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.
For a sealed spaceship, these carriers sure did have a lot of holes in them, she thought.
She nudged the controls, getting a feel for the ship. It moved more like her Valkyrie than her racer which shouldn't have been any great surprise, but there was a familiarity to it. Out the windows she could see the spread wings with thrusters located at the tips. There was no aerodynamic advantage to having wings like that out here, and these Starlings were not rated for atmosphere, but it meant thrusters could be located farther away from the cockpit, and that meant a more manoeuvrable ship.
Ellie heard the lieutenant instruct pod six for launch, so she took her chance and accelerated hard, cleared the five hundred metre target, then turned hard, pulling up and over and around, before righting her attitude to match the Paris, and stopping back at her line.
"Pod eight, launch, and Cadet Young, I saw that."
"Sorry, lieutenant," she said, but she wasn't. She was thrilled. This was as good as the real thing, almost. The g force on launch felt real but there was something unconvincing about those turns. She would have to ask the lieutenant when she got back.
But I don't have to go back, I can just open the canopy. She knew it was factually true, but still it looked wrong, it felt wrong, even though the light of the training room was only the other side of the canopy screen.
"Cadets, congratulations on successful launches all round. Resetting now."
And then they were back in the launch bays, with sealed doors in front of them and orange warning lights flashing above them.
"Sir, I thought we were going to land then launch again," said Rebecca."
"Launch first cadet. Get that perfect and we can talk about landing. You can do a lot more damage with a bad landing than a bad launch."
"But it's a simulation," she pointed out.
"It's my simulation, and every mistake is logged under my record, so please no more mistakes. That goes for you, pod three."
"Sir," acknowledged Ellie. Can't they move on?
"Pod one, launch when ready."
They launched again, one by one, each in their own private sim. Tariq reset and repeated the exercise, each time pushing them to do it faster, and cleaner. There were optimum points to accelerate, to ignite engines, to bank when clear. He explained them all, the physics of it, the safety aspects of each detail. It all seemed so minor to Ellie, but over the day she started to understand how each tiny change compounded to produce bigger results. Any one on its own seemed insignificant, but together they made a real difference.
"Pod three, ready for start up and launch in three. Two. One. Launch."
Ellie sprang into action from a cold start. She moved through the start up and ignition sequence smoothly and cleanly, opened the door, hit the button. The light tracks blurred together and unseen forces pressed her down. At the right time she triggered the engines and burst free from the tube again, trailing fire.
"Very good cadet, that was a sub-four second launch. Pod four, go."
Ellie grinned. Less than four seconds to get out. That was good wasn't it? She wondered what the record was, and how she could take it as she sailed around the Paris. They were no longer limited to their five hundred metre zones. They had earned the right to fly around the ship before each reset.
"Pod six, go."
Ellie dived low, flew underneath the Paris, and skimmed its lower surface. There were guns here, recessed in the cavities, and dotted all around the ship were things she knew to be weapon and defence pods, but she knew no more than that. She was here to learn how to fly, and to prove she was the best.
"Excellent work, cadet. I haven't seen a three-second launch in some time."
"Three seconds?" Ellie said out loud, betrayed by her own surprise.
"Keep this channel clear, cadet Young," warned the lieutenant.
Three seconds, how was that even possible?
Ellie frowned, thinking about her own launch. It had been perfect, hadn't it? How could she have done it any faster? How could anyone have done it faster than her?
"Good work cadets. Resetting now, and time to take a break."
The outside of the virtual Paris vanished and in its place was the real inside of their simulator room. Ellie looked at her controls. Was there something she could skip over? Where did that extra second come from?
Ellie unlatched her helmet and shook her hair free. More practice, that was the answer. That was always the answer. She popped the canopy and climbed out of the simulator. Aiden was waiting her. Behind him, one of the twins was discussing their performance with one another cadets.
"Where's Dom?" said Ellie.
"She's already gone to get lunch, she skipped breakfast and said she couldn't wait." He hovered while Ellie took off her gloves and reset her simulator. "I heard you, over the comms. We all did."
"About the three seconds?"
"Did you know one of the others made a leaderboard?"
"No, where?"
He led her to one of the towering black data cores by the door. Someone had stuck a datapad to one side showing metrics of all their performances to date. There was also a combined score, which ranked everyone in the class by overall performance. Ellie found her name.
"I'm third!"
"That's good. And look, you got most improved over time on the start up and launch."
"Start up and launch is all we've done. How can I be third?"
"What's wrong with that? It puts you in the top three. And it's not like any of us have flown these ships before."
"But I—" she stopped, suddenly remembering that technically, according to official records, what Aiden said was true. Behind him, Aurora lifted her head to listen.
"But what?" he said.
"Nothing. You're right. I'm just not used to being not-first."
"When was the last time you weren't first?"
Ellie thought. It had been a while. Even on Parador she had won the race in skimmers she had never flown before. She wasn't arrogant, but winning had led to her developing a certain expectation of victory. "Honestly, I don't remember," she said.
In the background Aurora nudged her sister and rolled her eyes in Ellie's direction.
"I used to race a lot at home. I didn't win those at first, but I kept trying."
"Where was home?"
Ellie waved a hand to dismiss the subject. These questions were getting too close. "Oh, nowhere you've heard of. Nowhere important."
"You got all the way here though. Hundreds failed to qualify."
"Not everyone has to qualify though, do they Eleanor," said one of the twins.
"Someone in this class was sponsored," said the other. "We saw the lieutenants notes."
"Where did you qualify, Eleanor?"
Ellie panicked. "Um, Parador," she said naming the first planet she could think of.
The twins looked at each other and folded their arms.
"Parador doesn't have a qualification track for the academy."
"I have to go to lunch," said Ellie quickly, and rushed out the door to avoid any more questions.
Aiden watched her go, confused by the whole thing.
"Are you sure about Parador?" he asked the twins.
"Yes we are. She's hiding something about where she's from and how she got here."
"Does it really matter? She's here and already in the top three. We know she's good enough."
"Sponsors take a place from someone more deserving. Someone who qualified. Someone who earned it. She didn't. She's out here playing pilot while the rest of us are working for it. You've seen her in class, she barely understands anything."
"But she gets there in the end."
"She's never prepared."
"But she passes the tests."
"Barely."
"A pass is a pass though."
"She blew up her ship on the first day, on the launch pad."
"That was just a mistake. It could happen to anyone."
"It happened to her. Do you want that kind of incompetence on your team?"
"So she made a mistake," Aiden repeated. "She's still doing well. Look at the chart. If she doesn't deserve to be here how can she be so high in the rankings. She's only just behind the two of you."
The twins looked at each other. Aiden was right about that.
"We don't know, but she won't stay there. She'll make another mistake. She's not a team player."
"Oh and you two are? You need more than two pilots to make a squadron."
"We'll make a squadron, but she won't be in it."
"Jealous?" said Aiden.
"No, just better," said a twin.