A Canvas of Black
The heavy grey cockpit shell closed over his head silently and the loud sounds of the hangar bay were abruptly cut off as the canopy seals locked tight. The command module, roughly spherical in shape, lit up with soft yellow light, screens were arranged in an octagonal shape around him held to the walls by tendrils of grey metal that could angle them in any direction at any angle.
Veese hung in the centre of the displays, suspended in tangle of the safety webbing like a spiders prey. Above him, switches and dials lit up, but he never used manual control, unless the vocal receivers malfunctioned or were damaged during combat, but a safety test of all the controls was standard practice, so he reached up, speaking into the air as he did so.
"Cheery, comms test, respond."
"Loud and clear boss." His pilot's voice fresh in his ears, the silence broken.
"Squadron comms test, all wings report in, over."
Veese studied the screen directly in front of him as it confirmed the activation of the various controls he manipulated while the voices of his wings rolled around the room.
"Dart reporting, Mallick reporting, Typhoon reporting, Geek reporting, Swaren reporting, Dante reporting, Chip reporting."
"Squadron Command, Comms check, respond."
"Gotcha loud and clear mate. Good luck." The familiar voice of Lieutenant Maks in the Carriers command suite.
"Confirmed, you too pal. Veese out!" He replied, and adjusted himself slightly in the tangle of webbing as the multitude of ribbed metal tentacles discreetly slithered and bent to manipulate him into a slight sitting position.
A small shudder shook the fighter's structure, Veese felt the webbing tighten around him slightly as it compensated for the vibrations, the display on his left confirmed the engines had just been started, and touching a pad above his head the last of a long list of control names turned green.
Adrenaline flooded into his system as he anticipated the launch. It had been over twenty four hours since his last fix, cold turkey and a longing for acceleration made him itch irritably. Soon! He told himself.
"Good Morning Lucy!" He spoke into the air.
"Good morning Carl!" The ship replied.
While the vessel was named 'Chancer' the default response voice for the computer reminded him of his old flight school instructor, a very attractive Major who he, and most of his fellow trainees had fallen for, called Lucy Timmaman. Of course it was something he would never admit to, but it was common knowledge that most navigators had something of a rapport with their ships, it made flights easier giving the computer a personality, but it quite often made fighter navigation an outcast profession. Veese didn't care.
"Ok Lucy, give me 3 forward screens for real-time sensors and overlay with compensated sensors, left screen ship, squad and battle group status, right screen external camera, rear 3 screens are spare, but keep em warm."
The screens all switched and came to life, infront of him the view displayed a 3 dimensional view of space with his ship at the centre, grey lines formed a grid with small reference marks on each intersection, green and red dots of varying sizes depicted friendly and hostile units, with subtext just to the right of each contact.
On the same screen, set just behind each contact, were a set of identical dimmer blips which were contact positions created by the computer to estimate their actual positions for the sake of relativity.
Extra-planetary engagements would often start with two forces over vast distances, information could be seconds, minutes, hours or even days old when the sensor information arrives back at a ship. Lucy would approximate their positions, but Veese liked to make his own assessments so he overlaid both real-time sensors and the approximated ones.
