"Turn us toward M-seventy-six," he said, not loud, not soft. "And keep the room heavy."
"Vector set," the clerk answered, voice precise. "Dead pocket in six minutes, then two short burns and one long puts us on the M-76 line."
"Baseline one-point-eight holds," the chief engineer said. "Offset right. We ladder as we go; if the collar complains, I cut."
He shifted half a foot right on the driver bed. The hull's tone kept to math; the wrapped pod on the port rail stayed ugly and quiet under foil doctrine. Black ahead was absolute; it liked to be.
[SYSTEM: Mobile node—baseline 1.8g. In-flight ladder armed.]
"Pulse," the engineer said. "—Now."
Two-point-two bit and left; baseline took him back clean. The ship accepted a hair of trim to starboard, his hand on the yoke so light it was more insult than instruction.
"Rep two," she said. "—Now."
He met it. The collar didn't sing; rails didn't whine. A bolt in the port aft bracket tightened its faith with a cautious click you felt more than heard.
"Pocket in four," the clerk reported. "Traffic zero. Background chatter falling—physics eating it."
"Good," Vegeta said. "Let physics work."
"Rep three—now," the engineer called.
He boxed ribs on the rise, paid breath after the fall, and slid half a foot left at baseline to share bias. The wrapped pod stayed mute; the shroud's second lip held.
[SYSTEM: Advisory—external emissions below threshold. Training mode sealed.]
"Rep four," she said. "—Now."
He took it and returned it. The pocket's edge arrived the way some truths do—without a sound, just the absence of one. The comm panel's polite noise starved; Command's distant metronome fell off the map as if embarrassed to have existed.
"Pocket," the clerk said softly, almost reverent. "We are in."
"Baseline two-point-oh for thirty," the engineer said. "If anything lies, it does it now."
[SYSTEM: Mobile node—baseline 2.0g.]
Weight stepped up. He set knees the fraction narrower; tail countered. The ship drifted through quiet so thick it felt like glass. Ten seconds behaved. Fifteen asked to be noticed and were ignored. Twenty-eight settled into the kind of work people mistake for silence.
"Thirty," she counted. "Cut to one-point-eight. We validate pairing under burn next."
Nappa's voice hopped the link from dirt with cheerful menace. "Ground room says hello from the rude side. Ribs stayed honest. If you bring a Frieza box home, I'll hold it while your room tells it to shut up."
"It will learn to," Vegeta said.
"Pocket kills Command," the clerk added, not hiding his satisfaction. "No pings."
"Then we keep our own," Vegeta said.
The engineer's hands moved on her board the way you move tools you don't need to look at. "We tie the driver bed to the thrust profile," she said. "It breathes when engines breathe, not before. Baseline one-point-eight while we rehearse. Pulse two-point-two for one on my mark, then we hold two-point-oh for forty-five while you spool."
"Bring it."
"Pulse—now."
Teeth; cut; baseline. The cockpit remained a doctrine.
[SYSTEM: Thruster-sync option available: follow thrust ramp (±0.1g). Engage?]
"Engage," he said.
A tiny ghost of the engine's pre-charge slid under the bed's hum like a second metronome. The two learned each other's names.
"Hold two-point-oh for forty-five," she said. "Burn prep on my count. Clerk, give me your long burn profile."
The clerk's voice stayed careful. "Ramp to seventy percent over eight seconds, hold twelve, then seventy-to-ninety over five, then cruise. Vector steady."
"Good," she said. "We teach the bed that song now."
"Two-point-oh up," she added. "Begin."
He held. The ship breathed under him in small, mechanical ways—the kind that make you like machines: honest and disinterested. The wrapped pod tried exactly nothing. At twenty-five seconds his calves asked a historical question; his spine answered with present tense.
"Thirty-five," she said. "Forty. Cut in five—no. Don't cut. Thrust ramp rehearsal—bed follows."
The floor's hum deepened by a shade, not in weight but in intent—the thrust pre-charge coiling in the bones of the ship. The driver bed matched the slope within the tenth, like a baritone harmonizing with another.
"Hold," she said. "No trophy. Just truth."
He did. The ship learned.
"Cut," she said at last. "Baseline one-point-eight. You get your pair, then we burn."
"Pair armed," the clerk confirmed, because procedure likes to hear itself. "Two-point-five for half, ten at two-point-oh, then another two-point-five."
"Consent?" the engineer asked, though she already had it.
"Yes."
"—Now."
The first bite landed; left. Ten seconds stacked; he carried them. The second bite stamped and didn't steal. Rails behaved; collar held doctrine; the foil blanket whispered against the pod like weather with nothing to brag about.
[SYSTEM: In-flight pair stable. Thruster-sync standing by.]
"Pre-charge," the engineer said. "Engines breathe in eight. Bed follows. You don't improvise; you show the room how to be heavy when everything else wants to be fast."
"Understood," he said.
"Clerk," she went on, "mark the long burn in the log. If something lies, the log says when."
"Log armed," he said, a little proud that he'd learned the right kind of religion.
"Three," she counted, not to dramatize but to align hands. "Two. One. Spool."
The engines wound like a decision. The bed matched within the tenth, a smooth slope of intent under his boots. One-point-eight stayed one-point-eight while thrust learned to be a noun again.
"Seventy percent," the clerk said, thread-steady. "Holding."
"Hold," the engineer echoed. "If a noise invents itself, you say 'out' and I cut."
No noise invented anything. The hull spoke in low vowels. The pod stayed a wrapped insult that had learned fear.
"Ramp to ninety," the clerk said. "In five… four…"
"Bed follows," the engineer said, eyes never on the thrust, always on him.
He stood. Ribs boxed. Breath after ten. Knees honest. Tail corrected the tiny, lawful drifts a living ship makes when it admits it's alive.
"Ninety," the clerk said. "On profile."
"Hold," she said. "Count thirty."
He held. Somewhere aft, heat learned to be distribution, not drama. Somewhere fore, the glass decided it could afford to pretend nothing existed. Inside, the floor obeyed, which was all that mattered.
[SYSTEM: Thrust–bed sync within ±0.06g. In-flight long hold viable.]
"Cut to one-point-eight," she said. "We do a last check. Flicker in one-tenth under ninety; re-engage. If the ship panics, I never let you live it down."
"Flicker… now," she added, and the world lost its weight and found it again in less than a heartbeat.
Nothing wobbled. Nothing sulked.
"Good," she said. "That's your sky safety. We burn for real."
"Command?" the clerk asked, purely ceremonial.
"Dead," Vegeta said. "Keep it dead."
Nappa's voice skated in from ground like a friendly insult. "Bring me something to lift, Prince."
"I am," he said, and the room understood the double meaning.
The engineer flipped two guarded switches with the intimacy of a person who had earned right of way. "Training mode stays sealed. Bed sync stays leashed to thrust. You stand, or you become a lesson about furniture."
He didn't answer with a sentence. He widened his stance half a foot, then narrowed it, finding the exact shape his bones made when the universe asked for honesty.
"Long burn," the clerk said, breath steady because he'd practiced. "Three… two…"
The ship's heart crouched.
Vegeta looked at black like a man checking a mirror that had never once told the truth and wasn't going to start.
"Burn," he said.
The engines obeyed like gravity learning a new accent. The driver bed went with them, terrible and controlled.