Warm Blood Rush [Tag: Kirkwood]

[Elijah 'Havok' Thomson]

At this time in the morning, Elijah quickly found out that there were far more people walking to and from rooms than he'd originally expected. Jesus Christ, it's goddamn 6am, what the hell do these people have to do at this hour? He thought himself sullenly. Having literally only just rolled out of his bunk half an hour ago, he'd barely had time to get his flight uniform on. He thought back to the orders he'd gotten last night , apparently some Commander was doing regulatory fight tests on the VTOL pilots and wanted everyone to head to the simulator room at their designated times for testing. He sighed internally as he turned another bland corner, I know I only got here a month ago but geeze, I passed training didn't I? That thought was tinged with a smirk as he remembered just how close to being kicked out of training he'd been, despite passing in the top 10% of his class. Though he knew that the only reason that those other guys had been ahead of him was because of his rather poor academic score.

Finally coming up to the door to the training room he passed another pair of pilots who looked like they had just finished their run in the simulators. One of them caught his eye as they passed, "Hey rookie, be sure not to crash too many times eh?" They both laughed as they carried on, but Elijah couldn't leave it at that, "Oh don't worry jackasses! I'll come let you know how far down you were below me afterwards!" He chuckled to himself as he turned towards the open door, almost ploughing straight into the Commander. Oh shi- fucking crap.

[Elizabeth 'Firefly' Kirkwood]

The Commander gave them all a stern look, she had heard that entire conversation. Pilots and their egos, never got old with them did it? The Commander had always done mandatory testing to make sure her pilots weren't slacking off. It worked for the most part. The blonde officer cleared her throat and spoke. "So Pilot you think you can fly?" she mused. Liz had no problem making a smart ass remark when she felt like it. Smart ass was her second language, she wouldn't survive around these egotistical prats if she couldn't dish it out. Luckily with her rank she didn't have to take it most of the time. The woman smirked a moment and opened the door, she was still polite but she time would tell if this was another knothead who thought that he could fly.

The woman had been doing her fighter pilots yesterday and her drop ship pilots this morning. Liz just looked to him and waited to see if she was gonna get a response out of him or if they were just going to sit here all day or if she had to kick his ass into the cock pit like the last 3 pilots on the roster. Even those who had been in the simulation room before never usually saw the cock pit which seemed to be hovering over the floor. "heads up" she tossed him a facemask and gear like he had already been aside but it was gear specifically to fit into the space like atmosphere that had been created by the simulator once it turned on. Right now it appeared to free float. Pushing a button some arms came out and took hold of the cock pit, there was no way to get into it unless she grounded it of course.

(Its Commander since Vini and I fixed the rank system and i have to make a new sig so ignore the img title)

[Elijah 'Havok' Thomson]

Elijah didn't actually say anything back to the Commander when she asked him if he could fly, only giving a toothy grin in response. He knew actions spoke far louder than words and was more than willing to put on a bit of a show if it got his point across. That said, the fact that the Commander hadn't said anything about his rather blatant trash talking made him hope she was the type to hold actual legitimate skill over those that rigidly stick to outdated values and traditions. Then again he'd been wrong before so he'd leave confirming that till later as another door opened inside the simulator room that led into the dedicated pilot simulation section.

Though as he walked into the room, the sight of the hovering simulation cockpit was a new one, audibly whistling as he walked towards it. "Now that's pretty snazzy, much nicer than what I trained in", he said out loud, his interest however cut short as he caught sight of a load of gear and a helmet flying towards him, the warning given by the Commander missed. Elijah just about managed to grab everything before something went skittering across the floor. As the Commander set up the simulation he quickly pulled on the extra gear required for the simulation and stuck his head into the helmet, making sure all the links and cables were connected in the correct place, confirmed by the multitude of green icons that flashed up on the booting HUD.

As the cockpit soundlessly touched the ground, Elijah leapt in and flicked one of the switches to his left, the majority of the consoles in front of him lighting up with several displays coming to life. The canopy of the cockpit closed over his head and the slight hiss of a seal being created escaped. Turning the tiny dial on one of the front panels he cheerily said, "Alrighty Commander, I'm all good here!"

[Elizabeth 'Firefly' Kirkwood]

Elizabeth chuckled, he seemed so confident; at least he wasn't as egotistical as the last pilot. She pulled the helmet over her own suit that was already on after she set a few of the controls. He was a drop ship pilot, so she had to make sure he didnt end up with the fighter simulation. The correct button always had to be pushed. Her set up was very different on the other side, the cockpit was laid out different but from the outside it was the same anyway. Liz didn't climb up into the cockpit she hopped right over the side off the ladder and closed her cockpit lid. She did a check of her "systems" much like she would anytime she flew. It took her a few moments and then she spoke over the communication line. "Ready Pilot?"she questioned as she waited to set the scenario until she got the all clear. Most everyone on the ship knew that Liz had been a fighter pilot before she ended up on the Dauntless, yet most thought she didn't fly anymore which wasn't always the case. No she didn't fly in combat but she did fly to keep up on new technology and what the fighters could and could not do. Simulations were never better than the real thing when it came to seeing how different ships and fighters handled.

The officer pushed the buttons to unengage the cockpits from the lift systems when they hit lift off status. They would not go into free float until then. The woman was set to launch from another ship, she was of course the enemy.

Once she launched from the ship her cockpit went into free float and she barrel rolled to the left and out the left side launch area. She never flew straight after launching, it was too much fun to roll and if they knew you were about to launch she knew right where they were going to aim, and it wasn't going to be her. A few simulated fighters followed her. Letting Lizzie lose and into the air was never a good thing for the other side at least not in her experience. Not that she could not be outflown because she could but there were few pilots who were capable of it. Swapping her throttle systems on she stopped rolling and followed the screen in front of her towards the enemy encampment. She was going to try to take out the other ships before they could land. Lamond's mission was to get his drop ship in, drop his people/equipment, and get back to point A before the fighters caught wind of his whereabouts. Liz took a breathe as she headed towards her favorite place to hide out. Just outside of the enemy base just outside of radar range. She flew back and forth mostly just monitoring the area around her and her own radar.

[Elijah 'Havok' Thomson]

It was only then that he actually paid attention to the fact that the Commander was also wearing similar flight gear and that there was a second simulation cockpit in the room. She's going to be in the simulation with me? He thought to himself as a combination of apprehension and excitement ran through him. It wasn't often he got the opportunity to fly against someone that was legitimately skilled, more often than not his poor test scores got him matched up with the weaker pilots which frequently led to heads being scratched in the early days of training, as he'd outperform the others with staggering ease.

The com' line in his helmet came to life as the Commander asked if he was ready, he flicked open the reply channel, "As ready as I'll ever be Commander, let's get this show on the road!" The adrenaline from the anticipation alone was enough to make his skin itch. The world around him dissolved into what appeared to be the interior of a regular capitol ship hangar, the free-float system engaged as the Sparrow was loaded into the usual launch system. He took this time to go over his loadout and objectives, his eyes flicking over several panels in front of him and also on his HUD, Alrighty, take troops to surface LZ, avoid destruction by any opposing forces, return to the ship when mission is complete. He nodded to himself as he read this, before moving onto the loadout screen. Full combat-mix for the chain gun, 6 missiles and all 32 rockets.

As he looked over the loadout, the Sparrow locked in place, the sudden darkness shocking him back to reality. The orange light on one of the panels in front of him flicked to green and the Sparrow was fired into open space. The moment he cleared the launch tube, Elijah switched the scanner to 'Active' and quickly checked his surroundings. Ok, the LZ on the planet is behind me, stealth really isn't an option at this point so let's get on with it! In the second it had taken him to check this he flipped the Sparrow end over end and flared the afterburners at 110%. He briefly heard the beginning of what was probably a safety message regarding the engines, but in all his time flying he'd never actually heard the entire message, as he instantly flicked off the warning and reached to his far right, turning off the engine limiters.

"Ok Commander, let's dance a merry dance!" Shouted Elijah to himself as he rocketed away from the ship in orbit towards the planet.

[Elizabeth 'Firefly' Kirkwood]

Elizabeth had her scanners running the entire time, she always did but she did not have stealthing capabilities, it was her speed and her turn radius and skill that was on her side. Her scanner lit up as soon as the Sparrow broke out into full speed. 'He's going to be an expensive pilot' she thought as she flicked the starfury control panel. When she made the abrupt turn the starfury leaned a hard left almost dumping her upside down and she kept up in a straight direction. Straightening out would mean time and while she knew she could catch him.. The Commander immediately dropped down beneath the Sparrow and matched it for speed. She was playing games with him. She wanted to show him that catching a drop ship pilot was not an issue. The pilot smirked and spoke after a moment. "You break it Thomson, you pay for it" she was being a down right twit.

The woman glanced down at the technology in front of her screen, she was not about to let her guard down lest he try something, however she was staying JUST out of reach of all of the weapons systems but was pacing the Sparrow. It was amusing to her and she had done it before to others in the past. Elizabeth was known for playing games and making missions "fun" in her words, she barrel rolled underneath. The sparrow was not going to outfly her, she was more or less trying to simply make that point clear and taunt the other pilot to see what his reaction would be to her lingering presence. It was just her, the rest of the squad had been told to stand down. This was Elizabeth's fun for the morning.

[Elijah 'Havok' Thomson]

The Starfury running rings around him wasn't exactly what he thought he'd be seeing. What the actual... Elijah hadn't prepared himself for a pilot that was ready to play games, but he was absolutely willing to play along, it wasn't exactly hard for him. The message about breaking the Sparrow was enough to set off another wide grin. "Oh don't worry about that Commander!" His voice ringing out with a chipper tone, "They don't call me Havok for nothing! I'll bring most of it back!" Quickly throwing his eyes across the scanner screen, the other fighters had apparently pulled back so that the Commander was the only one that was close by. Unfortunately the Commander was stuck hard underneath him, there was little he could do to bring any of his weapons to bear. He eyes drifted over to a panel on his left. Maybe...

Alright Commander, let's see how well you fly blind! He hammered the throttle to the absolute maximum shunting the craft forward enough to bring the cockpit of the Starfury in line with the rear underside of the Sparrow. Aaaaannnnnddd NOW! He flicked a pair of switches on the same panel to his left. Two sections of the Sparrow's undercarriage blew away as two whole compartments of IR/Iridescent and Electronic Counter Measure pods fired out straight into the flight path of the Commander's Starfury. Elijah was banking that the pods would both throw off the Commander's actual vision with their several billion candela burn, and also to scramble her scanners and electronic sensors with the EM field they also generated.

Knowing that this probably only brought him a few seconds of valuable pure confusion he dropped the throttle back to 110% and pulled a hard right burn, bringing him into a suitable approach path for re-entry. However he still needed more time and there was nothing between him and the Commander once she cleared the CM field he just created she'd be able to make a beeline for him. Let's make that task a little more difficult. He thought to himself, switching off the inertial dampener and shutting the engine completely down. Throwing the Sparrow 180 degrees around, Elijah quickly brought the cannon and rocket pods in alignment with the Commander's Starfury, letting rip with 12 of the rockets and a 5 second sustained burst with the gun before spinning around once again to match the flight path laid out by the computer, firing up the engines once again and switching the dampener on before the re-entry process began.

[Elizabeth 'Firefly' Kirkwood]

Starfurys were known for their nice handling. Lizzie zipped quickly to the side narrowly missing the range of the EMP that was generated by the spacecraft above her. There was a nice cloud of dust though that made her flight sight blind. She was flying on instruments, that was always fun. She made a hard turn back to the left and fired off warning shots towards the side wings of the drop ship. Lizzie was merely toying with the other pilot, and she would be waiting for him when he came out of the atmosphere, the shots were more to show that she wasn't finished yet with anything as she moved to let her sight clear. A few of her computer comrades had been caught in the EMP but she couldnt say the computer was the brightest flight commander in the box. She smirked, no they had only just begun to dance and she was going to be waiting. The visual sight would be clearing shortly and that would help her cause.

*Sorry this is super short the kids and I have been sick for 2 weeks but here is something at least since i havent posted in forever im gonna go sleep now ni ni*

[Elijah 'Havok' Thomson]

As cannon rounds passed the side of his cockpit, Elijah's options went from few to just one. He gritted his teeth as he threw the Sparrow into a tight roll, dumping another entire compartment of countermeasures behind him, the roll scattering them behind him. "Alright Commander, let's see how this forced hand plays!" He muttered to himself, locking the roll inverted over the planet, Elijah yanked back on the control stick, altering his atmospheric insertion pattern from a nice, regulation 20 degree incline, to a hard 90 degree straight drop. A drop from orbit to the surface usually doesn't involve such a steep manoeuvre until you were well within the atmosphere to prevent structural damage. Elijah at this point was well beyond even thinking about that concern.

The moment that the re-entry effect began to flare up around the visible hard edges of the Sparrow, he knew that the Commander was no longer his biggest threat, the craft falling apart on him was. All right you piece of shit, you're gonna pull me through this! The sudden onset of the hull vibrating set his teeth on edge as the cockpit became almost impossible to see out of due to the enormous plumes of super heated air billowing around the leading edges of the craft. The altimeter was dropping his registered altitude by thousands of meters a second. A dull creaking and a long groan rang out as the air frame began to suffer the toll of such high stress.

A red light began blinking and an alarm blared out signalling a serious engine fault. He glanced at the altimeter, he had only a split second to decide when to break the drop. That split second was enough for the Sparrow to punch through the cloud layer, a dull rust coloured rock mesa filled his vision. Elijah was unable to contain himself, "OH JESUS FUUUUUUUUUUCCCK", he shouted as he nearly ripped the control stick out of its housing. The Sparrow levelling out in time for him to break right, almost losing an entire side of the Sparrow as it narrowly missed a small out cropping of rock.

"HAHAAAA!" Elijah managed to get a shout of glee out as he began burning for the drop point.

[Elizabeth 'Firefly' Kirkwood]

Elizabeth couldn't do anything about the pilot having just risked a multi million dollar space craft with careless yet talented flying as it crossed into the atmosphere. Well at least not personally, but that didn't mean that she couldn't find something to do like alert base security on the ground that she had a bird on the ground and so she kept busy on the communication lines while she knew how long it took for a sparrow to land and how long it would take for it to take off, they could only go so fast even at top speed. That gave her a few moment to talk to some of the communications on the ground to keep him from launching. "That Sparrow better not get off the ground, you got that" she snapped into the communication line and then cut them short. She was not furious nor was she needing to buy time, she just wanted to see just how much she could test Elijah and that was exactly what this way.. however that aircraft was expensive and he was probably going to hear about that later.

[Elijah 'Havok' Thomson]

The waypoint of the drop point blinked closer and closer on his HUD and the NavMap on one of his displays. Elijah breathed a sigh of relief, that was cut short as the left engine finally cut out completely and the Sparrow started banking rapidly and pulling hard. "Aww fuuuuuuuuck" he hissed out as he fought the off-balance Sparrow, attempting to re-centre it's flight path by adjusting the trim on the control surfaces. After a near minute of solidly tuning, the Sparrow was flying within acceptable boundaries, however, this didn't mean it was flying straight. It now flew at a constant 10 degree slant to the left, giving the impression it was sliding along in the air.

This also meant that it required constant help from Elijah to keep on course, the offset power from a single engine meant that even with the trim set to help, he had to manage the throttle and stick to make sure they didn't just fall out of the sky and pancake into the side of a mesa.

Fortunately, with only 2 klicks to the now visible landing pad, the consistently dropping altitude was bringing his approach in line. Dropping the landing gear, Elijah switched the engines from horizontal flight and into the VTOL position, which directed the thrust from the engines into vectoring nozzles around the bottom of the Sparrow. However, with only a single engine to divert thrust to the retro-thrusters underneath, the lifting power of the Sparrow was cut by half.

"Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!" Elijah maxed the throttle at 110%, no time to disengage the limiter, it would have to do.

The Sparrow didn't actually clear the lip of the mesa. It was 3 inches too short, the chin smashed into the edge, shattering rock and dirt, crushing the chaingun and buckling the plating of the undercarriage and almost tearing the front landing gear clean off. But the impact bumped the Sparrow several feet higher and the rest dropped into its gear, sliding a short way, stopping almost perfectly on the makeshift pad.

Elijah let out the breath he'd be holding in. The computer was shot, he couldn't assess the state of the Sparrow but it was clear some rather major repairs and refits were in order.

He toggled his radio, "Ground crew? This is Havok, I need an immediate damage report on this Sparrow, and... rather obviously repair and refit." He flicked to the internal coms, "Alrighty ladies and gentlemen! We have arrived at our destination, please mind your head and take all luggage with you!" He frowned to himself as he sat back.

Holy fuck that was a little closer than I wanted it to be...