Top Gun: Category 5 - Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

The One Where Rooster Has a Girlfriend

Katrina massaged her neck muscles as she rolled her neck from side to side. She hadn't left her chair in the simulation room for three days. Boxes of shit Asian takeout littered the tables along with all the scribbles and notes her and Bob had made. She worked for 24 hours making sure the simulation matched the topography perfectly and the had the correct distances marked out. Hour 25 she passed out in her chair till Bob brought her a cup of coffee and the two pushed on for another 18 hours inserting every possible variable they could thing of. They had 3,200 outcomes on this mission. Everything from bird strike to low fuel and missed aircraft had been thought of.

Upon completion of the program Katrina sat in the virtual reality chair, put the headset on and tested out the simulation she had built. There were major issues and she wasn't thrilled so she spent the next 16 hours fixing every glitch she could find.

Every hour of their virtual flight time would be crucial because it would take that long to complete all 3,200 outcomes of the program. This was where Katrina felt confident: in the virtual world where she could go through the simulation and start again if she chose wrong. This place was where being human and making those human choices didn't matter. Here there was not such thing a chance. Everything was calculated, nothing glitched.

Katrina cleaned the virtual simulation room up and headed to the barracks. It was 1 a.m., Bob had headed to bed hours ago. He knew the upcoming physical fitness hours were going to tax him. Katrina didn't care she wanted her simulation to be perfect.

The rumble in her stomach couldn't be ignored any longer. She trudged to the kitchen in the barracks and crossed her fingers that the rest of the pilots hadn't eliminated her good snacks. She paused before entering the kitchen. Rooster sat at the little square table in one of the small chairs with a hand on his forehead gripping his hair while his other hand held his personal cell phone to his ear.

Katrina tried to back away and convince herself her hunger could wait a few more hours. Her and Rooster hadn't engaged since their showdown in the hangar almost four days prior. As she went to back away her boot hit a creaky board and Rooster's head shot up.

"Oh hey, Hurricane," He said his eyes wide almost scared. "Did you just finish?"

Katrina closed her eyes and took a deep breath not retreating now, "Yeah, there were a few glitches I needed to work through."

Rooster look in the dark-haired woman's appearance. She look tired; there were dark bags under her eyes and her skin looked dull. Her hair was greasy and her cargos and tan t-shirt were wrinkled. He hadn't seen Katrina at the mess hall or at the gym in the past four days. Rooster would bet money she had been in the virtual simulation room the whole time. That's how he knew her to be. In the one year they were both at the Academy she was always studying, volunteering to help professors and taking extra classes. That's why she was here because she was the hardest working pilot Rooster had ever seen.

If she didn't understand something she stayed and asked questions and researched until she did. Katrina was known to do flight hours in the middle of the night to complete her training as quickly as possible. The limits of her learning ability didn't exist.

"Thanks for working so hard on that," Rooster says genuinely thankful for her work. He never could have done it the way she did. "It will be a big part of the reason we come out successful."

Katrina nodded accepting his thanks, but switched subjects, "Calls from the loved ones?" She asks nodding at the cell phone he had place on the table as she went about searching for the good cereals.

Rooster sigh, "Nah, just my girlfriend blowing up my phone."

Katrina stopped mid-search and tried her best not to gasp. No way the mother fucker has a girlfriend. She reaches for a box of mini wheats, "You've got a girlfriend?"