I helped my father prepare dinner. Lights flickered and the TV turned static. A few Terrans flew over the island, after several minutes of ghost appearances inside the one large room as living room, dinner table and kitchen, the electronics returned to their normal state. A news report ran in the background while I helped my father marinate chicken drums.

Then I heard something I didn’t expect, footsteps from the outside. The same footsteps mother had when walking. One leg stepped harder than the other. I washed my hands, then opened the door to face my mother.

“Valira, you’re home early.” Dad called over from the kitchen.

Her nose was wrinkled and her mouth a thin line. She was furious.

I stepped aside, avoiding the wrath of my mother was part of keeping peace in the family. She came inside without another word, yet passed by with a glance I had yet to figure out what she felt.

I closed the door behind me and helped my mother take a seat.

“They wanted me to make a choice and I have this evening off.” She answered after making herself comfortable at the table.

A choice? I twitched and my body lost all its energy and warmth. Was David’s condition that bad? Could he not make it through and get well soon? Or was he doomed to stay asleep until he eventually was dependent on life support.

Dad finished cooking, while I hopped over to the kitchen to bring the food to the table.

Then he asked about it. “What choice?” He took a seat at the table.

I sat down as well. Then I noticed, mother took a drum without the evening prayers. “They want another pilot from our family. And I have to choose who.”

Dad prayed, then continued. “One of us is already in a coma and I’m not allowed to visit. Can he at least stay in the Monte Bianco clinic?”

“The base has the best medical equipment, we are not transferring David to a worse doctor. And it's your fault that you can’t visit the base and David.”

I knew where this was going. This happened every now and then when dad had been angry about the army and their choices. But when it happened, I was somewhere else. Not while dinner.

“Are you telling me, the army made a good choice? You know what I think about all of this, but you wanted to keep going. Losing one family member wasn’t enough. Now it has to be your own son – ” Dad didn’t scream. He was quiet. Like the quiet before a storm. “Our son.”

My stomach twisted and grew chaotic. I wanted to get out of here. I hated this. The fighting in the family.

Mother raised her voice. “Army is evil and bad. That's what you always say. But we need a place to live and the cost of it is pilots.”

“An instructor? A tactician in training? A veteran who served. It's never enough for them. Have you thought that soldiers are just like bullets for them?”

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“Julius!” Mother pitched her voice at its highest. “You don’t kn –”

I slammed my hands on the table and stood up. I picked my plate and turned my back to them. Every Time they had to speak about us being pilots, dad got furious. Mother kept defending the army and dad lost a lot thanks to them.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

I stopped, turned around a bit. “I will eat in my room.” I didn’t want to witness my parents fight again.

“You won't. You will stay here.”

“Let her eat in her room.”

“No, I will need to talk to her.”

“Can't wait after dinner?”

“No, it is important. Now, sit down.” Mother pointed at my seat.

I sat down, knowing her choice already. My body trembled and revolted against speaking up to my mother. But I tensed up and finally asked. “Do you expect me to pilot?”

“Of course. You have experience in piloting and –”

Dad scoffed at her remark and kept eating in silence. He lost his will.

Mother stopped, faced dad and turned her attention to me again. “You will be tested again. But not at school. You come to base and get tested tomorrow.”

What? I stared at her. Then I saw myself in the same cockpit three years ago. I didn’t remember much from when it happened. Rain, the sea and our mock battle partner. Just as I pushed three buttons on the right control gauntlet to grab the flag of our target, my mind wandered off. Then the last thing I knew was that I woke up in the infirmary.

My body turned cold and stiff.

A test in school meant one thing. A mock cockpit with a small powersource and no Terran to control. But a test in the East base meant one thing. One problem. I dropped the silverware I held firmly and muttered. “I can’t.” I saw the blood run down from my mother’s scalp, her arm broken. Broken armor pieces of a Terran V1 scattered around, filling up the living room and steaming.

I blinked. Everything was gone.

“You have no choice.” Mother answered. “I can’t pilot. Your father refuses and you are the only one who still can. I signed you up.”

I jumped up and mumbled. “There was no choice to begin with.” Then I rushed upstairs, without finishing my food. Mother yelled at me to stay, but I didn’t hear her follow.

I threw myself into bed, rolling left and right until my earring pinched me as I was stuck to my blanket. It pinched the first time as well. He didn’t give it to me until the last day of his stay. The fourth and fifth night of my visit, he didn’t come out of the Monocero. I waited hopefully to talk with him more. He didn’t even give me his name. I laid down on the sixth night, hoping he would come out. But after one hour with the only company of a, probably, fully armed Monocero, I started to lose hope. Almost three evenings in a row he didn’t talk. He didn’t seem to eat, drink or was in need of some toilet. Maybe his machine provided all of it.

As I got closer to get a better look of it, I noticed that his Monoceros armor had the same pattern as his suit. Or the other way around. But both stuck closely to the body and further emphasized the silhouette. Then I looked at the crystal nape where he always came from. The location of the cockpit was the same as the Terran’s except that we didn’t use the crystal as a cockpit. Nor would I know how to even hollow out the inside to put in the machinery. The Monocero also appeared more organic unlike any Terran version I saw. More a tall human than a robot controlled by its heart and mind. I wondered if they also needed two pilots to control one of those. But then why would the other pilot never leave? In case one Terran would notice an invisible Monocero? Impossible. They would’ve sent combatants out then to bully one Monocero out. So how was this one completely invisible to our scanners while I could trace its silhouette from a few meters away. Notice an abnormal shooting star in the middle of the night and just half a meter away I can see through it a bit more. How could any long distance scanner from the base oversee it while I saw it with my naked eye.

But then as I hovered my finger above the crystal, a hand emerged from it and grabbed my hand. He stuck out his head.