Chapter 1: Simulating Disaster
"If this was really planet Kallithea, you'd be beneath a pound of radioactive dust by now!" Hooter yelled from above the flight deck while Idey and Ody were busy navigating the flight simulator.
"If this was really planet Kallithea, we would have thrown you out of the cockpit a half hour ago!" Majordomo said in his robotic voice. A metal hand reached out and struck the elephant-like creature on the back of his blue head. Majordomo leaped down and onto the flight deck.
"What was that for!" Hooter shouted after him. Idey and Ody's furry hands were busy turning knobs, dials, and steering the mock-ship out danger from the enemy crafts on the screen.
The large screen projected space and nearly twenty ships in front of them. Every time a ship fired, a screeching siren sounded and the simulator would jolt sideways, leaving a wake of chaos amongst the crew. Idey and Ody made a quick turn left and the simulator mimicked a gravitational thrust, causing the conjoined siblings to be knocked off balance and crash into the wall. The unmanned flight control now continued to turn sharply left, sending the flight simulator into a dizzying downward spiral.
"So-ome-onnne ste-eer the SHIP!" Idey and Oddy yelled in unison, pinned up against the ship's padded wall. Majordomo finally was able to grip the control panel and maneuver himself until he had a foothold. He grasped the wheel and set the simulator back to center. A sigh of relief came from the crew. Hooter, Majordomo, and Idey and Odey then repositioned themselves at their stations; Majordomo went back to manning the firearms in the left cockpit, Idey and Oddy found their spot near virtual map and steering controls, while Hooter and Fuzzball returned to working as main and assistant lookouts.
Hooter and little Fuzzball climbed back up the ladder and into the top of the nose cone, which they had both had been hurled out of a minute before. Once Hooter plopped down into the seat, Fuzzball flew up and perched himself on Hooter's right shoulder. Hooter pulled the digital binoculars down and peered through them. Fuzzball imitated, and pulled his own mini-binoculars onto his small face, looking through them just like Hooter.
"Uhhhh, you guys?" Hooter breathed into his headset microphone. "There's something reaaalllly big to the left-ish."
Fuzzball voiced a little "Oh doe!" into the smaller version of his own microphone.
Majordomo yelled up from his station below, "Hooter! That's not enough information, be specific!" and continued to fire neon blasts of energy on the enemy ships on the screen.
"Well it's kinda big, but almost medium sized. It's gray-" the alien's nasally voice boomed over the speakers below.
"Do I shoot or do I not shoot!" Majordomo interjected. He continued to blast away at the front line of the over the space horizon.
"Ummmmmmmmm….. Well….."
"HOOTER!" Everyone thundered from the flight deck below him.
"Okay, okay! Definitely shoot!" he yelled back into his mic, sounding offended.
'Shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot!" Fuzzball encouraged, his high voice barely a whisper in the speakers.
Idey turned the simulator to face a massive gray planet that slowly appeared on the screen, shocking the alien navigator. "We found it, it's planet Kallithea!" Idey screamed.
"And there's the main docking station!" Odey echoed. Their downward spiral had luckily sped them past the heaviest artillery and directly into the flight path of the easiest landing zone. The crew was able to maneuver the simulator onto a virtual deck with relative ease in the following hour, all the while Hooter yelling pointless information through the ship's speakers and Fuzzball echoing little words of encouragement.
When the virtual fight was over, and Odey had successfully landed onto the enemy dock, the main lights flickered on and the screen went black. The nose cone erupted into shouts of joy and success. Hooter climbed down the ladder while Fuzzball flew down to join the little party of crewmembers, who had now formed a small conga line in celebration.
"Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha, HEY! We-just-passed-the-test, YEAH!" Then the wide doors on either side of the flight deck opened with a the swooshing noise of hydraulics. Outside, a crowd had gathered in the final minutes before the simulation was over, watching the progress on the billboard-sized screens above. Some of the men and women were clapping, while others crossed their arms and glared at the crew inside.
But there was one person who was smiling bigger and brighter then the rest, clapping and trying to hold back shouts of pride. He was dressed in the standard captain uniform, head to foot in white padded suit - with his own embellishments of course. He added colored nanotube-lighted pendants to the collar of his issued uniform jacket, monoclinic crystal studs all over his pants and gloves, and attached a white water canteen to the his belt for long missions across foreign planets. He stood in the front of the crowd that gathered, standing taller then the rest at 6 ft 5 inches, black curls dangling over his forehead, eyes glistening.
"Captain!" Majordomo called out in his computerized voice. Majordomo and the rest of the crew jumped down to join their leader, telling them about their personal successes all at the same time. They circled around him, all trying to get recognition from their captain turned father figure and friend. Hooter jumped up and down, proudly explaining to Captain Eo that he saved them from the gray planet. Fuzzball flew up and perched himself on Eo's shoulder, shaking like a leaf from excitement.
"You all did so well!" Captain Eo replied quiet but enthusiastically, smiling all the while. "How did you manage that spiral flight maneuver?" he asked more seriously.
"Oh, that? That was an accident -" Hooter got cutoff by a hit to the back of the head from Majordomo. "What was that for?" Hooter demanded.
Eo's smile returned and he looked down at his small crew. "Well, either way. My crew passed the Field War test," he gazed out of a window into space, ignoring the other captains and officers who started returning to active duty, "and we're all cleared for take-off."
"Next stop, Kallithea!" Odey exclaimed - and there were cries of excitement amongst the small team of six.
