Before I can try and move the ship, a voice comes blaring out of nowhere.

“Shuttle One, Tutorial Control. I will be guiding you through the next phase of this training so listen close, do you copy.”

A button on the dash, my control stick, and on central console all light up blue. They are labeled “push to talk”.

Pressing the one on my control stick I reply.

“Tutorial Control, Shuttle One. I copy you loud and clear.”

“Good to hear from you, and welcome to one of the hardest jobs in the Universe second only to mine of course.” He lets out with a chuckle.

“Now have you put your helmet on and connected it to the chair, if not do so now.”

I find my helmet on the floor between the seats having placed it there when I sat down. I grab it and place it on my head, immediately I hear a hiss as it seals me in. Looking down I see connection tubes looping down from the back of the helmet. I grab them and hook them up to fairly obvious receptacles on the chair. They glow blue as I hook them up, I don’t feel I needed help they only fit into one place. I do check out the labels though. Oxygen tube, power, and systems relay.

“Control, Shuttle One, connected.” I reply.

“Good Shuttle One, now if for some reason you need to eject or you lose life support you will not immediately expire from suffocation or the deep cold. Now look on the dash, you should see a switch that’s glowing blue called restricted flight.”

Checking the dash, sure enough there it is, and it has a green indicator showing it’s enabled.

“Ensure its green, while in a confined space this limits your ships speed, acceleration, and ensures systems or operations that could damage you, the bay, or people around the ship are disabled.”

Good to note, sounds like a safety kind of. It would suck to accidently hit the fire button and fill this place with rockets or accelerate into a wall.

“Control, Shuttle One. RF switch enabled. What’s next?”

“Shuttle One, Control, you are ready for departure. On your throttle you will find a knob close to your index finger. This will control your ships vertical, and horizontal controls. Pull it up to make the ship raise off the ground slowly. Don’t hit the ceiling please.”

Reaching out with my index I feel for the knob. Finding it a nudge it up, anti-climatically the ship slowly rises off the decking.

I am flying a spaceship!!

A HUD pops into existence the moment the ship raises off the deck. A flight path indicator shows up as little circle with wings and a tail. I see two nozzles with 10% over them sitting in the bottom left, that’s engine output. On the middle left side, I see a box that says zero, my speed I’m guessing. Right side shows altitude at 3ft, and dead center I see a simple circle which usually represents bore sight in flight sims.

“Shuttle One, Control. Looks like you have managed that without breaking anything congrats on doing the basics without screwing up. Retract your landing gear and you will notice that your ships shields are inactive while in the hanger, they interfere with bays shielding that prevents decompression. Once you exit the hangar bay don’t forget to activate yours.”

I hit the landing gear stick; it looks a lot like a wheel on a stick. A whirring noise comes from the ship followed by a muffled thump. I see a toggle light up on the dash labeled “shields” it has a red indicator under it showing that they are off.

“You are cleared for departure maintain, heading once you are clear of the hangar bay you may release your RF and enable shields.”

The famous last words every pilot yearns to hear. Cleared for departure!

“Control, Shuttle One. Cleared for departure, maintain heading. RF and shields enabled when clear of hangar bay.”

I lick my lips here we go.

“Time to fly shuttle one.” I say to the ship, I know it’s not alive, but we are in this together man and machine.

I advance the throttle forward, the ship slides forward. The speed indicator climbs up to 15 mph and settles there. Seems like the RF is limiting speed to that makes sense that a brisk walk is the fastest allowed in a hanger. I’m not sure how that other pilot was unable to control his forward flight and went out sideways. The ship seems simple to control.

As I approach the barrier between the hangar and space my palms start to sweat, and I swallow hard. Here goes nothing time to be a space pilot!

A slight tingle passes through me as I cross the invisible barrier.

The RF switch glows, and so does the shield toggle. I flick both quickly, almost instantly the ship bolts forward. Like a racehorse being let out of the gate, I see the engine nozzle indicator on the HUD hit 100%. I am thrown back into my seat and can feel myself being crushed, as if a cow sat on my chest. I see a G indicator on the HUD under speed sitting at 4Gs.

I also notice the altitude box completely vanish, no altitude in space. The ship diagnostic now has a blue bubble around it with a 100% by it, I have shields!

The radar holo shows a blip rapidly receding behind the ship, it is labeled “Tutorial Station” and a number that’s increasing rapidly. I also see other blips in various trajectories around the station. They each have a label on them too, skimming through them I notice they are all tutorial ships. Other rookies learning to fly like me.

I notice a blip here and there vanishing, the radar orb is detailed enough to show expanding clouds of fire and debris which is pretty cool. Seems like flying is not for everyone.

“Shuttle One, Control you are now far enough from station to begin flying on your own. I suggest you get familiar with your ship and the controls, do not worry about damaging the station with your weapons. Please do not engage the other pilots on purpose as they are all learning like you. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.”

Control, Shuttle One. Cleared for free flight and thank you I will.”

I pull back the throttle bringing engine output down to 0%, I see the Gs under the speed tick down to 0Gs and the pressure on my chest relaxes. However, the ship is still hurtling forward at 4,356 mph.

Right, that makes sense reality and movies don’t usually match up. You watch popular space shows, and the ships slow down as soon as they turn off the engines or whatever.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Nope, the momentum carries the ship forward at the same speed it just stops accelerating.

A blue toggle on the dash lights up blue, it’s labeled “Close Quarters Control”.

“Control, Shuttle One. A toggle has lit up called CQC, what happens when I flip this?” I ask over the radio.

“Shuttle One, Control. Was wondering how long it would take you to find it. Right now you’re in what most use for long distance travel in a straight line. When you switch to CQC your ship will automatically counteract movements so that your ship will behave more like a fighter in atmosphere. If you reduce engine power, it will also apply opposite thrust slowing you down. Same if you make a sharp turn, thrusters located around your ship with activate cancelling out momentum allowing for a smooth turn and not spinning out of control.” The voice says into my cockpit.

I can see how a system like that would be helpful, it would give most players the feel of space combat that the movies have. More fun that way, I can’t imagine many players adapting to real space maneuvers it would be rough.

“Control, Shuttle one, that makes sense thanks I think I will give it a try.”

I flip the switch, suddenly the ship engines kick up like a roaring volcano. Under the speed indicator which is rapidly decreasing I see – 4Gs indicated.

I’m thrown forward in my seat only being held back by the seatbelt harness.

“Shuttle One, Control. I should warn you not to activate CQC while at speed and your throttle at zero, but it looks like you just figured that out.” Comes the controller’s voice over the radio.

No shit.

The ship slows down till it hits 0 mph and comes to a stop in space. The engines quiet down to a dull hum. I notice for the first time how absolutely quiet it is.

I can hear the ship noises still, but they are very muffled. But nothing else the silence is so absolute I swear I can hear the blood move through my veins. Just another thing they get wrong in the movies.

I wonder if my weapons will make much noise. I locate the “master arm” switch and flip it. Targeting reticles appear on the HUD, a simple plus sign. An ammo counter also populates off to the right. A stylized bullet shows 1200 rounds for the railgun, and a stylized rocket shows I have 100 of those.

The bullet icon is highlighted green indicating it is selected as primary, and the rockets are orange for secondary. I locate both triggers on the control stick and squeeze them at the same time.

It’s rather anti-climactic what happens.

From the wing pylons the railguns spit out their rounds without so much as a peep. I just see the occasional tracer round flying off into space and the ammo counter dropping. The rockets are not very big and just look like little puffs of fire skittering off into the void. They don’t fire off too quick really. I release the triggers and see that I’ve spent 200 rounds from the railgun and 10 rockets.

But even from all that activity still no noise from them, just a bit of flash, how boring. That’s the way of it then, stupid movies lying to me.

I flip the master arm switch back off disabling the weapons.

Time to fly, I ramp up the engines to 100% and the ship bucks under the thrust. I get pressed into the seat again but this time I’m ready for it. It seems the ship maxes out at 4Gs of acceleration, and while in CQC the speed caps at 450 mph.

It only takes 5 seconds to reach top speed at that rate, this is awesome!

I’m grinning like an idiot as I start manipulating the controls. I push the ship through turns and banks, rolling around, pulling up and doing flips.

The Gs rack up all over the place and I feel like I’m being pulled in every direction. I don’t care this is amazing this is only a shuttle and I’m enjoying every second of it. I can’t imagine how the star fighter would handle, I bet that thing is like a Ferrari compared to this.

After what seems like no time at all the radio chirps.

“Shuttle One, Control You have been out for about an hour now and you should be needing a re-fuel soon.”

Sure, enough an indicator on my MFDS is showing 30% fuel remaining after my playing around. It must suck down fuel at a decent rate, I wonder if because I’m in a shuttle it’s less fuel efficient to do hard maneuvers.

“Control, Shuttle One. It does appear I could use some fuel. Where can I pick some of it up?” I ask.

“You are in luck Shuttle One, we have some back at the station. If you use your radar orb you can select the station as a destination. It will then engage auto approach if you turn of CQC. Just point your ship at the station and set desired acceleration, at the 50% mark you will begin to decelerate at a rate, so you arrive at station one mile out. From there engage CQC and navigate to the indicated hanger.” He says, he sounds a little bored when he gives these long speeches. I wonder if he reads them off something or has them memorized by now. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s a real human. He is most likely a scripted NPC now that I think about it. Unless they script them to sound bored and make mistakes on purpose to make them seem more lifelike.

I point my finger at the station represented on my radar orb, I feel a slight resistance as my finger pokes it. A green circle appears around it and a marker appears on my HUD showing the location the station is.

I maneuver the ship until the flight path indicator is over the station, set my acceleration to 4Gs and disable CQC.

The ship blasts off at 4Gs and a number begins ticking down where altitude is. Showing how far out from the station, and next to that is a timer showing how long it will take. Looks like it will take 10 minutes to reach the station at this speed, apparently, I have flown out quite a way according to the distance dropping something in the range of over 1,000 miles.

Space flight is wild.

As the numbers on my HUD decrease to zero, I flip my CQC switch and take over control of the ship.

“Control, Shuttle One. I’m one mile out request instructions to land.” I say over the radio.

“Shuttle One, Control you are cleared to land in hangar bay one. Check HUD for location if you are unsure. If you need assistance let me know.”

The station looks like a giant pinwheel, with spokes going into the middle and a smaller pinwheel there where the spokes all merge. It’s a slate grey color, the surface is covered in hangar bays, antenna, and what look to be weapon emplacements. The station is huge, the thing has got to be at least two or three miles across. I wonder how much one of these costs to run in the game, and if it’s possible for players to own one of these.

As I get closer, I can see little blips zipping across the hull, and a few weaving between the spokes. Looks like players being stupid and seeing how fast, and close they can get without exploding. Speaking of, one of the blips collides with a spoke and turns into a rapidly expanding ball of fire and shrapnel.

An indicator pops onto the HUD directing me towards hangar one. I ease the throttle down to around 100 mph indicated and slowly drop it from there as the range finder says I’m getting closer.

Right before I cross the shield into the hanger bay, I turn off my shields and activate RF. There is an empty area on the deck outlined by black and yellow lines with a big 01 in the middle. Looks like the same place I got this shuttle from in the first place.

I ease the ship into the bay and spin the ship around so it’s facing back out into the darkness of space. I notice that my radar orb is replaced by a little icon of my ship hovering over the landing bay. I use it to guide my ship down directly onto the pad.

At the last moment I realize I have not lowered my landing gear; in a panic I slap the landing gear stick down. Too late, I hear a grinding metal on metal sound as the gear try to deploy. Red lights flash around the cockpit in warning, the mini ship icon’s landing gear is flashing red and mangled.

Damn!

Well, the ships still usable right? Any landing you walk away from is a good landing, any landing you can use the ship again is a great landing!

“Shuttle One, Control. Did you forget something important? Like say landing gear?”

Sheepishly I com the radio.

“Control, Shuttle One. I may have missed a step yes, how do I fix this?”

An exasperated voice comes back over.

“Continue shut down procedures, follow your skills guidance it’s basically startup but in reverse. Once you’re done exit the ship and use your repair skill from your class. Don’t feel too bad, most new pilots don’t even make it this far they usually blow up their ship.” Somehow that does not make me feel any better about it.

Oh, I had forgotten about my class skills and abilities, I was having so much fun just flying around I completely forgot I had abilities I could have tested.

Following my skills prompts I manage to shut down the shuttle without further damaging it thankfully.

I exit the rear hatch and take a look at the ships state. True to the ship icon in the cockpit the landing gear are indeed a mangled mess. I press my hand up against the hull, not sure how else to do this and think Activate Ship Repair.

Not a lot happens, but in my vision, I see in the top left corner of my sight an indicator of my stats HP: 100 AP: 50 and a brief message.

Ability activated “Ship Repair Minor” – 50 AP

Then a countdown timer starts from 10 minutes and begins ticking down. I glance down at the gear and can see them slowly mending back into shape. So, I stand there for the next 10 minutes as my ability fixes my screw up.

Tutorial Message: Congrats on completing the first stage of flight training. When you are ready to continue, please enter the ship and follow the Tutorial Controllers instructions.

More flying, I'm down!