So I Heard You Like to Fly... (part 1)
Posted on Sun Jul 19th, 2026 @ 9:36pm by Lieutenant Rala
Edited on on Thu Jul 23rd, 2026 @ 12:47am
5,880 words; about a 29 minute read
Mission:
The Next Interim
Location: Deck 3, Holodeck 3
Timeline: A bit over a week before "Die Hard: Chimera Edition" begins
Tags: holodeck,Cally,Rala,hobbies,flying,telepath
So I Heard You Like to Fly...
Rala alighted on the enormous branch of the Tikkana tree, unfastening the pack’s harness and setting it down to make one last adjustment to the fit, and used a clawtip to pop open a panel, making final tweaks to the power settings for both the servos and the boost thruster. She called out to the computer to check the time; then instructed it to make the same adjustments, proportionally, to the other unit. Even as she was closing the access panel, a tone sounded from empty space nearby, in the direction of the pool at the heart of the enormous tree.
Rala smiled. She’d instructed the computer to alert her when Calypso arrived, and to let her in automatically. “Come in! I’m over here,” Rala called, directing Cally through the gap between the more vertical of the tree’s enormous branches to the horizontal one Rala was on.
Cally entered to the familiar pool in the center of the tree and smiled lightly. This was definitely a place of some fun memories, even if Rala had been able to hunt her down in the water like the predator she appeared to be and as if she herself were just a fish waiting to be 'et. The voice, however, didn't come from the pool, instead it came from between the branches towards the outside. She adjusted the flight suit uniform slightly, as she peeked around as she meandered her way around to where the voice had come from.
Rala’s face lit up as Cally stepped out from the heart of the tree. “Calypso!” she called, snapping the panel closed and holding the pack up for Cally to see. “Check it out!”
The Cap'n's eyes opened as she beheld the device that Rala was putting the final touches on, "If I didn't think better, I'd say you were planning on going flying in that contraption."
The contraption in question resembled a metal backpack with well-padded straps forming a complete harness. On the other side, the mostly smooth gray metal gave way at the bottom-center to the dim red glow of a miniaturized impulse thruster at idle; and at the sides, to a pair of large, folded wings resembling nothing so much as those of a giant gray bat.
“Not just planning to,” Rala said, turning to set the pack back down behind her, then turning back to Cally. “Already have. You remember that project I mentioned when we were chatting in the hot tub a while back? This is it.”
"You're thinking of throwing me off of a tree with a pair of wings on my back?" Cally shook her head as she stepped forward towards the edge of the platform and looked down at the fall that was possible before backing away, "Nuh uh. I'm a pilot, you know, cockpit, that sort of thing? I'm not suicidal, no matter what anyone says."
Rala tilted her head, brow furrowing, ears drooping slightly as a ripple of disappointment washed through her as she spoke. “I hoped you might enjoy not needing a cockpit for once. Besides,” she continued, gesturing at the environment, “holodeck. And I’ve got even more safety measures in place than normal. You could jump off the tree right now, and you’d touch the ground more gently than a falling leaf.” An ear flicked as the memory of the incident with Raven flashed through her mind; she’d be putting extra precautions into her holoprograms for a long time after that.
She refocused on Cally, her expression serious. “And no, I wouldn’t throw you off, whether you were joking about that or not, until and unless you were already completely comfortable with the pack...and probably not even then,” she added. “We can do something else if you really want to, but...” She paused, glancing up and away. “Computer, render Unit Two.” A second, nearly identical pack appeared and dropped into her waiting arms, and she returned her gaze to Cally. “...Come fly with me?”
"Now look," Cally raised her hands in front of her, "Don't get me wrong, flying is great. And atmospheric is the best kind, because of the resistance and g-forces that no inertial dampener playing can replicate in space." A flicker of a memory came back, muzzle-flashes ahead and she shook her head to clear it, "But there's nothing between us and the ground in these, safety protocols be damned. Just the thought of falling hundreds, thousands of feet, even if.." She swallowed hard.
“Hey,” Rala said gently, concern on her face and her ears pinned back. She blinked away a twinge of pain in the center of her forehead, just ahead of her horns’ roots; then set the pack down behind her and stepped closer, putting a hand on Cally’s arm. “Are you okay?” she asked. “I picked this to invite you to because I genuinely thought you’d enjoy it, but I don’t want to push you into something you’re uncomfortable with.”
"Flying IS fun." Calypso stated easily, "The problem is that I am absolutely, completely terrified of heights. And it's only when there's nothing between me and the ground, like this. Put me in a cockpit, powered, glider, I can fly anything. But when there's nothing but air between me and that? There's a reason I don't go skydiving, spacediving, hang-gliding or the like. I had to go through it for pilot training, but I forced my way through it."
Rala nodded. “Okay. Don’t worry about it,” she said, moving more directly in front of Cally, giving her arm a gentle squeeze and looking her in the eyes with a soft smile. “For me, a cockpit connects me to the craft, but it’s also a restriction, isolating me from the world.” Her lower arms tensed, hands clenching into fists briefly before relaxing, spreading in a broad gesture as she continued, “Some of my oldest dreams are about flying unassisted, with nothing separating me from the wind.” She flicked an ear back toward the wingpacks. “Starfleet’s education and resources have let me get closer to that than I ever thought possible. But not everyone is like me, and this kind of flying isn’t for everyone. If it’s not for you, that’s okay.”
"Are you sure?" Cally's eyes glanced to the wingpack, then to the edge of the walkway and back to Rala, trepidation evident on her face, "I could do it, I think, and I know it means a lot to you..."
“Cally, what means a lot to me is spending time with you, doing something we both enjoy,” Rala said earnestly. Her tone grew a touch more lighthearted even though the set of her ears kept showing concern as she continued, “If flying around like a high-tech bird isn’t that, then so be it. We have plenty of other things we can do.”
"Are you sure?" Cally asked again, a bit of relief running through her body, "Because I'd do just about anything else."
“I’m sure,” Rala said, giving Cally a nudge back toward the much less precarious heart of the tree and beginning to walk that direction herself. “Tell you what,” she said after a few steps, “how about you show me your favorite way to fly?” She looked over at Cally and smiled. “I’m sure you’ve got a program for whatever it is, right?”
"It really isn't dissimilar to this, just... A bit more encompassing?" Cally tried that word on for size, "Computer, load program Flightline Alpha." The Tikkana tree dissolved into a wide open airfield with a concrete tarmac and what appeared to be several old airbreathing aircraft. "One of my old squadron mates put together this program and at least our flight spent a lot of off-duty hours here, just for the fun of it. Took a while to get used to the different aspects."
Cally moved over to the twin-tailed predatory-looking airframe and patted the nose of it. "It's from Earth rather than my homeworld, but this is the F-14 Tomcat, twin engines, back in it's day it was the premier fighter." She glanced up and down Rala, "I think you can squeeze in, but the cockpits aren't as roomy as they are today, the technology was bulkier."
Rala squinted at the sudden light, then her eyes widened as they adjusted and she saw the aircraft. “Oh...” her muzzle slowly split into a wide, nearly awestruck smile as she approached and placed a hand on it, laughing as she did. “I know of it. Some of the other students in my Academy dorm would occasionally host showings of old audiovisual media, mostly from Earth. There were a pair of...’movies’? ...that featured this type of aircraft. I enjoyed them, but I never thought to recreate one on a holodeck.” She paused, looking over the aircraft again. “It’s bigger than I thought.”
"Three of them, actually, but the first one was the best and specifically because they flew the '14. Top Gun, they were required watches for the base I did my flight training on, which was Miramar itself. History of the place, they said, even though I was being trained to fly assault shuttles, they wanted us to experience fighters as well so we knew what we may need to evade in the air." Cally reached up to the fighter they were next to, this particular program having been shared when the squadron had customized it, which was why there were an even dozen of the birds on the tarmac. Eight of them had shrouds over them, briefly tearing at her heart, but they'd want her to still use it, she knew. They'd talked about that at length. Her name was stenciled under the bubble of the cockpit, 'Lieutenant Calypso Skyie' and under that 'Calamity'
Rala looked around the parking area, noting the shrouded aircraft. Her ears dipped slightly and she looked back at Cally, a touch of concern beginning to grow in her heart. The spot on her forehead twinged with pain again, but she blinked it away and followed Cally’s gaze up to the cockpit, and the name and callsign stenciled below it. After taking a second to mentally translate, she glanced at Cally. “‘Calamity?’” she asked, one ear perked forward and one eyebrow slightly higher than the other.
"Calamity, my call-sign whenever I'm flying." Calypso explained, "Back in flight training they told us that they were recruiting both for the fighter corps and shuttles and that the best of us would be sent basically to the front lines. Losses were bad in the Dominion War, so their qualifications for 'the best' were pretty low." She laughed as she remembered the initial simulations, "Holodeck was the best place and thank goodness, because I crashed my first three times up in one of the Peregrine trainers they started us out on. On my third flight, there were bets on how long I'd stay in the air, so after I crashed the instructors started telling me that I was a calamity in the air and the name stuck with my classmates. So Calypso 'Calamity' Skyie was born."
Rala smirked and let out a snort of laughter. “I’m familiar with the concept of callsigns,” she said, beginning to walk around the aircraft, placing one hand on Cally’s shoulder as she went past. “I hope you’re better in this than in those Peregrines,” she said with a smirk.
She walked from nose to wingtip to tail, admiring the lines, noting the similarities and differences to the products of Draakrona’s own brief age of aerial warfare. As she came around the other side, she ducked under the wing to get a better look at the armaments. There were a couple of smaller missiles on pylons under each of the wing roots, but then she caught a glimpse at the wide space between the engines and her jaw dropped open. She crouched under to get a closer look, gently touching one of the four enormous missiles tucked away there. “By the Makers, Cally, these are huge.”
"The AIM-54 Phoenix missile." Cally smiled in fond memory of when they'd gone over all the details, "First real beyond-the-line-of-sight air to air missile of their age, over a hundred miles if I recall correctly." Cally started to walk around the fighter herself, checking the missiles and shaking them to make sure they were secure, verifying there was no debris in the air intakes. "I think some of the references of former pilots of these things said it felt like cheating to them."
Rala glanced from Cally back to the enormous missiles with a touch of awe. They were nothing compared to modern weapons, of course, but anything that was the first of its kind was worthy of respect in its original context, at minimum.
She gave the gigantic missile a pat, then crawled out from under the aircraft. “Consider me suitably impressed, and then some, and eager to go for a spin. Anything you need from me to get going?”
"One thing." Calypso grinned, "Computer, one flight suit for Lieutenant Rala, circa Earth 20th Century." One outfits appeared and Cally didn't wait for Rala to try to struggle into it before going on, "You have to remember, these are the inertial compensators of that era, so unless you can handle up to nine gravities of force, you're really going to want to put one of these on."
“Define ‘handle’,” Rala said as she worked out how to get the flight suit on. “‘Survive’? Sure, for a bit. ‘Stay conscious and functional for’? Less so.” On top of the flight suit itself went an extra layer that covered most of her legs and tail, along with her abdomen, leaving the joints exposed. “I...think Draakri pilots must have worn something like this at some point, but I honestly haven’t looked into it that deeply. Our history education focuses more on the sea than the sky.”
"What it does is as the G-forces, based on Earth gravities of course, force the blood down into the legs, robbing your brain of the bloodflow, so when these are on properly, they'll squeeze your lower body when you're pulling the G's to keep it from pooling." Cally wasn't sure the whole explanation was required, but it had been part of her own in-brief those ages past, "In other words, it helps keeps you conscious." She gestured to the ladder when Rala was done, "Up you go, take the rear seat. I'll make sure you're all strapped in, then we'll take off and I'll show you a good time!"
“That’s what I figured,” Rala said, clambering up to the cockpit and then down into the aft seat. “This thing was definitely not designed with Draakri in mind,” she called down to Cally as she shifted around, trying to find something resembling a comfortable seating position. There was no place for her tail, and her horns and lower elbows kept bumping into things. After a moment she got fed up, and called, “Computer, allow my tail to clip through the seat, and my horns to clip through any part of this aircraft, without affecting the simulation.” The expected chirp sounded, and she sank slightly more comfortably into the seat. Her elbows still didn’t have much place to go, but she could deal with that.
Cally assisted Rala with the straps, making sure they were tightened properly, then thought for a moment with her face deep in thought, “Computer, modify standard helmet to fit R-I-O’s head.” The modified flight helmet appeared and she handed it to her friend, “Mostly for the sun glare, mind you, but head protection helps for some turns.” She grinned, before turning around and sliding into her own seat, waving away the ladder with a gesture of her hand and starting to flip certain switches and then just pressing the ‘start’ button that had been jimmied into the program to replace the starter cart.
Rala accepted the helmet and looked it over, noting the sliding sun visor and microphone. She slipped it on as Cally climbed into the front and brought the aircraft to life.
Behind the two of them one engine roared to life in a bellow of sound, followed shortly by the other. Calypso took the time as they went through their initial warming up stages to get herself fully strapped in and helmet on, keying the cockpit comms, “Please keep your arms and tail inside the ride at all times, otherwise they may get pinched by the canopy coming down. In the event of an emergency, reach up and grab the two rings above and behind you, that is your ejection seat, only an emergency, please, because it does bad things to my ability to control the airplane.” She chuckled as she gave the brief tour, “Taxiing to Runway Six-Niner, I do apologize for this flight, there is no stewardess that could squeeze herself in.” The flaps on the wings and tail rudder extended and worked their way up and down as the fighter rolled towards the runway during her little speech, then the wings, which had been tucked back against the fuselage whirred as they extended to full length and the flaps locked in the down position, “This is your final chance to back out of this.”
Rala glanced over her shoulder as she both heard and felt the wing mechanism start working, then looked forward again and leaned to the side, catching Cally’s eye in the pilot’s left mirror. “You’re joking, right? Show me what you’ve got.”
Cally stood on the brakes as she brought the engines up to screaming at full power, the airframe shuddering from the sheer power. She let the brakes slip and dumped raw fuel into the engines as she activated the afterburner and the aircraft lurched forward and rapidly picked up speed while Cally watched the speed reading and how the bird handled, finally lifting gently into the air for a few seconds before smiling where Rala couldn't see and pulled up on the stick until they were going effectively vertical. A step on one of the pedals and they began to spin on their axis as they rose rapidly into the air.
Rala had been expecting Cally to pull a sudden maneuver off some sort and had found handholds for all four hands--two handles on the canopy, a bar in front of her near what she assumed was a sensor display of some sort, and a grip at her left with what looked like a four-way toggle switch--so she was ready when Cally yanked the fighter into an unrestricted vertical climb. The spin, on another hand, was less expected, and Rala felt her helmet bounce of the canopy as the craft twisted around her.
When the fighter began to lose enough forward speed to make the controls feel a bit mushy, Cally stopped the spin and levelled off upside down, laughing loudly as she did so, then faked confusion, "Wait, why does everything seem a bit... Off?"
Rala, hanging from her straps, pulled herself over to look in Cally's mirror again. “Oh, I don't know, maybe because that's the ground ‘up’ there?” She said, grinning to match Cally's laughter.
More laughter as Cally flipped them back upright and eased off on the afterburners, "Thirty-six thousand feet, roughly, nice clean air up here, oxygen required. Now this was flying, back in the olden days, nothing but the engines, the sky and someone's own wits about them."
Rala settled herself back into the seat, admiring the view from the bubble canopy. “It definitely has its appeal,” she said, then looked back to Cally. “Now I thought I said to show me what you've got.”
"Hold onto your horns." Cally said with a laugh, then extended the wings out once more from their swept position and heeled over in a sharp turn that killed a lot of their forward moment and threw them into a dive in the opposite direction and she slammed the throttle back and swiveled the wings back once more.
For the next forty minutes, Calypso threw them into a variation of nearly every maneuver she could think of, spins, turns at speeds that had her grunting in an effort to keep herself conscious as the turbines screamed in effort to pull them through. Her vision went to a dark grey before she was able to pull them out of those, blood rushing back to her head and she laughed at it muzzily. Their altitude rose and fall, the dials spinning with reckless abandon and she finally levelled out at barely thirty feet above the ground and at a speed that felt like a crawl, sweat beading her forehead as she glanced at the mirror that looked back at Rala, "I hope that didn't disappoint?"
Rala was sweating and breathing hard, the latter from excitement as well as exertion. “Not in the slightest,” she said, tired laughter in her voice. “That was quite the ride. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised you were able to keep going that long. I'm...not sure I had much more in me, personally. At least, without a break.”
"Practice, my dear, practice." Cally made a wide and gentle turn with a slight climb in order to find the runway she figured was in the area, "I think it's about time to extricate us from this tin can, don't you think? It's tight enough for me, I can only imagine how it is for you, plus... We're getting low on fuel. The afterburner really drinks it."
“Yeah, I could use to stretch,” Rala said, her heart rate and breathing starting to return to normal. A thought struck her. “Question. As I recall, this is a Navy craft, designed to operate from oceangoing aircraft carriers. Did you ever practice such operations?”
"Not on your life." Cally shook her head as she spotted the airfield and managed the engines for the proper amount of lift and speed, "For fun we did learn how to land on a carrier and the takeoffs are definitely fun with the catapults, but it's a pain to land. A nice solid airfield is my preference." They approached and the nose of the Tomcat rose as Cally flared for the final approach, the rear wheels landing with a double thump prior the nose dropping again to let the nose wheel touch down. She throttled down to let the fighter coast to a final stop, not worrying about taxiing to where she'd picked it up before.
Rala removed her helmet as the aircraft came to a stop and ran a hand through her sweat-drenched hair. “I think I’m going to have to try my hand at flying this beauty,” she said as the canopy opened. “Not right now, though. Right now, I think I could use a dip in the Tikkana pool, and I could definitely use some shade.”
Cally hit the canopy open button and the whine of the canopy was barely audible while she shut the aircraft down and patted the side of the front to have a ladder materialize for the pair, removing her own helmet and placing it on the front dashboard, unbuckling herself and working her way to face Rala, a wide smile on her face, "Need help with the buckles? Because that swim sounds really good."
“No, I’ve got it,” Rala said, unclipping herself and hauling herself out of the craft. She clambered down the ladder, giving the Tomcat one last pat, then once both she and Cally were on the ground, she called, “Computer, return to previous program; put us by the pool.”
The computer chirped, and the sun-baked airstrip dissolved into the dapple-shaded heart of the Tikkana tree, taking the flight suit with it, leaving them in the clothes them’d been wearing before. For Rala, that was her usual ‘off-duty activewear’ choice of a black sports bra and black athletic shorts, which she didn’t bother removing before immediately diving into the pool.
She would normally have waited below the surface for Cally to join her, but she’d spent a significant portion of the last hour struggling to breathe and still hadn’t managed to completely slow her heart rate back to normal. She resurfaced within a few seconds, shaking her head to both shed water and try to shake off what was now a continuous headache in the center of her forehead; faint, manageable, ignorable, but occasionally pulsing stronger before subsiding again. She rubbed at the spot, which seemed to help slightly, then floated on her back as best she could and gently drifted back in Cally’s direction.
Cally smiled and shook her head at the sight, quickly shucking her own flight suit and shoes and stepping into the pool a bit more slowly, but much more nakedly than Rala. Rather than stroking out, she rested her noodle arms and legs as she sat down with all but her head under the water. "This feels pretty good, you know..." She waited until the Draakri approached her again, "That wingpack is really important to you, isn't it?"
Rala’s gaze had wandered toward the branch where she’d been working on the wingpacks, even as her thoughts had wandered toward Cally just as the other woman spoke. Her forehead throbbed again, then subsided as her shoulders finally gently fetched up against the sloping edge of the pool next to Cally.
She glanced at her companion thoughtfully, then back toward the branch where she’d been working. “It started off as just another idea I thought was neat and wanted to tinker with,” she began. “I hadn’t really thought much about what it meant to me beyond that until now, but...yes. I’m proud of the design; it’s one of the first significant things that I’ve created, and I want to share it with someone.” She scooted back to sit up at the edge of the water, looking back to Cally. “They may be holographic for now, but I ‘built’ them with the idea that they could actually be created and flown. Will you at least let me give you the rundown on the design, maybe do a little demonstration for you? And perhaps having a few on hand might come in useful at some point.”
"I can hardly say 'no' to just listening about them and watching a demonstration on them." Cally grudgingly admitted, "But actually authorizing fabrication? That would depend on what sort of usefulness they'd have aboard a starship... In space." She reminded Rala, softening that with a smile, "But I'll consider them."
“I meant for any planetside away missions they might be useful for,” Rala clarified. “Not every component can be replicated in a ready-to-use state, so they can’t be produced entirely on-demand.” She decided to try one last tiny nudge. “But then, after my ‘presentation’,” she said, giving Cally the most gently pleading look she could manage, “depending on how you feel, maybe a nice, calm soaring test flight around the tree? I promise I won’t be upset if you say ‘no’.”
The look Cally gave Rala was nothing less than skeptical about the idea. She hadn't been kidding about her fear of having nothing below her and even if that didn't make sense when it came to airbreathing craft. She wanted to say no, but in the end gave a very non-committal half-shrug and half-nod, "We'll see. I won't say no, but I won't say yes outright... Yet."
“Fair enough,” Rala said, smiling. She stood and stepped out of the pool, turning to lead Cally back out onto the branch, her heart doing a tiny little flutter of happy hope even as her forehead throbbed once more. She picked up the second wingpack, the one meant for Cally, from where she’d set it down. “Computer, confirm the last adjustments I made to these were saved when we switched programs?”
”Affirmative.” Meanwhile, Cally had picked up her still slightly sweaty flight suit and put it back on so as to be wearing something at all, then followed Rala to where the wingpacks were.
“Good,” she said, turning to face Cally again, holding the pack in front of her as if she were going to wear it backwards, its outer surface facing Cally. “Okay. The outer shell is a lightweight alloy.” She shifted it in her grip, freeing a hand to point out features. “It’s got a miniature impulse thruster for when you need, well, thrust, a bit smaller than the ones on workbees, powered by a pair of the same power cells used in Type Two hand phasers—one primary, one backup, and either can be ejected if something goes wrong.”
She turned the pack around, so the side that would go against the user’s body was facing Cally, and used her free hand to partially extend the wing. “Hand grips, here, to control the wings, which are a graphene-reinforced elastic polymer. The inner struts, matching one’s arms, are strong, but can twist to change angle-of-attack, and by extension, lift and drag. Power-assist servos in the joints respond to directional force on the grips. The outer struts are a bit more springy.” She somewhat awkwardly reached over the wing to nudge the grip a few times, moving the wing into different poses, releasing the grip each time. “If the pack detects you’ve let go of the grip, it will do its best to determine your intended flight path at time of release and maintain that, barring other inputs which we’ll get to shortly.”
She brought the wing back in, and shifted her grip again, focusing on the well-padded semi-rigid pieces that made up the harness. “I tried to design these to be easy to put on, adjust, and remove quickly. Shoulders, chest, hips, and upper thighs.” She pointed to each in turn. “Close over the area in question, hook this strap on one side of each piece here on the other side, pull like this to tighten, then slap it back down here; it’ll stick, until you pull it off like this or press this release,” she rattled off, pointing, pulling, and poking to demonstrate as she went.
Turning the pack on its side, she pressed a concealed switch, and a telescoping strut sprung out of the bottom of the pack near the impulse thruster, a cluster of smaller bits at its tip unfolding into a pair of footholds and a tail empennage, with vertical and horizontal control surfaces. “Normally, this extends and retracts automatically as needed to either help you fly or stay out of the way on the ground. The pack detects force on the footholds to flex the tail up, down, to the sides, and twist; combined with sensors on the body straps, you can give basic pitch, roll, and yaw inputs without using your hands, and the pack will make minor adjustments to the wings’ positions to accommodate, letting you make basic maneuvers even without the wing grips. Pushing aft on the footholds increases thruster output proportionally.
“Oh, and one more thing.” She retracted the tail again and turned it back so the straps were facing Cally, and pointed to a pair of red pull-tabs, one near the bottom of each of the chest harness pieces. “In case everything else fails. Pull either of these, and the rest of the pack falls away, leaving you with an old-fashioned parachute. The other acts as a reserve.”
Cally gave the pack a dubious look and decided with some reflection that she wasn't going to try it out. Sure, it looked like a potentially useful piece of technology, but not one she would willingly use. But she would still listen to the whole pitch even so, "How heavy is it? Have you had someone try it on yet?"
Rala’s forehead throbbed again. “Uh...” she thought for a second, “about ten kilograms.” She flicked an ear back at the other pack. “Mine’s a bit heavier since I’m heavier, so I need bigger wings. Ideally they’d be tailored for each user, but for actual production that may not be practical.” She paused, tilting her head. “Flying or not, would you like to try it on? See how it feels?”
"It wouldn't hurt to get some real feedback on that aspect, don't you think?" Cally agreed, turning around and holding her arms out to allow Rala to help her put it on.
“I did my best to fit this one specifically to you,” Rala said, stepping up to Cally and placing the fixed shoulder sections of the harness on her shoulders. “Alright,” she said, still supporting some of the pack’s weight. “I’m going to ease it down. Check the fit of the harness for me? Start from the top and work your way down.”
“It feels a bit bulky, not something to put on for emergencies, that’s for sure.” Even as she began to snug down the straps, Cally began to get a little apprehensive about it. No, definitely not taking off in it. “I mean, I get why it needs to be, like a hang glider has to be too.”
Rala gently settled the full weight of the pack onto Cally’s shoulders and waited for her to fasten the upper chest portion of the harness. “Okay, it’s all you now,” she said, giving Cally a pat on one shoulder where the harness sat. “How does it f—”
As she pulled her hand away, a fingertip brushed Cally’s neck just above her collar. A jolt of what felt like electricity shot through her finger, leaving her hand tingling. An instant later, her forehead lit up with pain like someone was focusing a phaser drill on her head.
She staggered back, grunting in pain and clutching her head, her tail twitching and lashing wildly, the pain rising in intensity until she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, the environment around her dissolving into white-hot static.
Cally spun at Rala’s grunt of pain, the unfamiliar weight of the wingpack nearly throwing her off balance, and saw Rala stumble, three hands clutching her head as the fourth tried ineffectually to maintain balance. The Draakri staggered, slipped, fell...and began sliding off the curved side of the Tikkana tree’s massive branch.
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