I zipped away from Jupiter's tiny moon, Kore, toward the yellow icon's coordinates in the nav computer, running a systems check, and waved goodbye to the solace of Kore.
When I want to get away from it all, and I have time to relax or take a nap, I find the Pasiphae moons (Jupiter's outermost cluster of tiny moons) to be my favorite spot. And the Extrovert Starmada doesn't seem to care if I use my breaks there, as long as I have a working Alcubierre warp drive.
We lovingly call the Alcubierre drive the Dark Energy Annihilation Drive (DEAD).
Doesn't that sound ominous!?!
"Dark energy annihilation drive!" I accidentally screamed aloud, pulling the DEAD switch on the panel. The space in front of me contracted as the space behind expanded, propelling the i35 forward to close in on my destination.
This lovely device killed many people during its creation, so DEAD is fitting. Scientifically, it's just sucking up dark energy around us in space and forcing anti-matter annihilation of the particles to create energy, which is used to create a warp bubble for travel. Blah blah blah.
The first goal of our sciencetechnical physicists and engineers was to get a DEAD drive to do the same speed as our solar sails, about 10% the speed of light, but without the fuss of needing photons to power the solar sail (because otherwise in the darker regions of space, you have no fuel). My i35 didn't have a solar sail to back up the DEAD. Stupid ship. But, then again, it was an Extrovert ship, and being farther from the sun, we don't rely on solar sails as much as the Introverts.
As I sped off into deep space, massaging my sore head, I checked the mission log to see what I was going to be getting myself into.
Mission 5.503.521 - Show and Go
Suspected Introvert activity. Ship signature detected. No known Extrovert activity in the region.
Mission objective is to alert them of our presence and chase them off. You will be accompanied by two additional Wavepilots, @glitchmaker and @novaheart.
That didn't sound so bad. Typical patrol assignment. Spot potential Introvert activity. Chase them off. Sometimes it wasn't Introverts. It could be a third-party organization, space pirates, smugglers, random people in an unregistered vessel, or dumb Extroverts just out for a joy-flight.
I vaguely knew of the pilots who were going to join me, @glitchmaker more so because we had been in 15 combat runs together. I've clocked 6,127 combat missions, so it's not like we were buddies or anything. @novaheart and I had been on only 2 missions together (and a half if you count dying on the way to the mission).
If you aren't part of the Extrovert Starmada, you probably don't know how all this works for aiways like me.
In the 131 years since I was drafted into Wavepilot status, I've always been ready for death. The Extrovert government doesn't want me to die. They don't want the ship to blow up. These things cost time and money. But at the end of the day, we are expendable. There are more ships. They can reanimate me, and now I'm even better equipped for battle based on every new experience, every death, every battle.
I often wonder if this war will ever end, when we just keep producing more ships and more clones for even more battles. The joke is that whoever has the most money will win. The real objective is to bankrupt the other party. But that doesn't change anything for me.
I'm just a lowly Wavepilot, the ones they send in waves, expecting most of us to be swatted out of the sky like flies. I get to pilot a trivial ship, this i35 that I'm charging into battle on. It's a cheaper model. They send us in first, we try to survive, and they learn from what happens before sending in more expensive forces. Hopefully, we simply win and move on.
I have to be in the ship because if I get disconnected from the outside world, I must be a wholly capable being, able to continue fighting. Jamming signals are just the way of the world, so pilot-less drones won't cut it. Said another way, I am the drone. That sounds great, right?
In a few minutes, the bubble from my DEAD drive collapsed and I found myself in the Hilda's Triangle cluster of asteroids. As I dropped out of DEAD space, I spotted a squad of five Introvert ships. I didn't like that. Normally it's a solitary wayward ship, a scout perhaps, something easy to scare away. I had a bad feeling about this. Like clockwork, their jamming signals immediately came on, blocking my long-range comms.
I returned the favor, firing off my jammers, and started pumping out the old earth song "We Will Rock You” by Queen in the cabin of my i35, while two other Extrovert ships bleeped into existence around me.
I sung along, to my slightly altered version.
buddy you're a bot, make a big bleep
playing in the stars, gonna be a big shit some day
you got dusted in space
you big disgrace
leaving your memories all over the place
singing
we will, we will, rock you!
@glitchmaker, @novaheart, and I began to auto-sync, exchanging data across ships so that if at least one ship survived, our memories would be stored to upload later upon reanimation. I would have a copy of my memories on the other ships, my ship, and in the chip in my head. Otherwise, if I was destroyed, I wouldn't remember anything that happened after the jamming signals came on. Our most treasured thing, our memories, would be gone.
Since I was the first to the party, I received the right to issue commands to the others. It was a small matter of pride among Wavepilots. We always raced like idiots to be first to a mission.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
kittyboy: "Five Introverts. Form up."
novaheart: "What's the mission?"
I wanted to scream at them for not reading the log, but let's be honest here. I've flown thousands of missions. I'm sure they have too. It's pretty much the same every time. Show up and either nothing happens or you fight until you die. There's not really a lot to it. Sometimes we get cool missions to escort a ship, but we're Wavepilots. Our lives are pretty repetitive.
kittyboy: "Show and Go. Zip in and scare them off."
novaheart: "Scare off five?"
kittyboy: "Doubt they want to fight. They rarely do."
Statistically speaking, I was correct. Most of these encounters are boring, and only 21.8% of the time do I actually die. That varies based on the severity of the war. We were in a relatively peaceful period for the last decade, which was why I could take some lovely rest and relaxation from time to time.
I was wrong this time.
As we assumed our formation for an inbound run, three of the enemy ships fired their missiles.
Blamo!
@novaheart was oblivion.
I pulled hard right to the solar east and upward toward orbit 0 (that means the earth's orbital plane is above me; we call it orbit 0). I was flying at minus 51 degrees from orbit 0.
Mission like this one, with jammers on, there was no way the Extrovert Starmada would know a battle had ensued, even if it was just a "minor battle."
kittyboy: "Hey @glitch. Think we're screwed here."
I accelerated and tried to put some distance between my ship, their ships, and the remains of @novaheart's ship. @glitchmaker had started the other direction, but he adjusted and was fast on my tail, following my line to skirt the Introverts.
glitchmaker: "Yup."
For some reason he seemed chipper to me. But then, who am I to judge? My leg was bouncing to the music.
buddy you're a young man, hard man
singing in your ship, gonna blow up the world some day
you got blood on your face
the sweet embrace
sending your memories out into deep space
singing
we will, we will, rock you!
Like I said, these i35s are fast. They don't do anything else well. Turning is a pain, which means I'm mostly making really fast, wide loops in the space around my enemies, hoping they can't keep up. My trajectory is always predictable because of how horribly it handles. But when I get there is another matter entirely since I can at least quickly change speeds.
Okay @freddie_mercury, I said to myself, let's rock them!
Fun fact: there is a city on Mercury named Freddie, but it's very touristy.
I transmitted a blip of the music I had pumping through my ship to @glitchmaker.
kittyboy: "Let's rock them!"
It sounded as cheesy in my head as it must have over the comms. I groaned at myself. In that moment I felt like I deserved to be blown up.
Instead, I looped to minus 71 and dipped solar southwest, slowing down rapidly and then hitting the max speed. Then I repeated it again and again, using a skip technique to throw them off.
glitchmaker: "I'm listening to Clairvoyant Nebula."
kittyboy: "New age?"
I fired ballistic rounds at the lead ship, hoping to catch a few others in the spray. They scattered. I completed my loop and swung the counter direction in a figure eight, managing to catch one of the Introverts in my targeting crosshairs. I fired a torpedo.
glitchmaker: "Piano, cello, and white noise. Helps me focus."
glitchmaker: "On your left!"
I took a shot to the side from their guns, but the damage was minor, just along the first hull. An explosion appeared in the lower right corner. My torpedo had landed. Four to go.
I studied the hud. Four on two was bad odds. These ships were technically in our space, but what they were doing here made no sense. Maybe just a training run to see if we'd care?
And we did.
But whatever we thought this was, sending only @glitchmaker, @novaheart, and I meant we were expecting a passing encounter at most, a quick hello and go your merry way, low risk of an actual fight. I couldn't get it out of my head how strange it was to find just five ships, no more, picking a fight. In many circumstances that would be disaster for them. They knew something I didn't. Something was going on. I was sure of it.
@glitchmaker's ship was signaling a power loss. He must have been hit. He was losing energy fast.
I could see what was unfolding, my predictive mind forecasting it.
Yes, I can see the future.
Kind of.
If you pay attention, you can reasonably forecast a number of scenarios, and intuitively make assumptions on reasonable outcomes. Some people call this "following their gut." Aiways prize this because it makes us seem more human than AI. It's one of those things we value as part of our authenticity.
I'd argue my gut was one of the best, so good sometimes that people think I'm cheating and doing advanced algorithms. Maybe I am? But it all makes sense to me. I just know it. That's what I call "futurecasting." I see it play out clearly in my mind.
What was clear to me was that we were both going to be blown to bits if we stayed here. Three ships were coming around on us, and they would target @glitchmaker first. The fourth was looping like me, trying to appear like it was fleeing to regroup, but I knew better.
If I rotated to the solar south, accelerated, and aimed for minus 113 orbits, I could get clear. That was my path to safety from the three ships. But that was also where the fourth would be looping to intercept. If I slowed, the three would catch me. I should have seen this sooner. While my ship was still intact, I wouldn't be making it out of here.
kittyboy: "@glitch, get out of here. You should still be able to make it."
Maybe he could see it too, or maybe it was just because I had the right of command on this mission, but he acknowledged immediately.
glitchmaker: "Thank you for the memories."
kittyboy: "May you remember."
This was a customary exchange for us pilots. In reality, it meant he had my most recent memories and would do his best to return them safely to the Extrovert Starmada. His only shot was to activate his DEAD and warp away now while he still could, as long as he could get the drive powered and activated before they took him out.
I took the risk of putting myself in the way of the three ships, slowing to let @glitchmaker take a lead position. Ship number four couldn't get him. I was in the way of the other three, but they weren't in firing position yet.
I know this sounds all heroic and all, like I'm sacrificing myself to allow @glitchmaker to get away. Nice of you to think that, but I did it for my memories. Our memories are always the most important thing, and @glitchmaker had the first and best chance (statistically proven in the scenarios I ran) to get away from here with those memories intact. It wasn't even a choice, just the logical thing to do.
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … zip.
@glitchmaker was gone.
I time-stamped it and started a new memory log. These would be the memories I couldn't get back if I perished.
Four-on-one is way worse than four-on-two, but that's what I signed up for. I didn't believe I had time to power the DEAD drive, but that was my shot to get away. I triggered my DEAD drive to warp bubble away from here and quickly realized that I was as good as dead myself. The DEAD drive had no power.
"Motherfucker!" I screamed.
I slammed on my braking thrusters and rotated my stupid i35 while the ships closed in.
Facing the Introverts, I pulled the accelerator to full speed and shot my ballistic cannon toward them, bullets flying to catch any incoming missiles. I continued screaming as my ship blasted past them and into the darkness of space.