Collision Detection

Posted on Mon Feb 9th, 2015 @ 5:30pm by Lieutenant Lynsi Mason & Lieutenant Colonel Edward Maxwell

Mission: Vagrants, Vagabonds, and Thieves
Location: Outer Perimeter, Station Controlled Space

Once again Lynsi's favorite part of the day was drawing near. No matter the circumstances, anytime she could be behind the controls of her fighter was a good time. But today was going to be special. This wasn't just any sortie, but the first time that she was going to be flying with Reaper. Blaze wasn't sure if Jinjo was going to be upset to get benched, but fortunately for her he didn't mind the day off. Now she just had to deal with nerves of having her CO and possible boyfriend flying along on her six. She knew that she was going to be judged, whether he intended to or not, so she was going to have to make sure that it was a good flight.

As the flight crews finished their final preparations, Mason approached her fighter, helmet in hand. Rio and Firefly were already climbing into their fighters; Rio at Lynsi's nine o'clock and Firefly at her three o'clock. She conferred briefly with the crew chief before looking around for Reaper.

Ed nodded to his crew chief as they walked into the hangar. The Master Sergeant took personal care of Ed's bird, even though he was in overall charge of the ground crews for the Exocets. He never knew when the Skipper was going to be coming in to take a hop around the area. Sometimes it was with the Squadron, sometimes like now with one of the other Squadrons, and once in a while he just popped in and took off on his own. After a brief conversation Ed climbed the ladder to the cockpit of his fighter.

Glad to see Ed getting settled in, Lynsi climbs into her own cockpit and finishes her preflight checks. With her helmet on and the open channel connected, she addressed her flight. "Listen up, people. We've got another standard sortie ahead of us. Nothing to be concerned about, except that we do have a new pilot with us this time around. He says that he can fly, but it's been a while since he's had a lot of stick time in one of our birds. Make sure you give him a wide berth."

The voice of Ensign Tegan Veillon came in over the comm first. "A wider berth than we usually give you, boss?"

Blaze rolled her eyes. "Something similar will probably be fine, Firefly."

"No worries Blaze, I promise not to show you up too badly. Have to make sure you keep the respect of your pilots. Everyone knows though that Marine pilots can fly circles around you fleet types any day though." Ed said with a grin as he yanked down on the straps of his harness.

Lynsi firmly attached her own harness as well as she smiled. She had a feeling that this was going to be an interesting flight. "Of course Marine pilots can fly better. That's why they gave you the desk job and we're the ones out here flying the circles, right?"

"How else can I see the mistakes everyone's making so I can point them all out?" Ed grinned as he finished his own launch checks.

Once everyone seemed ready, Blaze started up their launch procedure. "Alright boys and girl, let's get these birds in the air. Flight Lead standing by."

"Firefly, standing by," the previous voice stated.

A gruff voice, one belonging to the Andorian Lieutenant JG Thelev th'Kerria was next. "Rio, standing by."

"Reaper's ready." Ed said trying to sound as bored as possible.

"Copy that, all fighters standing by," Lynsi acknowledged, shaking her head at Ed's response. He wasn't going to make it easy on her. After the roll call came a carefully orchestrated series of checks and permissions between Blaze and the flight controller station in Flight Ops. Each step was just as important as the last, meant to quickly get the fighters launched, and yet carefully to make sure that no pilots or deck crew were at risk as the fighters sped off of the flight deck. After a couple of minutes, the four man flight had their permissions, and they accelerated past the atmospheric forcefield and out into space. It was a procedure followed so many times that each one of them could have done it in their sleep. After a few moments still, the flight was on its way to their patrol zone, out near the outer marker. Now that they were away from the congestion in the station's immediate vicinity, the pilots could start to relax a bit, at least enough for a little banter while they patrolled. Even with Ed in the group, Blaze stayed fairly comfortable. First dates and brief liaisons in the CAG's office may have made her nervous, but she was very comfortable behind the controls of her bird. "How are you doing back there, Reaper? Just like riding a bike?"

"We get away from all this traffic Blaze and I'll make your head spin, again." He said throwing the last word in there as an after thought. May as well really give the others something to think about and wonder what he meant. "We'll see who gets top honors at the Wing's dining in next month." He challenged, referring to the bases Top Gun trophy that was to be given out at the wings formal awards dinner that was scheduled for the next month.

She tried to ignore that last word. No doubt Tegan was already starting rumors in her head. "Now, now, Reaper. We don't want Mom and Dad to fight in front of the kids. Besides, I'll have to go easy on you. I know how mopey you get when your pride is on the line."

"Okay Blaze now you're asking for it. Game on once we get away from things. We'll see who gets the trophy." Ed said with his normal wicked grin. She wanted to play, then he was all for it. He had been tempted to say who got spanked, but couldn't think of a good way to spin it into the innuendo that it really was.

Blaze causally reconfigured her stabilizers. It made the craft a bit more unsteady, but gave her overall more control. "Alright, it's on! I'll have to remember to clean off a space on my shelf because that trophy is mine. I'm sure you have a place for it already, but then your trophy shelf has just been gathering dust."

The next response seemed to come from a surprising source. The gruff sounding Andorian, Rio, decided to chime in. "If you two get a divorce can I have a bigger room?"

"If there's a divorce someone's getting a new room one way or another." Ed said as he disengaged all the automatic control surfaces of his fighter. There was a reason his fighter was designed with control peddles for atmospheric flight. It also gave him unparalleled control in space compared to a standard space fighter.

Lynsi smirked from the safe confines of her cockpit. She was glad that everyone was getting along. Not that she was really concerned, but she had worked with people before that weren't quite themselves when the boss was around. Her pilots weren't like that though, which was part of what made them all so close. She checked her scanners to verify that they had reached the outer marker. "Alright, Reaper. Let's see what you've got." She increased the throttle to full impulse, but thanks to inertial dampers, the additional G-forces from acceleration were minimal. It wasn't until more complex maneuvers that they had trouble compensating.

"Game on then. Hang out of the way kids." Ed said with a grin as he pushed the throttle control to its stopper. Thanks to the inertial dampener systems all he felt was a mild thump. Glancing at the speed indicator on his HUD he was approaching .8 Warp. Deciding to kick things up another notch he grinned a bit more though noone could see it. "Keep up if you can Blaze." He said as he kicked his rudder pedals and pulled back sharply on the control stick. His fighter's nose rose until he was pointing straight up. He rocketed up and with his rudder pedals kicked the fighter into a corkscrew as he shot upwards.

Lynsi smiled to herself as Ed moved into the corkscrew. How quaint, she thought to herself, thinking that Ed must be starting out easy. She increased her throttle as she angled her own fighter on a similar trajectory. But instead of matching his corkscrew, she slid into a barrel roll, sending her craft in a wide arc that encircled his maneuver.

Blaze was watching looking back behind her through the canopy to see what Reaper was going to try next when she caught the explosion out of the corner of her eye. It was about 30 kilometers away from their current position. Lynsi leveled our her fighter to point towards the explosion as Firefly and Rio hurried to form up. "Control, this is Flight Lead. I have visual on an explosion, about thirty clicks from our current position, bearing 038 mark 017. Do you confirm?"

The flight controller's voice came in over the comm. "Affirmative, Blaze. We have it on sensors. No weapons fire detected. It may have been a malfunction, shoddy maintenance."

"Copy that, Control. It could be that, or it could be a collision. Traffic was looking pretty heavy in that direction. We're moving to investigate. Have medical transports on standby. Fighters, on me"

"I'll let you run the show for now Blaze, its your flight. If we need more resources I'll take the lead."

As the fighters neared the site of the explosion, the situation became more clear. There did seem to be two ships involved. One was a Federation transport, which looked to be in pretty bad shape. The other Lynsi didn't recognize. The markings indicated that it was probably civilian, but the affiliation was not immediately clear. It did, however, appear to be adrift, their maneuvering thrusters offline. "Reaper, Firefly, use your tractor beams to secure the civilian ship. Rio, you and I will check on the transport." There was no hesitation in her voice. Even though her superior officer was flying along with them, she didn't mind giving him orders.

"Copy that. Reaper breaking off." He confirmed as he pulled his control stick to the right and warmed up the emitter.

With the ships' positions stabilized, Blaze hailed the Federation ship. "Unidentified Federation transport, this is Lieutenant Lynsi Mason on starbase approach patrol. What is your status?"

This is Captain Eric Maddox of the SS Madrid, a voice called out over the comm. We're been severely damaged in a collision. Engines are non-functioning, but life support is holding. We have a lot of wounded.

"Copy that, Madrid. We have medical transports en route. Stand by why we secure the area." Blaze muted the channel to the transport and opened the channel to her flight. "Reaper, we have a lot of wounded on the transport, but life support is holding. How are things looking over there?"

"We've got it stable. We can tow it in if we can't get a runabout out here to serve as a tug." Ed said as he clanced at his control panel. "It's not that far to base, we'd be almost there by the time a runabout arrived. We don't usually have them on standby for tug duty. We might have to remedy that though."

"Good point. We don't usually deal with accidents like this one though," Blaze mused. "Let's start bringing the ships in. Blaze to Control."

"Control here, go ahead, Blaze."

"Have the dockmaster prepare two berths. We're bringing in two heavily damaged ships."

"Copy that, Blaze."

Along with Rio, Mason's fighter activated their tractor beams, grabbing a hold of the the Madrid. They started to slowly pull the ship closer to the station to rendezvous with the approaching medical ships. "Never a dull moment, eh, Reaper?"

"I'd be disappointed if there was Blaze.." Ed chuckled. "Let's drop off the baggage and get back to work."

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Lt. Colonel Ed Maxwell
CAG, SVW-17

Lieutenant Lynsi Mason [P: Von]
Squadron Leader, V/F-37 "Claymores"