I reclined in the cockpit of Wanderer 6, listening to the avionics hidden behind panels underneath me begin to whir. My HUD was highlighting buttons for me to press in order to power on the ship and do pre-flight system checks. Theridion had guided me up here, informing me that the other three had already conducted a pre-op walk around, and didn’t have the time for me to stumble through everything.
As the screens around me flickered on and began their warm-up cycle, I put my feet into the stirrups at the base of the chair and buckled the five point harness over my chest. To my right was an armature extending from the wall under the triangular viewports, holding a joystick that handled flight controls. Unlike my tug, it was the only flight control interface, allowing for me to control all six degrees of motion with a twist of my wrist. It was also absolutely covered in buttons. To my left was an array of four touch screens and physical switches, which were fixed in place. The screens were set into the left sidewall and sat angled so they faced the pilot, while the switch panel sat on a ledge next to the armrest. In front of me, four additional screens extended on more armatures and looked to normally sit just below the viewport.
WELL DONE TUGGER. YOU CAN PRESS BUTTONS. I’LL START THE SIMULATION NOW. NO NEED TO PANIC.
“Well now I want to panic. Why would I…” My vision felt like it shut off; there was no fading, everything just went black.
INITIALIZING BFM TRAINING SESSION 1, TRAINER VERSION 2.3.6-WNDR scrolled across what I now realized was an empty VR environment, and then a wireframe version of the cockpit I was currently sitting in formed around me, materials slowly appearing to fill in the framework.
WELCOME TO TRAINING TUGGER. AS THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE BEEN IN THIS PARTICULAR ENVIRONMENT, I WILL EXPLAIN HOW IT FUNCTIONS. OTHERS HAVE NOT DONE SO, AND IT RESULTS IN LONGER TRAINING TIMES WITHOUT FAIL.
THE VIRTUAL AREA YOU SEE AROUND YOU IS QUITE LITERALLY IN YOUR HEAD. I AM ABLE TO CREATE TRAINING SCHEMA, BUT POWERING THE VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE IS BEYOND MY HARDWARE CAPABILITIES. USING YOUR BRAIN FOR PROCESSING POWER ALLOWS YOU TO USE THE TRAININGS I GENERATE. THIS HAS THE ADDED BENEFIT OF GENERAL PARALYSIS OF YOUR PHYSICAL PERSON. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS KIND OF TRAINING IN A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT, BUT IT IS PERFECT FOR A WIDE VARIETY OF TASKS, FROM TEACHING DELICATE MANEUVERING WITH LARGE VEHICLES TO LIVE WEAPONS FIRE WITHOUT ANY OF THE INHERENT RISK OR COST.
“Ok. So I can’t get hurt or damage anything during these training sessions?”
CORRECT.
“Let’s see what I can figure out then.”
I crashed. A lot. I had thought myself a good pilot, but apparently I was just used to the Dusty Star.
Getting the ship started was easy. The cockpit layout was the same as the physical ship, so I already knew how to turn power on; press the BATT PWR switch, wait for the LED under the switch to turn green, then press MAIN PWR to enable power to critical systems like the reactor. The reactor control was automatic, and once it was spun up, electrical and hydraulic power was available for all systems, and was controlled through the screens to my left.
Thrusters were a little more complex. Unlike the Dusty Star, I didn’t have individual control over each RCS thruster and CMGs. Instead, Wanderer-6 was clearly meant to be piloted with some kind of AI assistance. Theridion stepped in to fill the role after letting me struggle to do more than lifting off for 15 minutes, and I suspected that this ship was designed to only be flown by those with the spider augments.
TUGGER, TIME IS NOT STOPPED WHILE YOU ARE TRAINING THIS WAY. JUST BECOME PROFICIENT IN GETTING OUT OF A HANGAR, AND WE CAN DO THE REST ON OUR WAY THERE.
30 minutes, seven ships, eight hangars, and one incidental missile later, Theridion declared me as ‘sufficiently capable at avoiding stationary objects’ and ended the simulation.
The wireframe around me vanished, and blackness rushed away from my vision like exiting a tunnel. The cockpit screens all had completed their warmups and were displaying ship system info in what I assumed to be the default display.
I pushed a few buttons until the selection window for screen 3 showed COMMS. Another button changed the appropriate screen, and I was greeted with a comprehensive overview of the information the ship was receiving and sending. Tapping the TUNING label showed a list of active frequencies, automatically assigned a label and then colored based on the EM spectrum setting each frequency was on. Given that I was in a ship sitting inside of the station, only the lower energy channels, like light or radio, were available with the other options being shut off by the comms system as a safety measure.
Below the list of active frequencies, a grayed out number pad was shown next to a spectrum selection dropdown, along with two digital switch’s labeled Rx and Tx respectively. Theridion informed me that the number pad would be freed up when a spectrum section was chosen. Good to know, I guess, but I didn’t care currently. I tapped the active radio frequency for local station control.
…PY THAT CONTROL. STANDING BY FOR TUG CONTACT.
I waited to make sure the frequency was quiet, and pressed a button on the joystick that was labeled with TX.
“Station Control, SPS Designation Two Five Bravo Tac Mike Kilo November Tac Golf Victor Sierra Tac Bravo Lima Juliet, callsign Wanderer 6 online. Requesting undock clearance and vector to jump clearance space.”
WANDERER 6, STATION CONTROL. BE ADVISED. THIS STATION WILL BE RELOCATING IMMINENTLY. YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO REDOCK IN THIS SYSTEM.
TUGGER, TELL CONTROL WE HAVE A PRIORITY CODE BURNELL AND REQUIRE IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
“Station Control, Wanderer 6 acknowledges redock limitation. Requesting immediate undock and jump space vectors, priority code Bravo Uniform Romeo November Echo Lima Lima.”
WANDERER 6, STATION CONTROL. PRIORITY BURNELL ACKNOWLEDGED. UNDOCK AND BURN TO JUMP SPACE AS NEEDED. CONTACT SYSTEM CONTROL FOR LEAST TIME ROUTING. GOOD DAY.
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“Station Control, Wanderer 6. Least time burn understood. Contacting System Control, good day.”
I tapped the comms screen, still displaying active frequencies, and switched to System Control. After just hearing dead vacuum for a few seconds, I held the TX button.
“System Control, SPS Designation Two Five Bravo Tac Mike Kilo November Tac Golf Victor Sierra Tac Bravo Lima Juliet, callsign Wanderer 6, undock imminent. Requesting least-time burn vectors to jump space, priority Bravo Uniform Romeo November Echo Lima Lima.”
WANDERER 6, SYSTEM CONTROL. PRIORITY ACKNOWLEDGED, CALCULATING LEAST TIME VECTORS. STAND BY.
“Control, Wanderer 6. Standing by.”
With that, I lifted off of the hangar floor and rotated the ship. While I had been training, the hangar had been put under vacuum and the door had been opened, so all it took was a few very judicious applications of thrust to edge out into the void. As soon as Wanderer 6 had cleared the hangar, the doors started to close. They really were in a hurry to change systems.
WANDERER 6, SYSTEM CONTROL. LEAST TIME BURN VECTORS TRANSMITTING TO SPS. YOU ARE CLEAR TO DEPART UPON VECTOR RECEPTION, GOOD DAY.
“System Control, Wanderer 6. Clear to depart on vector acceptance, copy. Good day.”
I looked over at the screen control.
“Suggestions, Theridion?”
I WOULD HAVE YOU SELECT THE NAVIGATION SCREEN ON ONE OF THE REMAINING THREE TO YOUR LEFT, WHICH WILL LET YOU PUT RECEIVED VECTORS ONTO THE SCREENS IN FRONT OF YOU.
I did it. The screen manipulation was intuitive, but I hadn’t played with it at all during my flight training, so I was more than happy to listen to advice on using them. I also took the liberty of setting up one of the front screens, which I realized was screen 7, to display a 3-D radar scan. The ship was smart enough that even at 1 AU of displayed distance, the display would create pop-ups that showed possible collision dangers. I suspected it would also show incoming missiles, but Theridion didn’t know and frankly I didn’t want to try to test it.
Another of the screens in from of me held SPS information by default, and the screen began flashing as the vectors finally came in. Following Theridion’s instructions, I put those vectors into the autopilot and was pushed back in my seat as the ship accelerated hard.
TUGGER, NOW THAT WE ARE UNDER WAY, WE HAVE TIME FOR MORE TRAINING MODULES. I HAVE A LIST FOR YOU TO RUN THROUGH THAT MAY BE NECESSARY FOR THIS MISSION. I WOULD SUGGEST MUNITIONS USAGE FIRST, THEN ATMOSPHERIC EVASIVES, AND FINISHING WITH SUB-ORBITAL PERSONNEL INSERTIONS.
“Ok. Let’s do munitions first.”
INITIATING TRAINING
The wireframe built itself over the cockpit around me.
FIRST, TUGGER, FLIP THE COVER OVER THE SWITCH LABELED WPN LCK/NLCK. POSITIONING THE SWITCH TO NLCK ALLOWS THE OFFENSIVE WEAPONS SYSTEMS TO OPERATE. THIS CRAFT HAS THE SAME LASER CIWS AS DUSTY STAR IS SUPPOSED TO RECEIVE, AND THEY ARE NOT TIED TO THIS SWITCH. IF YOU RUN THROUGH THE SCREEN SELECTION OPTIONS, YOU WILL SEE AN OPTION LABELED AS WPNS. THIS WILL BRING UP A WEAPON CONTROL SCREEN. THIS SCREEN WILL ALSO BE DISPLAYED AUTOMATICALLY IN SCREEN 8 IF ANY WEAPON SYSTEM ON THIS CRAFT IS ENGAGED OR IF HOSTILE CONTACTS ARE FOUND.
Learning and using the weapons systems built into Wanderer 6 was much easier than I expected. Missiles utilized ship-board guidance and on-board guidance, allowing for high target confidence, while turrets could use ship-board guidance for autonomous fire or be slaved to eye tracking that activated with my helmet. My helmet tied into the weapon system for than anything else when it came to piloting the craft, as it gave me a view of space through the ship, allowing me to keep an eye on targets. It also augmented my HUD, outlining solid bodies in space that could be collision hazards, allied, neutral, and hostile craft, and inbound munitions that could pose a danger.
The real difficulty was doing all of this and flying. Making sure I was tracking targets with turreted weapons, keeping a lock other other targets for missiles, avoiding collisions with debris, rocks, and other ships, and positioning the ship to provide optimal angles for my turrets and CIWS was so far beyond my capabilities due to the sheer amount of data I needed to process at any given time. The best I had been able to do, after about thirty other scenarios, was kill two hostile targets through a thin planetary ring, and that was only because the CIWS had vaporized the ice in the ring and overshot, killing one of the targets on accident; an overzealous application of every missile I could launch popped the other craft.
THAT IS ENOUGH TUGGER. IF IT COMES TO IT, I WILL FLY AND YOU CAN PLAY TURRET JOCKEY. YOU HAVE SPENT TOO MUCH TIME, WE ARE HALF WAY TO THE JUMP POINT, AND WE WILL BE OUT OF TIME THEN. I WILL BEGIN THE NEXT MODULE.
INITIATING TRAINING
YOUR GOAL, TUGGER, IS TO AVOID GETTING HIT BY ANY OF THE INCOMING FIRE. THIS IS IN ATMOSPHERE, SO EM BASED WEAPONRY WILL NOT BE AS SIGNIFICANT OF A THREAT AS IT NORMALLY WOULD BE, BUT YOUR CIWS WILL ALSO NOT FUNCTION AS WELL AS YOU WOULD LIKE. I’D SUGGEST MINIMIZING YOUR CHAFF AND FLARE USAGE IN FAVOR OF BLANKET FIRE WITH YOUR HIGH FIRE RATE TURRETS. GOOD LUCK. MAKE IT QUICK.
And with that heartening speech, the viewport in front of me abruptly switched from the star studded blackness of space to blue atmosphere. The ship around me began to vibrate, as the lower RCS thrusters engaged to fight gravity and help the main engines as we increased airspeed to generate lift. In front of me, I began to see small puffs of smoke. It took a second for me to realize it was flak, but as soon as I saw, I dove. Flak, from what I understood, required ranging shots, and I guessed that varying my altitude would help protect me by keeping those ranging shots from being accurate enough to cause damage. Just as I was pulling out of the dive into a shallow climb, a steady beep started resounding through the cockpit.
“What the fuck?” I had no idea what the issue was, and the only difference I could see on the screens was a small box in the Navigation screen that read SAM. The steady beep doubled in speed, and a voice I hadn’t heard before started saying WOODPECKER, WOODPECKER, WOODPECKER, WOODPECKER. The voice cut out at the same time as the SAM box turned off. I also noticed that a section of the Navigation screen showed a red flashing X labeled HSAM1 for a few seconds before it cleared. I was still climbing hard when the beeping, which had only slowed down, ramped up again. Looking at the screen that had had the red X, now I saw seven purple triangles, each labeled HSAM2 through HSAM 8. “Theridion, what the fuck is happening?”
TUGGER, HEAVY SAM SITE CAPTURED. HOSTILE ORDINANCE CLOSING. CIWS OVERHEATED, TWO MIKES TO HEATSINK REPLACEMENT.
In a panic, I looked around frantically. The Navigation screen, in addition to the incoming missiles, showed a cluster of contacts that were slowly moving further from the center of the display.
PRESS THE HIGHLIGHTED BUTTONS ON YOUR JOYSTICK TUGGER.
Theridion had lit up two different switches on the joystick. One was a trigger, which I had to hold, while the other was a directional pad that allowed me to choose active targets from among my radar contacts, and the weapon to employ for that target. I selected the SAM in the middle of the group, totaling almost 25 launchers. At Theridion’s suggestion, I dropped something labeled as “ABPC”. The loss of weight let the ship gain just enough speed to let me see the SAM site vanish in a cloud of fire and debris, before the simulation ended with a flash.
YOU DIED, TUGGER. YOU GOT HIT.
“Ok, great. What should I have done differently?”
YOU ONLY USED YOUR CIWS TO DEFEAT INCOMING MISSILES. YOU COULD HAVE USED YOUR GUNS TO KILL THEM. YOU ALSO DID NOT KNOW HOW TO READ YOUR INSTRUMENTATION. NOT YOUR FAULT, BUT YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO ADAPT. YOUR FLYING INSTINCTS WERE ACCEPTABLE, THANKFULLY. I HAVE A NEARLY INFINITE VARIATIONS OF EVASIVE TRAINING SCENARIOS. LET US CONTINUE.
I died. A lot. Theridion had me run the first scenario another thirteen times before I was able to not only survive, but not get hit by flak (which happened nine times) or by a missile or the shrapnel made from killing a missile before it made contact. I found out that the munition I was dropping was an Air Burst Penetrating Cluster Bomb that worked by popping a few hundred feet above the target, and lighting off rockets with a sharpened DU penetrator for a tip. They were perfect for SAMs, I was informed, because the rockets still being lit tended to cook off unlaunched missiles and kill not just the target but everything around it.
I managed to survive by eventually getting good enough at flying Wanderer 6, with Theridion reading my mind to fire RCS boosters, that I was able to dodge the SAMs that made it off the ground, past my guns and CIWS, and didn’t go for my chaff and flares. It was stressful, so Theridion put me into the next simulation by having me fly to the next part instead of being dropped in. My Comms screen flashed a contact in blue; a friendly ship.
WANDERER 6, ORBITING STATION. YOU ARE ENTERING CONTROLLED AIRSPACE. DIVERT TO ANGEL 55 AND REVERSE HEADING IMMEDIATELY.
Theridion was helpful enough this time to just print out a script for me in my HUD.
“Orbiting Station, Wanderer 6. Unable to comply, executing Golf Sierra mission Juliet Tango Zulu Tango November. Playtime limited.”
WANDERER 6, LIMITED PLAYTIME UNDERSTOOD. DIVERT IMMEDIATELY AND STANDBY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTION.
“Negative, Orbital. Sqauwking local Golf Sierra authorization, you will assist as requested.”
WANDERER 6, ORBITING STATION. SQUAWK RECEIVED, STANDING BY.
With that exchange finished, I kept an eye out for any new radar contacts. Nothing.
“Theridion, is it normal for this group to have a station in orbit?
YES AND NO. SOMETIMES THEY HAVE MISSIONS IN LOCATIONS WHERE OTHER OPERATIONS ARE BEING CONDUCTED. MORE OFTEN, THEY ARE ON THEIR OWN. YOU SHOULD EXPECT TO BE THE NORMAL ‘ORBITAL SUPPORT’.
A pit formed in my stomach.
“How often does your UAIFF show neutrals as friendly?”
FOR THE MISSIONS WE SHOULD EXPECT? ABOUT HALF OF THE TIME.
The sky split.