"She'll pull Warp 8.7 for sixteen hours without the need for a refueling." Kimberly Tycho ran down the schematics of the Banshee class fighter while Garek listened on. Part of him was paying attention to the speech, part was looking over the fighter, and part was just looking over Kim herself.
Garek kicked over a crawler with his foot, and laid down on it, sliding under the fightercraft. His boots hung out the side of the craft as he began to do his own visual inspection of craft. The guys at R&D when the whole nine yards with this one. He opened up an access panel that revealed part of the quantum generator. He pulled out a tricorder and began looking it over, recording information that might be useful to him later. As he closed up his tricorder, he looked to his right side to see Kim looking at him. "And what might you be doing?"
"Checking to see if what I hear from R&D is true about these Bansees." He smiled, and rolled out from underneath the fighter.
"Are they?"
"I'd have to see them in action." He grinned.
"What might you be suggesting..."
[You do realize that I'm going to beat you, right?] Kim's head, with her helmet on came through in the side communication screen in the Lambda Flier's cockpit.
"Hmph," Garek replied. He checked the plasma manifolds and the transwarp matrix one last time. "She may not look like much, but the Flier might just teach you to be a little more humble." The larger Flier overshadowed the smaller Banshee, blocking out the star of New Canada. The course was a simple one. Three legs, each with three different challenges. Leg one: A flat out subspace drag to a marker buoy. After that, a simulated battle using laser markers and simulated damage, and finally, a warp out of system to a nearby asteroid field where they would maneuver through it and turn around and warp back.
Garek tapped a control panel, and the joystick slid out of its compartment and flipped up. He then moved his hand over to the manual throttle control, and was ready to go. "Whenever you're ready."
[I'm always ready.] She smiled, and reached overhead to tap a few buttons. The small buoy infront of the two craft flashed red, red, orange green, and the two were off. Kim jumped to an early lead, with the Lambda Flier accelerating to catch up.
Garek whistled to himself. "They are fast." Soon enough, the Flier was on the tale of the Banshee as they made a turn. The banked right and made a last grab for the end buoy. Kim narrowly edged Garek out, and she crossed first.
There was some laughter coming in over the comm. [I told you.]
"We're not done yet." Garek reached to the center console between the two pilot's seats and flipped on the weapons systems. He was receiving green lights on all weapons, including the systems he had newly installed. Hopefully he'd get a chance to test them. Suddenly, the Flier rocked as it was hit by simulated pulse compression phaser fire. With a slight groan, he brought the Flier around and engaged. The phaser arrays fired, bouncing slightly off of Kim's shields. Hmph.... Garek reached to his left side and activated his targeting sensors. It quickly began scanning and scrolling through shield frequencies until it found the right one. Kim banked right then dove, and was able to get a turn on Garek. Garek pulled up and prepared to go head to head with her.
The two were lined up a few thousand meters apart and closing quickly. Kim fired a burst from the quantum burst cannon while Garek launched a spread of torpedoes and fired the phaser cannon. Both ships took some simulated damage, and rolled off. Garek's inertial stabilizer was hit, along with one of the maneuvering vanes. Steering was going to be tough. He wasn't sure as to what damage he inflicted, but hopefully it would be enough to at least slow her down. Garek flipped a switch on the joystick, and the belly compartment doors opened revealing a double barreled weapon. Here goes nothing... He fed the shield harmonic frequencies into the cannon. The cannon light went green indicated that it had a lock, and was adjusted to the shield frequency. Garek was able to maneuver around behind Kim and then fired. Quickly, multiple lances of bluish purple light streaked forward and impacted against the hull of the Banshee.
[What the?!] Kim yelled through the intercom. Garek fired another few shots. Each time, the lances of energy struck the hull, no damage seemed to occur. Then, electrical streaks began to creep across the hull, shorting out the electrical subsystems, effectively disabling the vessel. [What did you just do? What is that?]
"A little something I've been working on. My ion cannon seems to have worked. I bombarded your ship with ionized particles which effectively overwhelmed your electronic circuitry."
[Figures. Looks like you won this round.]
"I'm going to have to agree with you." The two deactivated their weapons systems, and headed in to warp for the final leg of the race.
I hope I didn't use too much energy... Garek crossed his fingers and flipped a switch engaging the transwarp drive. The Flier entered transwarp, passing up Banshee. Garek dropped from warp to see the asteroid field infront of him. He powered forward, and made his way into the mess
Kim dropped from warp a few seconds later and looked out her viewport to see Garek already in the field. "Damn!" She hit the accelerator to full speed and blasted forward to catch up.
Garek looked out to his nine o'clock and saw Kim, gracefully weaving between the asteroids, as if it were some kind of dance. The Lambda Flier was having a tougher time keeping up do to it's increased mass and size. The two cleared the field, and made it around the buoy. They then made their way back through the asteroid field.
Kim looked at her rear display to see the Lambda Flier safely behind her. She then returned her attention to the front just in time to see a large asteroid be blown to pieces as she passed through the debri field. [Honestly Kim, you should watch where you're going.] She could just imagine the grin on his face, and she smiled. "Thank you Commander."
"Anytime." Garek went full throttle, and attempted to close the gap between the two craft. As the two cleared the field they went to warp again. The transwarp drive was still reading a fair amount of energy, and he went to warp twelve. Satisfied with himself, he sat back in his chair and relaxed for a brief moment. Suddenly, the ship shook as Kim's Banshee raged past him. "What the?" He tapped the communications key. "Dirty trick of you."
[So sue me,] Kim laughed. [You gave me just enough time to sneak into the conduit before it closed.]
The conduit opened and both vessels exited. Ahead of them was the station with the end buoy lit up. The two pilots ran flat out, pushing each of their vessels to the limit. They were running nose to nose when Kim hit a few commands in to the Banshee's computer, and it leaped forward. Garek through more energy from the weapons systems into the engines, and the impulse engines responded, pushing the vessel even faster. They were once again even. The end marker was getting closer... closer... and then the extra weapons power ran out. Kim crossed the finish line a split second before Garek.
[I told you...] Kim said with a warm smile.
Garek smiled. "Yeah, yeah you did. I nearly had you questioning yourself though."
[Are you kidding? My heart was in my throat!]
A grin of satisfaction crossed Garek's face. His craft was up to par with some of the more advanced craft that Starfleet was rolling out. "Come on. I'll buy you a drink... or will your squadmates talk?"
[Let them talk,] Kim replied. [I've finally found a pilot that's my equal.]
"Oh thanks Ms. I-am-the-greatest-pilot-that-ever-lived." The two laughed and brank their craft around towards the docking bay.