Ed was struggling to read the manual, so Captain Darcy strode over to show them the ropes. "Okay, so here's the deal. Most ships need about six bridge crew; captain, helm, weapons, engineering, science, and communications. But this here is Warp Fighter; she ain't got time for six people shuffling around her decks. So the controls here are designed to minimize the amount of work you gotta do."

"I'm the captain, so I get my own chair behind you two. I also handle comms. I'll show you how that works once you've got the hang of things. Now, the piloting controls are gonna look a little familiar. The right stick lets you pitch, roll, and yaw. The left stick, the throttle, lets you thrust and reverse. The thumbstick on the throttle lets you thrust in other directions, like sideways or vertically. Handy little bugger. The trigger still fires the particle cannons, but mind you, it takes forever to charge those babies on a fusion reactor, and they still pack a hog-whallop, so don't go blasting away at things like some hotshot. We're a cargo ship, not a fighter."

"Situated in between your two seats is the interactive holographic star map. It responds to motion controls, so you can touch and swipe to see where you wanna go. Poke at a star to blow it up and see what the other planets are, and poke the star again to go back to the galaxy map. The little button at the base lets you switch to the 3D radar. Poke at any of the objects on the radar to see a detailed wireframe rendering of them, along with details like their make and model, class, speed, and direction."

"Touchscreens for both pilots let you guys manage whatever you want. You can bring up controls and displays for the weapons, shields, damage reports, fuel and energy levels, autopilot options, planetary maps, and whatnot. Or you could just use your voice. This ship's got audio-visual ports in all kinds of places, so she can hear your commands and see your gestures. I prefer that over touchy-feely stuff anyway. Don't ask her to do anything too broad or complicated, though, 'cuz she's not that smart."

"Any questions, kids?"