“It’s not that I can’t do it it’s the fact that it’s Impossible!”
The young sixteen year old Sythbo shouted the fact from the BT-6 Thunderclap’s empty flight deck, the holoterminal behind him buzzing static in response. Leaning forward in the Pilots chair he flipped switches on the primary dashboard without time to even think about them, extending the aft wing flaps to provide precious manoeuvrability power in sacrifice of the now less important speed. Before him lay a ring belt, a minefield of ice, dust and rocks hundred times larger than the tiny support ship he was piloting; alone. The co-pilot was dead. As was the engineer, and any droids on board. The only survivor was the Senator, and she was sealed in her chambers while he was sealed on the bridge. He knew the situation, and now he had to act on it. But to make matters worse, he had been told he had to take the BT-6 through an asteroid field. Computer calculated odds of three seven twenty to one, but that was if a Droid was piloting. Sythbo was human. That meant something.
“Auto assists power low: disable to conserve fuel” beeped the ships computer, prompting some light swearing from Sythbo. Auto assist was a vital part of any operational flight deck – at the breakneck speeds most ships travel at usual human reflexes are too slow to respond to instantaneous changes, which are handled by the computer. Without Auto assist, Sythbo would have to do everything by hand, at Seventy five percent the speed of sound. Not an easy task, especially whilst navigating an asteroid field. As Sythbo flicked the breaker transferring power from the aft lifters to their stern counterparts, he watched as the shadow of the first enormous ice-asteroid engulfed the bridge. They were in the field.
Red lights began flashing in the bridge as the ship pulled a full three hundred sixty degree flip to permit a sizable block of ice to pass through the wings instead of colliding with the bridge. Red was supposed to keep passengers calm and convey a sense of urgency, but Sythbo just found it annoying so he turned it off. He was standing now, working both the primary, secondary and tertiary dashboards simultaneously while his eyes darted from the two dashboards in front of him to the third affixed to the ceiling. The bridge was designed for two pilots and a captain to fly, meaning Sythbo could only reach less than half of the controls but with what he could reach he was using to the best of his ability. Sweat already glistened on his forehead, and the thick plastiglass screen that permitted him to see where he was flying was already riddled with tiny chips from the billions of miniature particles of rock ice and dust that had already bombarded the ship. They were unavoidable, and whilst they obscured Sythbo’s vision he had stopped looking out the window thirty minutes ago, preferring the radar and sonar to provide him with more accurate readouts than his eyes could offer. And it was serving him well, aside from the scattering of miniature debris, not single asteroid larger than an apple had struck the craft, although the motion sickness was making Sythbo feel a bit dizzy. Whilst outside the airlock there was no gravity, the change of thrust from the Hull and Board boosters respective to their individual flaps caused the artificial gravity on board to waver slightly enough to give Sythbo space sickness, but he swallowed it down in order to push just that little further. He was over halfway through.
The final challenge. It was almost humourous in its cliché, wide open space on the other side of the ring, with just two enormous blocks of ice in the way. Two enormous blocks of ice that happened to be slowly moving together on a collision course. They were each at least twice the size of a Valor class. Forsaking the radar for his own eyes, just this once, Sythbo took the precious few seconds to observe the sides of the asteroids that would clash together, memorising every groove and trench that could save the ship. Then, it was time to work. First he closed the wings, significantly sacrificing his overall manoeuvrability in the y plane in favour of reducing the ships overall size. He would need that later. Closing all the flaps he pushed extra power into all four Ion engines, blasting the ship forward with an edge of speed before turning it ninety degrees widdershins to line up with the flat sides of the encroaching ice floes. Above him from the point of view of the bridge was one, and below him was another. And somewhere, out of view on the 3d plane of the asteroids, the two first collided.
All across the gap both giants shed thousands of shards of ice, many larger than the Thunderclap herself, which were sent hurtling across the rift to explode into smaller shards on the other side. Without the extended wings all Sythbo could do was to dart the ship to port and starboard to avoid the rain of razor ice, one shoe kicked off as he worked one of the dashboards with his foot to keep up with the steady demand of electrical commands just to keep the ship steady. Ahead of him the gap of beautiful glistening stars was being closed off all too fast, he couldn’t make it unless… Putting his foot on the Pilots chair Sythbo dived across the holomap to the co-pilots chair and grabbed the control stick. With his free hand and foot he felt to the necessary controls whilst he looked at the ammunition checks – he had torpedoes in the launchers. As the ship approached collision with the closing maw of the asteroids, he hastily took aim and fired, seconds later an explosion of fire and smoke covered the closed mouth of the rift.
Several long seconds later the BT-6 Thunderclap burst out of the smoke into wide open space, the deafening crash of the two asteroids collision propelling the ship forwards into space and static.
Sythbo lay sprawled across the Holomap, one shoe off and drenched in sweat and probably a few tears. At the back of the bridge, the door unlocked and opened, A Lady entering the bridge.
Followed by two other women and six men of various alien backgrounds. The space visible through the screen turned to static as the shaking of the deck subsided and the simulator sank into its default position.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to present you Sythbo Lepps, who has just beaten a test simulation deemed impossible by all boards of testing. As such he may at the end of this Academy year, be the top student in the Academy’s history.”
Polite applause. Sythbo just lay there, recuperating.
“And all in a time of one hour, twenty five minutes, and thirty one seconds. Impressive work Lepps.”
"Fuck it."