Chapter 10: Front 6; Daily Life Aboard The Fluchtig – Part 1/2

Despite her eccentric, first couple of days Una soon found herself adapting to life aboard the Am-Fluchtig.
 To her relief no one ever mentioned her incident on the second day, nor did they act particularly different around her and so with-in a few days things began to fall into a natural rhythm of sorts.

The daily routine for a pilot consisted of a number of mostly personal activities, the mornings were spent in the gym, of course this was mandatory for all to prevent the affects of degradation that living in a zero G environment brought.
 Further considering the physical aspect of operating a Vijaik it was considered even more so important that all pilots were fit.

 This didn't necessarily require them to be bodybuilders or any such but to simply be all round healthy. Next would come time on the simulator, to her utmost relief there had been no more group practice sessions and for the most part she generally found herself sparing against the simulators AI programmes.

They were all required to log a certain number of simulation hours daily, as for bouts against her fellow pilots the system was somewhat informal, it was expected that if you happened to be in the under-hanger at the same time as another then you would practise together.

 Indeed it seemed both Kolme and Hoki in particular would make time to periodically train alongside Una, Sabban also had no issue with going against her - From Una's perspective however these sessions with the other pilots proved to be somewhat troublesome - quite simply they reminded her each time of just how far ahead of her they all seemed to be.

 This feeling of malcontent seemed to peak when even her practise against the AI started to decline, with her gaining points one day, only to loose them the next, which usually indicated a pilot had reached they're current 'simulator skill cap'.
 By her fifth day, half a week aboard the ship, Una had found a couple other issues too:

Aside from physical training and simulations, the rest of her days were scheduled for her to preform maintenance on her machine (a fairly fruitless task considering they had yet to see actual combat) and 'duty standby';
 At all times one pilot was on this 'standby', which put simply meant to sit around in your respective mech's cabin, probably on the simulator, while being ready to make an emergency launch should the Fluchtig come under attack.
 It was scheduled in such away that your shift as awaiting pilot would line up with your simulator time, further this duty extended past just the ship's ensemble of 5 pilots.
 3 additional 'probationary pilots' existed aboard the Fluchtig.

To gain this duty, one from any department, simply had to volunteer, they would then dedicate daily some of their free time to learning the basics of Vijaik combat and once they reached a simulator rank of 'E' along with receiving approval from the ship's combat command (currently Lt.Nilas), they would then qualify for the unofficial rank - allowing them to take standby shifts at times when the official pilots were asleep and such like.

In turn they would receive a modest pay-increase or other additional benefits.
 In truth no commander would actually send any of these half-trained personnel out to battle, rather if they found themselves on duty during an attacks, they would prep the machines (starting the generators, preforming equipment checks and moving the mecha to the launch deck in the main hanger) as to allow the real pilots, whether they be eating or asleep, time to prep and then launch immediately into battle.

Una had yet to practise against any of the three though she had passed them on occasion, usually leaving the under-hanger as she entered the space.
 There was the bridge officer that always peculiarly wore sunglasses despite being permanently aboard a fully lit vessel. The mechanic whom all the other mechanics joked frequently about being dirt broke and finally a woman from the generator room, who Una had yet to even pass-by.

The trio it seemed would regularly report to Kolme but other than that had little to do with Una.
 As for herself, her stand-by period simply meant more time on the simulator, growing ever more discouraged at her own lack of progress.

Finally there was the free time, considering currently the ship was simply traveling from one place to another with no planned combat for a couple weeks, Una found herself with a frustrating amount of downtime.
 True to form Miss.Hoki had managed to acquire a physical manual of the Neo-Type Vijaik for Una, which she had begun dutifully spending her evenings pouring over, in the hopes of finding some knack or other to better making use of her new machine - But other then that there was little she was required to do.

In fact generally speaking her time on the Fluchtig really was proving quite solitary, there was no parade in the mornings like there was back in her school days, nor did anyone take much note when an officer entered a room;
 Gone was the ever present stout NCO's who would bellow the likes of "Officer On Deck, ATTENTION!", instead the likes of Kolme or Hoki would enter to no fanfare whatsoever, the same applied whenever one of the bridge officers came down for some minor reason or another.
 And although she did frequently train with the others, broadly speaking there was no requirement to do so as long as she submitted a small digital file to Hoki or Sabban (who seemingly handled the day to day admit of the squadron on Kolme's behalf) listing her activities for the day had been fulfilled.

In fact there were entire days were she could go without having any real interactions with the others outside of mealtimes. As for mealtimes, she began to treasure her lunch time encounters with the illustrious Miss.Hoki and the array of sweet smelling foreign teas the woman would bring along.

For her evenings she had taken up doing her reading in the botanical garden, a large area filled with foliage and with a massive window staring out at space. Most of the time however this window was projected onto with images of sunsets and the like, with the idea being to make the room feel like a real slice of home.
 To an extent it did help but from the artificial light above, to the faint outline of the hexagonal windows between the tree line, it never quite felt like the real thing.
 To be perfectly honest Una was realising she felt lonely. In a-way it seemed as thought the scenery had changed but that she was still boxed in just like her time confined to the barracks back on Abhaile.
 'There's people all around and stuff to do but really...'

Even the box she felt herself in seemed to grow ever more constricting.
 Even accounting for her daily trips to the garden, in reality the spaces she occupied were fairly limited.
 The Fluchtig was no doubt a large vessel, but her part of that world was in a sense only a small run, the central dome that made up the main operations part of the ship housed multiple sections but was mostly dominated by the hanger bays and the primary generator - Adding on her lack of any reasons to go near the general living block or the bridge and really she simply lived between the ships amenities block (the garden, gym & canteen), the under-hanger for training and officer's quarters for sleeping.

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It was bizarre to imagine that just beneath her feet lay a whole network of cavernous rooms.
 There was supposedly massive warehouses brimming with food, ammunition and other supplies along with the ridiculously large water reservoir needed to conduct both life and the cooling of equipment aboard the ship.
 Moreover there were apparently entire spiralling networks of interior tramlines that ferried people to and from the Fluchtig's four impressive main batteries, with entire crews living out there at the far ends of the ship, people that she might never come across in a whole year.

With all this in mind Una decided on her fourth day aboard to make use of her apparent autonomy aboard the ship to do some minor investigation of what her fellow pilots did in order to become such talented individuals.

For his part Kolme seemed to spend his time being rather more busy than Una had first thought.
 He attended frequent meetings with other staff officer, including the ship's captain, spoke frequently with all manner of staff from various divisions, as well as organising and ordering most of the supplies needed for their Vijaik's.
 Speaking of which, it seemed he made a point of attending and signing off on all experiments conducted by the workshop team on the Mech-team's experimental equipment.
 This surprized Una in that she had only ever really known the sort of officer who'd haphazardly sign documents while trying to avoid as much leg work as possible.

As for the test equipment itself, Una soon learned that Sabban and Hoki held the rank of ship's official 'Test Pilots' (this was in part a reason for their officer ranks of 'Ensign').
 This detailed them trying equipment not only for their own machines but also for Kolme and Scarlet's.

They'd often times make use of the old MB-Type to do these tests and it struck Una that despite everyone's frequent slacking off of the antique machine that lived in the workshop, whether being used for the three probation pilots training, moving freight or part-taking in dangerous testing, the old work horse seemingly pulled it's weight more then any other piece of machinery on the whole ship.

After observing a couple of these tests Una finally made up her mind to offer her assistance, after all if it had some part to play in how skilled Sabban had become in just a couple months than she would be foolish not to try too - Atleast that's what she had thought.
 When she ultimately did volunteer she was met with something entirely unexpected.
 Breaking form from his usual stoic and un-caring expressions, Sabban had launched into an all out verbal assault against her, demanding to know how she could be so reckless and naïve.
 The fact that everyone was usually so causal aboard the ship had made Sabban's outburst all the more poignant and this abonishment of her initiative towards improvement, had left her somewhat unmotivated to find other avenues of possible change.

Thankfully it hadn't been long after this lecture that Hoki, ever the responsible adult of the group, took Una aside and explained what had conspired.
 According to the older pilot Sabban had simply been worried about Una's safety.
'Funny friggin way to show it!'

Test piloting 'apparently' brought with it a number of dangers, that required a high level of piloting skill to handle.
 "A 'rookie' pilot might not know when to stop a test in order to avoid damage to equipment and or injury to the pilot and others around them".

Una had still felt somewhat hurt by the harshness of the ordeal, and a little embarrassed in herself at making such a childish request. As such when the solution to seemingly all her mounting problems of loneliness and inadequacy arose, it came from an unusual source.
 Indeed Una's second 5 days aboard the Fluchtig proved very different to her first.
 Suddenly she found herself with a partner for breakfast time, a coach for physical training and a 'demon-supervisor' for the simulator.

Apparently by request of Sabban (possibly as an apology for his earlier outburst), Thee Scarlet Scourge former ace of the Remembrance fleet and X-Space Pirate of near unmatched infamy - And the woman who had scared Una witless during her first simulation - Had taken it upon herself to tutor Una.
 She had apparently accepted Sabban's sudden request based on a self-proclaimed excess of spare time and so with-in days Una had found herself wondering if she should of been more careful towards what she wished for...

While her peaceful lunches with Miss.Hoki remained, pretty much everything else became up-ended, breakfast now occurred in the break room via the franchise machine for the simple fact of it being faster.
 Physical training now involved alot of being 'encouraged' by Scarlet whom herself, despite being clearly very physically fit, never actually seemed to do any exercise, opting instead to monitor Una's progress.

Reading of the manual had gone out near immediately, Scarlet instead using any free time Una had for additional training.
 This Una had to admit lead to some benefits, firstly although it had been hard work, she had managed to consistently get back to beating the current setting of the computer simulation, which despite her own disregard towards, Scarlet seemed to have no issue in using the 'child's toy' that she'd so vehemently argued with Hoki over, as a teaching resource for Una.
 She'd also swung it with Kolme to get permission for Una to actually practise manoeuvring in real space which lead to her first stomach churning experience with the Fluchtig's electronic ramp launchers.

All this training in the many forms in took was, intense to put it lightly.

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