Tyger, Tyger, burning bright [OPEN]

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It hadn't taken Trudy very long to find out that aircraft and spacecraft were sometimes recovered with their pilots - and when she found that out, she had immediately gone in search of the hangar. She had her rifle and her dog tags - if she had her Samson, she would have everything she needed out of life.

The pod cavern should have prepared her for how huge the ship was, but when Trudy finally came to the hangar, with its assortment of craft in all shapes and sizes, she was thoroughly impressed with the vastness of her new home. The amount of ships here was staggering, and Trudy wandered through them with a grin plastered to her face. Man, I'd love to get inside some of these babies and see how they handle - or how they work...

A flash of blue and orange caught her eye and she turned, seeing her Samson sitting there. The grin on her face faltered a little as she crossed to it. The painted tiger on the door was stitched with bulled holes, and the copter as a whole was scorched almost black with soot. "Hey baby," she said, running her hand lovingly across the nose. "Looks like you came out of this a lot worse than I did. Pobrecita,"

She opened the door and hoisted herself up into the cockpit. The lever that would have popped the hood produced nothing but a tortured squeal. Apparently the mechanism had been damaged in the explosion. Trudy made a face and began digging through the cockpit for her tools.

Comments

[yubyubcommander.livejournal.com]

"Keeping busy is good for the mind anyway." He leaned over to indicate various systems.

"Control stick. You know that though. The pedals control your rudder movement. Start up switch there. And this panel controls power adjustment between your engines, lasers, and shields..." He leaned over to indicate the main screen and the keypad next to it.

"Navigational computer. Lets you calculate hyperspace jumps. These switches over here are weapons arming and targeting computer. The big button over there is eject."

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She stretched her feet out to feel the pedals, and paid close attention when he started talking about shields. Space was unforgiving, not as easy to survive as atmosphere if you had to jettison, and Trudy didn't feel like getting blown up.

"Hyperspace?" Trudy asked, glancing over at the computer. "Is that why you looked all weird when I mentioned cold sleep travel? That's new."

[yubyubcommander.livejournal.com]

"Basically. It lets you travel faster than the speed of light across the galaxy. It's what makes galactic government and interplanetary trade possible. I don't know enough about its mechanics to explain it very well, but I'm pretty sure Stacy has some manuals on hyperspace theory in the media library if you're interested. She also has some copies of schematics for the T-65 if you want to give them a look. We really have no ground crew, so until we get more people you're responsible for looking after your ship." He taps a few other panels lightly as he goes on.

"This activates the shields and lets you shunt power either forwards or aft. Landing gear is here, repulsorlifts here..." He paused. "Repulsorlifts are what we use when we're not actually in flight. It allows you to hover and gives you limited forward, rear and upward and downward motion so you don't fry the hangar bay with the main engines."

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"Alright," Trudy said, looking it all over. "Aside from the hyperdrive and the shields, it all sounds very familiar and straightforward. Especially doing my own maintenance - I'm used to that. SecOps may have been rich as all hell but apparently they didn't believe in ground support. And we've got more pilots than mechanics, I take it?"

She smoothed her hand over the side of the cockpit. "She's a pretty bird, I'll give you that," she murmured.