Home » The Archives » Chapter 11 » Regaining Momentum
| Re: Regaining Momentum [message #409 is a reply to message #408] |
Mon, 23 July 2012 20:36   |
artisticrainey
Messages: 1228
Registered: July 2012
Location: Northern Ireland
Karma:
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Field Commander
Switzerland |
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Wednesday, October 10, around 3 p.m., Tracy Island
Cassie was listening to Virgil as he went over the good and bad points of her last training mission with the Firefly on the simulator. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Scott walk into the room. He didn't say anything, as he leaned up against the wall. After the nerve wracking flying lesson earlier today, Cassie was not happy to see him.
Cassie had felt totally out of her league when it came to learning to fly a plane. She had only flown, as a passenger, a handful of times. Her trip with Dianne the week before was the first time she had even been in a cockpit of a plane. With that feeling of needing to prove herself nagging at her, she had thrown herself into studying the book work he had given her. She had thought she had it down, but when she had gotten to the simulator today her mind had gone blank. Remembering the names of the controls had suddenly seemed difficult, remembering where they all were was even worse.
He probably thinks I'm a complete idiot at this point, Cassie thought to herself, as she recalled the earlier lesson.
"Cassie, are you listening to me?"
Virgil's question brought her out of her thoughts. "What?" she asked, looking over at him. "Sorry, my mind drifted for a moment. It won't happen again."
"Okay," Virgil said, debating on whether to question her further about it or not. Maybe, it's just been a long day for her, he thought, deciding to let it go for now. He was about to repeat the question he had asked her when he noticed Scott standing off to the side. "Hey, Scott. You need something?"
"Just wanted to talk to you about something. I can wait until you're done though."
"Okay. It won't be too much longer. Just want to run one more simulation," Virgil told him, before returning his attention back to Cassie.
Virgil continued the lesson, glad to see that Cassie maintained her focus through the rest of the lesson. "Good job today," he told her as they finished up and headed toward the exit of the silo. "Come up with any ideas yet on how to improve our firefighting arsenal?" he asked her out of curiosity. It hadn't been mentioned since their first lesson.
"I've been working on it. I'm just need to flesh out a few details and I'll be ready to share my idea with you. I should be able to do that tonight."
"Looking forward to hearing it," he told her, as they reached the spot where Scott was waiting for Virgil.
"Hi Scott," Cassie said politely. Scott returned her greeting. "I guess I'll see you two around," she said. She left the room and headed to meet with Tin-Tin so the measurements for her uniform could be taken. She had talked briefly with the engineer earlier in the week, and had chosen aquamarine for her uniform.
"What did you want to talk about?" Virgil asked his brother, once the two of them were alone.
"Just wanted an update on how Cassie's training with the pod equipment and Thunderbird 2 was going," Scott said casually.
"Well she's quite comfortable with the Firefly already. That last simulation went very well. Wasn't much I could criticize," Virgil told him. "Seeing as the Fire Truck and Fire Tender were both modified from commercial vehicles, she's already familiar with them and she picked up the modifications quickly. Some of the other equipment is taking a little more time but she's doing well. I think we made a good choice with bringing her on board."
"Good," Scott replied with a nod. "What was that about improving our firefighting arsenal?"
"Cassie just pointed out that we're lacking equipment to fight a fire from the air. All we really have are the missiles we can fire from Two and One. Cassie's working on an ideas for modifications we can make to change that."
"She's not wasting any time at offering advice." To himself he added, I didn't expect her to be making those kind of suggestions this early on, though that was the reason we brought her on board. It's good that she already feels comfortable enough to voice her opinions.
"No, she isn't," Virgil replied. "She actually brought the subject up at the end of the first lesson. Having a firefighter on the team is going to make the next rescue involving a fire easier. Hopefully, there won't be a repeat of what happened in Australia. Losing contact with Alan there for a while was one of the more frightening experiences I've had on a rescue."
"I know what you mean," Scott commented, thinking about his own feelings during that situation. What was it Elise had asked during that rescue? he thought, trying to recall her comments to him at Mobile Control. Something about 'how much did I know about fires and fighting them'. Not much. We've always kind of handled them as the situation developed. Elise said she felt out of her league. I think we're all out of our league when it comes to fires. Still, it remains to be seen how well our new recruit does.
"So how are her flight lessons going?" Virgil asked out of curiosity.
Scott thought about the lesson this morning. "Well, she definitely isn't a natural pilot," Scott told him as he headed for the door. Virgil fell in step beside him. "She seemed to have a very good grasp of things from the book work, so I started her in the simulator this morning. It seemed like once she was in the simulator, she forgot everything she learned."
"Maybe she's just nervous," Virgil suggested.
"Nervous about flying a plane in general, or are you suggesting that I'm making her nervous?" Scott asked his brother.
"Both, possibly. I know she wasn't your choice out of the candidates we had, but you haven't exactly come off as overly friendly since she got here. Maybe she's feeling a need to prove herself to you and that's what's making her nervous."
"Has she said something to you?"
"No, I'm just guessing," Virgil told him. "But have you tried having a conversation with her about something other than work?"
Scott thought about Virgil's question. Other than work related conversations, the last conversation he had with Cassie was his apology to her when she was here for the interview. "Not really."
"Then try talking to her in a more relaxed setting. See if it helps."
"I'll think about it," Scott told him.
Virgil nodded, sensing his brother wanted that to be the end of the conversation. "Hey, remember those weirdos in the robes from Ned Cook's show?" Virgil asked. Scott nodded an affirmative so he continued. "John and I were looking at their web site about IR a few days ago. This group has got it into their heads that we're aliens from outer space."
Scott just shook his head. The things people come up with, he thought to himself.
"It was actually kind of amusing. They gave you the name Jhutu, which means Lighting Bird."
"Lucky me," Scott commented. "Sounds like something that would have gotten printed in the Weekly World News," he commented, thinking of the tabloid that he had learned about in the History of the Media course he had taken as an elective back in college.
"Weekly World News?" Virgil ventured.
With a smile, Scott started telling his brother about the paper and the outrageous stories it had printed while it was in circulation back at the start of the century.
Posted by starrynebula on November 7, 2007
  
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