It had taken most of the day to ferry all the equipment but after roughly 7 hours they finished. It was now around 3 p.m. and Panzer was still full of energy, Yora looked out of it, as did everyone else besides the Pilot. They all were sitting and enjoying the warm sun while Panzer was inside the craft knocking about.
"HEY YORA!"
Panzer's voice was a booming echo from inside the craft. Yora exhaled and begrudgingly walked into the craft, the others close behind him.
"What's up?"
"Are there any laws against flying anti-grav craft or testing them?"
"Hey it's your planet, your solar system. You can fly whatever the hell you want out here. Interstellar and beyond is when regulations come into play or if you shared this system with another sentient race, which you don't."
Panzer and the others looked at Yora surprised by his lax take on the matter. The pilot was taken aback by the lax attitude.
"Mr. Centaul, as an engineer surely you can't suggest an Ambassador fly an untested space craft?"
Panzer, still tapping away at the keyboard, interjected.
"Remember, not a space craft. There are no systems on board that would make this suitable for space."
"Technicalities aside Ambassador, my caution is warranted!"
Panzer slid underneath the control center and a few seconds later a bright spark lit up the dark bridge.
"God DAMMIT! Don't worry, I'm fine! I was just connecting the power!"
The pilot now looked sick to his stomach.
"Just conne... power? NOPE! I cannot, in good conscience, allow the Ambassador to take this untested ship for it's inaugural flight."
"Well then, it's a good thing we have such a decorated pilot on hand who offered their assistance."
The pilot looked at Emmeth as though he were insane. Panzer slid back out from under the console sucking on his singed fingers.
"I don't think I've designed the controls to be too dissimilar to the ones I've seen on other ships. The readouts though, for the systems? Not exactly complete."
"Oh yay." The pilot couldn't hide his worry.
*****
A small group had gathered around the area to see the pinnacle of human engineering take it's first flight. Some were still having trouble believing that it was indeed designed and built on earth. However, when looking at it side by side with the actual alien space craft, it definitely looked like something from Earth. Panzer struggled to fit into the largest safety suit the pilot had on his own ship and everyone else was told to keep clear from around in front of the prototype.
Panzer sat in the co-pilots seat with a giant smile on his face, in stark contrast to the pilot next to him.
"You ready?"
He said with the sheepish smile to which the pilot nodded. Panzer typed a few commands into the computer and the anti-gravity drive shuddered to life, shaking the ship relatively violently before smoothing out.
"I think that was because of harmonics but they seems to be... harmonizing, now."
Panzer was looking at all the read outs that were accurate and made sure they were within his calculated allowances.
"When you're ready pilot."
"Yes Captain Ambassador."
"I like that." Panzer said looking away from his screens and at the ruined city in front of him. The ship slowly left the ground and Panzer's heart was in his throat, the pilot's practically stopped as he was waiting for something to explode. It slowly rose to around 25 feet off the ground and Panzer was practically jumping in his seat.
"You know this isn't the first time this thing left the ground on it's own power, there were those dents and scratch marks on the walls in the basement."
"That's very comforting."
The ship started to tilt right and Panzer started typing immediately as the pilot fought with the controls against it.
"Ok it should level back out now."
The Pilot waited to feel the A.G.-Drive kick in before relaxing on the controls.
"Ok, do it."
"Do what Captain?"
"I don't know, aren't there some kind of test procedures or something?"
"Right."
The pilot slowly rotated the ship on point. He then did it while raising and lowering their height from the ground, again with no problems.
"I think we should land now and go over the data we've collected."
"No it's fine, what's next?"
"Well at this point we'd move the ship to a coast of some sort and fly it around over the water to avoid damage to buildings or houses."
"Well seeing as our city is in ruins we should just announce a flight path and allow people to steer clear."
30 minutes later the flight path was decided and mostly anybody in the area was already in attendance, i.e. the buildings were empty. Panzer counted down as the pilot took them above the buildings; when Panzer reached one, the pilot accelerated at a relatively modest speed. They made their way through the city then to Suruga Bay to the south. As soon as they hit the water the pilot was feeling more confident in the ships capabilities and accelerated up to 150 miles an hour. At roughly 100 feet above, the water still reacted to the speed beneath the ship.
"Woohoo!"
Panzer pumped his fists in triumph as the pilot slowed down a bit to turn around and head back into the city. The ship lurched during the maneuver and Panzer's hands shot back to the keyboard as the Pilot wrangled the craft.
"You know what that was Captain Ambassador?"
"Power fluctuation looks like. I'll have to work on smoothing that out amoung other things when we get back to Section 6. Everything still looks solid... besides the de-sync every few seconds."
"The drive isn't synchronizing properly and you didn't mention that?!"
"It's fine it's barely out of sync. You didn't even notice."
The Pilot swallowed their anxiety.
The ship soared back into town and there were cheers as it came down to land. The Pilot slumped over in his chair and exhaled as Panzer clapped him on the shoulder.
"That was sick!"
"Uhuh."
Yora was the first one to enter.
"When the hell do we get to go for a joy ride?" Catty said almost touching everything her eyes landed on.
"When I iron out the kinks, I wouldn't want anything to happen to you guys."
"It's good to know the Ambassador has the well being of his people in priority."
"That's not to say your expendable though!"
"Of course not, you were with me anyway." The pilot said with an unsteady smile.
Nik walked over to the Pilot's left and playfully grumbled.
"What's your name? You never told us."
"Not to sound rude but I'm not to give you my name in order to prevent any sort of familiarity that could lead to a possible unforeseeable, unfavourable situation in the future."
"Is this apart of the whole Anti-Halgred bullshit?"
"... essentially."
"Not even a first name? You helped the human race make an important step in their technological revolution! We can't just call you 'Pilot' in the history books."
The Pilot smiled as he took off his helmet, his feminine features caught everyone off guard.
"Hello, my name is I'dor of the Drogyne Peoples."
Panzer's hand shot out in greeting.
"Panzer Steegle! Nice to meet you."
After the formal welcome the pilot got to calling the mother ship in orbit to send down a cargo transport to ferry the prototype to Section 6.