Creature Valiant Aerospace didn’t feel like a base.
It felt like a cathedral for machines.
White lights. Clean floors. Glass walls.
Pilots walked like royalty—flight suits crisp, voices loud, confidence sharpened into a weapon.
Captain Rex Mallaloy loved an audience.
When he saw Ara Vance pushing a mop cart near the simulator bay, he turned her into entertainment.
A joke. A prop. A reminder that some people exist “below” the cockpit.
“Careful, ma’am,” he said, loud enough for the room. “Wouldn’t want you to trip over real work.”
Laughter came easy.
Because arrogance is cheapest when it’s shared.
Ara didn’t snap back.
She didn’t defend herself.
She just kept moving—quiet, steady, eyes lowered like she’d learned long ago that arguing with ego is like arguing with weather.
But General Marcus Thorne, watching from the observation deck, didn’t laugh.
He noticed something that didn’t belong in a janitor’s body language—
a stance too balanced, shoulders too calm, weight distributed like someone who understood G-forces in their bones.
Thorne said nothing.
He only watched.
Because the most dangerous competence rarely announces itself.
It waits.
PART 2
The final certification test loaded into the hyperrealistic simulator:
CASCADE FAILURE.
Total power loss. Partial control loss.
Forty thousand feet.
A short mountain runway like a scar between cliffs.
A deadstick landing designed to humiliate even the best.
Mallaloy climbed in first, swaggering like the outcome was already his.
He talked about skill, talent, “natural hands.”
He talked like the Wraith owed him obedience.
Then the scenario hit.
The aircraft stopped being a trophy and became a falling problem.
Warnings screamed. Instruments died.
The simulator didn’t care about his reputation.
Mallaloy pulled too hard. Overcorrected. Chased the runway like it was fleeing.
He crashed.
He reset.
He crashed again.
His wingmen tried.
They failed too—each one proving a brutal truth:
High technology doesn’t forgive bad instincts.
It just exposes them faster.
The room shifted from laughter to discomfort.
Because when heroes fail publicly, the audience starts searching for someone else to blame.
Mallaloy’s eyes landed on Ara again.
The easiest target. The softest laugh.
He smirked up at the tower.
“Hey, sir—maybe the janitor wants a turn.”
The kind of joke that’s supposed to end a conversation.
General Thorne didn’t smile.
He picked up the mic and said the words that made the room freeze:
“Put her in.”
A ripple of disbelief moved through the bay.
Ara stopped mopping.
Looked up.
And for the first time, the pilots saw something in her expression that didn’t fit their story.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Like an old door opening.
PART 3
They strapped her in like a prank that had gone too far.
“Guest Pilot Zero,” the tech said, still half-laughing.
Ara didn’t laugh.
She rested her hands on the controls like greeting something familiar.
Not worshipping it. Not fighting it.
Listening.
Cascade Failure engaged.
The Wraith began to die around her.
The room waited for panic.
But Ara’s movements were small—almost invisible.
Tiny corrections. Patient timing.
A kind of restraint that looked like doing nothing… until you realized the aircraft was obeying.
Mallaloy leaned forward, frowning.
Because he didn’t understand what he was seeing:
She wasn’t “flying” the plane the way he did.
She was negotiating with it.
The descent sharpened.
The runway appeared like a thin promise between mountains.
Any ego-driven input would have snapped it into a crater.
Ara breathed once—slow, controlled—
and the Wraith slid into alignment like it had been waiting for the right hands.
Final approach.
No theatrics.
No wrestling.
Just precision so calm it felt unfair.
Touchdown.
Clean.
Centered.
Perfect.
The bay went silent in the way people go silent at funerals—
not because something died,
but because something they believed in did.
Mallaloy’s face drained.
General Thorne came down from the tower and walked straight to the simulator hatch.
Ara unstrapped and stepped out like she’d simply finished a chore.
Thorne held a thin folder—edges marked, pages half redacted.
He didn’t read it out loud.
He didn’t need to.
He looked at her and asked softly, “Call sign?”
Ara met his eyes—steady as an instrument needle.
“Viper 1.”
The words hit harder than applause.
Because suddenly the mop cart wasn’t a costume—
it was camouflage.
A retired colonel.
A legend buried under classification.
A pilot who had flown machines nobody was supposed to admit existed.
Thorne saluted her in front of everyone.
Not to shame them.
To correct reality.
Mallaloy swallowed hard, stepped forward, and did the only brave thing left:
he apologized.
Ara didn’t gloat.
She didn’t lecture.
She gave him the sentence that ended his arrogance and started his education:
“You made an assumption, Captain.
Your mistake wasn’t the assumption.
It was the pride you took in it.”
After that, the scenario got a new name: Viper’s Kiss.
And the phrase “janitor duty” stopped being an insult—
it became a reminder that humility is part of flight discipline.
Ara Vance disappeared the way she arrived: quietly.
But the base didn’t forget.
Because now every pilot who sat in that simulator knew the truth:
Sometimes the greatest operator in the room
is the one everyone else refuses to see.
