"Welcome to the Incom T-65 X-Wing space superiority starfighter! We at Incom want to wish you the best of luck with your purchase, and hope you find this series of simulator tutorials useful to enhance your flying pleasure. Incom knows that the needs of its customers change as the galaxy changes, so make sure you keep your update subscription current, the better to keep your simulator in step with the latest technology. Incom - because the best deserve the best."
Josh scowled, unconsciously making spooling motions with his hand, trying to get the annoyingly soothing voice to stop the sales pitch and get on with the tutorials. He'd suited up, managed to bully the R2 unit into the simulator slot, climbed into the cockpit, and now, it seemed, he was going to have to sit through ten minutes of a too-cheery announcer explaining why the X-Wing was so great. It's got four laser cannons and shields and looks really cool. What more do you need? Really?
But then...
"During the Civil War, X-Wings were used with great effectiveness by the Rebel Alliance, utilizing their capacities for independent operations to devastating effect. In fact, X-Wings were instrumental in the destruction of both of the Empire's planet-killing weapons, the gigantic Death Stars. We now present the flight recorder of none other than Hero of the Alliance Wedge Antilles, and his role in the Battle of Endor..."
The simulator's cockpit suddenly showed the effect of hyperspatial starlines collapsing into a starfield. The starfield shifted, accompanied by a slight feeling of motion, and ahead lay a blue-green planet with what looked like a half-destroyed moon in orbit.
Josh's jaw dropped in wonder. "That's no moon..." he muttered to himself, and sat back to enjoy the ride.
R2-D15 monitored the human's physiological reactions to the simulator, and tried to resign himself to his fate. The human was wide-eyed with wonder at the scene unfolding in front of it, obviously not paying any attention to the subtler tricks the original pilot had used to survive the battle unscathed. Of course, the fact the human was out of adolesence and watching the marketing copy was a bad enough sign, but R2-D15 had hoped that perhaps the human had hidden potential.
The human ducked its head with a yell as the pilot took the X-Wing through the path of an incoming turbolaser shot, a daring maneuver which destroyed the three TIEs pursuing it, and R2-D15 felt more of his hopes being crushed. He wondered what he had done, who he had offended, to be assigned to this hellhole. He'd been happy at FleetOps, and been good at his job - but somehow, he'd been assigned to some backwater defence corps, as a starfighter 'mech, of all things. To add insult to injury, the 'pilot' he'd been assigned to seemed to have very little idea how to actually fly.
In a way, the droid hoped he'd offended someone high-up in FleetOps. Then he'd be posted here through malice, and there was a chance he might be able to clear his name and return to his post. But he suspected the true reason was far more mundane - he was a droid, and the brass weren't. A droid was nobody, nothing, something to be moved around like so much junk.
The human's heartrate quickened as the recorder showed the fighter approaching the surface of the moon-sized battlestation. The droid reflected sourly that his only fortune with this assignment was that the human had decided to start on the simulator. Given how it glanced at the various readouts of the cockpit uncomprehendingly, it seemed long odds the human even knew how to take off - it at least had the self-preservation not to demonstrate this in an actual starfighter.
The one comfort he still had was his music collection. Not that this hunter-gatherer would have any appreciation for fine art. Certainly none of the music he'd heard around the palace was particularly zestful, favouring string arrangements with a touch of brass, and never more than three beats in two seconds. He could almost welcome a memory erasure - almost. Life, even as a starfighter mechanic, was preferable to the termination of self that the memory wipe would bring. And exposing the poor astromech who would come after to life without his music seemed almost cruel.
R2-D15 began the electronic equivalent of humming to himself while he sourly watched Wedge Antilles blow the Death Star.
"...and you can begin the first tutorial by pressing one of the buttons on the flight control stick. That's the large, vertical control in front of you, between the flight chair and the console."
Josh scowled, and pressed the trigger button on the flight stick. The annoying voice responded, "Great! The first tutorial is on how to interface your life-support gear with the internal systems." Josh sighed, and prepared himself for a longer delay until the useful stuff. Just finding out how to work the repulsors on this thing'll be enough for today. God, I hope we get to it today.
The R2 unit broke its sullen silence with some angry warbling, and Aurebesh characters rolled up on the simulator's central screen. Josh sighed at the interruption, and said, "Uh - I can't actually read that. You've been given the Roman alphabet, right? Could you use that?"
OF COURSE I COULD USE IT. FORGIVE ME FOR THINKING THAT YOU WERE CIVILISED ENOUGH TO READ THE MOST COMMON BASIC ALPHABET IN THE GALAXY. I WON'T MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN, I ASSURE YOU.
Maybe I should get him to switch back, thought Josh sourly. Aloud, he said, "Thanks. What's on your mind?"
I WAS WONDERING IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FLYING A STARFIGHTER. I WAS ALSO WONDERING IF THERE WAS ANY CHANCE YOU COULD SKIP THESE TUTORIALS. I CAN FEEL MY LOGIC CIRCUITS ATROPHYING BY THE SECOND.
"This is the closest I've been to sitting in a starfighter before -"
WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?
Josh ignored the interruption, and gamely continued, "I don't know anything about the ins and outs of actually flying one of these things, apart from generally how it's supposed to respond to the stick."
ALL RIGHT, NOW I'M SURPRISED.
"And given I know next to nothing, I'm sitting through the 'Piloting for Dummies' stuff. All right?"
YOU MEAN YOU ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO SKIP IT?
"Ah. That, too."
Josh felt vaguely thankful that the R2's wail was not translated onto the screen.
"If you look to your left, you'll see a switch blinking on and off. That's the repulsorlift activation switch. It's only blinking at the moment so you can find it, so make sure you remember where it is. It doesn't blink when we go into the real simulations. It's currently in the 'off' position, which means that it would normally be dark. Flip the switch now."
Josh blinked blearily. He'd had to listen to this voice - he'd decided that voice could get a job hosting 'Entertainment Tonight', it was so appallingly sincere - for three hours now, interspersed with catcalls from the R2 unit, who had obviously decided death or amnesia was a preferable option to being polite. His movements were mechanical as he moved his hand to the switch, and flicked it. "Great!" he muttered to himself, mimicking the tutorial voice, and flicked it.
"Great!" the voice said in precisely the same tone and inflection. "You'll notice the switch is now lit. Remember to turn it off when you're maneuvering in space - it can have some very strange and unexpected effects in a dogfight. Now, look on the console just beneath the repulsorlift activation switch, and you'll notice a small sliding scale. It's currently set all the way towards the rear of the fighter, signifying zero power to the repulsorlifts. Don't touch it yet!"
There was a change on the cockpit window, and, suddenly, Josh was in an X-wing. He could see the S-foils out to either side - closed, of course, but there they were. He looked up, and saw three moons set among an unfamiliar starfield. He appeared to be in some kind of countryside, illuminated by the fighter's downlights, and in front of him stood a skyscraper, imposing in the night.
"Okay. We're going to practice feeding power to the repulsorlifts. Are you excited? Great! Now, take a hold of the slide, and very gently ease it forward."
Josh began to move the slide, and as he did so, he could feel the X-Wing lift off the ground. First one floor, then two, then five - and as the slide reached full power, the top of the skyscraper came into view, a sheer, glassy surface, with a single large billboard facing him. On it was emblazoned something in Aurebesh, the letters changing colour and animated fireworks playing around it.
"Er... Dis... what does that say?"
ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?
"Yeah... sorry. I thought you needed a name."
I HAVE A DESIGNATION. I WOULD PREFER YOU USE IT.
"I was, kind of. You see, the characters for '1' and '5' bear a kind of resemblance for 'i' and 's' - so it's kind of a shorthand way of saying 'D15', you know?" And never mind how appropriate the name is...
OH. HOW CUTE. YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE.
Josh raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You mean..."
YES. YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE. BUT I SUPPOSE NOTHING I CAN SAY CAN STOP YOU. AND, IF YOU HADN'T ALREADY GUESSED, THAT WORD MEANS, "GREAT!"
Right on cue, the tutorial voice chimed in. "Great!" Josh groaned and banged his helmeted head into the back of the flight seat. "You've figured out how to feed power to the repulsorlifts! Now, slide it gently back down to zero, and we can move onto the next module!"
SPARE US. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU. I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH MORE I CAN TAKE.
"No fear. I've done what I set out to do today." So saying, Josh slapped the slide back to zero, and began to unbuckle himself, when the X-Wing plummeted into the ground and exploded.
"Whoah!" the training voice said jovially. "Go easy on the power settings, sport! Fortunately, this is a simulator, so the mistakes you make here don't matter in the real world. Let's try that again -"
Josh screamed, an incoherent sound of anguish that doubled and redoubled in the confined space of the cockpit so as to become almost tangible. After some long seconds, the scream trailed off, revealing the welcome hiss of the simulator cockpit opening. Josh shucked off his helmet, savouring the freedom from the torture of the tutorials.
I HOPE YOU MARK THIS WELL. YOU THREATEN US WITH SLAVERY, THEN WITH A BLASTER, AND I GIVE YOU A BREAK WHEN YOU ASK FOR IT. REMEMBER THIS NEXT TIME YOU FEEL THE NEED TO GO BULLYING DROIDS WITH THREATS OF DESTRUCTION.
Josh sat blinking at the display for several seconds, ignoring the whirring noise of the R2 detaching itself from the simulator. "But -" he managed eventually, looking around, but the droid had already gone. Josh dropped his helmet into his lap, and slumped back in the flight seat.
"Damn," he said, after a while.