"No bugs, right? Last program test showed everything running clean." Harling's voice piped into Konstantin's ears at roughly the same time he experimentally flexed the Orbital's digits and checked the wrist's wrange of motion. All green. Smooth response time, too. Honestly, it felt like the Orbital had woken up from a refreshing nap of its own— he had half a mind to ask if it hadn't gotten a little extra fine tuning under the hood. He certainly would appreciate such.
"Yeah, a few." the Serb replied in a pointedly off-handed tone, eyes sweeping the field of view the Bedwyr's visor afforded him.
"It seems you replaced my HUD with something from a videogame. I can paint you guys on the ground just by squinting a little. What happened to regional, manual designation?""Eyeball tracking includes your pupils. The system reads your subconscious dilation and retinal movement when you recognize another human— we all instinctively do it. For our expedition's purposes, all humans are friendly until further notice, so don't get any funny ideas regarding the tiny blue dots.""Can it be spoofed by images? If video feed gets uplinked, I don't need the COO with a blue box around her. I know she's not friendly."While his technical advisor snorted, maybe even scoffed, Konstantin busied himself with double-checking to ensure that he hadn't been broadcasting on any of their official channels. He didn't fear any man or woman, but he was willing to admit that he feared the possibility of being forced to sit this initial sortie out.
"You've got a spectroscopic program working in tandem with it now that we overhauled the program to play nice with this— and a few other new toys. I'll keep it brief since they're ushering us out: the chemical composition of the human body's unique enough that with 15 years of free time we found a way to sneak it into the list along with shit like iron and water.""So it'll cross-reference. I see. From what I understand, I'll also be providing video feed to the research teams?" He asked, testing the orbital's "neck" by letting his gaze follow the team out of the hangar. As the door slid shut, Harling turned back from his position as last in line, a wry smirk on his face.
"Well, if we're tracking where you're looking, may as well track what you're looking at. Happy Hunting, Pilot. Bring her back in one piece."And with a single chime, the audio feed from the mechanic's handheld disconnected. Fair enough.
Couldn't really argue with the logic.
He satisfied himself with cycling between the Merlon System's visual filters— thermal, geiger, low-light— when a small ping in his ears and at the bottom of his vision (would need to get used to that) indicated a direct connection request from... well, who else?
<<
If you want to check compatibility, I'd sooner suggest dinner.>>
His reply came evenly, dry as Kitezh's equator, and accompanied one last pass through his flight control surfaces. Sterling. Everything to spec— damned near factory-new. That was the last of it that could safely be performed in-hangar. Time to get out there. He already had the navigational information at his literal fingertips; all it took was one button on the dash for the heading arrow to appear, just above his velocity gauge.
<<
Better everything work than something get in the way of our full potential, I say. We're dropping into a new world— best make the best impression we can.>>
Heat shield carried in crimson hand, the OF-2D looked in so many ways a crusader of old as Konstantin walked it out to the catapult bay, tall and proud and so very
dangerous. It was common among pilots to liken Orbitals to bikes— once you learned, you never forgot. Nothing else in the worlds compared, truly. No matter how mechanically taxing, complicated, or abstract it could be, there was a certain irreplaceable
something about mastering a twenty-meter war machine shaped in man's own image that drew men and women like them in. Heedless of danger, of worry, they found beauty in the act, in the experience— something that made it
worthwhile to them. Not even those elder statesmen, bless Cross and Zakharin, could peel themselves away. They had their reasons, surely, but Konstantin was sure they also shared his.
He switched to the universal shared comms channel as he pulled up to Catapult 2, alongside Adam and the
Starstrike. Indulging in the mechanical possibility within the Bedwyr's design, he greeted the man with a nod, the yellow visor bobbing his field of view up and down with the motion. He leaned back in his seat, getting in one last stretch of the spine.
<<Shall we, then?>>And then, he gazed out into the void. Into the inky blackness, the many stars drowned out by the light that reflected off of Kitezh's dusty surface. At the ball of mud and brush itself, far below. All of this before him, endless and massive. He knew why he couldn't imagine himself doing anything else, every time he stepped up to the plate.
This was a pilot's kingdom.The flight control team had given them the green light. Sliding his orbital into place and listening for the magnetic clamps locking, Konstantin gave the universal pilot's ready signal: a thumbs up with the free hand.
<<This is Stojanović. I'm headed out.>>And then, with all the energy the powerful generator far, far below could pump through those electrodes at his feet, the mechanical knight
rocketed forward, down the strip, a sharp yet smooth acceleration that carried him clear of the bay in a half-second, full second, second and a half—
Pressed into his seat in the most enthrallingly familiar fashion, Kon pulled back on the controls.
—Just as the catapult released him, the Orbital suddenly
swept upward, thrusters firing at full burn and sending all that momentum into a tight curve, hitting multiple Gs mere instants after takeoff. Screaming silently through the vacuum, the OF-2D corkscrewed, retros and pilot rolling it through undeterred. It could handle much more than this. The first model, with its shittier avionics, could effectively Immelmann in Earth's atmosphere. Out here? Maneuvering was child's play.
Yep, everything's working.Swiftly guiding his chariot onto the proper heading, there was a previously-absent touch of vigor in Konstantin's voice as he made the first radio transmission between two objects in Kitezh's orbit. That they knew of, anyway.
<<Proceeding to LZ.>>
Sky Blue
Mae
Snowdrops
Ithradine
4323O2
Plank Sinatra
Izurich
vietmyke
shylarah
