"BREAKING 'S NEWS' ALERT: Countdown to evacuation is now fully underway. Operations have begun to flatten the remaining rain forests, save two of each animal and ensure there is ample toilet paper for the long journey ahead. Message in and tell us what you prefer: quilted or scented.
The Command Centre was a vast room located at the top of the shuttle, surrounded by a clear dome of ionised glass, giving an uninterrupted panoramic of the universe around him.
The room was segmented by metallic control panels for each station, with the Captain's chair elevated from the rest of the floor. Towards the back was the observation deck where the board of Directors would oversee all operations. In real life, this Command Centre would have at least twenty people running around controlling all aspects of the shuttle, but for this simulation, they only wanted it to be down to the pilot's reaction and decision making to get them out alive, when they were attacked.
Gabe leaned back and promised himself if he got the role of Pilot, he would find a way of hooking up a sound system to this room - the infinite majesty of the universe was starting to get on his nerves.
Rubbing his aching neck, he blinked through dry eyes and shuffled in his seat. It had been six straight hours since he lost Kate during an Evasive Action simulation when she accidentally evaded herself into the path of an oncoming meteor shower.
Six straight hours at the mercy of Commander Cain and It all came down to this final showdown. All that stood between Gabe, his 100% record and the position of Pilot and Officer on the SS YAMA, was the final Hostile Attack mission.
Up until now he had been playing it safe - using his shields to good effect; positioning his shuttle to defend his weakest point whilst attacking enemy craft at their most vulnerable. However dog fights with enemy shuttles were too random and chaotic, so as soon as he felt he was losing control, he would abort and try again, much to the twisted satisfaction of Training Commander Cain.
'Run away again, did ya?' He'd laugh into his ear. 'Reeeal brave of ya.'
'Still alive aren't I? He'd snark back sitting in the darkness of the empty Simulator, waiting for that jolt as it reload. Within seconds, light ripped through the cabin and off he'd go again.
With each passing simulation, he realised the importance of strategy; the importance of taking those first few seconds to sit back and observe how they attacked him, in groups and individually, in doing this, he began to see patterns and started using the strength of each shuttle to its advantage, he was even able to take a few of them down. But time was running out, It was no good to him just to survive training, he had to complete the Simulator with zero casualties otherwise it would have all been for nothing.
He had to risk it all.
Weaving his way through rapid laser fire he took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind, his last attempt was the closest he got to completing the mission, but he was forced to abort when the horizon filled with reinforcements that came from nowhere.
It was clear the Training Commander was going to do everything he could to stop him from succeeding.
It was all or nothing.
Red light filled the Command Centre of the SS YAMA Pharmaceuticals as excessive fire rained down upon him. The black leather pilot's chair creaked as Gabe accelerated through the first wave of attack.
He checked his position: entering quadrant Five-B216, about a week away from the rest of the fleet and no signs of any other craft. There rarely ever were - the Simulator preferred to kick up a surprise attack, so you didn't know what was coming.
He used this brief respite to calculate potential jumps to light speed, it also usually gave him a good indication of where the next 'surprise attack' would be jumping in from. The monitor showed him one possible jump that squeaked past Bode's Galaxy. He angled his defensive shields to get into position.
The room turned even redder.
He'd turned off the siren and 'WARNING' voice alarm a couple of days back. Everything turning red was more than enough to let him know that potential death was approaching.
He checked the monitors: Four mid-sized cruisers approached from above. Gabe immediately raised all shields, alerted all crew to report to their stations, evacuated Jacuzzi quadrant Four, checked weapons and deployed the remaining 10 EXs' to draw fire away from the front of the Mothership and towards the cannons at the rear.
The four cruisers dropped out of light speed approx. 200 yards away from him and immediately opened fire.
The Simulator only had one design for an enemy ship and whoever designed it clearly had a lot of creased shirts on their mind because they all looked like angry irons.
They were matt black, flew upright with the flat side rocketing it through space and the main guns where you'd refill the water. They looked ridiculous but were nimble, aggressive and never gave up or ran out of ammunition. So far, they had come in three sizes, ranging from the smallest Fighters, to Cruisers, to the Mothership.
Gabe didn't mind the cruisers as much, the smaller fighters however were too hard to hit with a direct shot and the Mothership's firepower made any hit to the shields a heart-stopping moment.
Gabe got the ship's computer to calculate every possible escape route, just in case.
'NO SAFE ROUTES FOUND' flashed the monitor.
'Oh come on!?' Shouted Gabe. There was always at least one escape route available, so he ran the calculations again. From his vantage point he could see all ten YAMA EX's fly formation past his control screen, there was something about those silver rockets against the vast blackness of the sky that seemed to turn them a light shimmering blue - they were beautiful.
It was a shame they would probably all be destroyed in about five minutes.
The Simulator was never going to give him competent fighters to help him out, but he could always use this time while the cruisers were distracted to pick a few off.
Throughout training they were taught to take a defensive position while the EXs engaged the enemy, maintaining absolute safety to the crew at all times.
'NO SAFE ROUTES FOUND' flashed the monitor again.
Gabe swore loudly and eloquently. He needed to stop spending so much time with Jaibles.
Cain must have found a way to shut off the abort function, he ran the calculations one last time for good measure, but already knew it would come up the same.
There was only one way out of this: kill or be killed.
He fired up the main engine, dropped the rear shields and followed the attack formation of the four Cruisers, cutting one off and hitting it with his rear cannons as it dealt with YAMA's EX's. Gabe took the second Cruiser out in the confusion, before they destroyed all his defenses and leaving a deeply unhelpful two against one situation.
Gabe was strategically out of position and on the defensive. After nearly five minutes of sustained attack his shields were at critical.
'NO SAFE ROUTES FOUND' flashed the monitor again.
'Tell me something I don't know.' Gabe muttered through his teeth. He couldn't keep trying to pick them off like this, he needed a clear shot to the back of their shuttle, but he couldn't shake them off.
Using what was left of his shields he deliberately reversed thrusters - spilling his coffee and sending them temporarily spiralling out of control. Gabe used this brief moment of confusion to angle the YAMA to face them head on.
They stared motionless at each other.
Gabe looked out at both cruisers ahead of him, they were side by side, staring him down. Every monitor on Gabe's control panel was flashing critical.
Seconds stretched as Gabe heard his heart thump in his chest.
'Bollocks to it.' He exclaimed and punched the accelerator to make an uncalculated jump to lightspeed.
The SS YAMA Pharmaceuticals burst towards the cruisers who were just able to evade the kamikaze shuttle, spiralling them sideways.
As his emergency override kicked in to prevent the uncalculated jump, Gabe fired his rear cannons at both cruisers, transitioning them from solid to gas via one satisfying explosion.
As his control panel slowly rebooted itself, Gabe waited nervously for the monitors to come back online to check the status of the mothership.
'.......... Shuttle condition: Critical............. Reported casualties: Zero..........'
He checked the scanners one last time for more enemy craft. Nothing.
It was over, he'd done it! Gabe jumped up from his chair, laughing maniacally as the relief poured out of him.
'NO SAFE ROUTES FOUND' flashed the monitor.
Gabe was mid-way through another eloquent expletive of epic proportions when the Simulator faded to black.
Gabe staggered out triumphant, to the immediate confrontation Training Commander Cain.
'You're a Goddamn disgrace! Do you hear me? A Goddamn disgrace.' He took another step closer to Gabe's face.
'You think that was clever, endangering the lives of every man on that shuttle? Well? Answer me?'
Gabe took a second to wipe specks of his apoplectic rage off his face. He'd had enough of this.
'I'm the disgrace? Tell me, where was my out? Where was my abort? Huh?'
He stepped past the Commander and grabbed his bag. 'You don't get it both ways. You don't get to put me in an impossible situation and then shout me down because you don't like how I got out of it. Who else do you have that can come away from that with a 100% record? No one. I'm the best pilot you've got and that's what the Simulator is going to report, so frankly I could give a damn what you think.'
'You are nothing,' screamed Training Commander Cain as he walked towards the door. 'You were nothing on this planet and you'll be nothing out there in space.'
Gabe walked out of the building and into the cold night air, the exhilaration still coursing through him. He breathed deeply, it was finally over.
Tomorrow they would confirm everyone's position on the YAMA and he was the only pilot to complete the training.
Promise kept.