"More," he said.
The engineer's finger hovered a discipline's width over the switch—then lowered. Baseline crept. One-point-zero to one-point-two. The driver bed's hum thickened, a floor-voice learning its vowels.
"Hold at one-point-two for thirty," she said. "Listen for the hatch."
He listened. The collar took the new load without commentary. Rails transmitted the note to the ribs; the ribs made it a fact.
"Fifteen," she counted. "Twenty-eight. Thirty. Up to one-point-five. Slow."
One-point-five wasn't a number so much as a reminder: travel is not an excuse. Ankles adjusted, knees confessed their alignment and were forgiven, hips set their angles. The ship's air, smaller than Bay Three's, took the weight and kept it.
[SYSTEM: Mobile driver baseline 1.5g active. Structure watch enabled.]
"First ladder," the engineer said. "Hold one-point-five for thirty; pulse to two-point-oh for half a second on my mark. Twice."
Vegeta shifted half a foot narrower, tail countering in the tight space like a second gyroscope. "Mark it."
"Thirty begins," she said.
The seconds behaved. The bed did not pretend to be the floor he knew—it asked for respect and got it. At twenty-six the hatch frame tried on a thought; the collar corrected it. At thirty, her finger fell.
"Pulse," she said.
Two-point-oh bit and let go—a clean sting. The hull did not breathe. The bed didn't wobble. His breath boxed and waited; exhaled when told.
"Baseline," she said. "Five seconds. Second pulse: mark."
The second bite found better bias and less complaint. The ship learned.
Nappa's voice came thin through the sealed hatch—half a laugh, half work. "Rails are singing the right hymn out here. Keep preaching."
Vegeta didn't answer. The ship got his attention; the world could queue.
The engineer's stylus tapped the slate. "Driver B heat curve is honest. Bring it to one-point-eight and hold for twenty. Then we try two-point-two for a one-second pulse. If the wall whispers, I cut."
"One-point-eight," he said, as if the number had thought it was a suggestion.
The bed's hum went down a note; the ship's bones considered the request and granted it. His calves filed a polite complaint about novelty; his spine stamped it.
"Fifteen," she counted. "Nineteen. Pulse."
Two-point-two hit and left like a well-trained dog: teeth, then nothing. The collar approved in silence. A rivet in the far corner made a small opinion; a wrench made it reconsider.
[SYSTEM: Mobile geometry stable. Suggestion—offset stance every third cycle.]
He slid half a foot left; the bed liked the honesty.
"Again," she said.
They ran the hold and pulse again. The ship embraced a new truth: pressure, not travel, decides what you are.
"Seat it at two-point-oh," she said. "Hold for twenty. Then we attempt two-point-five pulses for half a second—once only—under a hard kill."
Vegeta's mouth didn't move. "Do it."
"Lock," she said to the hatch again, not because it had unlocked but because commandments are good for everyone's blood pressure.
The hold at two-point-oh was an introduction that skipped small talk. The driver bed's hum became a baritone with intent. The ribs answered in the key they'd been tuned to. His breath counted her time, not his ego's.
"Pulse armed," she said. "Two-point-five for zero-point-five. Consent?"
"Yes."
"Three… two… now."
The ship hit back, briefly. He met it—ribs boxed, breath banked—and the cut was clean. No song. No lie.
The engineer's shoulders let go of one millimeter of contingency. "Mobile v-one has a spine," she said. "We don't abuse it. We use it."
"Commission," Vegeta said.
She took that as the contract it was. "Commissioned—mobile driver version one. Operating envelope: holds to two-point-oh; pulses to two-point-five. We'll grow it with ribs, time, and respect you don't spend."
He looked down at the bed that would be a planet when he needed it to be. "Schedule," he said.
"Ground room breaks you," she said. "Ship room keeps you honest. Between jumps, between briefings, between bad ideas people bring to your door—we run ladders and pulses here so you never arrive light."
Nappa's knuckles rapped the hatch. "They love your rude collar in the yard," he reported, the words smiling. "They're copying it for three other doors and calling it 'the Vegeta.'"
"Then make sure they spell it right," Vegeta said, which meant I consent to being quoted by metal.
The supply sergeant's voice arrived after someone remembered how to be brave. "Power feeds steady. Cutoffs keyed to your biometrics across both rooms. Quartermaster encourages—uh—adherence to—"
"Results," Vegeta finished. "Quartermaster encourages results."
"Yes, Prince," the sergeant said, happy to have learned a language.
"Next ladder," the engineer said, business as doctrine. "Baseline one-point-eight; hold ten; pulse two-point-two; back to one-point-eight; repeat × four. Then we end-cap with a single two-point-five and stop pretending the ship isn't already better than yesterday."
He stood. He held. The ship held with him. Ten seconds tasted like a promise made when you're not tired, kept when you are. Two-point-two bit, left, returned on time. The stance offsets did their quiet work, left knee now taking on what the right had learned to love.
[SYSTEM: Mobile ladder integrity—good. Advisory—cooldown walk recommended post-session to distribute load.]
He did not acknowledge the polite butler in his skull with words; he granted the idea a future time slot and kept paying attention to now.
By the fourth ladder, the hum felt like a road under a fast car at night—steady, dangerous, tamed only by competence. The hatch collar had no ideas; it had a job.
"End-cap," the engineer said. "Two-point-five. Quarter-second. Consent?"
"Yes."
Her finger fell. The ship proved it wanted to keep its bones. Cut. Baseline firm underfoot.
"Mobile v-one stands," she said. "We keep the envelope conservative until it earns arrogance."
Vegeta stepped off and the hull tried to offer him gentleness. He refused it. "The ground room gets me to where a leash isn't a thing. This one makes sure leashes don't grow back when people start talking."
"Talking is their favorite gravity," she said dryly. "We have better."
The lock light softened to something that would listen to a sentence if given one. The engineer flicked it to not now with two fingers. "We open when I say open," she said, mostly to the door.
Nappa's voice sounded satisfied through the metal. "Outside's ready when you are. Rails learned posture. Yard learned ours."
Vegeta looked at the bed, the bolts, the collar, the little vowels in the hum. "Again."
The engineer didn't argue. "One-point-eight. Hold for thirty. Then we test a moving pulse—tiny—by flexing the power feed under load. If the line lies, I cut."
"Up," he said.
The bed pressed. He met it. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Her hand twitched; a tech nudged a cable; the hum wavered by a hair and then returned to its lane.
"Truthful," she judged. "Twenty-eight. Thirty. Cut."
He stepped off; stepped on; took the next ladder; pocketed the next pulse.
The clerk appeared at the inner frame like a man who had read the room and chosen a safe syllable. "Your Highness—Command scheduled a 'courtesy review' for ninety-six hours—still—and the research wing asks if we can spare any driver time for their own calibration suite."
"They can come listen to our hum," Vegeta said. "They can borrow none of it."
"Yes, Prince."
[SYSTEM: Session quality—mobile node high; ground node pending. Recommend alternating sessions to maximize adaptation.]
He nodded once—permission granted to a good suggestion because it had been his first.
"Seal stays," the engineer said. "We bring this up twice more today, then you eat something that isn't bravado."
"Food is fuel; bravado is cheap," Vegeta said. "Again."
They ran it until sweat had the decency to stay where instructed. Until the hum underfoot had ceased to be stranger and started being a tool. Until the collar could have been a doctrine in a book about how doors behave around princes.
"Enough," the engineer said at last. Not a request. A professional boundary. "We keep it, or we lose it. Today we keep it."
He stepped off and let the driver bed miss him.
Outside the hatch, tools set themselves down in hands that had been told to. The yard's noise reasserted its ordinariness. Inside, the ship held a new shape.
Vegeta looked once at the plate under his boots. The second planet. The one that followed him.
He didn't say thank you. He said the next thing that spent better.
"Three-point-oh tomorrow," he said to the room.
The room didn't disagree.
The engineer wiped a line of grit off her cheek with two fingers and made a note on her palm that looked like a dare to steel. "Three-point-oh tomorrow," she echoed. "And the ground room will ask for four in its language. Bring your bones."
He turned his head enough that the hatch knew it had been seen. "Unseal," he said.
"After we breathe," she said. She held her finger over the switch a breath—exactly one—because discipline is the part that scales.
The driver hum deepened by a fraction, as if it wanted to remember this moment properly.
Vegeta set his stance again on the bed, refusing to practice being light.
"Higher," he said.