----------------------------------------
3.2 - Daily Life Aboard The Fluchtig Part 2
----------------------------------------
A blocky head made itself known around the corner of a tall metallic silver wall, quickly followed by a sleek grey body, in one hand a powerful pitch-black rifle with a narrow nozzle piece. As this machine slowly rounded its cover, the stocky head's orange visor seemed to glint knowingly as the whole body of the beast hulked around to raise its rifle.
A flash of sparks erupted from that narrow nozzle and coursed forward a jet-stream of yellow light. However, even as the light exited the weapon, the body of the large machine recoiled as though in agony as a similarly bright line of orange struck back, smacking the monotone coloured mech square in the torso.
It stumbled back a few paces, attempted to raise its weapon a second time, before finally a third hazy line closed the gap and destroyed the stricken grey Vijaik.
Una breathed a quick sigh of relief at this minor victory, although there was little time to relax. She moved one hand over a control lever on her right in order to increase the ventilation for that side's arm and meanwhile slipped her left hand over the reload sequencer.
To her side came a hushed but stern voice of 'encouragement'.
"One."
The voice belonged to Scarlet who stood hunched in the small angular space that lay behind the monitors of her Vijaik.
At first the veteran pilot had observed Una's practise by looking down from the open hatchway above but over time she had increasingly dropped into seemingly unsuitable parts of the pilot's cabin to get a better perspective and to allow the cabin hatch to close for the full simulation experience. Bizarrely in Una's opinion, Scarlet seemed to automatically fit into these tight spaces, never bumping her head off the ceiling or knocking any equipment by accident.
The cockpit of the standard 'Neo-MBT' Vijaik consisted of one large monitor to the front and a series of smaller read-out and back-up camera screens scattered to either side of the pilot, held aloft to about waist height by a collection of spindled arms that could be moved about in-conjunction with one another.
In front of all these monitors stood the actually controls;
Pedals on the ground which allowed the pilot to use all their limbs for controlling if talented enough - Massive railway-esk clasp levers that controlled the hydraulics and cooling systems sat to her side. And as she now turned her attention back to, after being sure to check all her smaller screens and data flows first, the two handle like objects and boards of switches that lay between the monitors and the pilot's seat.
The two main handles gave the impression of large rods connected by a semi circle that the pilots held on to at one end.
This half-sphere contained a litany of smaller indents that could allow for a whole array of functions to be activated but generally were used to control the mech's arms, plus as a method of activating the machine's thrusters.
Like her first experience, the simulation was still startlingly real even when teamed against regular computer opponents.
The setting on this occasion was an old abandoned space station of some sort. Una found herself in its hanger bay, a frontless room that looked out on a vast expanse of space, while around her lay discarded crates and intricate walls - All making for the perfect cover in a close range firefight with some broader gaps to the edges of the gargantuan room to force trainees into using more long range tactics.
Her turn to make a move, Una put her green and navy blue 'Neo' around a corner of its own, sweeping the head unit from side to side for a complete view and looking to her spare cameras for more details as to what lay behind aswell as in front of her.
It was while reading a set of data that an alert sounded in her mech, a thin whining noise, emitting from a speaker above her to the left; 'Th-That means an energy pulse to the left side, right?'
To confirm this she reflexively glanced to a graph like object that now pinged a single line of energy moving rapidly for her.
It had only been a couple seconds since the alarms began but that alone had been too long. Reacting far too slowly she finally kicked her machine to the right, the enemy projectile scraping violently against her Vijaik's lower abdomen.
'Crap.' She cursed at her slow response time, quickly working to get her machine level again with the floor of the space station beneath it. The main monitor now picked up her query, another none-descript grey mech hiding behind an old transport shuttle of some kind, at the furthest end of the large hanger.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
'It's even warmer in here with Miss.Scarlet. Must they make these simulations so awkward?!'
There was little time for her to bemoan her discomfort as the enemy loosed a second orange arrow of light across the hanger.
This time Una was a little more quick on the update, ramming forward the two controls shafts to force her rear thruster into their maximum output. This in turn lobbed her whole machine forward, narrowly avoiding a second impact but instead causing it to smack harshly into one of the large metal crates strewn around the room - Her mech quite literally faceplanting into the surface.
The cockpit shook with force emulating what such an impact might actually feel like and nearly launching Una free of her chair.
Shaking her head in an attempt to recompose herself, she began righting her mech's position once more - Then levelling her weapon on the point which her monitor had detected, she took aim and pressed down on the firing indent.
Like before her weapon released a faint beam of counter fire, in much the same fashion so too did the enemy.
For it's part Una's shot went wild, hitting the transport shuttle instead of the enemy, said transport exploded violently, destroying the enemy machine by complete accident.
Una whopped aloud before blushing at the action and glancing nervously towards Scarlet but the older woman seemed entirely unamused. Looking back to her screen Una tried to work out why, quickly assessing what damage the last encounter had left her with.
"Two...Just about."
Before she could get far into this activity another impact left her stunned. To the direction of the hanger's open face a third enemy unit had appeared, it shot immediately this time causing severe damage to the Neo's cabin bulkhead, a large metallic cylindric surface at the very centre of the mech, that prevented damage to the cockpit behind it.
This time hoping to impress, Una forewent reading the damage report of this latest hit, instead raising her weapon and returning fire once more. 'Still 3 charge uses left, no need to check.'
Her gun didn't fire.
The enemy's did.
[Simulation Over;] [Party A - (1st Crewman O' Conchabhair) - Unsuccessful]
Una blinked at the report screen;
"Bu-but, what? how, I-" She mumbled.
Scarlet sighed ruefully from besides her before making her own way up to the roof of the cockpit, releasing the hatch-way and than taking a seat lightly on the rim of the entranceway above Una's head;
"Tell me girl why exactly do you keep trying to stand up 'straight' when there ain't no gravity? And what's the point of audible alarms if you stop to look at the reports? What exactly for that matter made you decided to suddenly not check the damage immediately once the threat of the second unit passed eh? And most of all, do you normally make a habit of breaking cover before doing a visual sweep in all directions, including the one you just came from?"
Una swallowed hard, it was a scathing evaluation, although far from the worst she had received recently.
In an odd way it struck Una that while certainly still incredibly intimidating, Scarlet was actually a better teacher then she would of expected. She shouted alot sure, and her oppressive spectating of the simulations was a little stressful, but in between there had been plenty genuine advice - Further the woman truly seemed to take note of every movement Una made during practise before pouring over the numbers and results of every simulation - As evidenced by this most recent set of comments.
It came to Una as she activated the simulators shutdown sequence and made her own way out the open hatchway to stand alongside Scarlet, that at the very least these last 5 days had shown her that in spite of all the fear the woman had instilled in her during that first training session, along with her brash an unruly personality - Scarlet was in reality still just a person, if an unusual one.
No longer did she get shivers when around the former pirate, though she was secretly grateful to of not yet had to face Scarlet in any further practise bouts.
"Alrigth girl, now listen here. I don't know what the 'Princess' or any other 'official' would think of this but as I see it there are two types of pilot--"
----------------------------------------