February 16th, 2279
Mars – Melas Chasma Naval Academy
Pilot-Trainee Shyla Redding and EWO-Trainee Nate Beasley
That afternoon, Shyla and her fellow cadets were at attention in formation in the hangar. Michaels was passing out the revised pairing list. Pilots were always paired with an Electronic Weapons Officer. Piloting space fighter craft was a tricky affair at best and adding anything but piloting to the to-do list had quickly been proven too taxing for a single person, the Navy had quickly found out. An Electronic Weapons Officer had then been added, and that person, sometimes referred to as the Guy In Back, or GIB, handled everything from weapons, to electronic counter-measures, and electronic counter-counter measures. Since the two roles needed to be performed as one to create an effective combat unit, pairs were started early and always flew together. Changes weren’t uncommon, but grew increasingly rare as the cadets moved through the academy.
Shyla’s pairing changes had become legendary and many cadets put money on which the next unlucky trainee was going to be. None of the wagers had listed Nate Beasley as a possible candidate. He’d been paired with Jake Powers since start, so there were collective rumblings when Michaels called out Nate’s name after Shyla’s.
“Trainee Beasley will be Trainee Redding’s EWO pair,” Michaels continued. “Trainee Powers has been reassigned to another training facility. I know this change is sudden, but I feel you kids can adapt. OK people, wheels up in thirty. The mission for today is the fast half course. You’re being timed. Academy best is seventeen minutes, thirty-two seconds. Good luck.” Michaels saluted, waited for the return, and then headed back into the hangar. The cadets filed out to locker room to suit up. Shyla, with practiced ease, slipped into the equipment harness and attached the locks to her anti-g overalls. She placed the extender ring over her head and locked it into the harness. She velcroed her mission binder and holo-pad to the knee patches and headed out to her trainer in less than ten minutes. Surprisingly, Nate was right behind her. She didn’t acknowledge him as he shadowed her to the trainer.
The ST-33 Fang wasn’t really anything like its name implied. It really resembled a series of boxes with stubby wings with thinner elongated boxes on the ends. The tail, while in landing configuration, was straight out between the two large Patterson-Whitman engines. When it got into flight, the tail would move downward giving it a very awkward look. The trainer wasn’t designed to be pretty, but it was designed to be robust. Fangs could survive just about anything a cadet could do to it, and often times would be able to fly after crashes that killed the cadet.
Like the SF/A-22s they were being trained to fly, the pilot and EWO sat back-to-back. That’s about where the similarities ended between the two craft, however. The Fang was nearly thirty years old, compared to her newer cousin: the SF/A-22 Switchblade, and couldn’t compare at all in abilities. The Fang couldn’t even maintain prolonged flight outside an atmosphere. Switchblades, on the other hand, were fast, sleek, and designed specifically for deep-space combat missions. They were the mainstay fighter of the UTF Navy.
Shyla and Nate walked around the fighter running through the pre-flight inspection and then Shyla climbed up into the forward seat, and watched out of the corner of her eye as Nate also pulled himself up and strapped in. She had to admit, he knew what he was doing. He ran through equipment and pre-flight checks quickly and efficiently. He was almost done before she was which actually served to further her festering irritation over the man rather than impress her.
“Bad Apple to Tower, pre-flight completed, awaiting permission to launch,” she called into Melas Chasma tower control. Her call sign, ‘Bad Apple’ had supposedly been randomly generated by a computer, but Shyla hadn’t believed that for a second.
“Roger that, Bad Apple. You’re first up, feel free to lift off any time.”
“Acknowledged, Tower. Lifting off.” Shyla said tonelessly as she added power into her verniers and the Fang lifted off, sluggishly at first, then faster. Shyla expertly navigated out of the canyon wall hangar and out into open air. She added more power into the verniers and she quickly gained altitude. She positioned the trainer at the start of the test course, keeping it in a perfect hover and called it in.
“Position confirmed, Bad Apple. Start on my mark, three, two, one, mark.”
Shyla arranged her verniers into horizontal and maxed the thrust adding in afterburner. The Fang stuttered, kicked, and was gone. Shyla kept control, even as the G’s increased. The course flew through some heavy terrain, and was intended to be fast and difficult. To add to the difficulty, targets would appear throughout the course firing paint shots. It was the EWOs job in the test to block all shots and destroy all targets. The course was meant as an extreme challenge. Shyla thought grimly that Michaels probably was testing her resolve by picking the course.
She kept to the course though, completely ignoring her EWO in the back, but responding to whatever he called out. She increased the power a bit, using airbrakes and verniers to power-slide though a tough corner. Several targets appeared directly ahead and she rolled the fighter over and called out the targets. The nose cannon moved immediately and perfectly eliminated the targets, but not before the last got off a paint-rocket. Shyla rolled the fighter again, trying to zig-zag as much as she could in the tight corridor. She heard Nate pop chaff and the missile veered off harmlessly.
Clear of threats, Shyla poured on the speed running through a straightaway. More targets leapt out into her path, and several more appeared at her four o’clock. She called them out to Nate, who quickly and expertly dispatched them. Shyla stopped worrying over the targets as the course closed back in again and started to wind. Rock outcroppings and overpasses sealed her into a half-tunnel.
She was zipping along at nearly seven-hundred and fifty miles per hour. She had full vertical and horizontal control over her fighter using special handgrips and a PTC (Pilot Thought Control) System. She could adjust the contours of any flight-surface on the craft. Getting feedback through the handgrips, and watching all the terrain-mapping information zip by on her helmet’s HUD demanded all of her attention. She never even noticed Nate bagging every singly target that so much as looked at them sideways.
Finally, Shyla and Nate zipped passed the end markers. Tower confirmed the course completion, but took them an unusually long time to declare time results.
“Bad Apple, this is Michaels. Seems some congratulations are in order. You’ve completed the fast half-course in under fifteen minutes setting a new Academy record. Nate also smashed another one for eliminating one-hundred percent of the targets with almost ninety-three percent accuracy. The Brass is impressed. Return to the hangar and await debriefing.”
Shyla had a bad taste in her mouth. From almost being discharged to setting new Academy records and impressing the higher-ups and all because she had been outsmarted by her instructor. If it wasn’t such a good thing, she’d be humiliated.
11-07-07
Mars – MCNA - Briefing Room #3
Sergeant-Major Michaels, Pilot Trainee Redding
“I’d like to start by congratulating you both on an excellent test run. But I’m not going to,” Michaels started. It hadn’t escaped Shyla that they were the only people in the room. “Instead, what was your opinion?” Michaels asked Beasley squarely.
“I can work with her,” he said simply, as if Shyla wasn’t in the room. Shyla twitched.
“What the hell is this? I was being tested?”
“Of course,” Michaels said with a snort. “For the last two months you have rigorously tested and failed every cadet that sat in the back seat. I felt that it was time you were tested instead. I even went out of my way to tell you about it too,” Michaels said crossing his arms and looking smug.
Shyla wracked her brain. “You mean my last chance? You said if I – oh sunofa…” she trailed off.
“Now you understand. What I said was true: if you dumped another EWO you’d be through. What you didn’t know was that I had stacked the deck, so to speak.”
“Powers didn’t get ‘reassigned’, did he?” Shyla asked.
“No. I had asked Beasley about testing out your compatibility. He agreed and actually thought quite highly of the idea.”
“I talked with Powers,” Nate continued. “He felt that I outshone him and it was starting to affect his judgment. When the Sergeant-Major solicited my assistance, I saw the opportunity to help two people. Powers was given his transfer in return for an EWO that didn’t bruise his ego. And you got me.”
“How the hell is this supposed to be helping me?” Shyla asked hotly. “I would’ve found my own EWO in time,” she said.
Michaels sighed, “I seriously doubt that. You didn’t want to ‘find’ an EWO. You wanted to be found. You can deny that until you’re blue in the face, but there you have it. The results speak for themselves. No more discussion on this. Beasley is your permanent GIB. And if he so much as gets nauseous, you’re out. You get me?”
Shyla, at a loss for words, and knowing full-well that she was beaten, merely saluted and asked to be dismissed. Michaels gave his consent, and she left. Beasley looked slightly grieved.
“Don’t worry. She’ll get over it. She knows that the performance between you two was extraordinary. It’ll just take time. Keep at her,” Michaels said with a small grin. Truthfully, Michaels was quite relieved and pleased. He hadn’t expected things to work out as well as they did. Now if only Shyla would see it that way. “You’re dismissed. Happy hunting,” Michaels added with the same grin.
“Sir,” Beasley saluted and left.
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