L Plates

Posted on 23 Nov 2016 @ 6:24pm by Ensign Miraj Derani & Lieutenant JG Rahl Tyton Ph.D.

3,491 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 12 - Recluse
Location: USS Galileo Holodeck 2
Timeline: Md02 0730

[ON]

One part of the job that was almost always over-time was teaching. Miraj didn't mind though. She liked introducing people to the joy of flying And this evening she had an absolute beginner ready to learn how to fly a shuttlecraft. She arrived at Holodeck Two with a spring in her step. "Good evening Dr Rahl," she said with a smile when she saw her student.

Rahl arrived at the holodeck early. He needed to work off nerves anyways. The last time he had been anywhere near the pilot's seat of a shuttlecraft had been in the academy. In research he was not often called upon to be a pilot. Even when he went on missions he was more valuable on sensors and other things then piloting. He hadn't minded. However he knew that would probably not be the case here. He would more then likely be expected to fly in persuit of his duties on board the ship.

He almost jumped when he heard another voice. He had been so deep in his thoughts he had not heard the doors open behind him. Taking a deep breath and schooling his facial features he turned around with a slight smile. "Good evening Ensign Derani. Shall we see how badly I crash and burn this evening?" He chuckled softly.

"You won't crash anad burn. This is a sim. And if we were in a real boat, I wouldn't let you. You'll be fine." She led the way into the holodeck. "Load file Flight Training Mij One." in a few seconds, they were standing just behind the pilot seat of a type nine shuttle, a duplicate of Galileo's own Virigina "Say hello to Ginny." She looked at him expectently

He shook his head. "It is merely an expression. However, as I haven't touched piloting controls since the academy I will warn you that I'm likely as not to head us on a collision course instead of a smooth ride. I will do my best to pay attention to your instructions."

He raised an eyebrow in question when she said to say hello to someone named Ginny. He looked around. "My apologies but I don't see anyone else here with us? Hopefully, this is not some sort of initiation prank?"

"This is Ginny." Miraj pointed at the ship all around them. "Virginia. This may be a facsimile of her, but its important to get into good habits now. your ship is all that stands between you, and explosive decompression. Or burning alive. Or being irradiated. Or frozen solid. So be polite to her, and say hello?" she was smiling, but her tone was firm."

He raised an eyebrow but wisely refrained from comment. He had seen line soldiers do the same thing with their weapons. Giving them names. Though the history of many planets and species had that similarity. He was not about to offend the ensign. He looked around and nodded. "Good evening Ginny. I will try not to bang you up to much on this first voyage."

Miraj beamed and indicated the pilots seat. "Get comfy. You want to be able to reach comfortably all over it without a massive stretch but not so close you get cramp."

"Alright. On the far right is flight control: engines on, external inertial dampner, warp toggle, auto pilot, course preset's. if anything goes wrong, press auto and 01-01, and that will bring you to the nearest safe harbour, either the shuttle's parent ship or the nearest federation planet or outpost."

Rahl had brought his PaDD with him and was furiously typing notes as she went along. He of course understood vaguely what she meant from his training in the Academy. However it was only a hint.

"Now. This panel is your real space attitude control," She reached over and pointed a finger the circular area with the yellow cross in the centre. "Up and down is pitch, left and right is roll, and swipe around the circle to control yaw, or bearing. Push up, the nose comes up, push down the nose goes down. push left, we tip to port, push right, we tip to starboard. turn the circle, and we twist in that direction." she waited for him to put his hand on the helm control.

He looked to her for a moment with a raised eyebrow. His hand reached out tentatively and he barely brought his hand into contact with the helm control. He had no wish to be the first pilot to have a rending accident on the first lesson.

She moved on to the left hand panel. "This hand is for velocity. You can use those buttons to incrementally move up and down, or you can use the slider bar" She stroked her fingers up and down the panel in demonstration

He shook his head. He had no idea how she kept it all straight. It seemed one had to be able to move each eye independently to keep a look on all the instruments and readings. He had a very growing respect for those that were at the helm of a ship. It would seem a lot more went into it than simply punching in a course to the intended destination.


"Now, today its going to be easy, we'll be in deep space conditions, no gravity to contend with, no anomalies, so if you take your hands off the control, you carry on going in the direction you're heading. We're going to start with switching on the systems, and exiting the bay. So turn on engines there," she pointed at the starter. "turn manoevering control to dock mode with that one," She pointed to the button next to the starter, "then use the up thruster to rise the whole ship a meter off the floor, and then engage forward motion to go dead ahead." She showed him the up triangle on the directional control again, and then pointed to the speed bar. "Nice and gentle."

He shook his head as the jokes that came to mind all rushed to the front. He beat them back and set his PaDD down. He looked at the controls for a moment before offering up a silent prayer that he wouldn't be the first person to somehow kill their instructor on a holodeck training exercise. He hit the starter button for the engines. Waiting a moment for them to respond he pressed the second button for the maneuvering thrusters. He felt the shuttle rise up as it bobbed and weaved from side to side like a drunken boxer with his lack of control.

Looking around for a moment he closed his eyes and started the shuttle forward. However, his finger must have grazed over the speed control as the thrusters suddenly went to max and they shot out like a cannonball.

Miraj yelped as the ship lurched, and she was thrown backwards, sliding back along the cockpit until the bulkhead stopped her with a solid smack. "ow!"

Rahl saw Miraj fall backwards. He had no idea how to stop the shuttle. He heard the smack and her exclaimation of pain and surprise. Finally he remembered they were on the holodeck. "Computer freeze program!" He got up from the seat and rushed over to Miraj. "Are you alright? I'm sorry..I warned you I wasn't good at this. Come on I'll escort you to the medbay. That sounded like a nasty hit. The last thing I need is to put out our conn officer with a concussion."

"no, no, I'm good. Fine. just a little bump." She managed to get back on her feet, ignoring her ringing ears "I guess I should have warned you. You have to take into account gravity when inside a ship or on a planet, so you will feel acceleration. Want to go again?"

Rahl looked at her questioningly but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt for now. He would keep an eye on her and if anything seemed to be wrong he would take her straight to the med bay. "I guess we can try again. Though I have no idea how or why we accelerated so quickly. I will try not to do that again. This is not a good way for me to make a good impression." he chuckled at himself with the joke.

"Just a heavy hand on the console," she reassured him. It takes practise to get the touch just right." she took his hand and pushed his fingers up and down at the right speed. "Gently, she's sensitive. Slow and smooth, not too much pressure."

He nodded. "I guess we can try this again." He took a long breath and let it out slowly. "Computer restart program." He looked out the window seeing they were inside the hangar again. He kept his eyes firmly open this time. He pressed the starter for the engines and every so slowly ran his fingers along the acceleration pad keeping the thrusters at a steady, even pace as they left the hanger a bit more civilly than the first time.

Once in open splace, Miraj released the death grip she had on the back of his chair. "That's good. Now we're going to set a course for twenty-five mark minus 30 and accelerate to quarter impulse and maintain speed and baring for a minute. Then we'll do turns. I've got a course all set up."

Rahl nodded and tried to do everything manually. Including the steering. He had forgotten he could punch in the course and the shuttle would follow it. He wound up going to twenty five mark minus forty. Though, at least, this time, he got the speed correct.

She beamed, "Thats good. Perfect speed. We just need to be... " She tapped the viewscreen controls, bringing up a map of their position, and her structured course. "Over there."

Rahl grumbled to himself. Yet again he had been incorrect. This was getting to be a regular occurrence with this and no one he was liking. He was generally the one with the correct answer. Not the one that needed to be guided. It was an uncomfortable yet humbling experience. Not one he hoped to repeat in his considerable lifespan.

"Actually this is good a perfect opportunity. Bring us over there, so we're at the start, in the least distance possible. Remember there's no gravity, no drag, no friction, here, there is no up or down. left and right are arbitrary. which way up you do it is a matter of choice, not of fundamental force."

Rahl nodded as he corrected the course by ten degrees and headed to the start of whatever course she had laid out. This is why he was a research officer and not a helmsman. He would have had them off course and in the gods only know what sector or quadrant.

"There, you're getting the hang of it." Miraj murmured as they made their (somewhat wobbly) way back to her course. "Just takes practise." She sat down in the co-pilots chair. "Now, nice an easy, in and out of those buoys. And if a turn looks tight, remember that today your turning point is always going to be in the centre of the ship."

Rahl nodded and looked down to the controls before looking back out the cockpit window. It was hard trying to keep an eye on both. He started the shuttle forward again. He made it around the first bouys. He made it around the second one but did a complete 180 turn and was looking at the first bouy unknowingly. He went around it then on for a couple of minutes before looking questioningly at Miraj. "How far out did you put the third bouy?"

She raised her finger, pointing to the back ceiling of the shuttle and gave him an impish smile. "Maybe a more visual aids to navigation. She leaned over and touched a button. The navigation window opened, with graded bars along its bottom and right side. "Bearing on the bottom. Zero is the centre. 180 is far left and right. See the orange line?" It was blinking only just off the extreme right hand side. "The side is Mark. Zero is in the middle
Ninety degrees up us the top, ninety degrees down or two seventy is the bottom. The orange light was floating at mark seventy.

He growled as he saw the light. It was indeed at mark seventy but behind them. He saw that the rest of the bouys were also...behind. He had seemingly turned the ship all the way around and was heading away from the course. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to bite back his temper with himself.

Turning the shuttle around he started back towards the course. This time, he would go through the course. However, it wasn't smooth by any means. Each time he went around one bouy he would stop the shuttle to get the bearing on the next bouy before proceeding.

"Okay," She said after he finished the circuit. "Not so bad, nice and controlled. But in the real world, objects in space don't stop moving. All bearings are relative to you position, and if you're navigating to a planet, those bearings are going to change as you travel. You won't be able to just aim yourself at it and go in a straight line. And aiming in a straight line won't take obstacles into account either. I mean," she stopped to run a calculation, "between here and earth in straight line is... not very much, to be honest, but you will run nastily close to the sun, and if you arrive at the wrong time of day you'll collide with Spacedock. So lets try it again, without stopping, and adjust our course as we move this time."

Rahl nodded and tried the course again. It was shaky and nowhere near precise. However, he got to the third bouy and things went wrong. He seemingly did nothing more then continuously circle around the bouy a few times. He went towards what he thought was the next one. However, he turned before he got there. He couldn't tell for sure if it was the right one or not. He circled around. He couldn't remember. The shuttle just did continuous circles in space while he tried to figure out which one was the correct one.

"Hmm." Miraj stepped in and stopped the shuttle. "You really aren't having much luck. I think your're overthinking it." An idea came to her. "What music do like. I mean really like. What do you sing in the shower?"

Rahl chuckled as he heard her. "No, no luck at all. I tried to tell you I was nowhere near proficient." He raised an eyebrow as he heard her question about music. "I'm not sure that's something I can answer by putting it into words." His fingers skimmed over the console for a moment inputting commands. Over the speakers in the shuttle came forth the the sounds of the steel guitar, drums and a piano. That is until a voice started singing. (Chuck Berry: Johnny B Goode)

Miraj joined in, belting out the lyrics and gesturing franticlly for Rahl to join in whilst she bounced around in her seat in time to the music

Rahl sat there for a moment simply listening to the music. He allowed it to simply flow through him. The beat made it's way into his blood before he opened his eyes. His foot started tapping in time with the beat.

She grinned as he got into the music, and then reached forward and slipped off the external dampener, "Now drive. And don't stop singing!" She paused, waiting for the lyric and pointed 2 fingers at him. "♪ Go Johnny, go, go! ♪"

Raising an eyebrow he chuckled as his hands went back to the steering controls. He took the shuttle back to the start of the course. He pushed around the first beacon then kicked it into maximum impulse as he started weaving through the beacons.

She turned up the volume until Chuck Berry's guitar riff vibrated on the hull and played air guitar whilst he took them in and out. The loops were large, but most importantly importantly smooth. "You're getting it!" she shouted over the music. "Want to go again? Line up some Jimi Hendrix, or AC/DC?"

He chuckled as his fingers danced along the console. A playlist appeared and started playing. Queen, Creedend Clearwater Revival, Lenny Kravitz and others. He steadily kept the shuttle weaving between the beacons trying to push the turns tighter with each pass around. Suddenly he got an idea. As they made the final turn around the last beacon to start over again he engaged the maneuvering thrusters along with the impulse engines to initiate what he would consider a fast power turn. Unfortunately, what the thought was going to happen and what actually did were two very different things. Instead of tightly curving around the beacon he started doing 360's around the beacon at such a sharp curve and high rate of speed he wasn't sure how to stop.

"Cut impulse, and engage thrusters to counter inertia and momentum" Miraj shouted over Freddy Mercury declaring that he wanted to break free. "Then adjust course and take us to the exit!" she was beaming at him. "You've got the hang of it"

Rahl nodded and powered down the impulse drive. He slammed on the maneuvering thrusters perhaps a little to hard and had to quickly redirect course before they started doing circles in the other direction. He aimed them towards the exit of the course and did one more circuit through the beacons before exiting the course and turning them back towards the ship. "Something tells me I have the absolute basics. However, I'm probably a very long ways off from being an expert pilot"

"Well, you're an hour down. Only nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine to go." Miraj beamed at him "All you have to do now is slide us into the hangar bay and put us down gently." She was nodding her head in time to the opening riff of Eric Clapton's Layla . So when you get close, line youself up between the two red lights at the back of the hangar, and take us in at dead slow. You'll need to max your inertial dampners, becuase the gravity will take over and you'll need to brake fast."

He nodded and turned the shuttle towards the hangar and throttled the thrusters. They approached the ship at a considerable speed. His idea was to reverse the thrusters at the last moment to shear off there rate of acceleration and bring them in safely. However he was so dead set on keeping an eye on the red lights and staying between them that he forgot to reverse speed.

They hit the hangar at full thruster power. However, at that point the holodeck safeties kicked in and they went through the ship as though it weren't there coming out the other side in one piece.

Miraj couldnn't help but flinch as the far side of the hangar rushed towards them, and then vanished. Miraj reached over Rahl and started to bring the craft to a stop, before remembering where she was, "Computer, end simulation." The shuttle melted away. "I guess we can save the barn swallow for another day."

Rahl nodded. "I get the feeling landing is going to be harder then taking off and flying." He shrugged and offered her his hand. "Thank you for taking the time to train me on this. It's a sad officer that can't get certified to fly a shuttle"

she waved away his thanks. "Its part of the job. I enjoy it. everyone should fly. And the next time we stop somewhere for longr than an hour, we'll take ginny out for real, and you can show me what you've learnt."

Rahl chuckled softly. "Take it out for real. You really want to tempt the fates with your life don't you?" He shook his head. "I think I'll set up some more time to practice here on the holodeck. I'd rather not be responsible for the death of myself and the chief flight officer on my first actual shuttlecraft flight."

He looked around for a moment. "Again my thanks. Unfortunately I need to take my leave as there is probably a mountain of paperwork by now sitting on my desk. I hope you have a pleasant evening." He turned and headed out of the holodeck.

"Thank you, sir," she nodded, and turned to make sure all program had logged all the relevant details to his file, singing Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away under her breath.

[OFF]

LtJG Rahl Tyton
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

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