I know I'm updating this story very slowly, but RL is quite busy with writing at work these days, so I feel more like playing than writing in my free times these days… Don't worry though, I'll finish this story… one day.

Vega Lyrae: thanks for that correction :)

Eternity's End: thanks for reading and reviewing :)

Chapter XII. Test flight

Merrrshika needed two days and a half to review all of Voyager's pilots. The four pilots chosen for the first round of training comprised Brad Murphy, Tom's substitute who worked the beta shift, Harry, Janeway and Tuvok. Chakotay, however, objected to the captain being forced to be on another vessel in the eventuality of battle. Kathryn agreed and asked Merrrshika to find a replacement for her. The Mirrresh added to her list one of the junior security officers, Mike Robinson, who had taken many piloting credits while at Starfleet Academy and had proven to be excellent with Oural and Daisy.

The intensive training began right the next day. At first, Janeway had planned to have the pilots take their whole shift in the holodeck riding holographic horses, but Merrrshika objected. She foresaw – with reason – that the poor crewmen just would not survive such a treatment. The captain therefore cut the horseback training to four hours a day, which was amply sufficient to exhaust them.

Merrrshika adjusted as best she could the length of her days to adapt to the human schedule. For three human days, she trained her pilots during the first half of their shift. She ended up going to bed in the middle of the second day's afternoon, and would wake just in time to give a lesson in the morning of the third day. For the fourth day, her sleeping hours overlapped the whole length of the human day shift and the riders would get a day off. It was hard for Merrrshika to make the length of her days vary in that way, but she managed quite well, usually sleeping late on the fourth human day.

She was rather happy not to be the only one to find the first week difficult. The entire crew of Voyager mocked the four future pilots, who dragged their stiffness along anywhere they went. People asked them in jest to sit at the mess hall's high seats around Neelix's counter, or cross-legged in the yoga classes. Everyone had a good laugh for a week to watch them stand and walk stiffly with little steps. Merrrshika was having fun too. She was quite stiff herself, since it was a long time since she had ridden a pilot's saddle, but she was not in as bad a shape as the Voyager riders.

The training went well, in any event. Merrrshika knew she could not make them ride non-stop for four hours; there was a time when muscular fatigue overwhelmed any ability to learn. So she had them muck the stables, empty holographic wheelbarrows of hay, carry holographic bundles of fodder, and polish and shine the real leather of their protective gear. She also took time to give them some theoretical classes about shuttle piloting, with them sitting on bales of hay and taking notes about what she wrote on a holographic slate board. Although her species was advanced enough in technology to master warp travel, the people tended to keep technology out of everyday life, and the twentieth-century-like barn she had programmed with the help of Tom's many researches was closer to home than any other place on Voyager.

The five future pilots were having fun together, and were beginning to form a real team. Merrrshika first got glimpses into Harry's thoughts, as it had happened previously. He was a tad envious of Robinson and Murphy who could master Daisy, Oural and Walendorf. Harry had no equal when it came to care for quiet Ossétie or gentle Garranos, but he would still have preferred the panache and glory of the fighter pilots. He did not realize that it was on him that she had built the highest hopes.

The second one she managed to "hear" with her team telepathy was Tuvok. The communication was rudimentary at best, and usually consisted of small bits of punctual information: Harry tied Ossétie's throatlash one notch too loose, or Garranos seemed slightly, but significantly, stiffer than usual, was one of his legs hurt? Those were the usual concerns of the Vulcan she managed to catch. After that point, she began to hear them all more or less at the same time, when they were relaxed.

Aside from the more natural and less mechanical setting of the stables, it was home to her because she was in the company of friends whose warming presence she felt through telepathy.

ooooo

Outside of Voyager's hull, training was taking place too. The two orphan shuttles followed Voyager at impulse speed for a few Mirrresh days. They learned to recognize the ship's ion trail and UV signature, so they could recognize it in case they were temporarily separated.

Before Voyager jumped back at warp speed, however, Merrrshika asked for the shuttles to be docked inside one of the cargo bays. There were always fabulous computing errors of trajectory when the biological shuttles attempted warp speed for the first time, and Voyager was currently in relatively close vicinity of borg space.

The two shuttles were therefore restrained to fidget impatiently in Voyager's hold for a Mirrresh week, which was the time Merrrshika used to train her pilots with her holographic program of horses.

Janeway had promised that they would soon need to stop to supply the ship in fuel, and Merrrshika would have many days, if not a few weeks, at her disposal to train the young shuttles in space. Merrrshika went to the hold each day, used telepathy to reassure them and familiarized them gradually to have someone on board, particularly in the cabin and in the pilot saddle. Merrrshika already knew, merely from walking on board and observing their reactions when she sat in the saddle and put on the helmet, that the female was all gentle and a little fearful. On the other hand, she would be an excellent leader for cargo caravans; she was already responsible, independent and able to do lots of things by herself without direct orders if she was shown it was what was expected of her. Merrrshika showed her how to interface with Voyager and operate the cargo hold's walls, to change the configuration according to the position of Neelix's vessel. She could also pressurize or depressurize the docking bay, drain the toxin filters and modify the supply of gas and dust to the hold's atmosphere.

Merrrshika felt the beginning of a love relationship there, but she was aware that this was not a war vessel. The male, on the other hand, was more aggressive. He was almost mean, but not quite. He had probably suffered from the lack of motherly protection in the middle of the herd. He would no doubt do a good war shuttle, if a little on the brutal side of battle style. He would not be one to try elaborate evasive acrobatics with, but he would not hesitate to charge headlong towards a vessel six times his size until he was too close to be within range of the enemy's phasers.

ooooo

After eight Mirrresh days she spent training pilots with a horseback riding program, Merrrshika woke in the middle of the night shift of the fourth human day of her schedule. The first thing she noticed was the absence of the near-inaudible hum of the hull's vibration against the warp field surrounding the vessel when they moved above light speed. She jumped out of bed with a feral cry of joy and pulled the curtains aside abruptly to look outside, ignoring the sharp daggers of infra-violet light stabbing at her eyes. They were on high orbit over of a gas giant; it was obviously a busy merchant stop, from all the small shuttles and big hulking vessels zigzagging and floating all around.

When she reached the bridge after a spirited run, she learned from a grinning Janeway, who nevertheless made an effort to school her features to statutory seriousness, that they would be stopped for two human weeks, due to the fuel needing mining and hauling from a distant world.

Merrrshika's smile threatened to crease her face in half when she reached the shuttles' docking bay. The vessels immediately sensed her excitement. Merrrshika had brought her four apprentice pilots with her, barely out of bed, and had them go on board the female shuttle first. Merrshika was starting to feel the need to name the two small vessels.

After a quick tour of the relatively small inside of the vessel to familiarize her with the presence of those new people onboard, Merrrshika showed the pilots how to tie themselves securely in the seats at the port bow of the shuttle.

"Seats and straps?" Murphy asked. "I don't mean to be offensive to our kind nice shuttle here, but isn't that kind of primitive?"

Merrrshika smiled in an indulgent manner. "When shomeone shtarrtles you, what happens to yourr abdominal musscles?" she asked.

He blinked a few times in confusion, nevertheless strapping himself up as she had shown earlier. "I'm not too sure. I guess I must tighten them."

The Mirrresh nodded. "My point is that you arre not too surre. You shee, it'sh kind of the shame thing with internal grravity for shuttles – when they shtarrtle, or jump to warrp, or shtrrain to do something elshe that is difficult, they have trrouble maintaining conshtant grravity. Henche the shtrrapsh."

The pilot nodded. "That makes sense. It's just that with mechanical vessels, we're not used to that kind of limitation."

"Rright," Merrrshika said. "But you get to conshtantly rreprrogrram shubrroutines and do physical diagnoshticsh, while an orrganic shuttle will jusht plainly tell you when she's feeling out of shorrtsh."

"That is a valid point," Tuvok observed. "Each type of vessels presents its advantages and disadvantages. It is logical to assume that pairing the two will offer possibilities of enriching complementarity."

Merrrshika, after a grateful smile to the Vulcan, sat in the pilot saddle and the female shuttle had an small, anxious and excited shiver that nevertheless made everyone's teeth clatter. The Mirrresh reassured her shuttle with a few warm thoughts before she ordered her to depressurize the docking bay and open the doors. The vessel complied shakily. The pilot activated a beacon that marked her as one of Voyager's shuttles in a test flight and asked to kindly keep a reasonable distance from her. The shuttle exited the docking bay slowly and hesitantly, backing in a few times before Merrrshika managed to coax her into exiting into the wide open emptiness of space, filled with a moving, turning, buzzing swarm of vessels of all sizes and colours moving in all directions. The male, for his part, far from being intimidated, hungered to go out, but a firm order from Merrrshika assured him that going outside right now was not an option.

It was a very boring test flight. Merrrshika merely guided the female once around the gas giant at impulse speed, just to let her see a few inorganic vessels flying about and let her know they were not a threat. The shuttle shied a few times in fear, but nothing worthy of much notice, aside from the fact that the pilots quickly learned to tighten their stomach muscles at the onset of such an abrupt movement. The gravity tended to get mixed up inside the shuttle when she was on the verge of panic.

Once back inside Voyager's hold, Merrrshika thought she heard the shuttle's equivalent of a sigh of relief. Merrrshika patted her on the spine a few times to congratulate her on her exemplary test flight, then had the team disembark so the male could get the same kind of exercise.

The male shuttle rolled around a bit at the unaccustomed feel of all those feet onboard, but he quickly calmed down when Merrrshika touched him on a sensitive spot, not hurting him but just distracting his attention. The male – which she really felt like calling Pshi – snorted when she sat down in the pilot saddle. When she asked him to turn around towards the gaping doors, he wheeled about abruptly, almost colliding with the female shuttle in his hurry. Merrrshika sternly ordered him to calm down, and she clearly felt his grudging apologies.

He shot out of the docking bay at full impulse speed, seriously threatening to send a few nearby plates of the hull flying because of the vibration induced by the thrusters, despite Merrrshika who pulled with all her weight at the reins to slow him down. She quickly decided to take him up in the higher atmosphere where there were less vessels to risk a collision with. Her test flight beacon was still activated, but seeing the erratic and aggressive way the shuttle flied about and veered around, everyone would have kept a respectable distance even without the warning.

That test flight was considerably less boring than the last, with Merrrshika forced to let the male run loose for a good long time before he exhausted enough of his energy to be willing to get down to work. She used a bit of his exuberant violence to try different evasive manoeuvres, but was forced to stop quickly because of the shuttle's exhaustion and the poor future pilots who felt like vomiting all over themselves, strapped in their seats as they were. The male docked back inside of Voyager's hull with a tired, if satisfied, sigh. Merrrshika petted him on the spine too, before she went back to the female.

She took her out a second time, but this time had her come in and out of so many hangars that she was too exhausted to display fear towards an unknown environment anymore. When she docked back inside the safety of the cargo hold, she was as spent by her nervousness as the male had been by all his manoeuvres.

After that, seeing the male was much too tired to be taken out a second time, she let the shuttles and pilots rest. The shuttles huddled together in the cargo bay, drowsing. Shuttles could not completely sleep, as they had to maintain bearing, environmental controls and sensor scans, but they entered a sort of resting phase during which they lowered activity and concentrated on restoring functions. That amount of time was no more than four or five hours for each Mirrresh day. The shuttles would need about four hours to recuperate, and the future pilots had just finished their shifts. It would be some time before either was available to fill Merrrshika's time.

She had nothing to do in the meanwhile.

She therefore decided to go see Seven of Nine. With some surprise, Merrrshika had discovered that she fit remarkably well with the borg woman when it came to programming and hacking. Seven was at the same time a good student and a good teacher; she knew an incredible number of codes, algorithms and protocols that Merrrshika had never even heard of. On the other hand, Seven did not have any hacking notions. The borg knew only one way to hack, and it was assimilation. They had never managed to assimilate a Mirrresh hacker for the simple reason that they had never visited the region of space Merrrshika's people inhabited. Moreover, Merrrshika had proven that it was not impossible to hijack borg vessels, as long as one simply ignored their borg security protocols and shortcut it with alien code.

Even if Seven knew nothing of what was routine hacking methods for Merrrshika, she was an ace in programming. Merrrshika had decreed that she was the best suited on board to assist her if she needed help in crashing an attempt to hack Voyager. Kim was not bad either, but since he was in the pilot team, there was a change he would be busy outside, with the female shuttle, in the case of a battle involving hackers.

That day, Merrrshika learned from Seven a sort of informatics derivation invented by a species of Ursidae-like people whom she had never heard of, and she showed Seven the basic functions of gersk'al code. The two of them talked and tried different simulations on a terminal, previously – and prudently – isolated from Voyager's main computer. They worked at it for nearly five hours, until Merrrshika decided that the humans had slept enough and that the shuttles had drowsed enough.