2.

2.

Jack listened intently to his instructor's directions with the rest of his class. It was lab day and they were all excited for the coming flight.

"I need everyone to stop in at medical and check on your clone before heading out. If you haven't upgraded since Christmas break, you may need to. I know nobody here wants to lose a semester of course work and studying because they failed to upgrade."

Jack found out his clone was up to date as he checked in to medical. He saw his clone floating in the vat of green mucus in a room full of others, ready to be activated if he were to be shot down and his escape pod destroyed. It was a strange thing to think about- dying. But thanks to technological advances in the stem cell research and infomorph psychology, nobody had to worry about death anymore if they had the ISK. Being a capsuleer or the child of one almost always meant you had the necessary funds.

Jack headed to hanger number three- his ship hangar. He could hear his classmates chattering on his headset about the upcoming flight; everyone was excited. He turned the volume down to heard his boots padding on the catwalk as he approached the hangar. He could feel his heartbeat and hands get warm with anticipation. He was born to pilot star ships.

As he rounded the corner, he saw his Venture hovering in the hangar. Magnetometrics allowed his ship to stay in a perfect position for maintenance and capsule boarding. Hangars were a work of modern miracles. All were autonomous and kept organized by their pilots preference of type or alphabetical order of items inside. 

Jack loved his ship. He was the first student to pilot his ship, as was the rest of his class to theirs. The Venture was a relatively new ship in New Eden. It was much smaller, maneuverable and affordable than Procurers, which were being used for training before Ventures came around. Jack's class was the first class to be issued the Ventures by their school, The Science and Trade Institute, located in the Amsen solar system. Ventures were small ships, frigate sized. They were yellow in color and had two storage stems protruding from the main cabin. They could hold a good amount of raw ore, but were slow to pull it in because they lacked the strip miner technology of exhumers. Each student was allowed to put whatever modules they wanted on their ships, so long as they were approved by their instructors. Jack fit two mining modules, a salvaging module, two small shield extenders, a microwarp drive and a warp core stabilizer on his ship. He also was able to fit two mining drones in his drone bay which he was happy to have. His mining modules were to pull ore from asteroids- as were his mining drones. His shield extenders allowed him to sustain a little more damage in case something were to go incredibly wrong. He decided on a microwarp drive for maximum speed to get out ahead of his classmates and reach the most dense asteroids to make the most of his time in the lab. Lastly, he had a warp core stabilizer for safety. If his warp core were to be scrambled by a ship, he could still escape. Students were not allowed to fit weapons on their ships until they graduated Industrialist school and completed Caldari Military school. Jack had no interest in military school, he only wanted to become an Industrialist and make his parents proud. 

He walked into the rear of his slick, green, egg shaped capsule. The door shut and sealed behind him. He heard his instructor come over the microphone and turned his volume back up. All students' conversations were cut off as the instructor spoke, "Students, we are headed to solar system Malkalen. Once we are in system and a belt has been cleared and deemed plentiful, I will give you the belt coordinates to warp to. I expect everyone to fly safely and fly together. This will be a graded lab session. Local Gurista pirates have not been spotted in the Malkalen system for more than a week; we should be all clear. Keep the chatter down in the classroom communications channel. You are clear to board Ventures and undock."

Jack heard his headset chime in, "Malric channel three. Malric channel three. Malric chann...". Jack switched to channel three and syncronized his headset to his capsule.

"What's up Malric?" Jack said playfully.

"You ready to go?", Malric's voice echoed from Jack's speaker system.

Jack responded with confidence, "Aren't I always?".

"Boarding sequence activated." Jack heard as he began pressing buttons on the piloting panel. The piloting panel was a series of LCD screens and dials. He had his yaw, pitch and roll control panels under his hands at all times. They lit up with bright color and had wheels to select degree of each property on the LCD screen. Controls for his individual modules were programmable but Jack liked to have them distributed between the left and right side of his ship navigation controls for maximum availability.

His Venture loading door opened. His capsule slid in the back of the star ship and locked into place. The door sealed behind him as his ship was tracked out to the exit of the space station on autopilot. He saw his classmates undocking in a mass group of Ventures. Jack's ship slid into line and exited the station.

"Autopilot disabled." His ship sounded, and Jack had control.