Chapter 4

When Bix reached the flight deck, he experienced a moment of panic.

After all of the instructions and training modules had been implanted directly into his brain,

he had assumed that flying the ship would be second

nature to him, but it all felt so unfamiliar. He knew where everything was, what it did, but it was all

in his brain, not in his body, like a video game he had never played, just read the instructions

for A to jump, X for close range attacks, knowledge,

but not yet instinct. What if he couldn't do this? He looked around the flight deck of the

ship. It wasn't like the movies at all. It was all a little bit grotty, like two overweight slobs who ate an appalling

amount of takeout were always there, with only a disgruntled robot to clean up after them.

Everything was a little faded, a little grimy. He took a deep breath. How the place looked was the

least of his problems. Flying this bucket

wouldn't be that hard. It would be just like driving a car, which he also didn't know how

to do, but he had seen it done, often by people who were not very bright, and he had always

assumed he would be able to do it himself if required. This was no different than that,

except it involved moving in three dimensions and also flying in space at speeds faster than light.

He took another deep breath and tried not to think any more comforting thoughts as they really

didn't seem to be working out for him. He could hear the crew hammering on the hull, screaming abuse at the robot.

He could hear echo climbing up the stairs on spindly metal legs.

The robot was counting on him.

The Earth was counting on him.

He'd been getting away with everything so far.

...