Chapter Perspective: Mendez

There were a few different ways you could pilot the drone. That’s what Novarod had taught me during my piloting crash course this last week. There was the conventional method of a screen with some standard controls, a cockpit like interface with similar screens, or if you wanted to have the best experience (at least according to Novarod), you opted for the Virtual Goggles.

I was settled into the cockpit as Killian came up next to me, grabbing the goggles and making sure all the wiring was in place. This hadn’t originally been installed and he ended up having to do a rush installation with Spacefly the last few days here, but Novarod had insisted it was going to be worth it. Only problem was that I had only gotten to run a handful of test flights with the goggles and it was disorienting to say the least.

“You don’t need to use them if you don’t want to, you know that, right man?” Killian said with a slightly worried look on his face.

“De nada mi amigo, just a little disorienting at first but Nova is right, you get the best feel for your surroundings and can make the best maneuvers,” I said with the shake of my head as I grabbed the goggles and pulled them over my eyes as I settled back into the cockpit seat.

Killian pushed the chair into the console, something he was insistent that he’d be upgrading before our next trial, and I felt the controls line up with the screens I was now seeing.

It was as if I was actually in the drone itself, sitting in the small bay with open space ahead of me and the marbled planet looming in the distance.

“Launching Drone,” I said over the intercom and ignited the engines, pulling the drone out of the still motionless ship and making a quick clip away from the NEUTRINO. The controls were light and responsive but I still had to hold my stomach as I turned the drone, my body was anticipating a sweeping momentum based on what my eyes were seeing, but we hadn’t set the chair into a full motion mount so it left me with the lightest bit of motion sickness.

“Begin your flight path Doc, make sure that satellite sees you,” the Captain's voice crackled over the intercom.

“On it,” I replied, swinging the drone back around and throwing the accelerator to max as I launched away from the ship.

We knew exactly where the satellite was going to be, so with the right timing, and Curtis has spent long enough planning that we must have had the right timing, we’d be able to start the chaos enough that the enemy wouldn’t know where to look.

A new communication channel popped open in the Virtual Goggles, “Looking good Doc, hows the muscle memory treating you?” Novarod asked.

“Como, I didn’t hit the sides of the ship on exit and I didn’t lose my lunch either with these damn goggles,” I replied with a wry grin that I knew no one could see.

“Doc, start flying the first standard route, get into position to get noticed. Sullivan what’s the ETA on the mimicked signals?” the Captain’s voice crackled over the intercom and before silence could even begin to take over the overheard popped back to life.

“First wave is launched, we have three dummy signals now activated, are they coming up on our Short Range?” Killian called back.

“Affirmative. Doc, that means the next phase is up to you. Sullivan prep paths 2, 7 and 8 for launch when Doc gets noticed.”

I let out a slow, practiced breath and pushed forward on the controls, taking the drone in a wide, sweeping arc away from the NEUTRINO and around toward what should have been just outside of the closest satellite’s range. I skimmed the edge, watching the starmap on my display closely with the preapproved flight path layered over it.

“Okay Doc, now here’s where you improvise just a bit,” Novarod’s voice hit my ear and I felt my grip on the controls falter slightly as I let myself forget our direct channel was still open. “Follow the path but start swiveling, you’re still outside of sight line but it’s gonna help confuse the channels, you’re going to dip into notice range in sixty seconds.”

“Heard,” I replied and started to follow his instructions.

We had drilled this of course, using the set flight plan was all said and good but if I flew it too perfectly alongside all the other signals, we might blend together too well. While it was important to have the extra signals established and ready, mostly for our extraction from within the sat-line, my drone needed to stand out enough to create the window of approach.

I pulled the drone in a steep dive that made my stomach lurch. Even though space was almost nothing but blackness, the existence of the planetary bodies in the simulation left enough realism that my mind still found a way to give me motion sickness. Idly I wondered what might be causing it, but given the circumstances, I filed it away into my “topics to think about” mental folder.

“Sixty seconds is up Doc, it’s time we do this,” Novarod said and I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to be nervous, but of course I was, hell who wouldn’t be.

But nerves were a good thing and I gripped the controls as tightly as I could, “Time to blitz an alien planet.”