The Cockpit

The bridge is what Concord shipwrights imagined for human pilots: wraparound console, analog toggles, CRT-adjacent screens, and a viewport sliced into heavy panes that rattle on thrust. The Verdigris never got a glass-cockpit refit — bounty margins don't allow it, and Ivan says he trusts levers you can feel when the lane traffic lies.

Two seats. Left is pilot — worn leather, scuff marks, a thermos slot Ivan carved himself. Right is co-seat — same frame, but draped with a woven Karthun cool-weave throw Talyra insisted on after her first all-night watch: Concord's human-standard climate runs too warm for an ice-world body, and recycled air dries her sinuses wrong. The weave is not for warmth — it pulls heat off silver fur the way Karthunai use it at home. Above the glass: crystal bobbles and beads Elias hung for "lane luck" (Ivan tolerates them; Talyra ducks). A dashboard plant trails vines toward the radar dish — Elias's compromise with life-magic superstition.

Flying the Verdigris is work, not heroics. Class II mass means CGC tariffs every jump, manifest fees, fuel dock charges — the cockpit is where those numbers become real when the clearance chit won't scan.

Twin pilot seats in worn brown leather facing a multi-pane viewport — planet glare on the right, stars and faint nebula on the left. Dense analog console: amber and green button lights, a circular green radar, lever-style throttles, exposed wiring in the ceiling ribs. Personal clutter: crystal hanging charms, a small figurine on the dash, a potted vine trailing down the console, metal mug in the co-seat rail, Karthun cool-weave throw on the co-seat back. A bulkhead lantern on the left wall. Grated metal floor. Lived-in, greasy, functional.

₡180/week amortized — basic nav data, lane updates, bounty-board ping subscription share. Per jump: +₡2,100–₡2,800 route tariff, +₡350 fuel dock, +₡120 manifest (see economy doc). Not cockpit-local, but this is where you pay it.

Ivan — primary pilot, thermos, disciplined pre-flight. Talyra — backup pilot, co-seat cool-weave, garden-pressure aux monitor she installed. Elias — lane charms and trailing plant; comms and engine telemetry from the aux panel — never the levers.