Star Trek: Starbase 777 - flight-simulators

Having taken a moment to decide, Kaval opted to head towards the flight simulators. Having the wheel for a bit could prove interesting.

Flight sim, Gridiron, same thing. Ok not actually but they did have one thing in common! Fun! She sat down at one of the cockpits and began to try to figure out how it worked.

Jayri popped in not too long after then, taking a gander around the cockpits, eyeing the controls.

Ohoho! She had played around in these types of flight sims a few times, but it was a fun little treat to be in a cockpit of a smaller craft than at the helm of a big starship. Much more fun maneuvers could be done here. She happily claimed a cockpit, sitting down and getting familiar with the controls.

They were all a bit separated, but still close enough to talk, so talk Ngozi did. “Have any of you actually flown before? Because I haven’t.” She said, a massive grin on her face because it was all just a game and it didn’t matter if she had never flown before.

The flight simulators were absolutely state of the art. The rigs looked genuinely like the cockpits of shuttles, if somewhat simplified, and they all came with a headset with partial visor that attendants were helping everyone put on. "You will be thrown into a simulated battle as soon as the consoles are turned on," one aide explained, looking at a different attendant who was very quietly yet animatedly talking into a headset of their own, before shooting the first one an "OK" sign. "Your simulator is computer-assisted for ease of use, so don't worry about not knowing how to fly. The controls are straightforward, and we will be here to help if you really can't figure it out."

Ngozi could never say that there was one thing she missed about Gridiron, she missed so much of it all the time, but one of those things she missed was gearing up for a game. She took the helmet and visor on with pride, the action reminding her of her days in the pros. “How fun!” She clapped her hands together and pulled up her chair so she had better access to the console. She was so excited.

Vovvi hovered semi-awkwardly near a console, eyes practically sparkling. This was incredible. Maybe she'd learn to like battle simulations after all?..

He approached the console next to Vovvi, nodding to his superior before taking hold of it.

"Best of luck, Lieutenant," she told him brightly, a sly smile curving painted lips. Even if they'd be on the same team. Lol.

“You as well.” He nodded curtly, eyes scanning her face for… anything detectable, really, “I wish you a clean win.”

Once everyone was outfitted with a headset and settled behind a console, the screens started coming online, immediately putting people into their positions at the helm of a ship. The text was all in Gorn, generally unreadable, but the half visor translated the important bits and gave notes of context for the important stuff, as well as a quick movement tutorial as if in a video game. "Systems operational," came the robotic voice of an automatic translator, indicating that the ships were now under the players' control. For now, the sensors indicated no enemies nearby, so the automatic pilot remained engaged.

Ngozi took a moment to familiarize herself with the cockpit and the tutorial that was being given to her. She didn’t disengage the autopilot yet, but she wanted to be ready when it was time to do so.

Eyes flitting between the movements of the autopilot and the actions of the others, Kaval settled himself in his seat, running his hand gently over the panel in front of him.

“Whoa.. this is gonna be fun..” She said, keeping the autopilot on so she could get familiar with the visor and the tutorials.

For a pilot especially, the controls were quite simplified, since they had to be understandable for non-pilots. The one thing that stood out on the screens was how poorly lit the cockpits seemed to be.

“It is fucking dark in here.. A real cockpit, you wouldn’t be able to see half your controls..” She muttered, though her bigass Betazoid eyes did okay enough at adjusting to the dark anyhow.

“Is it dark?” She didn’t really have any frame of reference, and she could make out the controls just fine.

“Somewhat.” He chimed in with a shrug, before saying absolutely nothing else.

It'd be fine. Vovvi flexed her fingers, settling into the controls with ease. She could make do.

Oddly enough, she was used to this level of darkness. Looking over schematics at night will do that to you. Cautiously, and taking a mental note of what controls she did have, she clutched her hands around the sidestick.

Jayrehi's console lit up, the sensors beeping as an alarm system was triggered. It seemed that an unidentified vessel was coming in closer, approaching her.

Her eyes widened as the alarms went off, as a little dot on her navigational display began closing in on her position. She yanked the stick left, pulling up in an effort to avoid what she thought was an enemy.

Unfortunately, the unidentified vessel followed Jayri as she moved, clearly locked onto her position. All the other consoles lit up too as the ship got closer to Jayri, notifying them of the ship in the vicinity. They hailed Jayri, open frequency.

Kaval stiffened as he watched his own console light up, eyeing Jayri’s screen with his lips pressed into a thin line.

The Trill was a bit too shaken to notice she was on frequency, slamming the throttle forwards as she pulled back even further, attempting to circle back over.

“Lieutenant.” He pressed, brows furrowing slightly as he watched her freak out, “Your comms. Answer them.”

Evasive maneuvres were not useful at this moment, as there was no battle going on, and the ships were far enough away that any adjustments would not make much of a difference practically speaking. Jayri's ship was continuously being hailed, and the unidentified vessel picked up speed in their approach.

“Alright, let’s keep our wits about us.” Ngozi said, taking control of her ship the bring it around to support Jayri if a battle did occur. “And let’s comm tactical, see if they have a plan for us.”

Khirena also brought her ship closer to Ngozi and Jayri, just for added support. “Good plan.” She said.

He hummed quietly in response, steering to be close on the heels of the others, but in the back nonetheless.

It was only a little later did she finally get her bearings straight, finally laying eyes on the frequency panel, and accepting the hail. "H-hello? Who is this?" (edited)

"Patrol 14-409, reporting. Fighter 9056, report status, your movement is highly erratic," came the guttural language of the Gorn, clearly suspicious of Jayri's reaction so far.

What? Jayri was extremely confused. So was this a friendly ship? Did the ship think the group was one of them? "Wh- uh- well, my system must've mistaken you for something else. Sorry about that."

A disgruntled sound came across the comms array, almost a growl with how deep it was. "There's more fighters nearby that are behaving erratically. What are you all doing here, together?"

“We are all experiencing malfunctions.” Kaval stated, hoping to either be picked up by Jayri’s comms or his own, “Please have patience.”

Unfortunately, that's not how the comms worked at this moment, but Jayri could hear it and use it as inspiration for what to say, maybe?

2

“Uh, hmm. We are all experiencing malfunctions here.” She spoke. “Please give us a moment, we’re still trying to figure out what’s causing all of this.”

Kaval gave her a thumbs-up and nodded. You’re doing great, Jayri.

"Those damn escapees," came the disgruntled reply, "they keep fucking with our sensors, too. Stay wary, 9056. They're coming for us all. Kill any that you come across."

Ngozi listened, she was very good at listening. “New mission, do not kill any escapees, protect them even!” Ok, maybe they were more like offensive linemen, deep in the trenches to protect the quarterback (the escapees), or maybe they were defensive linemen trying to get the quarterback (the Gorn). Either way, linemen.

"Uh, yes sir! We'll keep an eye out." She responded, her voice still a little shaken.

With a last growl, and an unintelligible bark of orders, the connection was broken. A parting message appeared on Jayri's visor, telling her to resume and maintain her patrol route, before the ships turned away and started to, at least for the moment, head elsewhere.

Vovvi let a breath out in relief. Blending in, then. She was very, VERY good at that.

Or not. "Heard. Someone follow me," she replied to the low rasp of a voice in her ear, breaking off from the group to begin heading towards the altercation.

“I’ll follow.” She said, breaking off to follow in Vovvi’s lead.

“Good luck to you both.” He replied, moving up to take Khirena’s spot in the convoy.

As Vovvi and Khirena followed the orders and came into closer range of the altercation, their sensors started feeding them information too, like how both the Gorn ship from earlier as well as the allied ship had their shields raised, and how there were two other patrol ships hanging out that were not yet shielded. There was also something else. The sensors weren't very clear, but there seemed to be... trails, of something or other, that constituted enough information for the sensors to report on it, but not enough to point towards something conclusive. There was something here that they couldn't see, though.

Vovvi's brows furrowed under the headset. "Shields going up," she reported to the cadet as she did so, "There's something we aren't seeing. Not sure what... Should I open a hail, or?" (edited)

“We might as well. My shields are up.” She said, putting up her shields as she spoke.

"Right." Beep boop boop beep. Any open frequencies nearby, or anything to that nature, or would she have to open one?

As Vovvi and Khirena approached, a shot was loosened, targeting and hitting the allied ship. A hailing frequency was open, but it mostly consisted of insults being traded back and forth in Gorn while the freighter that was being attacked loaded up their older and less combat-ready weapons arrays.

OH. Into the thick of it, then! Vovvi dove straight into action, firing at the attacking ships!

“Yeah!” She cheered as she watched her fellow pilot go right for it, as she fired on the ship as well.

The ship that was attacking was shielded, and while the shields took a big hit when Vovvi and Khirena both fired, they didn't go down entirely. To make matters worse, the two visible ships also immediately threw up their shields in response, charging up their phaser banks, while another, bulkier ship uncloaked a few tens of thousands kilometres away, as well as two smaller fighter ships that were clearly intended to do damage and then go down swinging. At least it was clear what the sensors had been picking up on, earlier?

Opting to radio in, Kaval asked out loud, stupidly, “Everything alright?”

"No!" she answered, cursing herself for making such a stupid decision. In her defense! This wasn't her expertise! Vovvi muttered something vile under her breath in Rihannsu, adjusting to pull back but continuing her onslaught best she could. "It would be wonderful if we could get some more help—"

“Uh oh, looks like we’ve got a fair bit of company..” She remarked, pulling back so she could dodge any incoming shots a bit better while continuing to shoot at the attacking ship to hopefully take down the shields.

Ngozi had stayed put, still wanting to familiarize herself with the controls before getting into a fight. At the call for assistance though, that changed, and Ngozi brought her ship around. She took a few shots at the main ship they were targeting and then did her best at some evasion maneuvers. “Help, coming in.”

“I’m on my way.” Kav replied as well, moving after Ngozi, “The others will be okay without us.”

"How many of them are there?" She asked, watching as Ngozi and Kaval began to pull away, following shortly behind.

Six ships total, two of which continued shooting at the initial ship as they were peppered with shots by Khirena and Vovvi, while the rest started to converge on the two new enemies. The two smaller fighters both targeted Vovvi, sending blasts into the shielding that sent the viewscreen feed rocking in a way that wasn't matched by the seat that she was sitting in. The large vessel meanwhile was still charging its own banks, clearly not intended to be an offensive powerhouse, so Khirena was only shot in retaliation by the third original ship, which had started peeling off from its two friends to be able to go after the two.

"Let's try to lead them back away from our allies." The disorientation aside, Vovvi swung sharply off to one side, returning fire all the way.

“Aye.” Kaval stated, eyes wider now as he leaned in. He was completely locked in now, sucked into the simulation as he moved with the others.

As if waiting to see what would happen, the two fighters that had been shooting at Vovvi waited for a beat, two beats, before flying in closer, attempting to dodge her fire as best they could while also firing shots of their own. In mobility, they seemed to be about equally manoeuvrable as the players' vessels, their speed about equal. The larger vessels shooting at the original ship stayed on task, not yet swayed by the commotion around them.

Scooching up in her seat, Ngozi brought her ship around, she trusted her fellow players to have things handled with the smalller ships or to call for help if they did not. Therefore she went at one of the larger vessels in hopes to draw their fire away from the original ship.

Three new vessels did pop up, not controlled by any players. Two started firing at the largest ship, drawing a devastating beam of phaser fire that would have decimated any of the player vessels. The third set an intercept course for the original altercation, attacking the original ship as it circled the initial victim, seemingly waiting for something.

"What the hell are they waiting for? Why don't they just—" Vovvi grumbled something about poor NPC pathing, continuing to fire off at the ship that had been attacking their ally. "Fine. We'll play it your way, then.*

Ngozi assisted with the assault on the ship attacking the initial ship. She could recognize when someone or something was waiting for something, and that third ship had its eyes on the other ship like I lineman waiting for the ball to be snapped. “What’s the deal with this ship?” She asked, but she wasn’t really expecting anyone to have an answer.

As soon as the shields on the first ship fell away, the shields on the other ship lowered too, just for a second. Then, it was off, shields up and cloaked. Then the two Gorn ships were wiped out in an instant as the first ship exploded entirely, taking its attackers with it. This left only four Gorn ships, and many, many more rebellion ships.

Khirena banked to the left, happy to have a free second to do a fun little maneuver before moving up to and firing on one of the remaining Gorn ships. Khirena didn’t play games often, so she didn’t really know what was up with the NPCs, but she was just happy to fly and shoot at things.

Jayri sped up to catch the others, soon spotting the remaining four enemy ships. "Only a handful left now." She quickly pitched her vessel to head straight towards them, firing off a few shots as she sped towards them, following behind Khirena.

Firing alongside her, he nodded, zooming around. Piloting was quite fun, and this was just a game, so why not dally a little?

Coming in hot after that little bit of action, a new fighter seemed to join their little group, zooming over, particularly close to Khirena’s vessel. They probably hadn’t noticed the man coming in and seating at the last cockpit in the dark, aided by one of the game overseers.

The other ships were staggered at the huge explosion that took out their allies, and were now beginning to retreat, though not before the players' combined assault stripped the last of the original three ships of its shields and engines to leave it dead in the water, and exploded one of the fighters. The three ships that came to their aid pursued relentlessly, caring little about the fighter and instead going after the huge freighter that was attempting to take them out with its devastating heavy weaponry.

Khirena, who had been locked in on flying, took a moment to look back out of the cockpit and see who had joined- hey! Vellek had came after all! She smiled before locking back in to do a fun little barrel roll before shooting at the remaining enemy fighter.

As he gripped the controls, Vellek couldn’t stop himself from thinking: ‘what sort of high tech foolery is this?’ When Khirena had let him know this event was gonna take place, he had thought it would be just another of those games that failed to reach the amount of immersion it promised. He had been curious though, still choosing to tag along after her invitation even if he had been regrettably held back by his work. This was uncanny. He had already found the game crew a bit… peculiar when he had arrived. Now, seeing the controls and the cockpits and the visuals, he wondered, how many resources had been powered out into a simple game? It almost made him mad. Something like this could very well be used to train real soldiers, and they wasted it on normal people? On civilians? All of this time of planning, engineering, coding, all of the energy and hardware, the realism so on point he could feel himself get 90 years younger back when he would still fly, all of it for… fun. “At least you’ll get some training from this.” He said over to Khirena. Flying had been a skill he had developed as a cadet himself and often used after he became a constant presence on the bridge of the ships he served in. Now let’s see if he still remembered his ABCs. He decided to get himself familiar with the controls first, setting the objective of following her around and copying her maneuvers, without attempting to attack yet. He had time, after all this was only a game.

Vovvi offered her aid best she could, not so subtly admiring the practiced maneuvers of the Cadet at her side— a clever officer-to-be indeed, she thought cheerfully, continuing to return fire.

The quicker, smaller fighter, the last one standing, went to warp and disappeared. That left only the large, sluggish freighter with the crazy strong weaponry and the nigh impenetrable shields.

“Hah! Let’s go!!” She cheered, angling her plane fighter to follow the freighter while staying far below them, before swooping up to fire at its underside as much as she could before looping back the way she had came so she wouldn’t crash into it or get shot at too much.

He was quick to get the hang of most functions, copying Khirena’s trajectory and aiming at a similar target. Although his maneuvers were definitely a bit slower when it came to his reaction time, his aim was spot-on. Not too bad for a civilian. Not too bad for a baker.

She followed behind the other two targeting the freighter, making sure to keep her distance as she fired her own weapons at it.

Slowly but surely, the shields of the freighter were being chipped away. Occasionally, its shots hit a player's vessel, rocking Vovvi and Khirena and Jayri in turn, each of them sustaining pretty significant damage to their shields. The ship clearly was not going down without a fight.

“More power?” He asked over comms, furrowing his brow. This was taking far too long for it to be efficient, wasn’t it?

"As much as you can pump into it," Vovvi confirmed. How frustrating..

“Aye, sir.” He continued, raising and diverting as much power to his weapons as the game would allow.

She jolted her controls to the side as the shot hit her vessel, quickly moving to gain distance before turning around and firing again, this time at more of a distance

She cursed under her breath, steering to try to get out of the way. "I don't know how much more I can take before I lose shields," she warned— where had the other team gone? She heard their chatter over her comms a bit ago, but now it was dead silent..

“Do you need cover?” He asked, willing to fly up ahead and take some of the damage for a bit if she so desired.

"Yeah, please?" She was SO out of her element.

“On it.” He swooped under Vovvi’s ship, rising back up to plant his vessel in the line of fire, weaving slightly to try and avoid the major hits.

Khirena weaved a bit as she pumped even more power into her shots at the ship’s underside, before steering to get as far away as she could before her shields could be fully broken.

Vellek's ship had been lucky to escape the counterattack and it's shields were so far intact, he used the momentum to get another sequence of firing against the freighter. "How much before the enemy's shields are destroyed?" Assuming his own readings displayed on the screen didn't give him that answer.

The freighter was hovering at about 18% shields, and shot one of the NPC fighters out of existence. Kaval was hit too: none of the people who were hit would be able to survive one more hit.

“Shit!” He growled, tapping his hand against the fake dashboard, “We need a new strategy.”

"Computer..." Assuming there was one. "Could the combined fire of our vessels destroy the freighter's shields and do substantial damage before we are neutralized?" After all, it wasn't like they were there. "Its a game, no one will die if our fighters explode. I say we go in hard and finalize it. Our job is to make sure the POWs can make it out."

Ngozi was here, trust. “What was that?” She asked, the people around her as the call to TAKE THE HEADSETS OFF came though. “Fors that apply to us?” She asked as she continued flying.

Khirena, who was at very low shields anyway, flew as far as she could away before looking away from the consoles, so she could look at the actual people around her and hopefully see if something weird was happening. “I say get away from the freighter, stop shooting until we figure out what‘s up!” She called out.

No computer, but a message flashed on all of their screens. "Disable shields and damage engines. No further action necessary." The fighter left shot again, avoiding fire: 17%, 16%, 15%...

So he was right? But the message... "Communications, what is happening?" He pulled his fighter away like Khirena was doing. "Humf, not even when it's a game people manage to keep order!"

Still unsure of what was going on, she just got way out of the line of fire and kept doing loops and barrel rolls until she got more clarification. “This is weird..”

“I think we should stop.” Ngozi said based on everything she was hearing from comms. “Put the ships on autopilot or something while we wait to see what’s going on.”

Carefully peeling himself away from the setup, he looked to the others in confusion.

"In any case, it seems the NPC fighters will get the job done." He said while watching the percentage go down. He pulled back is fighter and joined Khirena. How long ago since he had piloted something himself? In a sense it was fun! "I don't see a point in a game that wins itself, I will say." Still, the flying program was good.

“What?” Ngozi exclaimed as the comms came though. Taking her hands immediately off of the simulation, not even turning it on autopilot. She didn’t understand what exactly everything entailed but “the simulation was real was pretty clear on its own.

He slowly stepped away from the simulator, hands folded behind his back. He suspected he would not want to think about this later.

“Ah.. it is real? Uh.. we might have just killed real people.” She looked around, unsure of what to do. She didn’t sound like she cared as much as she probably should. Partly because she was in shock, partly because if she had killed someone, it was someone who had done bad things, right? She did one final loop before turning her ship on autopilot and standing up.

"What?" What? She paused, her hands slowly letting go of the controls she had been clinging onto for so long. She stared out, for a moment, before yanking the headset off her head and stepping out.

Shit. That was… not good. If the ships he’d shot had been real people, living people, would they all be subject to court-martial? Would their careers be in jeopardy, his life in starfleet cut too short, because of a game? “Is everyone out?”

Spitting a metaphorical drink, Vellek let go of the controls, before realizing he had not placed his on autopilot. "What the hell?" He activated it. "Mind... mind the autopilot! I can't believe... we are piloting real fighters, shit!" For someone not very vocal, that situation was clearly getting a lot of exclamations from the Romulan. Expected from a civilian baker upon the shocking news, right?

2

“—Unknowingly. We aren’t at fault.” He reminded himself, out loud, in hopes of actually internalizing it. They didn’t know. They weren’t murderers, or soldiers.

Ngozi was usually a calm person, but she was not now. “We killed people!” She exclaimed, searching desperately though the empathetic signature that surrounded her for some type of comfort. “I’m a media liaison, I’m, I played gridiron, I’m not a, a, we couldn’t have!” She stumbled over her words as the reality set in on her. (edited)

2

Khirena just looked over to Vellek with big, wide black eyes. “I suppose it had to happen to me at some point. I wish I had known I was doing it..” She said quietly to him.

"She's right. It doesn't change the fact we did it. Even if we didn't know." She muttered. It hadn't really quite settled in for her that this was in fact real. "I'm sure... I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this. I... think."

“…no.” He muttered, looking down and shaking his head. There was no way. He didn’t cause more deaths. This was not their fault, no matter what the others said. If it was, he wouldn’t deserve to be standing here anymore.

"I think... I think we should just, y'know, collect ourselves." She mumbled. Jayri sounded like she didn't quite believe what she was saying. "There'll be an explanation. I'm... sure."

"We did. Bastards...." And he meant the people that had brought this 'game' aboard. He didn't like being tricked, though there was little to be done now. As Khirena addressed him, his own brown eyes met her black ones. Should he have known better? Should he have said no? Should he have discouraged her to play? The shock of the news aside, from which he seemed to have recovered remarkably fast, Vellek now looked as his serious and grumpy self of always. At her words, however, his semblance did soften. One could say Khirena had had the easy way to have her first kill. "Don't think of it too much... it won't change the result."

He side-eyed Jayri, before stepping back further, and turning sharply on his heels to go be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

“It won’t.” She agreed, steeling herself a bit. Khirena was remarkably tough for looking as delicate as she did, but a weak person would never have survived what she’d lived through already. A nasty trick like this wouldn’t be the thing to break her.