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Sumeragi glared at the console, and instructed the computer to bring up the simulation once more. It was a fairly simple one - just dodging an oncoming asteroid field - but she'd run it three times now, and each had ended with her ship as an asteroid bug-splatter not too far in. She could drive a car just fine, but the finer controls of the ship eluded her. She had imported the Ptolemy's basic design and control scheme into the program, so at least it was a ship she was vaguely familiar with.

Nonetheless, ten minutes into this fourth run, a fairly loud stream of curses - in more than one language - could be heard outside the door to the sensorium she was using.

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Kon happened to be walking by, planning on using one of the Sensoriums himself. He had his own sims he liked to run, usually ones where he set entirely unrealistic standards for himself--ones made even more unrealistic since the loss of one hand.

Since Clark's death, and his subsequent appropriation of the Superman mantle, he felt even more of a need to practice practice practice, hoping against hope he could become as good at saving the day as the first Man of Steel. The visit from Ma Kent hadn't changed that at all, even if it had let him relax a little and get more comfortable about taking up the name.

Then he heard the cussing. Now that would have been a whole twenty bucks for the swear jar back on the Kent farm.

"Gold star for creativity," he remarked, leaning against the round frame of the Sensorium doorway, arms crossed. "But there are kids on this ship that could overhear that potty talk. For shame."

"Woah, someone sounds mad...."

It was easy for something to catch Jr.'s attention, and apparently cursing was one of them. While he had been planning a little trip into the Sensoriums himself for a little bit of relaxation time, he quickly figured that poking his head in where the cursing came from could end up just as fulfilling.

The sight that greeted him was a familiar one. Space. And space travel. But the ship wasn't familiar to him, so after instantly noticing the view outside, he focused on the inside. And wandering up toward the controls to get a look at them was when he noticed a familiar face.

"Oh, hey Sumeragi..." he said slowly. So it was her getting angry in there. He couldn't help but badly hide a smile when he spoke again. "Uh, you okay in here...?"

Sumeragi sat back, and swiveled the chair around to see the entrance to the sensorium.

"Ah - sorry, I got a little carried away."

"I'm just kidding anyway," Kon said. "Even if some kid overheard you, you'd just be broadening their linguistic horizons, right? Nothing wrong with adding to someone's vocabulary."

He raised both eyebrows.

"I know you definitely just taught me a few new ones."

He nodded at the screen.

"You already a pilot or just learning?"

She laughed. "I guess so." She gestured at the controls. "I know a little bit, but I've kind of been stuck picking up more - nobody else for our ship."

Sumeragi took a few deep breaths, and then turned to the newcomer. Ah, it was that kid - she'd met him before the... somewhat disastrous away mission, but his name escaped her.

"Aah... yeah, I'm fine."

Zouichi came in, saw the space setting and what the current pilot was trying to do with the asteroid field, and summoned up a ship of his own (http://www.macrossroleplay.org/Sketchley/Statistics/VF-171/VF171EX.htm): the Nightmare. It was considerably smaller than the Ptolemy, fast and easily maneuverable, so it wasn't much work to bring it up by the Ptolemy's bow, smoothly avoiding the oncoming obstacles.

"You know, there are easier ways to take something out for a test drive."

Splicer had been wandering around the sensoriums for a bit even after he was done with his usual training routine. Which could be rather extensive and extreme, but it was what they had been trained for and like for many years.

He just didn't really feel like heading home just yet. So that was how he paused and took a few steps back to look into an occupied sensorium with a raised brow.

He hadn't heard cursing like that since... well since this morning, thanks to his colorful buddy Miguel. But then again, you couldn't really stop him from cursing so much. It was part of who he was.

Taking a step in, Splicer looked around before turning to the female in question. "Tough run eh? It usually is. Tried testing it in levels instead? Like a game?"

A frequent visitor to the sensoriums and always interested in what made humans mad, Alendian didn't waste much time trying to decide if she was going to step in or not. She was slightly surprised by the setting considering most humans around this ship were seemingly primitive compared to humans she was used to dealing with back "home".

Still, quite curious in what the issue here was, she gazed out the view port without permission before questioning with her reedy voice.

"Why all the curses?"

"You sure?" He peered over the controls. "You sounded kind of mad ... what're you doing?"

"I'm not so great at flying ships and stuff myself. Flying in general, I'm good at, but not with anything that does the flying for you."

She blinked. "...You can fly? Like, on your own?" Perhaps not that most intelligent thing to say - particularly on a ship with talking ponies - but the idea caught her off-guard.

She sighed a little, and gave him a sheepish smile. "Let's just say piloting practice isn't going as well as I'd hoped."

Sumeragi glanced over at the intruder, and put the sim on pause - no point in crashing for not good reason. "This thing steers like an overloaded truck, I think."

Kon's answer to that was to simply float several feet off the ground, a grin on his face.

Always the consummate show off.

Sumeragi ran a hand through her hair, glancing over at the guy who'd wandered in. "Don't think I'd do much better that way - I was never much good at video games." Or at least the ones that involved levels, anyway.

There was another kind of surprised blink as Sumeragi fully registered it, and then she grinned. "Pretty neat trick you've got there, then."

"Ah, it's not a big deal really, and it'll definitely help you get adjusted easier than running into a wall full of bombs attached to it on the first level. Make it an easy run at the beginning, allow yourself to get accustomed to the controls and then the game will adjust itself accordingly and continue increasing the difficulty. It's a smoother run and pace, I assure you."

He grinned, moving in closer and looking up at the simulation.

"Once you've found a niche where you feel comfortable, stay in that level until you master it and then move on. That's how I usually train every day."

"Or you are a poor pilot." She didn't even ask to take a seat at a console but she did nonetheless. And blanched at the technology.

"Of course you would pilot poorly with this set up."

"Hmm. Well, put that way, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea." She tapped her fingers on the console in thought. "I'll have to dig up some more test runs, though - I'm not much of a programmer."

Sumeragi bristled a little at the curt dismissal of both her ship and her skills.

"I wasn't trained as a pilot. And I have to work with what I have."

"Before you can even pilot, you must know if your ship's offensive and defensive capability is up to par."

She poked around at the console, slowly reading the words since human doesn't come to her naturally.

"Do you have brightlance cannons? Plasma torpedoes? Shuriken cannons? Laser weaponry?"

Splicer grinned and set his large, custom sniper rifle against the wall and cracked his knuckles.

"Leave that to me."

In a few minutes, he uploaded his flight combat program with all the basic levels up to extreme. He even took a moment to make a copy and stash it in one of his spare flash drives, tossing it over to Sumeragi.

"There ya go. All ya gotta do now is load it up. Pick the preferred stage and rock on."

Sumeragi raised an eyebrow. "I know what weaponry the ship has - but it's not going to make much of a difference if I can't steer this thing around an asteroid."

"Destroying the asteroids in advance would make a difference." Because when you're a warrior, everything can be solved with force. "For humans, you would require a machine to do the calculations but an Eldar like myself can do it easily."

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