Manual control

I flip through the Spin Drive console screens until I find one labeled “Manual Control.” When I select it, a warning dialog pops up:

MANUAL CONTROL IS RECOMMENDED ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO ENTER MANUAL CONTROL MODE?

I tap “Yes.”

It brings up another dialog.

SECOND CONFIRMATION: TYPE “Y-E-S” TO ENTER MANUAL CONTROL MODE.

I groan and type Y-E-S.

The panel finally takes me to the Manual Control screen. It’s a bit scary. Not because it’s complex, but because it’s so simple.

There are three sliders labeled “Drive 1,” “Drive 2,” and “Drive 3,” each presently at zero. The top of each slider is labeled “107 N.” The N must mean “Newtons”—a unit of force. I guess if I threw all three drives to maximum, it would give me 30 million Newtons. That’s about sixty times the thrust a jumbo jet’s engines produce during takeoff.

Science teachers know a lot of random facts.

There are a bunch more little sliders. In groups labeled “Yaw,” “Pitch,” and “Roll.” There must be little spin drives on the sides of the ship to adjust its orientation. I can definitely see why it’s a bad idea to mess with this panel. One screw-up and I’ll put the ship into a spin that tears it apart.

But at least they thought of that. There’s a button in the middle of the screen labeled “Zero All Rotation.” Good.

***

Chapter 7