Nicole had spent eight hours the previous day in flight testing qualifying on every aspect of the runabouts used for cargo and shuttle duty. This morning in barracks she was handed the dark blue coveralls with patches told to report to the hanger bay for flight duty. After a quick shower she ate and headed to the bay and checked the duty roster and found that she was assigned to bay 6. Once there she found the alpha shuttle to have some activity around it. There she found a man wearing the blue coveralls talking with two other female pilots who on seeing Nicole headed out.
"I'm Ryan. I've been told you spent yesterday in testing. Today you will actually fly several supervised flights and then she's yours."
Nicole took the PADD that he offered her and she began her walk-around inspection of the haul and then went through the inside compartments and continued to work her way through the pre-flight check and electronic systems. "What's our designation?"
He was sitting in the engineers seat watching, and answered, "six-alpha."
She keyed her mic, "Six-Alpha to space dock control."
"Control to six-alpha, go ahead." An older male voice responded.
"We are ready to receive cargo for," she looked at the PADD, "New Canada, over." She watched her readouts and knew when they'd beamed the crates in by the weight fluxuations. "Cargo received--please stand by for visual of the manifest." Nicole stood and headed aft where she checked the crates and her list...match! She smiled and using the remote communication headset she transmitted, "Visual confirmation of shipment. Six-Alpha requesting clearance for launch window."
"Received six-alpha, window in eighteen minutes. You will receive a one minute check if still on schedule. Over."
"Affirmative, control." Nicole headed forward and looked at Ryan. He nodded and gestured for her to take the controls. She finished the pre-flight and was ready when the shuttle descended and was placed in the space dock, she watched the ship ahead of her maneuver and ease out of the huge window. "Six-Alpha, one minute."
"Six-Alpha, we're go." She looked over her shoulder, "Anything I need to know about how this ship handles--peculiarities? Anything I need to know about where we are going or about the people receiving the cargo?"
The red outline of the hanger window changed to a pale green and she eased her controls and manually took her out. Once beyond the inner marker she made her first course correction and headed for the planet.
The flight took over an hour. They were unloaded manually by half a dozen young men and were then loaded with what seemed like a hundred crates of food stores. The supervisor smiled and on his way out the hatch said, "Green light as soon as we're clear, Red." Ryan took the copilots seat. "Red?" he asked.
She frowned at him and then rolled her eyes up toward her bangs..."Like in red hair." She watched as the crews entered a large hanger and started her check and launch sequence. Ryan watched, and sat back forcing himself to relax. The trip up took just as long as the trip to the surface but unloading was done by transporter. They were instantly reloaded and she was sent to externally dock with one of the largest freighters and transfer loads.
After a total of five loads they were instructed to return to six-alpha's slip where maintenance would have the ship for several hours and then the 'night shift' would either use this or one of the other ships. Nicole looked at the hand that Ryan offered, she smiled and took it firmly and pulled it a way when he winked at her as he reached over with the other hand to trap hers in his...
"Thanks for the flight Check." She turned and headed out of the bay as several other crews entered and headed for slip three.