“All right. All right. You’re not fun. Safety first.”
Without having to think about it, Jace interfaced with the ship and another seat opened to the right and back of his father. The harness unspooled and clicked around him.
“Now, if you want to–whoa! Go, Dad!” Jace laughed as his father almost expertly had the Storm Spike perform a barrel roll.
His father leveled the ship off and the moon was once again front and center on the screen. He then sent them spinning the opposite way. Jace laughed.
“We’re going to have to do some dogfighting at some point to train as well,” Jace said.
“We can do that? In simulators, I suppose?” His father asked.
“Actually, we’ll be in real world conditions, but the weaponry we’ll be using won’t cause damage,” Jace said as the Osiris showed him how the spaceships would only register the damage, but not actually be damaged.
“I’m looking forward to that!” His father was doing that face-splitting grin again.
“It’s like a videogame except it’s real,” Jace said.
“Do you remember when we spent all those days playing as fighter pilots. Oh, God, I forgot the name of the game, but you wouldn’t go to bed,” his father said.
“I think you were the one who wouldn’t go to bed,” Jace chuckled.
His father had the Storm Spike perform three loops in a row before finishing with a barrel roll.
“God, this ship moves smooth as silk. I have no idea how fast we’re going–”
“You don’t want to know. We’re going to be at the Moon in like fifteen minutes,” Jace told him as he brought up those indicators for his father on the holographic display.
“You work this ship like she’s been yours for years,” his father said with a faint shake of his head.
“I know, right?” Jace agreed with him. “Everything feels familiar. I think I could close my eyes and find anything I needed on the ship without tripping and killing myself.”
Another shake of his head. “Amazing. You were flying in your sleep all these years.”
“So it seems,” Jace said. “If you want to set the autopilot–”
“No, not yet. Let me just have my hands on the controls here for a while,” his father requested. “Can we go down to the surface of the Moon?”
Both of them had on synthskin suits. Jace had his hard suit’s chip in his pocket and there were several others on the Storm Spike that could be sized for his father.
“Do you mean fly over the surface like in Star Wars?” Jace asked, referring to the many iconic scenes where one of the fighters skimmed over some alien world’s surface.
“I do!”
“We could also land and get out, if you like,” Jace told him.
His father went silent. Jace caught sight of his reflection on the screen for a moment. There was utter shock followed by utter joy.
“Are you serious? We could walk on the Moon?” his father asked.
“I’m more than serious. We can do that,” Jace told him.
“How about we go to the Tycho crater?” Jace asked, naming one of the more famous Moon craters that he knew of.
“Y-yeah. Sounds fantastic,” his father answered.
Jace reached up and lightly touched the holographic controls so that their destination was set.
“You’ll see a flight path once we get nearer. We might want the Osiris to take care of the landing,” Jace told him.
