WAN! WAN! WAN!

The proximity alarms blared in my helmet as I hurtled into the intersecting vector of my target.

“Alpha three, take Alpha six and seven and pass below. Aim for their hangers, TA tells me they have a main conduit passing through there” I shouted into the comm as flak charges detonated 200 meters off my port side. “Alpha two, four, and five, you’re with me topside. Keep close and follow my lead. I’ll flag our targets as I see them”

“Roger, Alpha One,” came the unified response from my wing.

The target, an [Enemy] torchship, appeared on my sensors as a tiny dot at this distance. It was already lobbing kinetic death our way, as our bright rocket flares were clearly visible to it even at three hundred thousand kilometers. That sphere of death and destruction needed to be impaired before it reached the fleet line, else it would wreak havoc on our carriers.

Our fusion engines propelled us towards the enemy ship like streaking flares across the deep dark of space, occasional flashes indicating where a kinetic frag exploded nearby. The flowering flak flooded space as we sped in on the target going hundreds of kilometers a second. The attack was going to take the briefest of moments, our paths intersecting and weapons deploying in the barest of instants.

Suddenly a whine hit my ears as Alpha four perished in an unlucky direct hit. At the speeds we were moving hitting a solid mass was the equivalent of several times our mass in TNT if what we hit is standing still. At the relative velocity of the projectile, Alpha four atomized instantly.

“Shit, tighten up your reflexes boys. You might have a split instant to adjust course from the moment sensors tell you about incoming.” I told my pilots. “Trust your Piloting, it’ll let you know.”

The System enhanced us by giving us momentary peaks into the future, letting us know where various bodies would be ahead of our mental estimation. It wasn't much more than a solid impression of trajectory, but with the speeds our battles were fought at it gave us a fighting chance.

Closing in to under a hundred thousand kilometers, I began to mark the critical points for the spinal particle cannon their torchship had. “Alpha two, five, take these points. We’re saving the fleet boys!”

I pressed the pitch thrusters, turning me so the front of my fighter would pass directly over the torchship and launched my shaped nuclear charge. It hurtled away, accelerating down towards where the ship would be in the briefest of moments, reaching a gross velocity more than thirty thousand kilometers a second in that time. I finished my turn pointing back the way I had come and punching the throttle to max, quickly decelerating me to zero and crushing my chest as I picked up speed back towards home. The 10gs of acceleration was painful, but with my practice in the chair it was tolerable. Many other fresh pilots couldn't take that much and had limits set to reduce the strain on their body and mind.

“Pilots check in,” I ordered, unable to clearly consult my HUD after the acceleration, blood still rushing to my eyes.

“Alpha two, tailing.” A long moment passed. “Alpha seven, here.”

Only two? I kept quiet, but that was a disappointing number. I couldn’t berate the fallen till they respawned and the successful deserved congratulations. We weren't really in space, but in a sophisticated virtual reality that emulated space, called by those within it the System.

I glanced at my sensors to check the damage report. Several holes were quickly venting atmosphere and other materials from the torchship. Our Lances had struck violently with focused beams of nuclear energy searing holes through the ship's tough carapace.

Only thirty seconds had passed but our slightly orthogonal paths put us light seconds apart. All the information I received was already seconds old before I even looked at it because it had to creep along at the lethargic speed of light.

“At 600 kilometers a second, cut throttle.” I told them, following my own instructions after another thirty seconds.

That was the mission, to hit that ship with a crippling lancer strike, then rendezvous with the backup carrier following a different path to the main fleet. Thankfully once we were more than a few light seconds away from the torchship it lacked any method of projecting fire at us from those ranges.

Relaxing back into my seat, I brought up my status checking my skills

Name: Dwayne Starflight

Current Role: Pilot

Rank: 2

Agility 7

Coordination 11

Small Ship Gunnery 2

    Talents: Firing Stability, Targeting Reticle

Pilot 4

    Talents: Flight Stability, Precognition

Reasoning 9

    Science 4

        Talents: Maneuvers (Strafing Runs, Vectored Thrusting, Multiple Axis of Throttle)

Tactics 2

    Talents: Weak point identification, Intel analysis (4.2 minutes)

Emotional Intelligence 7

    Command 1

Strength 8

XP: 100

I closed the sheet after checking my core stats, not desiring to spend time on the universal skills. Those wouldn’t have changed from this engagement. I was hoping to have earned my squad this battle, but with only two returning I doubted I would get it.

Sipping water from inside my helmet, I drifted along at almost twenty times the speed of sound, I put on a new playlist let the craft take me home.

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The bar was loud but not intolerable. I found the low table my friends were at and joined them taking a hose from one and taking a long draw from the hookah as I waved a greeting. A long day of unsatisfying work it was time to unwind.

“How’s it going, Dwayne?” My friend Howard asked, taking a sip of his drink.

Letting out my deep drag in a cone like a dragon, I sighed and shrugged. “Work is boring, pointless and fruitless.”

“I hear that. Have you heard about the new VR Simulation company that’s working on that space program thing?”

“Yeah, ‘The System’ they’re calling it, right? I heard they’re accepting candidates for testing. Something about long term dives into simulated environments and sustaining a person in a dream state.”

Lee chimed in, “yeah I heard that it’s part of some defense contract. Big military budget going into it.”

“That’s cool. I wonder what the qualifications for candidacy are…” I took another pull, listening to the hookah bubble as I filled my lungs with the sweet fruity flavor. “What flavor is this?”

“Space Destiny. It’s a blend of watermelon, strawberry, and kiwi.” Howard motioned for the hose and I passed it over.

Lee looked up from his phone. “So I just pulled it up. They’re looking for adults, ages 25-40, good health, no heart or lung issues, preferably educated. It looks like they’ll even pay you some amount to be a part of the test.”

“No kidding. I should look into it. It’s got to be more rewarding than my current job.” I smiled wryly and gestured for the hose again, musing about my job’s reaction to me telling them I was going to be unavailable for the ‘foreseeable future’ as I took a drag.

Waking from a nap I hadn’t realized I was taking, I noted the time and sent a wake up to my fellow pilots.

“Wake up boys, it’s time to bring us home.” I called out, pitching my bird over and hitting the thrust to cut velocity as we approached the carrier. Decelerating, I guided my craft into the docking intercept. Computer guidance took over and I let go of the controls as the fighter joined and docked.

A hatch opened below, and my pod lowered down and out. I undid my restraints and got out of the grav couch and stepped into the airlock. Pressure flooded the room and I removed my helmet, setting it in my locker along the wall. Getting into my uniform, I watched the fight recording with one eye to prepare for my debriefing. Command is not going to be happy about the casualty level for the mission, but I couldn’t see what I could have done better. That enemy was a battle cruiser type torch ship and had some crazy point defenses.

I left the airlock/locker room and walked down a short hall to the ready room. Taking a seat at one of the stations, I waited for the other members of the wing and began making annotations to the recording about the mistakes made by every member, including myself. I wasn’t perfect and wasn’t about to fail in the most basic part of being in command: know yourself.

The other two came in and pulled up their recordings as well, but I paid them little mind. Space combat was prolonged periods of waiting and short periods of very intense action. Fighter combat was that, but even worse. Our lancer fighters had less than a second of engagement time for deploying our nuclear lances, surrounded by seconds of dodging flak and point defenses.

The Squadron Commander, Lukas Viola, walked into the room and the three of us snapped to our feet and saluted. “Only of three of you made it back, that’s disappointing-”

“I take full responsibility,” I spoke quickly standing rigidly.

“-however, five of your lances successfully made impact. Their cannon should be out of commission for the coming engagement in an hour.” He smiled at the three of us. “Good work pilots, at ease. Let’s go through the events and find the ways we can improve.”

Hours later, I stepped out of the shower, drying my hair. The debriefing had been long and intense, but I hadn’t done that poorly in leading my men. I dressed in my uniform, Kevlar laminated fabric utilities, and headed to the barracks bay. “Gentlemen. Time to hit the simulators.”

Two groans answered me as Alpha Two, Gwayne, and Alpha Seven, Daren, rolled out of their bunks. I had seniority and they both knew it, but that didn’t make them happy about getting back in the seat.

“We lost four of seven. We’re going to do better next time, and all come home. That means drilling until we don’t make any mistakes.” I led the way to the simulator bay.

“But we just got back to the barracks. We’ve been running for the last twelve hours.” Gwayne complained.

“Do you think the enemy cares? We’re at war Pilot. Time to get busy!” I slid into my training pod and began strapping in as it closed around me. I flipped through scenarios until I got to one of the ones I struggled with: Destroyer Flotilla in an asteroid cloud. I slipped the practice helmet on, “Ready up.”

“Alpha two, ready.” “Alpha seven, ready.” Their exhaustion was evident, but I couldn’t afford to go easy on them.

We dropped into the cloud already moving quickly. I burst right, sliding along the surface of a slow spinning rock. “We’re after a destroyer flotilla, ships specialized as anti-fighter defenses.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Not at all, Alpha two. Button up the chatter, I’m going to lay out the plan.”

Minutes later, we were skimming along a massive rock, closing on one of the straggling destroyers. They knew we were in the area, our emissions lit up our trail like a campfire in the night, but they hadn’t gotten line of sight on us and we were already within engagement range.

Cresting the edge, the juicy target came into view and each of us let a bird fly. Immediately hitting the throttle, we sped away at an orthogonal trajectory at a full burn. The destroyer launcher a full spread of chaff and flak, but it was too late. Our lances hit dead on and white lines of fire projected straight into the hull of the lightly armored ship, burning clean through. One of the lances ignited a fuel tank and the entire vessel exploded a moment later, filling the area with hot atomized matter.

We cut thrust and coasted between another two asteroids, our trajectory would put us near the path of the second destroyer in about a minute. A new lance rolled into the accelerator barrel for each fighter. “Just like before team. Shouldn’t be any different. The plasma cloud will cover our approach.”

Vectoring so that we’d have the destroyer in our sights as we crossed the plane she was travelling on, we waited the tense few seconds as our velocity took us towards her. We closed in, but she was ready for us. Chemical rockets began to ignite all around us, homing in on our hot bodies.

“Launch, launch, launch!” I yelled, sending my lance in the direction of the destroyer before changing the vector of primary thrust and punching it, spiking up to 20gs for the moment it would take to kill my previous vectors and then easing back down vectoring at an orthogonal course at 10gs. My HUD displayed the missiles hearing towards me and my wing mates as I tore off like a bat out of hell.

A flash on my HUD told me that the destroyer had been annihilated, but we were still in hot water. The third destroyer would be vectoring in on us and we had several tenacious tails. I began to adjust to put myself on an intercept with the destroyer.

“I’ve got a plan, keep cool and follow my lead.” I punched the accelerator again as their acknowledgements came over the comms.

The three of us were pushing our human limits for acceleration as we hurtled between asteroids. The missiles, not suffering the vulnerabilities of flesh, kept gaining on us.

“We’re going to pass within spitting distance of the destroyer. Be ready to drop your lances just as we close.” I instructed, watching the anticipated course of the destroyer. It kept adjusting to intercepted sooner and sooner.

Cruising across the surface of a massive planetoid, the vessel came into view. I throttled up even more, relying on delays in their systems to clear the point defenses as we closed at near relativistic speeds passing within a kilometer of the destroyer.

Flipping about, we began to decelerate rapidly, blood trickling out my nose and eyes as I pressed the launch on the lancers, holding it down to empty all my tubes. The lances streaked out of our tubes, attempting to gain on the destroyer, just as return fire from the destroyer riddled our fighters, shredding us.

The screen went black, then a green mission result came up. Mission success, survivors 0/3, casualties, 3/3. I reached up to mop my face of the blood on my face as my seat rolled back, letting me out of the pod. I unstrapped slowly, feeling the blood coming back to my limbs. Sure, it was only a simulation, but localized gravity fields we used in the pods to maximize the realism in the training. The system designers were committed to realism as much as possible.

A minute later, my wingmen came out of their pods, one of them covered in his meal. “Get cleaned up and meet me in the classroom.”

I hit the showers too, washing the blood and sweat from my body. It was a really impressive job, this experience. The realism was intense. I knew the direct neural link was a recent technology and that the team making this experience was small, but their dedication to every detail was amazing. Everything was so real, the shower, the physics, the interfaces. Impressed, I dressed and headed to the classroom to teach these greens about why we fight the way we do.