"BREAKING 'S NEWS' ALERT: Supreme Leader of the New World, President Abaddon has praised Training Commanders across the globe, referring to them as 'saintly' in their selfless pursuit to save the population. Sacrificing their time to guide and support the regular citizens of earth in preparation for the interstellar challenges ahead. President Abaddon said in a statement: 'Much like myself, the training commanders are the real heroes of Earth, without them the ordinary man would be no more than a passenger on this journey. We salute you'."
Gabe was in big trouble. His very future now lay in the hands of a man hell bent on destroying him. 'How was he still so angry after all these years?' Okay he killed the mission after five years of training, so sure be angry at him when he quit, but in leaving EDEN, Gabe only hurt himself.
Did Cain really care that much about the other crew members who couldn't go? After ten years how did he still feel that much hatred towards him, ten years! That takes dedication, in an age where it's difficult to still feel that angry about the world ending, how did he still feel angry about this? You have to really cultivate that anger, feed it, renew it. Gabe just didn't understand.
He was still pushing his bacon sandwich around his plate when Monkey and Jaibles sat down next to him.
'Alright Geezer. Tough morning, huh?'
'You could say that,' said Gabe, still staring at his sandwich. 'I don't get how he's still so pissed after all this time?'
'What happened back then?' Said Jaibles taking a big bite from his sandwich and placing it back neatly.
'You remember I told you I made it onto a crew first time around before some idiot ruined it by pulling out on the week before launch. Well I was that idiot.'
'Was that it?' Said Monkey smoothing out his beard. 'You should have seen it this morning Jaibles, I've never seen anyone get torn into like that, I genuinely thought he was going to go for you at one point.'
'What are you going to do, Gabe?' Said Jaibles wiping the ketchup from his face.
'What can I do?' Said Gabe sitting back in his chair in an attempt to stretch away the problem. 'Guess I just have to get my head down and not give him any more reasons to hate me. If I can prove I'm one of the best cadets they have then they'll have to give me a role on the flight deck, they need to take the pressure off the EDEN military personnel, remember. It's just three months, how bad can it be?'
'Guess we'll find out, Geezer. Come on, we need to get back. Can't risk being late twice in one day.'
The next four days consisted of lectures and demonstrations, morning and afternoon from the Eden mechanics who put the engine together. It was an intense learning curve and Commander Cain did his best to make people quit as it became more and more technical.
Each morning and afternoon Commander Cain found a reason to lay into Gabe and each time Gabe stayed quiet and kept his head down.
Monkey became his star pupil in that first week, showing such a grasp of the mechanics that even the EDEN guys were impressed. Gabe had to work a lot harder to keep up, the main shuttles were nothing like the smaller exploration shuttles he remembered the first time around.
When Commander Cain left the room, Monkey took it upon himself to help tutor Gabe, he could see how badly he wanted it, but it was just too much information to take on in such a short period of time. Gabe just hoped he'd taken in enough to get him through the simulator.
The simulator had come a long way since Gabe last set foot in it. The bad graphics and 2D animation were out and hyper-virtual reality was in.
The simulator placed you on the actual shuttle with full crew and passengers on board, deep in the vacuum of space, to practice everything from minor repairs and strategic adjustments to collisions, attacks, and the gravitational pull of a planet tearing your shuttle apart, all in real time with real destruction - you could feel it, you could smell it, it was so real.
Its purpose was to train you to minimise death toll but above all, save the shuttle.
The simulator measured only death. It was Commander Cain who measured what your life was worth on that shuttle and currently Gabe's was worthless.
Team 135 stood nervously outside the simulator in their green jumpsuits while Training Commander Cain stood arms folded in front of its door, he had the wide-grinned look of a man who liked to hurt people for fun.
'Let me tell you this now - you will fail at this today and you will fail at this tomorrow, and probably the day after that. But that is why we do it, so, you learn from your mistakes and we learn just how much of a mistake you truly are.' His gaze never left Gabe as he spoke.
'Let me also make one thing clear to you all, this simulator is as realistic as it gets. You can and will feel sick; you can and will get hurt and you absolutely can die in the simulator. I will be monitoring the situation from out here but accidents have happened in the past and will again, so when you step inside the simulator you do so at your own risk. If you don't like that, turn around and go home.'
As Gabe stared at the floor, he could feel Commander Cain's eyes burning into him.
'Cadet Gabe, you will be first up. Unless you wish to go home.'
Monkey slapped him on the back, 'good luck Geezer.' Gabe took a deep breath and approached the simulator via the main door and walked into the black empty void.
It was the head of the EDEN program himself: Professor Dawkins who addressed YAMA Pharmaceuticals, during an early company meeting and talked them through how the simulator worked. Gabe recalled how tired and frantic he looked.
He paced the stage as he spoke, running his hand through his greying hair giving him that cartoon, crazy scientist look. He stopped pacing to take his small rimmed glasses off to squint his eyes, before starting again. 'You don't understand what you're going to be up against,' he said desperately. 'When you're up there, up in space, there are...' He paused, squinting at the worried faces in front of him, 'dangers.'
'The only way I can make the simulator useful to you, to all of us, is to design it to fight against you. To find any way possible to make you fail, because that's what you can expect from the universe when you're out there.' He paused to squint again. 'Tell me, do you believe in God? I didn't until recently,' he said softly.
'This simulator has been designed around the premise that God exists,' he said, continuing to pace frantically again, 'and we've cheated it, we've angered it, and it wants revenge on us. Please, if you don't already, please thank God for giving us a chance to make it right. Thank Alan...'
He was swiftly escorted off the stage and another official took them through how the simulator worked in practice.
As the darkness dissipated, Gabe found himself sat, blinking on the top bunk of one of the bedrooms. The fluorescent tube lighting illuminated the white plastic walls, emanating a soothing hum. It was stark, compact, efficient. Everything had that new car smell, or whatever the space shuttle equivalent was: recycled air and claustrophobia.
All utilities and storage were built into the walls, so when each of the sliding doors were shut all that was left was an empty white box. The designer had clearly just learnt the word 'utilitarian' and wanted to see how far he could stretch the definition.
Gabe imagined his life in this room, you couldn't fit more than four or five people in it at any one time, so a house party was out of the question. He lay back and rested his head on the grey pillow, the bunk was slightly wider and longer than a single bed. To his right was a solid wall, to his left a shutter that ran the length of his bed for privacy, he pulled it closed, the inside was a full length panoramic of the YAMA Pharmaceutical building at sunset.
'You've got to be joking,' said Gabe quietly. He pulled the shutter open and sat back up, his legs dangled over the bunk below, his head inches from the top of his bunk. He jumped down and explored the room.
The only thing Gabe could find that stood out in the whole room was the monitor on the far end of the wall.
Suddenly the fluorescent lights pulsed to the sound of the siren filling the room. The monitor flashing the word 'ATTENTION' in bold red capitals in front of his face as a computerised female voice came over the monitor.
'Attention. Pressure drop in main combustion chamber. Attention. Pressure drop in main combustion chamber. Attention. Pressure drop in...'
Gabe rushed out of his bunk. From his training he knew the simulator deliberately placed you anywhere on the shuttle, to monitor your reaction time from rest to response and making it crucial to remember the layout of the craft.
He had memorised the main access points to the engine room, but remembering which access point got you to which part of the engine was a little trickier. He had also made a note of where the spacious toilets were located for after Taco Tuesday.
Gabe sprinted down the white plastic corridor. Monkey was telling him about the main combustion chamber just the other day. 'What the hell did he say,' thought Gabe. 'Somehow he had related it back to the vapour compression cycle. How did he make everything relate back to the vapour compression cycle?' Gabe promised himself if he came out of this unscathed, he would find the vapour compression cycle and take a spanner to it.
'Think, Gabe, think,' he said aloud. 'That's it! The main combustion chamber was linked to both the main injector and the main oxidizer valve. It's got to be one of those.'
The issue was, they were about two floors apart. The bigger issue was he'd calculated he had approximately twenty-two minutes before the main combustion chamber spectacularly combusted and ripped a sizable hole into the back of the craft. Causing a terminal amount of death and really stuffing up his chances of getting Commander Cain off his back.
It was made clear to Gabe that the Simulator always gave you a chance to remedy the situation but never allowed you to get lucky, the inbuilt karma stacked the odds against you, and would screw you over the first chance it got.
He ignored the welcoming lift, as the doors sprung open on his arrival and doubled back towards the stairs, two flights up he made his way to the nearest access point to the engine room.
At the door, he keyed in the access code, careful to make sure he had the most up to date code. They changed every month to keep security tight. Once inside he strapped himself into the tool belt and industrial power-pack jacket hanging by each access point, then made his way through the maze of the engine room.
The dark heat of the room contrasted starkly against the cold fluorescence of the rest of the craft. It left Gabe staggering and blind for a moment, taking him a minute to adjust. He slowed his pace as he made his way down the narrow metal path, holding the steam pipes that ran either side as guidance.
Getting back up to full sprint, he headed towards the main injector, praying it was the right choice. The engine throbbed and creaked as he neared the damage - steam and gas billowed out as it continued to scream. Frantically he turned the safety release valve and fired up the bolt gun to secure the tear in the panel.
Gradually, the engine fell quiet.
He stood back, wiped the sweat from his brow and smiled to himself. 'That wasn't so hard, was it.' He turned the safety release valve back on and heard the engine fire itself up, then continued to fire itself up, then more so, each time building in intensity.
Gabe took a step back, eyed the engine suspiciously and contemplated which expletive best fit the situation as the engine creaked and tilted the craft a full forty-five degrees, sending Gabe hurtling backwards and smashing his head against the Oxidiser inlet.
The sound of the emergency evacuation siren was still ringing in his ears when he regained consciousness and picked himself up. Why hadn't Commander Cain abandoned the simulation? He felt the bump on the back of his head as anger and adrenaline swelled within him. He refused to be beaten and scared away by some bitter old man, he'd made a promise to Tiffany and nothing was going to stop him keeping it.
Gabe shook the fog from his head and shut out the drone of the sirens to concentrate. Clearly both the main injector and the main oxidiser valve were the problem. He looked around for the umbilical disconnect valve, if he could disconnect it then the main propulsion system would level the craft and give him a chance at connecting the main valve.
Directly above him, maybe thirty meters away he spotted it. Dropping the tool belt and kit, Gabe started scaling the side of the engine. He knew one slip and he would fall nearly two hundred meters to the other side of the craft and had no confidence Commander Cain would protect him if that happened. He also suspected he wouldn't stop the simulation until the hull exploded and the crew were officially dead, so gritting his teeth, he made his way up, feeling his fingers burn against the heat of the metal rivets, the craft creaking against its own weight as he reached the UDV.
Grasping the lever with both hands, he propped his feet against the wall for leverage and yanked with all his strength.
The engine droned as it slowly levelled itself back to normal, Gabe held on until gravity had stopped dicking about then jumped down to double back, grab the tool belt and sprint to the main oxidiser valve to secure it, twice, to make sure.
He staggered back to the umbilical disconnect valve, laughing maniacally at his simulated brush with death, feeling every torn muscle and bruise in his body. He stopped in front of the valve, said a prayer to anyone who would listen and switched it back on.
The engine purred as the simulation, once again, faded to black.
Gabe staggered out shielding his eyes from the light and back into YAMA pharmaceuticals, his head pounding. As his vision cleared, he could see Commander Cain's wide smile shining brightly across his bristled face.
A smile that told Gabe everything he needed to know: Training Commander Cain was trying to kill him.