The God Complex: The Book Of Alan, Destroyer Of Worlds

Chapter Nineteen

"BREAKING 'S NEWS' ALERT: The countdown to evacuation has begun. Earth's fleet of shuttles have now been constructed and operations have begun in earnest to equip them for the long journey ahead. Food stores and hospital equipment are being gathered, livestock and seed-banks transported and all ten series of Friends are currently being downloaded onto the mainframe of each shuttle. Message in and tell us what you can't live without."

There was only one more afternoon left of piloting lectures that marked the end of a long and torturous road. Tomorrow he would face the Pilot Simulator and be one step closer to keeping his promise.

Those months of training took their toll on Gabe. The weeks of lessons and lectures getting verbally attacked by Training Commander Cain still seemed like relative paradise in comparison to the long weeks subjected to all his malice and spite in the Simulator.

Gabe was done trying to please Cain, It was wasted effort. Now, going into each simulation, his sole purpose was survival. Gabe had no interest in coming top of his class in navigation or weapons training, his only motivation was staying alive long enough to make it to the piloting simulator. He could come last in everything else for all he cared.

In doing so, he got the same verbal battering each time he limped out but it was worth it, just to make it one day closer to becoming a pilot.

When the week of Pilot training was over, the performance results generated by the Simulator would be fed to the board of directors, who'd sit with the Training Commanders and decide who, if anyone was capable of performing that role on the YAMA - there could be no hiding in safety

The pilot's training would be safer as Cain wouldn't be able to kill him outright, because once the hull of the shuttle was compromised, the crew would die by default and the simulation would immediately end. Yet the challenge for Gabe would be much more difficult, as YAMA wouldn't let anyone pilot their shuttle who hadn't completed each stage fully.

With a perfect score fed to the board of directors it wouldn't matter what Training Commander Cain had to say about him, they'd have to give him the position.

Still, those months took their toll. Even Tiffany, his one reason for putting himself through all this was becoming more distant, leaving Gabe feeling isolated and alone. He began to see her less and less, it was nothing deliberate, they were just out of sync. By the time Gabe crawled home he was exhausted and more often than not, went straight to bed. Tiffany, on the other hand, since deciding she no longer needed to train as a navigator, 'why bother when she was going to be an officer's girlfriend,' was enjoying her free time more and more with her work colleagues.

Gabe understood: when you create that many scars down the years, your relationship becomes a grotesque disfigurement of the love it once was; a constant hurtful reminder of the pain he once caused.

He'd become the kind of love it hurt to look at, he wished it was different, but couldn't blame her.

But maybe, just maybe if he could keep this one promise, if he could show he was still worth something, maybe he could begin to undo some of the damage.

Thankfully, he still had Jaibles and Monkey. Without them holding him up, he didn't know if he'd ever make it through training. They were always there to pick him up when he needed it most, always available. Whatever the future held on YAMA, he was glad they would be there with him.

Gabe sat around the cafeteria table that day with his two friends, the sweet smell of bacon permeating every fiber of their being - finally he could relax.

Naturally, the class had started to thin out as the course went on, most dropped out or were assured of their position in other areas of the shuttle, but to make it onto the flight deck in any position, you had to complete all areas of the training.