Hair

[Hanna-Beth Rieve 0]

Marine Captain Hanna-Beth Rieve barely had a moment to think after the departure from Starbase 621. The shore leave was fun. Until then, she hadn't really seen Col. Harper, Lt. Col. Day, or Pvt. Merill outside of the NNC, training, and missions. But now, she had to bring her squad back up to full readiness, and to lose a few of those extra shore-leave pounds that came as the inevitable results of idleness and triple-chocolate cake. All in all, it was worth it.

 

During the yellow alert, her mind wandered a little. "Hair." She told Day her Academy callsign a few days ago. Shore leave on Starbase 621 marked the first time it had been used in the 139th. Like most callsigns, there was a story behind it. And, it was an incident Hanna-Beth would rather forget.

 

Level one fighter training was a required course for all first year Marine cadets. Unlike the fleeter equivalent, basic piloting training was taught in real fighters, instead of holographic simulators. The fighters were F-1560A sled fighters, short, thin, little clunkers that were pulled out of mothballs from some unknown Starfleet warehouse and threw out on the hapless cadets. They weren't just intended to teach how to fly. On these craft, equipped with the most minimal of inertial dampers, you could feel the results of any movement of the six-axis manual controls. Level two introduced more standard Starfleet spacecraft to those who survived the first level. It was also a course where many Marines obtained their callsigns. Perhaps the most memorable was "Bouncer," who made the mistake of overdoing the pitch control on his first run and found himself ricocheting off the energy barriers that made up the course.

 

Hanna-Beth's turn came on her sixth run through the training course. Cadet Hanna-Beth was not the best pilot in the class, but she had demonstrated sufficient competence up to that point. The sixth run was also known as a make-or-break run. It separated the proverbial men from the boys, and the women from the girls. The sixth run was the first where the copilot-instructor's seat was empty. To pass, the craft had to take off, run the course without any collisions with the energy barriers, hit all ten simulated targets with the onboard with 75% or higher accuracy, and land the craft, all in under the allotted time. Failure meant failure in the pilot training program, and being sent back to the beginning of level one.

 

The run began with a textbook take-off from the Jupiter-orbital training center's shuttle bay. The course deceptively started out straight and wide. One target was located dead-center of the course. It was variantly referred to as the "confidence booster" or "the trick." Once the craft was within firing range, it would begin to move along the course in a randomly spiralling motion. Those with quick instincts got it before it moved. Those who were slightly slower chased it through the entire course. Hanna-Beth hit it shortly after it began moving, right before the course narrowed and proceeded into three low-radius corkscrew turns. It was well known that there was a target embedded somewhere in the turns. On the second round, the target came up. She fired instictively... and missed. She had to slow down to get another shot. This time, the target was hit. After the third turn, the couse made a rapid shift leftward. Hanna-Beth pulled on the y-axis control. She felt something pulling at her head painfully. A lock of hair had fallen out the side of her helmet, and jammed itself in the groove where the y-axis control emerged from the right side of the cockpit. There was no time to figure out how to pull it out. The craft drifted leftward, going sideways through the course. In a stroke of luck, one target appeared right in front of her. Third target down. Then, the course changed direction again. The time, requiring a simultaneous quick pull on the z-axis control, the pitch and the roll in order to right the craft She found herself rolling in order to prevent the fighter from zipping into the energy barrier on account of the out-of-control y-axis setting, and ending her chances of passing the flight training. It was nauseating. . . .

 

She landed the craft and attached to the last catch-rope in the shuttle bay. Her head was angled to the right because of the lock of hair. She could still feel the constant pulling, pushing and rolling from the course, even though she was stopped on solid ground. . . .

 

The training XO objurgated her -- publically in front of the other cadets, of course -- in the least uncertain of terms. The XO tapped on a pad, and branded the text into her flight helmet: "Hair." The CO then took over to announce the scores. Cadet "Hair" had fired all thirteen allowed laser bolts, scored ten hits, with zero collisions, time -0.23 seconds. The decorum violation on its own wasn't grounds for failure of the course. She was passed on to level two.

 

Back in the NNC, the orders came in. Her focus returned to the mission. "Back up" security. Jolly good. In case anyone got locked out of their quarters or lost a cat, they'd know just who turn to.