg being one of them. Still, she figured Goldie was up for it regardless. Atlas was the wildcard though, but he seemed to have a decent sense of humor, so Shadow opted to twist the knife a little.

“Or, we can spend the next couple of hours reading manuals, if you prefer,” Shadow smirked up at him with a side nod to Tessa. “Goldie here spends more time in the box than I do. I’m sure if you ask nice she’d even show you what all the buttons do, where the gas petal is, how to tune the audio system; you know, the really important stuff.”

Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

Reply #4 –
[ Dominic Winters | Holodeck 3 | Vector 2 | Deck 21 | The Ranger ATTN: @Pierce @Dumedion

Dominic listened as both spoke and introduced themselves, up until Goldeneye brought up his tail after an episode of becoming a Pirate. Something which amused him as he had come back from doing a stint with pirates. He didn’t quite understand the whole ‘pew pew’ thing about it though. “My tail functions as part of my balance, I can sweep people off their feet with it and if I felt inclined. I could strap a blade to it and make it more deadly.” He said easily. Leaving the ‘pew pew’ alone for now. Figuring if she wished to explain it, she could.

When the mission was suggested, Dominic looked at it and read it over. His ears began to flatten slightly as he got the gist of how it was to go and who was being paired with whom. His expression was one of displeasure if any understood the Kzinti body language. The entire operation sounded like a potential attempt at hazing and he was the butt end of the joke. Her smirk, he couldn’t quite gather if it was conceited, silly, or smug at this moment, and flicked through the tactical read-out that came with the PADD.

“Doesn’t seem like much in the way of training. More a.. Just throw them in the fire and have a good laugh about their performance eh?” He asked with a twitch of the ear. A quick open-shut flare of the nose followed. He understood that this was a test in its own right with his soon-to-be squadron mates, how he reacted to the suggestion, and how he performed. Dom did not approve of hazing in any form, ribbing, practical jokes, and the like are all good. Hazing? No.

“So what I am getting is that you want me to effectively go it alone as we all know Holodeck ‘bots’ are average at best unless programmed specifically to be at a specific skill level or a direct copy of someone's neural pattern. Eh? Whyn't one of you fly with me? Or do you not want to be paired off with the newbie?” He asked with a slight twitch of the tail. “Maybe you’re scared of the trainee.” He taunted lightly. His gaze flicked between the two women to see how well they would bite.

"How about we get the ball rolling on the differences between the Gryphon and Valkyrie and let me get used to flying it before we get into a mission that is patently designed to fail the pilots. I am good and a quick learner in operating a ships helm but given a chance I'd rather a little exercise before.. this."
 

Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

Reply #5 –
[ Lt. JG Tessa May Lance | FAB | Deck 16 | Vector 2 | The Ranger] Attn: @Dumedion @Krajin [Show/Hide]

Tessa nodded at the explanation for the tail which her attention span and ADHD already was moving on from, but wanted to play with it now that she saw it moving around. Shaking her head she looked at Shadow and smirked at the mission "Airtight". "Awe, are we scaring you? But honestly, the stuff we have to go through on this ship, any realistic life or death scenario is going to give you the best sense of what we do here. Not hazing at all. We save that for the locker rooms!" She chuckled at the thoughts of the nekkid shenanigans that take place there. That's also why she slept in her Valkyrie a lot instead of her quarters on those times.

"I will say as far as survival skills, I am one of the few original Valkyrie pilots here still alive and I've seen a thing or two. Just my two cents!" She giggled and skipped around the room like she was partially nuts, which wasn't far from the truth with the mental trauma she'd been part of.

"We also don't have to go it alone. We could do a 3 man squadron and bots! Bots of old comrades though so they're better than the regular holoprojected drones." The taunt of being with the newbie made her eye twitch slightly, "Oh, do I detect a challenge stripes?" Further taunting the tiger man.

Hearing the mention of deciding between a Gryphon and Valkyrie, she nodded. "We can do that. Start you with a flight pattern and then activate the mission if that works for you to get acquainted with the flight controls." She pulled up to a screen to show him a schematic of the Valkyrie.

"While I know nothing of the Gryphon as I've always been a Valkyrie pilot, I can say these bad boys are little jet engines with a payload of ammo that can be customized based on your flight preferences. Valkyrie's have a wide variety of secondary weapons options, excellent hull armor and shielding. Impressive sensors that can dish out as much of a pounding as it takes. Now the disadvantages are low maximum/standard warp speed, unwieldy tetryon pulse canon when extended. But it comes with micro-torpedo's, phaser arrays, turrets, awesome sensors, and much more!"

Her enthusiasm spilling outward for her vessel as she pictured firing holding her hands in front of her and firing with both hands richocheting as if she shot something in an age old airplane.

"So Shadow, Atlas, ready to go?"

Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

Reply #6 –
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Training Simulation | Holodeck 3 | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | The Ranger] Attn: @Krajin @Pierce
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The curl of a half-smile stayed in place as Talia listened and watched Atlas’ weigh in on the mission; confidence and amusement apparent in her posture and body language. While ignorant of the Kzin’s idiosyncrasies and physical tells, she knew pilots well enough and the egos that came with them – no one liked to look like a fool right out the gate, but to Talia's mind, they died in training to prevent it in reality – so her head dipped in acknowledgment and left it at that. Her attention shifted to Tessa as the blonde chimed in, offering her thoughts on the matter. Talia shrugged and nodded again when her wing-mate spoke up about hazing, though. It was true enough, the Wolves liked to fuck around with each other, but there was a time and place for it.

Training was neither.

Still, Atlas' reaction was amusing. Like I don't have better things to do with my time, Talia rolled her eyes. 'Airtight' was designed to test and push everyone's limits, working as a team. It didn't matter who flew with who - if they'd had a fourth driver, they'd all probably die anyway.

“Just to clarify,” Shadow held a hand up before they went any further, dark eyes turned back to Atlas. Her voice and tone were level, all business, yet spoken through a lingering smirk. “This isn’t about you or your ego, and certainly isn’t about fucking with the new guy. I trained on and flew 307s for two years before qualifying for the 409 program,” Talia tilted her head to the row of Valkyrie’s across the simulation. “So I know exactly what you're facing here. There really isn’t time for bullshit. By the book, we’re talking months of classroom theory and practical exams before quals – I had three weeks to get it done. You have eight hours, maybe less; so why don’t we stop wasting time.”

At least he figured out how to suit up, Talia’s eyes flicked over his armored exosuit quickly as she cradled her helm under one arm, chin jutted to him. “It takes almost that long just to sync these suits to your bird alone, by the way, so regardless how good you are, your reaction time and operating capacity will still be off,” she shrugged, then nodded to Tessa’s recommendation. “Training wheels it is. A few laps to start, at least,” Shadow agreed, then led the way to the waiting fighters without waiting for them to follow. The clock was running.

Talia continued as she walked. “Do yourself a favor and forget trying to compare the 307s to the 409s; the Valkyrie is a completely different animal, designed from the frame out to be superior in every way possible. Beyond the hard point options Goldie mentioned – which you’ll need to qual for individually, of course – it’s a whole new ship. Nothing handles the same. The exosuit and ship are attuned to every driver, offering unparalleled reactionary capability. Your RIO is gone, replaced with one of the most advanced C&C platforms ever designed; HUD function and data integration is faster, crisper, than anything you’ve ever seen – throw in the TVD and you can see through the damned hull,” Talia paused to glance over her shoulder at Atlas. “Hope you handle it better than I did. The sensory load alone made me nauseous.”

She stopped at the nose of Atlas’ bird, head cocked at the obvious modifications to the cockpit; it looked almost the same, at least from the outside. “This is you then,” she nodded to it, then arched a brow at Goldie. “I’ll run him through pre-flight if you want to work us up a route,” she asked with a shrug, “standard CAP, I suppose? Keep it simple?”

Talia consulted her wrist PADD then glanced up at the cat-man. “Pre-flight SOP is in Appendix D, section 3 of the manual if you want to follow along,” she told him with a tight smile. “Or if your the hands on type, be my guest,” she jerked a thumb up into the box of his ship. “Sooner we get going, the sooner we get gone.”

Re: CH2: S [Day1|1900hrs] Show us what you got!

Reply #7 –
[ Dominic Winters | Holodeck 3 | Vector 2 | Deck 21 | The Ranger ATTN: @Dumedion @Pierce

The big guy was starting to get just a tiny, itty bitty bit annoyed by the two women, though it was more leaning to in part his own pride, experience and understanding that they seemed to assume he had no idea what they were going through. He did know, he was briefed and understood the life-and-death situation they were all in. “I do not need a realistic life-or-death-scenario. I have been briefed on your situation before I took the assignment.” Dominic responded to Goldeneye as she explained the situation. He was about to say something further when he watched Goldie start skipping around the place like she was missing a few fries from that happy meal there.

He did his best attempt at a smile that Humans would recognize. “A little.” At the response to the challenge. “I do appreciate the chance for the flight pattern to get a feel of the ship in its basic form. I don’t mind flying a ship raw with no experience and have done it. But this deployment requires that trial run at least.” He added. Tail tip slowly started to twitch as he relaxed some.

Dominic looked over to Shadow and tilted his head slightly when she spoke her piece. “Firstly, ego has no play here. However I do have some play here, as I am learning to fly and operate a craft in eight hours and be able to trust I can perform at expectation and support my wingmates confidently.” He responded with a touch of sharpness in his tone.

Walking over to the Valkyries with her, Dominic looked at the one he had generated with the altered specifications and walked over to it. “I do appreciate what you are trying to do, understand that. But a few laps will be very beneficial for me, otherwise you’re going to watch holo-paint peel with my frustration when I am trying to figure out aspects of the craft midflight and getting vaped.” There were other reasons to it, the Dominion war was not something Dominic enjoyed reliving in any form and this mission being picked sported stark similarities to missions he had undertaken which were of similar suicidal danger.

He started walking down the side of his ship, running a gauntlet-covered hand down its hull. He understood it wasn’t real in any form here beyond photons and forcefields. But there’s always a certain magic to being introduced to a new ship and learning to fly it. “Every ship is different, each has a personality in its quirks.” There’s a possibility that Dominic might be an aerophile or astrophile in some form. Boys and their toys right?

“Unless the weapons have changed drastically my qualifications for the majority, bar the fancy tetryon cannon should still stand. That is a different story.” He added as he removed the helmet from under his arm and stuck it on and began to climb into the cockpit. He appreciated the explanation of how the ship’s systems worked and functioned, a little bit like a salesman in approach but otherwise a lot better than the manual.

“Is there anything about the system I need to be wary of, bugs, glitches, quirks and things not to do?” He asked, looking to Shadow as he settled into the cockpit. Bringing up on the right-arm PADD the pre-flight checks he had noted down, Dominic did a check out of sheer habit for everything else inside the cockpit that is meant to be there.

Phaser Rifle, Medkit, Rations, knife, Water, shelter. Standard kit. There’s a ritual to it that he had inherited from flying the Peregrines and always needing to make sure everything is present. Even in a Holodeck where it would be likely to an almost certainty that it would be there.

“I like being hands-on, it’s how I learn better. Alrighty. Let's start walking through it and get the first go around finished.” Forearm PADD up and reading with her the steps on this. Dominic is a fairly quick study at least and knows his way around enough that he is figuring things out.
 
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