Patreon bonus story: Flight traininig

It was her first day of practical field training, and Sienna had to admit, she was nervous. She balled her hands, willed herself not to fidget, and looked up at the flight instructor.

Elat Den Hol, the tallest natural-born Lunari that Sienna had ever seen, scowled down at her. “You’re the new one, huh?”

“Yessir! Sienna Kae Jin Tep Kel Tan Hol Ap Sik, sir!”

“Hol, huh? Well, I hope you’re not expecting any special treatment, cousin.”

“No, sir! No, I would never – ”

“It was a joke, Sienna.”

“Yessir.”

“Well, come on then. Passengers are waiting.”

That wasn’t completely true, Sienna knew. The launch wasn’t scheduled for over an hour. But even professionals took over half an hour to do all the system checks, so her time checking over and launching a real actual moon-to-Earth transport rocket (a real actual transport rocket!) would probably take a lot longer.

Elat silently watched her check over the external fittings, the rocket couplings, the door seals, and she tried not to be nervous. These externals would’ve been checked by a dozen maintenance engineers; the chances that she could miss anything at this stage were practically nonexistent. And she knew that Elat would catch anything she missed – that was why he was there. How humiliating would that be, though? How would she ever convince him she could do this job if he found some passenger-killing fault with her first ever launch?

“Launch rail connectors were replaced last month,” Elat commented, and she realised that she’d been staring at the connectors for a good minute. “If you were wondering about the lack of oxidation.”

“Y-yeah. That makes sense.” She moved on. Of course all the launch connectors on every shuttle had been replaced, after the disaster. Those new connectors were getting a chance to do this for the same reason she was; there was a sudden dearth of trained shuttle pilots after the mass pullback of convict pilots following the crash, and a lot of trainees were getting lucky breaks.

She was determined not to waste it.

Once the external checks were done, it was time to board the shuttle. She settled into the cockpit (just like the simulations, she knew, but it felt different) and started the internal systems checks. These were easier, as the computer did most of the work; there’s not so many physical connections and soforth to check on the inside.

Elat slumped into the copilot’s seat and watched her work. “Ever flown on one of these before? As a passenger, I mean.”

“A-a few times. I have an uncle who lives on Earth, so…” She shut up. The instructor didn’t want to hear her whole life story.

“Lunari on Earth? Love or work?”

“Love.”

“Sounds about right.”

Sienna’s hands shook as she flipped switches and checked displays. She had to get this right. Not many people got to pilot a shuttle this early in her training; she couldn’t waste the opportunity.

“You heard about the Klepsin crash.”

Of course she had. Everyone had. It was why they needed new pilots. “Yessir.”

“What do you think?”

What did she think? What kind of a question was that? “It’s very unfortunate that so many people died.”

“Yep.” He sat back. “Do you think this is safer?”

She felt her cheeks heat up. “I have been trained, sir. I’ll do my best.”

“I’m sure you will, Kae Jin. But it’s been a while since we’ve had so many trainees at the controls at the same time. It’ll be ironic if it goes rocks over.”

“Well,” Sienna protested, “at least none of us trainees are likely to break a connector to sabotage the shuttle and kill a whole – ”

She was interrupted by Elat’s sharp, barking laugh. “You really believe that?”

“Sir?”

“You think the convict pilot sabotaged the shuttle? That he decided to painfully kill himself and a shipful of passengers just… what, on a whim? Felt like going out in a blaze of glory?”

“That’s what the investigation turned up.”

“Mm-hmm. And what do you think, economically, is the difference between a connector that’s faulty due to sabotage and a connector that’s faulty due to manufacturing error and poor quality control practices?”

“Sir?”

“The difference, Kae Jin, is that when the thing finally fails and kills three hundred and seventy six people, if it’s a manufacturing defect then the connector company has to pay a lot of money out to the friends and family of the victims and their public reputation takes a massive hit. That’s a huge disaster, a company doesn’t shake a failure like that easily. Whereas if it’s sabotage, then payouts are the victims’ largely Earth-based life insurance companies’ problems, the prison system takes a small mia culpa and loses out on a relatively minor labour contract and has to shove a whole bunch of competent pilots into mining tunnels instead, and we get a bunch of new trainees in to do their jobs. Everyone loses a lot less money and reputation, see? A great investigation all round.”

“Sir. I don’t think the internal investigation committee would lie about the crash!”

“Ha. Maybe you’re right, kiddo. Maybe everyone’s honest and upstanding except that one guy who, after a decade of piloting these things, just snapped and decided to kill everyone, because we all know how dangerous those prison types are, unlike our fine investigators and connector manufacturing company CEOs. How’re those checks going?”

“G-good, sir. Everything’s ready to go.”

“Great.” He got up. “I’ll alert the flight crew, you get yourself ready for launch in fourteen minutes. We’ve got three days together until we reach the Capricorn Plateau, and head pilot chooses the music, so I hope the computer has your favourites!”

Sienna settled into her seat, and tried not to be nervous. In fourteen minutes, they’d launch, and then the hard part would be over.

She just had to keep doing that over and over again for the rest of her life.