Far Horizon (Juggernaut #4)

Thirty

The canopy closed over her head and the room vanished. Ellie tucked back her hair, pulled her helmet on and latched it until it sealed. Out of habit she still swallowed hard to stop her ears popping, but the simulation didn't go as far as recreating the pressure differential she would experience in a real launch tube.

Outside her ship the same twin tracks of white lights were there on the sloped walls. The doors in front of her were closed, for now. Above and below the doors, two pairs of orange lights flashed and spun. The lights washed through her cockpit casting weird colour shadows and tints on the hardware around her.

Her comms chirped as the lieutenant came on line.

"Good morning class, and welcome to space. Today, you're going to practice take off and landing. Each one of you is in a private simulation so you won't have anyone to distract you. We'll move on to shared sims this afternoon. Begin startup sequence when ready."

Ellie was already working through the sequence before Tariq had finished speaking. Her hands and fingers flicked around the cabin and were back on the throttle and yoke in a moment.

"Opening the doors will prime the atmospheric pumps to extract the air in the chamber. Once the mag sled is in motion the pumps will reverse. The pressure and oxygen provides a minor launch assist. Once the mag sled is underway you will throttle up to launch speed before you reach the end of the tube. You will then fly clear of the bays and hold position five hundred meters out. Clear?

The squadron chorused their assent. The sims might be private but he still had them on a shared channel, Ellie noticed.

"Pod one, launch."

Over the comms, Ellie heard the electronic whine of the magnetic coils as they powered up for launch, like a sharp intake of breath. She heard a thud, and a roar, and then silence.

"Pod two, launch."

The same sounds came over the comms. Ellie adjusted her grip, checked the launch button was under her finger again, checked it again, heard the words.

"Pod three, launch when ready."

Ellie hit the button. The twin tracks of white lights turned red, there was a sound like a fan, huge and suddenly silent, the magnetic coils supercharged. The door opened showing a tunnel beyond. In there the twin tracks alternated red and white. She could see the magnetic sled through the grating in the floor. It took half a second to take it all in, and then the sled launched.

Ellie found herself pushed back into her seat. The tunnel flashed past, white and red merging into a blur. She hit the throttle. The single engine core increased from a glow to a roar, pushing a white-blue cone of fire behind her. It ignited the atmosphere still in the tube and Ellie launched into space, pinned to her chair, trailing a twister of flame which evaporated in the vacuum of space.

She couldn't help it.

"Wooooo!"

"Quiet down, cadet. Pod four, you may launch when ready."

She was flying! Sort of. It felt surprisingly real, but in her defence she had never been in a flight simulation before. Even the g force of the launch felt real. She wondered how they did that. Mal would know. The lieutenant would know too, and it was probably in one of the manuals, but it would give her an excuse to ask Mal to explain something again. She liked hearing him being clever.

Ellie slowed and turned, and the Paris rotated into view behind her. She could see the launch tubes here. There were four in a row, angled forward toward the corner of the ship. The class lessons had told her there were four on each corner, so in theory the Paris could launch sixteen fighters at once. Above the tubes were the landing bays, one front, one back, and accessible from each side of the ship.