spoilers
She reached the cruiser and slapped the panel to open the hatch, breathing hard, every muscle and fiber burning for oxygen. Not waiting for the hatch to open all the way, she stamped down on the ramp before it made contact with the dock, straining the hydraulics so that they juddered and whined, and leapt inside.
"Good day, Officer Vi," Jayce greeted, "Cruiser startup routines initializing."
Vi threw herself into the pilot's seat, squelching mud, pristine upholstery be damned. She started flipping panel covers and punching buttons, jabbing a thumb about two dozen times against the one to bring the entrance hatch ramp back up.
"On the double, asshat," she instructed the AI, craning around in her seat to try to see if the hatch had closed yet. "Get us in the air and off this moon in the next five seconds, got it?"
There was only a sliver of bright white light left, outlining the mostly closed ramp. Close enough.
"Not sure that I can do five seconds," Jayce said, the carefully designed human-interface algorithms making him sound like he was amused by the request but would try his best. The automated voice immediately switched into no-frills emergency mode as the cruiser's main thrusters throttled from cold to full. "Entry not secured. Take off is not advised."
"Screw your advice," Vi growled, both hands on the yoke. She did one last quick glance around the display, checking that the minimum of initialization procedures were at least started, and then put her foot to the floor.
The cruiser exploded off the dock in a spray of sulphur sea, probably burning a hole straight through the pontoon's weather-eaten, recycled components. Vi felt like she was shrinking in her chair, her spine compressing, and she narrowly avoided biting clean through her tongue at the sudden application of this magnitude of G-force. She hadn't pulled a take off stunt like this since her late childhood, and it was a reminder that it was a miracle she had survived into adulthood at all.
"Hatch door sealed. Cabin pressure equalizing," Jayce told her, now sounding a little too far on the sardonic side for her liking. "Artificial gravity dampening will not be available to counteract current inertial gravity conditions until startup sequences have completed."
Her eyes were locked on the display as firmly as her gauntlets were locked on the yoke. Her pedal foot, incidentally, was locked onto the pedal, as the increased G-force of take off meant she was unable to lift it. "Fffffffffffffffffffine," Vi replied.