Fly to Survive, Season 84, Episode 7: Showdown at Deneva (Part 2)

Posted on Sun Oct 13th, 2024 @ 4:16am by Lieutenant JG Jane Sinclair

992 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Captains and Contraband
Timeline: 2384

We are now in a very well decorated lobby. The caption identifies it as Proxima-Renault headquarters. The camera follows Jane Sinclair as she comes in and is greeted with a handshake by a Vulcan woman wearing a forest green business suit. The audience recognizes her as T’Ren. We cut to an interview with her, and her name and role as Team Manager, Proxima-Renault, appear on the caption.

T’Ren: Jane Sinclair is an up and coming champion. You know it, I know it, we all know it. All she needs is the correct vehicle to fly, and the right team to support her.

Gow, from behind the camera: And that’s Proxima-Renault.

T’Ren: (raises an eyebrow) It certainly isn’t Dytallix-McLaren.

A Federation Sports Service headline is shown on screen. Proxima Signs Native Daughter Jane Sinclair.

T’Ren, voiceover: Sinclair was eager to join us. I don’t know what was happening behind the scenes at Dytallix, but I will say that my negotiations with her were among the smoothest I’ve ever experienced.

Jane Sinclair in the interview chair is back on screen.

Sinclair: I loved my time with Dytallix-McLaren. Reynaldo’s great, and I think there’s no hard feelings. We certainly went into Deneva still on great terms.

Gow, from behind the camera: Then why leave? Why join Renault?

Sinclair: Honestly, lots of reasons. They’re going to be more flexible with my Starfleet reserve service. And I’ll have a more hands-on role with the vehicle, which Dytallix policies forbade. (grinning) And it’s Proxima! It’s my home!

Still pictures come on the screen in a slide show. A young Jane, aged maybe 7 or 8 years, tinkering with a warp nacelle with her mother. 12-year-old Jane doing spot-welding on her homemade shuttle. 19-year-old Jane in an operations gold Starfleet uniform, wearing the rank insignia of a Crewman Apprentice, repairing a warp coil. 21-year-old Jane in her Starfleet uniform at a recruitment booth.

Gow: Jane has spent her life tinkering, building, repairing. Even now, she spends a lot of the season down-time working at the Starfleet Maintenance Yards on her home planet of Proxima Centauri II. A Starfleet spokesperson told us that she gives them positive press and works recruitment on the margins of races. Part time service is apparently more common than most people think.

The image cuts back to Jane and T’Ren at the Renault headquarters. Jane is making a show of walking smoothly in the lower gravity with which she is intimately familiar. She comments, smiling, that it’s good to be home. T’Ren is guiding her further into the building. The camera follows.

We cut to a shuttlebay, where an engineer is showing Jane the vehicle she’ll be piloting in the 2385 season. It already has the number 81 emblazoned on it. It’s a somewhat larger model than the one that she flies for Dytallix-McLaren. Her current shuttle, shown via picture-in-picture, has a small cockpit with a canopy resembling that of a starfighter, with a power core, impulse manifold, and warp nacelles all on an aft outrigger. This one has a fully enclosed hull, accessible through an aft hatch, impulse engines to either side of the hatch and warp nacelles on top. In many ways it resembles a standard issue Starfleet or civilian stock Shuttlecraft, but modified to within an inch of its existence. Closed captions of the engineer speaking to Jane explain that this new model is safer, has more space for control consoles inside, and can be more easily repaired from the inside in case Jane needed to make an adjustment during a straightaway.

T’Ren: (more loudly) I’ve made arrangements for the two of you to go through the specs tomorrow night. But we have another appointment to get to.

Cut to a professional photoshoot in the office’s studio. Jane has just come out wearing the uniform of the Proxima-Renault racing team and she looks *good*. It is blue with a white racing stripe and purple around the wrists, bottom of the jacket (presently open with a tight black turtleneck underneath), and top of the pants. Stylists touch up makeup and fix hair before the cameras start snapping.



A number of final photos are shown on screen, with her looking serious, happy, making a silly face, a bit flirty. In some shots the jacket is closed, while in others it hangs open casually. Another serious shot is captioned with ‘Proxima’s Native Daughter’ and it headlines an article in Sports Illustrated.

T’Ren, in voiceover: Sinclair brings talent, as well as a pleasant demeanour and good nature. The press love her, and the fans love her. Even her scandals are inoffensive and many would say ‘fun’. Certainly ‘light’.

T’Ren and others are escorting Jane out of the building.

Sinclair: Don’t think I’m going easy on you next week at Deneva! (laughs)

T’Ren: (raises eyebrow) Nor we on you, Miss Sinclair.

Sinclair (to the camera): Come on then! We have a shift to get to!

Cut to the back of a planetary transit shuttle. Jane is holding up the gold undershirt of her Starfleet uniform.

Sinclair: (laughing) Cheeky! You are *not* filming me getting changed into my uniform!

Cut to her fully dressed in a prim and proper uniform

Sinclair: The transport leaves on Thursday. So that’s three days of duty shifts at the Yards and three nights of holo training. So I’ll see you all on Deneva Prime yeah? (the shuttle door opens) Thanks for the lift!

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