Fun During Downtime

Posted on Sat Jun 11th, 2022 @ 11:54am by Lieutenant Nerex

Mission: Dark Star Trilogy - M1: Star Fall
Location: USS Eminence holodeck
Timeline: Current

ON:

They had just under 48 hours before arriving at Dantari Three and Nerex didn't plan on wasting any of them. He hurried to Deck Four to one of his favorite destinations during downtime: The holodeck. He had been lucky enough to be able to reserve this hour and he wanted every minute to count.

He always loaded piloting simulations, and today he decided to start with something fun. He loaded a simulation of himself in a standard Type-10 shuttle. He chose that shuttle because the Eminence was carrying one, and he wanted to know what it could do for when he might fly it. Then, to add the fun to it, he programmed a nearby black hole at a distance just close enough that it was already too late for a standard escape.

He put the engines to full and struggled against the pull of the black hole. The engines whined, showing their frustration as they were pushed to their maximum and still the shuttle was pulled backwards. He pulled power from weapons and the shuttle slowly stopped it's reverse and seemed to want to move forward. But that only lasted a moment before the shuttle resumed it's course towards the center of the black hole. He pulled the life support, but again, it just wasn't enough. He pushed the engines beyond their capacity on paper. This caused the shuttle to begin shaking violently, despite the inertial dampeners. The shuttle's computer began sounding an alarm and stated "Danger, shuttle is being operated outside of normal safety parameters." After about fifteen seconds of this, a blinding flash of light enveloped Nerex, and he found himself standing in the empty holodeck.

"Computer, restart simulation," he stated, and then was back in the shuttle with the black hole. This time, he turned the shuttle and raced towards the black hole, gaining more and more speed as he went deeper into it's gravity well. He picked a point where he used thrusters to quickly change the shuttle's angle by 35 degrees and hoped the speed he'd picked up would make all the difference.

He had high hopes when he made the turn. At first, it really felt like there was enough momentum, but it quickly dissipated. Soon, he was back in the same losing battle as he had been during the first simulation, including the warning about being outside of the safety parameters. This was, of course, followed shortly afterwards by the shuttle exploding again.

"Computer, restart simulation," he stated again. This time, he turned the shuttle into the rotation and hoped to be able to stall for time, staying as far from the center as possible. He decided to see how long he could keep the shuttle safe, as if he were stalling while waiting to be rescued. This was tricky because he had to pay attention to how much he taxed the engines, or they would overload.

He continued practicing in that manner until his time on the holodeck was up.

OFF:

Lieutenant Nerex
Flight Control Chief
USS Eminence