19791/Test Flight
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| Test Flight | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 02 January 2025 |
| Location: | Stark Industries Aeronautics Facility One |
| Synopsis: | The test flight of Crush's shuttle is a flat-out success, and Tony's suddenly thinking about space based defenses. |
| Cast of Characters: | Xiomara Rojas, Tony Stark
|
- Xiomara Rojas has posed:
With Stark's materials, collaboration, and Crush's months of work, the designs she had present to Tony were finally put into function and ready. The day for the official test flight to space and back was finally here, and Crush was one giant ball of Czarnian nerves.
The last couple of days had been nothing but land tests, system checks, and of course double and triple checking everything. She knew that if something went wrong with the flight, even if the shuttle some how blew up (not that she saw that as possible), she'd be alright. Oddly her entire concern over catastrophic failure it all some how harming Mr. Stark. She was always willing to take risks for herself, but the on the off chance something might happen to him. He'd become something of a mentor to her, not merely with his genius mind and how his wonderful ideas could and did help the to world, but oddly she found herself seeing him as something of a big brother. So naturally, the idea of his getting hurt or one of his suits getting damaged... she was a giant ball of Czarnian nerves.
Taking one last walk around the shuttle, checking off the list of pre-flight requirements as she went, she was muttering to herself about accidently harming or killing Iron Man. She /may/ have /accidently/ stole a look at the basic plans for one of his suits and knew they were damn near indestructible, yet she worried.
Coming around to the entry hatch, she looked the list over and nodded. "Everything remains well within acceptable parameters," she states more to herself. "The eighth engine test performed yesterday confirms functionality and maneuverability with in Earths atmosphere surpasses expected results by three percent."
Now is when she takes a moment to look around. Several of Stark's people had been along for the construction of this space vehicle, helping where Crush would permit them to and some even making sure the young woman took care of herself... they must have gained that practice from taking care of Tony. "Before we do this uh...," she shifts a little uneasily. "I wanted to thank ya all for hangin in there with me, an gettin us to this point." Her eyes shift to Tony, or rather Iron Man. "An a special thanks ta you Mr. S.. Iron Man, for puttin ya faith in me."
- Tony Stark has posed:
Tony smiles, recognizing the nerves all too well. He'd been there any number of times in his career, since he generally wasn't willing to let someone else test something he wouldn't. And then there were the suits, that nobody else _could_ test.
"No worries kiddo. If it makes you feel any better, remember that this test is for me too. Those engines are going into my ships, so it'll be nice to make sure they work before we start heavy construction. Not that I have any doubts given that we've both gone over them in detail, but the physical test always has a chance of shaking something loose."
He looks over and nods to the techs, "Thanks for sticking with the project. I know Crush can be a little prickly, but she knows her stuff."
He looks back to Crush, "Ok, it's all on your count from here on. Let us know when you're ready and we'll get started."
He takes a few steps to the side of the shuttle as the faceplate of his armor closes, ready to follow the shuttle up.
- Xiomara Rojas has posed:
One more moment to fret the numbers on the tablet in her hand, then Crush pockets the thing and steps just inside the hatch. Picking up the ear piece from the nice little compartment by the door, she slides it into her ear.
"Knows my stuff huh," she comments, now that the comm unit is linked directly to Tony. "Took a genius to figure that out bout me, now there'll be all these expectations..." she laughs, indicating the joke she finds in this.
Swtiching the channel over so the techs can hear as well, she triggers the hatch to close and heads to the cockpit, which really is just the seats at the front of the shuttle. "Right then, got my seat belt on and firing up the engines in three... two... one."
The single more important thing about alternate sources of energy and space vehicle engines is the lack of fire, the others include no massively loud booms and no need for a safety zone around the shuttle. She could literally just start the engines and be out the door, or move into a hover mode just to meander around the bay.
"Flight plan is logged in the computer," she then says, flipping a couple of switches. "Trajectory for the path coming up now... and here we go."
- Tony Stark has posed:
Inside the armor, Tony says quietly "HOMER, fire up all the sensors and start recording." Opening comms, he replies "Right with you, take her out when you're ready."
The suit's repulsors fire up, lifting him from the floor to hover beside the shuttle. Readouts of the shuttle's energy patterns and status fill one part of his HUD, and he knows ground based sensors are also locked onto the craft. There will be a lot of data available about this launch, and he wants every bit of it before he starts sending shiploads of people into space in craft powered by these engines.
"Everything's green so far, all within expected parameters. It looks good from here, so you are completely free to go."
- Xiomara Rojas has posed:
With everything still showing as 'in the green', Crush grins rather broadly and kicks in the forward momentum. Translation, she shoots out of the hanger and into the sky. Keeping the sensors locked on Iron Man's position, Pepper would probably like for him to come back in one piece, she matches the position of the shuttle to the flight plan, and heads up into the sky toward the stars beyond.
At the half way point she states, "Everything remains with in parameters, not yellow or red flags showing across the board, so I'm going to push the engine to three-fourth of its max and gets this beauty to the moon!"
The entire plan was to break the Earth's orbit, fly around the moon once, then head back to the surface of the planet. A simple first time test that would provide piles of data to be sorted through before moving on to further testing by going greater distances.
Seeing how well the shuttle was performing however, Crush was getting an itch to go further than planned. To keep herself to the plan, she instead opted to do aerial tricks instead. Flying upside down, flips, and loop-de-loops... at speed. If a human had been on that shuttle, they would have lost their lunch.
This is amazing!" she called out, for the moment forgetting that the techs could hear the conversation as well. "The gravity inducers just kicked in, easing from Earth gravity to maintaining it entirely by itself! I just hit my head on the ceiling and don't care!"
- Tony Stark has posed:
Tony laughs, watching her go. "Feels good, doesn't it? Nothing like taking something you've built and putting it through it's paces."
He maintains a safe distance from the shuttle so that it can do it's aerobatics without swatting him out of the sky. Sensor data continues to feed through the suit.
"Nice. I knew these things could perform, but the only model we had up to now was Lobo's space hog. It's good to see how well they really scale up, you've got really good maneuverability there."
Cutting comms for a moment, he says quietly "HOMER, note to self. Look into scaling up some of the energy weapons I'm designing for the suit. I might be able to set up a fighter wing for the station with something about half the size of the shuttle. All dependent on Galactus not eating the planet, mind you."
He moves back over to the comms "At least with you piloting, I know I need to ask about the state of the ceiling and not your head like I would with a regular test pilot. Comon, let's go take a close up look at the moon as planned, then you can fly loops around it."
- Xiomara Rojas has posed:
Breaking out of the atmosphere proved easier than Crush actually expected. She'd seen all the old footage from NASA with the space shuttles. She'd studied how much inertia it took to get them off the planet and into space, then done hundreds of calculations based on when she 'borrowed' the Space Hog, and still had been wrong about how easy it would be.
"Ceiling's fine," she replied with a laugh. "Don't cause dents by fallin into things... now if I punched it, that'd be somethin else entirely. About to break the atmosphere in three, two, one.... officially in space."
There was excitement in her voice, the thrill of success thus far mingled with the the joy of the experience. "On course to the moon now, just keep your eyes open... no telling if dear ol dad is out here some where with a plan to 'help out'."
- Tony Stark has posed:
Tony breaks atmosphere alongside the shuttle, though it's a little less of an experience for him since he's done it any number of times already. He is, however, very happy with the data coming from the shuttle. It's working better than either of them had expected. After all, they were basically taking a motorcycle engine and scaling it up to semi-truck size or so, sometimes weird problems crop up. Not this time though, the shuttle was moving just as well as Lobo's space hog despite being a least four times the size.
"Looking way better than expected Crush. I'd say you have one extremely successful test here. Everything in there staying bolted down where it should be? Besides you, I mean, since I already know you didn't use your seatbelt."
He does a barrel roll around the shuttle, mainly because he can, and looks down at the Earth. "There's no way I'm letting him get to our planet. Look at that beauty. Crush, we have an oversized ass to kick out of our solar system, let's head back and see if we can come up with something useful."
- Xiomara Rojas has posed:
Adjusting the angle of the flight, Crush takes a few moments to just look at the Earth. She'd flown on the Milano once, but there wasn't much time to actually look out the windows and enjoy the view, it was more of a, 'Let's go as fast as we can to get to where we're going yesterday!' situation.
"Everything is stable inside, except me, cause ya... no seatbelt," there may have been a hint of sheepish in her tone for a moment there, but it quickly disappears.
"Earth ain't where I was born, but it's always been my home. I'll do whatever it takes to protect it, that includes having convinced Lobo to help defend it. The people down there..." she pauses a moment, looking for the right words. "Most don't like me, some accept me, but I'll help em all and protect em best I can."
Enough mushy shit, or so her brain says, and she's back on track with the testing. "It's amazing how well this thing functions Mr. Stark, I was expecting more hiccups. Had one brief power fluctuation, but the engine regulated perfectly and ain't seen one since. Looks like you got yourself a working space engine."
Reaching the orbit of the moon, she takes the shuttle around it a few times and may or may not have done a 'fly by' on the Justice League's Watch Tower... how could she not?! Then it was back on track for the flight back to the Earth, and into the hanger for a thorough decontamination after pictures and celebrating.
