Trades46 here,

Going on a full revision of this series. Sorry if the story is choppy for the time being.


Chapter 1:

March 11th, year 1904.

The skies over the Darius Interplanetary Aircraft manufacturing facility was perfectly clear. The weather felt calm, with a sunny outlook with little clouds and a warm breeze was passing. It was one of those rare perfect days. That would be, if it weren't for the hangars which were full of life from engineers that are running around with parts, oil, equipment and other Silverhawk manufacturing tools. The peaceful mood was also ruined from the DIA lot which are filled with partially completed Silverhawk IIs and Silverhawk Gaidens all around.

The Belser have really begun pushing on the frontlines recently, and there are just honestly not enough birds from our side to keep them from doing so. The Darius Defense Administration has been really putting pressure on manufacturers to quickly mass-produce the jets to strengthen the frontlines. It shows on the engineers' faces that they have been working overtime nonstop for a while.

I continue to walk down the hallways of the facility towards the more barren part of the DIA; the prototype testing facility. In front of the big doors, two uniformed guards by the doors give me a polite gesture, and I scanned my finger on the electronic panel. I continued to walk deeper into the complex as the door bolted shut behind me.

The woman at the front desk looked up at me as I entered the room, and after a moment of trying to recognize me, promptly passed me a clipboard and a pen.

"Good day Lt. Colonel Pratica. I need you to sign this first before you go the hangar," she spoke. "Mr. Grinnell would be waiting there for you. He'll give you specific follow-up procedures."

I quickly signed the document and returned it to her with a thank-you. I continued to walk past the electronic gates again with the biometrics scanner and proceeded into the hangar.

Make no mistake about it; this part of the DIA is definitely important and secretive. I don't recall many places where verification have to be performed on that many stages.

The prototype testing facility hangar was larger and better equipped than the standard hangars. Much equipment was neatly piled all around and many tools dangled overhead like Christmas decorations. The stars of the prototype hangar however, are the two shining new Silverhawk prototypes, the 'Legend' and my 'Next', which stood side-by-side facing the closed hangar gates.

The chief mechanic of the Next and my good friend, Grinnell Forman, noticed my presence. He excused himself from the other mechanics who were fiddling with the computers and final adjustments of the prototype in preparation of its test flight. He trotted over to me with a bright smile.

"Riga! You made it!" Grinnell jokingly stated. "I was thinking you might accidentally trip from the lack of sleep from this moment."

I gave a light chuckle and responded that if I did, I would've still flown it with a broken arm.

Jokes aside, we talk about the review of the procedures of this test flight. Grinnell also showed me his projector tablet to tell me of the final adjustments that he made to the Next after I piloted a revision in the simulator a couple of weeks ago.

With that done, I headed off to be suited up until I remembered a question which I had wanted to ask for a long time, but never quite remembered.

I asked Grinnell if he know who was chosen by the DDA as the test pilot of the other prototype; the Silverhawk Legend.

"I think the DDA also has ordered that both prototypes be tested at the same time to speed up progress" Grinnell replied to me. "I haven't met with the Legend's mechanics for a while, but I've heard that the test pilot picked is girl, a Lieutenant. Can you believe that Riga? DDA has a ratio of male to female of 15:1... Think about the odds…"


I pondered the question in my head after I headed to the changing-room to suit-up. I have personally done several tests in the simulators of the Legend, and from experience it is an incredible piece of engineering. The aircraft responded quickly to any input and possesses speed that is unrivaled to anything fielded by the DDA.

The problem is the G-forces in piloting the Legend are so astronomical that most test pilots fainted from evasive maneuvers even in the simulators. Not to mention that kind of speed and handling also required superhuman reactions to get the best out of the craft. It is capable of flying fast, but for most people it was impossible to attain such limits before the body gives up.

If there are going to be any records that would be set by a military aircraft, the Legend has no competition. The performance of the Legend is even too much for me. I was one of the top scorers in the testing simulation of the Legend, but still didn't make the position of the Legend test pilot.

Oddly enough, I don't recall any female test pilot I've seen during the testing period that attained scores required for either prototype. The more I think of it, the more I'm interested to meet this mystery female pilot and see her abilities up close.

In the midst of my thoughts, I wasn't really looking at where I was walking. Predictably in cases like this, you tend to walk into unsuspecting people, which I did. I managed to keep a foothold, but the other party blatantly fell over with a 'thunk' and a feminine 'Ah. .'.

I quickly apologized for not looking ahead and helped her up. The person I bumped into was rather short; hence I had a good reason, or excuse, of why I didn't see her.

She is a rather young looking girl with long blond hair in a plain-looking dress, but most notable is a black metallic headband with something that resembles cat-ears on her head. "Sorry...*" she said rather quickly, and then continued on her way before I can ask any questions.

I just brushed the girl off my head as maybe the daughter of someone in this department and headed into the change rooms. After all, why else would they have headband with cat-ears on them in a high security military testing complex?


After putting on the flight suit and getting my equipment, I headed back to the hangar. The crew for the Legend has arrived and is are now running pre-flight checks. However, I still see no signs of the Legend's female pilot. Grinnell ushered me to the Next and gave me a projector tablet which connected to the DDA network. The projected screen quickly loaded and flashed the following message:

*Incoming transmission*
From: Darius Defense Administration – Testing Department

Col. Pratica,
The objective of this flight is to test and analyze the real-world conditions of these two prototype fighters and their systems. You will be deployed along with the Silverhawk Legend's test pilot in this practice run. Be advised that there will be weapons onboard to fully simulate the battlefield load-out, but since there are no adversaries in the operation they will not be deployed.

There would be 2 phases in this testing exercise:

Phase 1:
Follow the ground crew instructions for the basic instrumented testing. This will give as good baseline information of the performance of the prototypes.

Phase2:
You will be joined with the units of 288
th Squadron to simulate combat-testing. The ground crew will initiate the Mock-battle program on your HUD and send you visual representations of weapon deployment and battle data.

The entire operation would be monitored by General Kristoph. You'll be communicating to him after takeoff. The ground crew will serve as the monitor of this operation; he'll be feeding you information during testing.
Remember, these Silverhawk units are one-of-a-kind prototypes with no others in existence; treat her carefully.

*Transmission terminated*

I then closed the mission brief and turned to Grinnell, who was looking in my direction with a somewhat flabbergasted expression on his face. Not only him, but the rest of the crew was also looking in that direction with similar reactions. Curious to the origin of their expressions, I turned around.

Imagine how your expression would be like once you piece together that the roughly 14 year-old girl that you just ran into earlier in a secured testing facility with cat-ears headband (which she still has on) is, apparently, the same person as the rumored mysterious female test pilot of the Silverhawk Legend.


"Is this for real?" "Really, how old is she?" "Is this the DDA definition of a joke?" are a couple of remarks from the surrounding crew. I just don't know even how to react.

Thankfully I didn't have to, as the doors of the hangar started to open. A high ranked uniform officer with 2 guards and his staff with a cart of equipment came in. The officers with the equipment ran past us and into the elevator to the control tower. I saluted to the high-ranking officer as did the rest of the mechanics in the hangar.

"At peace men, we're not in a battle zone" the officer, his uniform identifying him as General Damius Kristoph stated. "The DDA is under a lot of pressure and we decided to sort everything here quickly before the operation is underway. We don't have the time so let's skip the formalities; we have got a job to do."

Kristoph ushered the Legend's female pilot and I to him. We both marched over to him, not sure what to be expecting. He held his hand to both of us.

"Lt. Colonel Riga Pratica, I would like you to meet your wingman. This is Lieutenant Ti2, a highly advanced android pilot that is developed exclusively for the testing for Legend." Kristoph said, "I know, the DDA requested Darians to be the exclusive pilots of the Silverhawk, but I was informed the Legend's engineers and evaluators were not impressed with the performance the best pilots had to offer."

The last sentence almost cause my eye to twitch, but I didn't let the expression show. The android lieutenant remained expressionless.

"…therefore the android was developed as the test-pilot." Kristoph concluded, "Any questions from the crew or pilots?"

I took the time to closer inspect out general. Roughly 50 years old, chubby and sounds like one of those bad movie villains with attitude. Definitely not someone you want to get on their bad side.

"General, is there a particular reason the Ti2…I meant the Lt. possesses this…particular form?" asked a crewman in the rear. "Isn't it easier to interface the computer into the ship directly instead of giving it a physical form?"

One of the technicians behind Kristoph begun "Well, the goal of this project is…"

He was not able to finish as a death glare an older woman in a lab-coat beside him, likely his superior, giving him a stern non-verbal warning. The technician who spoke out immediately shut his mouth.

Of the corner of my eye, I think I saw most brief change of expression (a flinch?) from Ti2 at the lab coat woman's interjection. However she quickly returned to her normal expression.

Kristoph then ordered for take-off preparations, which promptly got my thought back together. I hurriedly climbed in the Next's cockpit, closing the canopy and turning up the computers for pre-flight checks. A quick glance showed the Lt. did the same and the crew cleared the path for the jets. Both Silverhawk ignited their engines.

I was slightly unsure of what to expect when my wingman is: 1, not a human and 2, a 14-year-old girl lookalike…with cat ears.


After we cleared the hangar, we began to taxi to the runway. I adjusted the volume knob of my radio. I noticed that the man in control tower, presumably the ground crew for the operation, was waving at us.

"Can you hear me pilots? This is ground control under the direct command of General Kristoph. You will be referred as 'Alpha Team'. The Legend callsign 'Alpha 1' and Next 'Alpha 2'. You are cleared for take-off."

I carefully aligned the Next straight at the main runway, and after a final quick check of all flight controls, I hit the throttle. Soon, both planes quickly gained speed and soared towards the skies.

The ground crew's cheering was heard briefly over the radio after I stabilized the Next. I put up a slight smile as well. The feeling of flying in an actual aircraft is still a thrill that the flight simulators with artificial gravity generators cannot hope to match. We proceeded with the testing.


The phase 1 of the testing was relatively simple; the ground crew ordered us to perform turns at set speeds, rolls, spirals and other testing maneuvers. I have to thank Grinnell later as the Next has become much easier to control with his fine tuning after I flown the simulator's evaluation model.

I also took notice of the Legend and the little girl/android while testing. Despite of my earlier worries of Ti2's little frame to take the blunt of the Legend's inhumane maneuverability and G-forces; she seems to be doing extremely well. Probably being an android, she remained relatively silent, except when asked for comments on the performance of the aircraft, which she replied to flatly; almost machine-like.

"Alright, phase 1 testing completed." The radio crackled. "Be advised Alpha team, the 288th squadron, callsign 'Sundial' is entering your airspace to go ahead with phase 2 of testing."

Soon enough, 6 Silverhawks appeared from the North. 5 were the IIs, but the leader was piloting an even older 'Gaiden' model. The radio cracked to life.

"Heya Alpha team, this is Corporal Lance Stintz, leader of the Sundial squadron. Nice Hawks Alpha team, but if you think we're going to be target practice, you're out of luck!" Lance announced.

The ground controller came on. "Ok, Alpha team, you know the drill. We already setup the prototypes for the mock-battle. Target: take down the opposing teams' jets. We'll track your weapons and hull and update your HUD with the information. Downed targets are instructed to leave the combat airspace."

Kristoph then came over the radio. "Alpha team, you are now weapons free. Engage!"

I acknowledged the command with Ti2, and broke formation heading for the oncoming Sundial fighters.


See you next update.

-Trades46