This is it, Beta thought to himself as he walked into the building where the flight simulator was,
no shitting around, got one shot to do this.He entered the building to see that the class he had spent several weeks with to learn to fly these shuttles and the instructor that had been teaching them were already there. The sergeant was standing tall in front of a large contraption that Beta assumed was the simulator and the other troopers of varying ranks were in formation. Beta then walked in and went into the one open spot in the formation to wait for the briefing. As soon as he was there, the sergeant started.
“Class, this is Tadath’s state of the art shuttle flight simulator. When you get in there you will see that the cockpit is almost to the exact of that of an actual shuttle that we would use in combat. The hydraulics on the side allows the simulator to have precise pitch, yaw and roll to the commands you give it in its cockpit. You will be given at random one of two scenarios when you get there. The first being that you are to fly a shuttle full of troopers from a victory class star destroyer to a specified location while under fire and the second being you must fly a LAAT/i to another specified location but through a warzone.” The sergeant paused for a second and scanned through the troopers, “Corporal Beta40, since you were the last to arrive you will be the first to use the simulator.”
Beta then left the formation and walked to the stairs that led to the entrance of the simulator. The sergeant was almost grinning as he was walking to the control room of the simulator. Beta got in and sat down before strapping himself in. After a few seconds of darkness the lights turned on in the cockpit. The dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree and the screen revealed that they were in a LAAT/i currently landed on a planet, presumably Tadath.
“I will assume that you should know the controls and how to fly this already.” A voice said from an intercom in the cockpit, “You are landed on Tadath if you haven’t noticed already; you will need to take off from here and land safely on the planet indicated on the map on the bottom right of your screen. It would be advisable to use hyperdrive in this scenario, when you do we will use our computer to speed it up for the sake of training. The rest is up to you to do, have fun.” Then the intercom turned off.
Using the controls he had in front of him he got the transport off the ground. Beta could hear the repulsorlift engine sound that he was used to and feel the simulator push up a bit. He turned it around 90 degrees and raised the nose before giving it thrust to leave the pull of Tadath’s gravity. The simulator showed the gas giant of Nodriss and the three other moons orbiting it. When they were out he reduced the pitch a small amount and pushed the throttle to full. Once they were at a respectable speed Beta pushed the hyperdrive throttle to full and the screen showed the stars that seemed to stretch as per usual and the dot showing their location on the map start to move. When he was watching the map the dot jumped almost to the point that he would leave hyperdrive. After a few seconds the LAAT pulled out and showed a battle scenario.
Frak! Beta thought as he rolled the transport to the right to try and avoid the hull of a destroyed ship that had been careening in his direction. The ships maneuverability, being as stubborn as it is, allowed it to hit the bottom of his own hull. The cockpit rumbled viciously and damage readings appeared on the bottom left of the screen. It showed that the bottom of the hull had indeed been heavily damaged and another hit like that would take them out. The battlefield showed hundreds of starfighters flying in all directions with thousands of shots from laser cannons being shot everywhere with the odd explosion.
This is for sure as hell going to be impossible to get through, he thought before seeing an opening to fly through. Knowing how damaged the ship was and how difficult the LAAT was to fly he decided to not try it. He then turned on the yaw axis and rolled a bit so he could take the safe way through. In the distance Beta could see more rubble heading his way, so instead of attempting to dodge it this time he shot a set of the vessel’s many missiles that just turned the hull into small enough fragments to safely fly through.
Pretty damn realistic simulator, he thought then just did a barrel roll for the sake of it.
“Doing okay so far,” he heard the voice on the intercom say before he saw two new republic starfighters spawn in the distance and were both heading right towards him.
“My god,” Beta said to himself as he ran his hand through his hair, trying to think of what to do next. A volley of shots came from the new republic starfighters and the only thing Beta thought to do was to stand his ground. He aimed his own laser cannons at the enemies. One of the shots hit the republic starfighter in its fuel tank, causing it to erupt in a large but quick fireball. The second starfighter zoomed by Beta’s vessel, being only a few meters away. Beta then realized the opportunity, turned on the yaw axis and fired a few shots into the back end of the starfighter, hitting the thrusters and putting it into an uncontrolled spiral. Quickly remembering his mission at hand, he focused the LAAT at the designated planet and put it back into full thrust forwards. Without any further enemies focused on destroying him, he made it to the atmosphere of the planet.
Now just to try an’ get this ship on the ground. Beta then used the repulsorlifts to have a controlled descent through the atmosphere instead of a uncontrolled fireball. Once the ship got below the simulated cloud cover he could see a heavily forested planet. Beta scanned the area for a clearing and didn’t see one. The ship leaned forward and started to move forward. After around a minute, he saw one. As he moved closer to it he lowered the shuttle. Beta maneuvered closer to the clearing and overshot it. He stopped the horizontal movement and backed up a bit. Once he was overtop of the clearing he started lowering slowly, not wanting the already damaged shuttle to take anymore. The shuttle hit the ground, in not the most graceful way, but it worked. The simulator’s hydraulics bounced the cockpit a bit to simulate the landing. After he realized that they were safe he just leaned back and smiled.
After around a minute the lights and screen went blank and the cockpit was dark again. Beta unstrapped the safety belt and stood up. He opened the door to the hanger that it was in and climbed down the stairs.
“Beta40, come here,” the sergeant said to him from the ground.
Please be something good, Beta thought as he walked up to him.
