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Stella Vir: First Flight
Learning on the Fly (No Literally)

Learning on the Fly (No Literally)

The crew finishes boarding with Razzo and Dre the last to enter the ship. Most of the creatures are trying to get themselves situated around the central cabin. As Razzo and Dre enter the main cabin all the creatures awkwardly look at the two of them not sure how to act or where to go. They all wait for Razzo to let them know where they’ll be heading unbeknownst to them Razzo was hoping for some suggestions as to where to go himself. Razzo awkwardly stares back at the well lit room full of creatures like a kid deciding where to sit on the first day of school at a new school. A few moments pass between all of them.

Finally Ostikous patiences ends: “So where are we going captain?”

“I don’t know I just became captain like 2 hours ago” - says a surprised Razzo.

Chorion raises a finger: “What is an hour?”

Jata interrupts: “Chorion who cares what an hour is, if you don’t know where you’re going then lets get me and Fava and Ober back to our planet”.

“Your planet? Why not our planet?” - exclaims Feefee.

“Hey, I want to go home too!” - yells Chorion.

Razzo, noticing that the room is starting to get a little bit rowdy and out of control, raises his hands up to get everyone's attention. It takes a bit of time but slowly one by one the creatures stop bickering and begin turning their attention towards him. Similar to a teacher waiting for a class to simmer down. It’s just in this case the class is full of deadly creatures who might try to murder the teacher at a given moment, so basically it’s juvy. Razzo waits for silence before he begins.

“I don’t even know how to pilot this thing, so before I take any recommendations I’m going to go into that room over there and figure some stuff out” - says Razzo while pointing at the doorway to the pilots cabin.

Razzo walks through the door and behind him hears someone exclaim ‘We’re doomed, we don't even have someone who can fly this thing!’ Upon hearing this Razzo thinks to himself ‘no shit genius maybe if you didn’t throw the only person who knew how to fly this thing off the train maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation. It would probably be far worse as there's a good chance we would be prisoners again!’

Razzo calls Dre from the pilots cabin: “Dre can you come here and help me figure this thing out. You must have a common dialogue or something with the ship?”

Dre storms into the cabin: “What do you think just because we’re both machines to some degree that we automatically understand each other?”

“Well, do you?” - asks Razzo.

“Yes… but that’s not the point” - says an embarrassed Dre.

Razzo shakes his head: “Okay so let’s figure out how to get out of here and you can be all upsetti-spaghetti at me once we’re flying!”

Dre rolls its eyes and complies. The robot walks over to a control panel on the right side of the room and begins to inspect it.

“What are you looking for?” - asks Razzo watching the robot meticulously inspect the wall laced with buttons, ports, and displays.

“I’m looking for a way to access the system. I need a way to connect to the ship's mainframe physically so I can interact with it” - answers Dre.

Razzo looks at the Automaton with a dumbfounded expression: “How do you know that the ship has something like that?”

“My database has an extensive list of all the known ship types throughout the explored galaxy. Even though this ship has been heavily modified from the inside and outside along with several other ships. The main pilot's cabin has remained more or less the same with a few upgrades” - explains Dre.

Razzo processes the information and asks: “So what do you think the access will look like? A button or port?”

“It’ll be like a rectangular square that you put a hand through. Once you do that the ship will connect to the hand and create a bridge of communication between oneself and the ship. At least that’s the best way I can think to describe it”.

Razzo begins looking around the room to find the square that Dre is talking about. First he looks on the opposite side of the room where a large navigation map displays current information on the star system they find themselves in. After a few moments of not finding anything Razzo calls in Ostikous and Dengrad to look for the same input. But no luck comes out of the extra help as they continue to struggle finding the point of insertion.

Ostikous flails his arms in frustration: “We’ll never find this thing, just face robot, it's over for us!”

“I’m not a robot and keep looking!” - tells his Dre.

“Face it we’ve searched everywhere in this room, maybe it’s in a different room or maybe it’s been covered by newer panels when Automatons changed the interior” - telepaths Dengrad.

The comment gives Dre an idea and the robot proceeds to find any seams in the new panels or screens. Dre searches everywhere all around the room and finally arrives at the central desk in the room. Dre thinks to itself ‘there’s no way this hasn’t been checked yet, those grease boxes would not seal up the connection to the ship’. Dre continues rummaging about the table trying to find an access point. Suddenly the robot notices at the bottom of the table a square half the size of a normal access point.

Dre points it out to the rest of them: “There it is, but looks like the grease boxes covered half of it while refurbishing this room so come help me move the desk”.

Everyone but Dre gets on one side and they begin pushing the desk. Chorion sticks his head through the doorway as that’s all that will fit freely through the doorway and watches them struggle. After a minute of watching them struggle Chorion makes himself known.

“So are we taking off or we just doing some more renovations?” - asks Chorion.

Razzo looks over at the head peeping through the doorway: “We’ll get going once we have access to the system. But how do you know about renovations?”

Chorion answers with a straight face: “We’re not barbarians we have some semblance of how home should be”.

Finally the three of them move the desk enough for Dre to gain access to the ship's operating system. The robot curses under its breath as it connects to the ship. In the meantime Ostikous Razzo and Dengrad awkwardly stand around waiting to see what the robot will do next. Upon a successful connection Dre goes silent not moving a limb. Not a sound coming from the robot, almost as if it had shut down fully. Razzo walks over to Dre waving a hand in front of the robot, no response, then he gives the robot a tap, no response, then gives Dre a slight push and the robot sways the body leans onto the table.

Suddenly over the speakers inside the room a voice can be heard: “Can you not do that please? I’m trying to find the manual for this thing”.

Ostikous says in a worried tone: “The robot’s dead, now all that we’re left with is its ghost what do we do?”

“Maybe there’s still a way to bring Dre back to life? Maybe shocking the body will bring it back?” - suggests Dengrad telepathically.

Razzo thinks for a moment before saying aloud: “I guess it doesn’t hurt to try!”

Razzo goes to load up his fists but before he strikes the body of the robot to create a similar shocking mechanism to a defibrillator he stops as the same voice rings out across the speakers.

“Can you not shock my body? I am still alive!” - the voice rings out throughout the cabin.

“I am merely speaking through the ship, it may look like I’m dead but I am just connected to the ship's operating system and can no longer control my body”.

Ostikous whispers to Razzo: “I don’t know human I would shock the robot, ghosts are not seen as pleasant beings where I’m from and often try to fool the living into certain death”.

“I don’t think that’s the case right now but I’ll keep it in mind just in case”

Razzo looks around the room and asks the room: “So what do we need to do to fly out of here because I’m tired of looking at Chorion's head poking through the doorway”.

“Hey what’d I do?!?” - exclaims Chorion.

“So first Razzo you’re going to need to go to the control panel on the right side of the room and there you’re going to check the following things: Altimeter, Auxiliary fuel pump, Directional gyro, Engine idle, Flaps, Flight controls, Fuel gauges, Instruments and radios, Landing gear position lights, Magnetos, Parking brake, Propeller, Seat belts/shoulder harnesses, and finally the Trim” - rings throughout the speakers.

Razzo looks at Dengrad and Ostikous all confused as to what any of that means but decides to give it a shot anyway. He walks up to the control panel on the right side of the room that Dre was first inspecting while trying to find all the words that were listed to him. To his surprise nothing is labeled and there’s only different colors to go off of.

“So I don’t really see any of those things here, could it be on the other side?” - asks Razzo aloud.

Dre says through the speakers: “No it should be on that side of the room with that control panel. Oh wait a second sorry I’m looking at the wrong manual sorry. That’s to start ancient aircrafts before take off let me see if there’s a newer guide in here”.

Razzo waits for the voice to give him his next command. Ostikous and Dengrad walk over and stand next to Razzo staring at the different colors on the control panel. The panel doesn’t provide much of a clue as to where to start either. At the top of the panel is a large screen providing various glimpses of information for a brief period of time from different parts of the ship like a rotating menu screen. Ostikous goes to touch it but Razzo touches his hand and puts it down gently. Below the screen is a row of buttons that vary in shapes, sizes and colors. But the buttons aren’t just random as they make up four distinct categories, with each category being separated by color. The first category is green, the second is blue, the third is red, and the last category is purple. Below the categories of buttons are a couple different throttle levers, handles and wheels similar to those on pressure valves. Although the design looked complicated and overwhelming some of the levers, handles and wheels also have associated color distinctions to go along with the buttons. Below that is simply a metal panel to hold all the wiring place and hidden yet easily accessible. The control panels are mirrored on both sides of the room with the desk holding only a few buttons and a triple yoke (a joystick for a aircrafts) control stick. The need for a triple control can offer a pilot to have two copilots who can each take over for the pilot in a seamless transition. Dre finally finds the correct commands to relay to Razzo.

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“Okay Razzo what you’re going to want to do is look at the sections with all the buttons below the screen. There you will find a red triangle, press it” - says Dre’s voice over the speakers.

Razzo carefully locates the button and presses it and holds it uncertain for how long he needs to hold it.

“Okay Razzo keep holding the button apparently it takes a joint activation when connected to the operating system. So Ostikous go to the other side of the room and press the blue circle there” - says Dre over the speakers.

Ostikous goes over to the other side of the room but what Dre is not aware of is that the entire species of Urug is color blind and often mistakens darker shade colors. Ostikous gets to the other side of the room and stares at the various buttons. He notices two different shades of blue but instead of asking for clarification he goes ahead and presses one of them in fear of the alleged ghost of Dre. Nothing happens as of this moment and they wait for further instructions.

After a brief moment they hear Dre’s voice ring through the speakers: “Okay so now there should be an unmarked throttle on each side. Both of you need to push it down at the same time”.

They both locate the unmarked throttle on each of their control panels. Razzo counts them down from three and they both pull down on the throttle at the same time. The ship doesn’t move and the thrusters don’t sound off but instead they hear a loud bang coming from the guns on the wing of the ship. Razzo, Dengrad and Ostikous look out the window as they see a massive burst of energy exerted from the rail guns. Luckily for them the positioning of the ship was not in line with the platform of the Froklin Outpost but it did so happen that the shot trajectory happened to be in the vicinity of where the rest of the train was lodged.

“That didn’t sound like the engines” - says Chorion's head peeking through.

Razzo goes over and pushes Chorion's head back through the doorway and closes the nanoparticle door behind him in one slick motion.

Razzo brushes off his hands: “That’s enough of him, now let’s focus and figure this thing out and quickly. The Froklins probably didn’t appreciate that!”

Dengrad telepaths while pointing outside: “Yeah you might be right about that it looks like they’re pretty pissed off”.

Razzo walks over to the glass and sees the Froklins scurrying around the platform yelling and getting their particle beams ready to fire. Razzo, Dengrad, and Ostikous back away from the window and get back to the control panels on the walls.

“What did you idiots do!!” - exclaims Dre over the speakers.

Razzo yells back: “We did what you told us to do!” Razzo points out the red triangle and the throttle. Then Ostikous goes and points out the blue button that he pressed that was really the purple button. Upon seeing this Razzo’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t press the blue button, you pressed the purple button! The blue buttons are next to the purple buttons!” - yells Razzo.

Ostikous remains with a confused expression on his face: “What is a purple? This whole side is blue”.

Razzo yells out: “We found the problem! Dengrad go take Ostikous’ spot and Dre read out the instructions again!”

“Yeah you idiots activated the weapons system, not much of a surprise why the Froklins are getting ready to fire at us! Okay so once again Razzo go press and hold the red triangle button and this time Dengrad go to the other side of the room and press the blue circle there. Once both are pressed at the same time pull down on the throttle and that should start the thrusters and give us the ability to take off”.

Dengrad follows the instructions and goes over to where Ostikous was initially stationed. Lucky for them Froklins don’t struggle with color blindness like Urugs. Razzo counts them down once again and in tandem they press the buttons and pull down the levers. This time they hear a roar at the back of the ship as the thrusters ignite. Upon hearing the thrusters ignite Dre decides that its had enough rummaging around the ships operating system and exits it. Dre’s a bit woozy upon exiting the ship and can barely hold itself upright. Upon stabilizing itself and getting a bearing of its surroundings Dre turns around and walks over to Ostikous and pokes him in the chest.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were color blind?!?” - exclaims Dre.

Ostikous brushes off the robot's finger: “How was I supposed to know that I’m color blind that’s just how I see things! My people don’t have tests for how one sees, its more absolute like if you can see or not”.

Dre shakes its head and goes back to the desk where it sits behind one of the control yokes. Dengrad goes back to the glass to look through it as his people are almost ready to blast the ship. Ostikous goes to sit next to Dre but Dre points to the seat on the other side leaving the middle seat open for Razzo. The three of them strap themselves into the seats, whereas Dengrad straps himself in an upright position with a view outside. After strapping in they stare at the control yokes.

“We best leave soon” - telepaths Dengrad.

“Okay, what do I do now?” - Razzo asks Dre.

Dre looks at him puzzled: “I don’t know, fly maybe?”

Ostikous shakes his head: “It will be difficult now that we’re strapped in…”

“Fly the ship! I meant: fly the ship!” - exclaims Dre.

Razzo yells out: “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FLY!”

Dre yells back: “YOU THINK I DO?!?”

“WELL YOU WERE INSIDE THE SHIP!” - continues yelling Razzo.

“WE’RE ALL INSIDE THE SHIP!” - adds Ostikous.

“THAT’S NOT WHAT HE MEANT!” - yells Dre.

In a panicked look Dre goes and grabs the yoke in front of itself and tries moving it in a variety of directions. But the yoke won’t budge as it is locked until the central yoke releases it. Ostikous tries as well and faces a similar issue.

“Razzo you have to fly us out of here” - says Dre in a panicked tone.

Suddenly they hear a bang and the pilots cabin shudders as they’ve been hit by something. Razzo’s instincts take over as he grabs a hold of the yoke like his life depends on it. He thrusts it down but it simply raises the tail of the ship causing the nose to scrape along the platform a bit. He then rips it towards himself rapidly changing the angle of the nose of the ship upwards. These sharp movements allow for them to avoid the next shot from the Froklins weapons. Unfortunately at the same time the high degree of sensitivity between the control yoke and the ships movements makes it tough for Razzo to move in one direction. They keep increasing the gap between themselves and the platform but slowly as each sharp movement makes them lose speed. All the while Dre and Ostikous continue yelling at Razzo to either watch out for something or go in a certain direction.

Razzo has enough and yells: “WILL BOTH OF YOU STOP I GOT THIS!”

“ALL I SEE THAT YOU’VE GOT IS A LACK OF STEERING!” - yells Dre.

Razzo looks at the Automaton and yells in his face: “WELL YOU’VE GOT A SHIT ATTITUDE HOW ABOUT THAT?”.

Dengrad telepaths to the three of them: “All of you calm down, we're doing just fine and having sustained two hits to a ship like this shouldn’t be troublesome”.

Razzo yells at him: “WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU JINXED IT!”

During this moment Razzo has a lapse of attention and fails to maneuver them out of the way as the ship gets struck once again by a particle beam. Razzo flails his arms and has a crazed expression on his face as he focuses back on the flight at hand.

“SEE THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DISTRACT ME!” - yells Razzo.

At this very moment an eruption occurs along the outpost wall where the rail gun had hit. The air pressure that is created rips open the wall of the outpost and expands it rapidly. While the Froklins look internally to isolate the area the damage is done as out of the hole the second half of the train is ejected along with all the other debris in that section. The train looks a lot more damaged from the pressure and parts of it are almost indistinguishable with all the Krutsummus slime draping over it. Part of the debris floats about on its own once getting ejected but parts of the debris is squirming about like exposed worms. Razzo with the others in the Valentina’s Voyage continue their flight whilst avoiding the shots from the Froklins on the platform. As the debris continues to exit Razzo comes up with the idea to hide amongst the debris to create obstacles for the Froklins assault. Razzo gives no warning as he heads the ship toward the debris. Everyone in the pilot's cabin picks up on his idea and asks no questions. As the crew looks out the window to see the debris heading their way they notice that something isn’t right. Along with the debris from the train, slime, and contents from inside the train it looks to them as though something’s squirming.

“What is that?” - Ostikous asks quietly.

Razzo squints trying to see: “Maybe that’s just the way things go pushed out that they’re still moving?”

Dre schools him: “Things don’t just move in space, it’s absolute there’s no atmosphere for them to move”.

“You know you’re really starting to get on my nerves with all your know it all talk. What is it then smarty pants?” - scoffs Razzo.

Dre thinks for a minute: “It’s probably just some bacteria squirming trying to survive without oxygen”.

Dengrad telepaths: “I doubt it’s bacteria but it can’t be what I think it is”.

Before Razzo can ask the question as to what Dengrad is talking about the ship enters the field of debris and the crew hears a thud on the wing. Then another thud on the back of the ship. They continue looking around outside the glass but can’t see anything but the debris and slime. At one point a large amount of slime goes and covers their view completely. All the while the crew continues to hear thuds after thuds, with each subsequent thud the ship slows down slightly. The loss of speed causes some concern amongst the crew as there’s no way they were running out of fuel already and would hitting something here really slow them down so much without it being something significant? Unbeknownst to the crew there’s a species that can survive in the absolute reaches of space without any equipment. Well that is aside from Dengrad he knew of a creature like that.

Dengrad telepaths to the crew: “Turn on the video feeds that are mounted outside the ship right now”.

Razzo looks at him confused: “We can do that?”

Dre goes and flips some switches and presses some buttons in tandem to turn on the video feed to the outside of the ship. After a few seconds they see on the monitors all around them displaying different parts of the ship with the Krutsummus swarming the ship. They see as more of them fly and glide over onto the moving ship and begin trying to pick away at the newly refurbished vehicle. Although the Krutsummus speed was reduced in space with the ship beginning to slow down they could land on it much more easily.

“What do we do?” - asks Razzo nervously.

Dengrad telepaths without hesitation: “We need to exterminate them like vermin. Get the guns ready and get rid of them as fast as you can before they do too much damage to the ship or stall us out with their slime.”

“Okay Dengrad and Ostikous get to the gun stations on the wings, Dre see if you can program the ships top and bottom guns for most effective strike patterns. Try to find a way to communicate while on the wings if you can” - says Razzo letting the others know the game plan.

He holds the ship steady for a moment while Dengrad and Ostikous rush out of the pilots cabin and into the central cabin. Razzo waits until he sees a glimpse of both of them in each wing of the ship before saying to himself ‘now it’s time to relive all those stories’. As he says this to himself under his belt he begins playing with the control yoke quite a bit, figuring out a way to get rid of all Krutsummus on the ship. He sways the ship one way and few fall off and then sway the ship another way and a few more fall off, but each time he gets rid of some more fly onto the ship. In the meantime Ostikous and Dengrad begin firing the ballistic guns in all directions trying to get rid of the Krutsummus in any way they can. The short range allows for the ballistic turrets to remain quite effective against the Krutsummus and pierces through their armor after a few rounds each. All the while Dre connects itself to the ship again trying to write code into the ship's guided weapon system for things like the lasers on top of the ship and the coilguns under the ship. With Ostikous and Dengrad making quite a dent in the Krutsummus and as a result lessening the load on the ship, Razzo’s able to control the ship with more maneuverability. Razzo rapidly begins doing more difficult maneuvers that causes more of the Krutsummus to fall off. Dre finally figures out the code and finalizes the weapons guide system. At which point the lasers and coilguns eliminate a big chunk of the Krutsummus attempting to land on the ship. Razzo sees an opening in through the debris and plunges through it. Upon plunging through it he notices the Forklins' continued assault has now shifted focus from Valentina’s Voyage to the Krutsummus approaching the platform. Now there’s nothing between them and the wormhole, Razzo carefully tries to guide the ship in the right path towards the wormhole. Ostikous and Dengard return to the pilots cabin of the ship after finishing removing all the Krutsummus’ off the ship.

“It looks like we made it out in one piece!” - exclaims Ostikous upon returning to his seat.

Razzo looks at him like he’s insane: “You just jinxed it! Why would you say that?!?”

“What is a jinx?” - looks at him Ostikous with a dumbfounded expression.

Just as those words exited his mouth the ship’s trajectory changed with the way that Razzo was holding the controls and no longer going in the right direction. Razzo tries to correct this by overcorrecting the other way but the sensitive controls cause the overcorrection to go too far. The ship appears to now be going on a direct path with the border of the round wormhole. In the final moments before collision Razzo undoes the trajectory just enough for them to slip through the wormhole.

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