Pretty much the only thing I like about the i35 is that it is fast. It doesn't maneuver very well, which sucks. but it's fast.

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.

I like to think that Miguel Alcubierre was thinking about bending space while eating #quesabirria and trying to decide if he could expand his stomach for just one more bite of that yummy, cheesy, meaty, brothy, fried tortilla deliciousness. If you haven't had quesabirria, you must.

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 target.

One thing I hate about humanity is that people call it the "DEAD drive," but the acronym already has "drive" in it. It should technically be the DEA drive or just the DEAD. Anyway, 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.

In a few minutes, the bubble from my DEAD drive collapsed, and I found myself in a small space battle in the Hilda's Triangle cluster of asteroids.

If you aren't part of the Extrovert Starmada, you probably don't know how all this works for aiways like me.

I'm always 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?

I say "minor battle" because as I came out of warp I spotted only a single squad of five Introvert ships. Like clockwork, the jamming signals immediately came on, blocking my long range comms.

I returned the favor and started pumping out the old earth song "We Will Rock You” by Queen, while two other Extrovert ships bleeped into existence around me.

I sung along, to my slightly altered version.

> buddy you're a boy make a big noise

> playin' in the stars gonna be a big shit some day

> you got dusted in space

> you big disgrace

> kickin' your body all over the place

> singin'

> we will, we will, rock you!

The three of us began to auto-sync, exchanging data across ships so that if at least one ship survived, our memories would be stored to upload later. I would have a copy on the other ships, my ship, and in the chip in my head. Otherwise, I wouldn't remember anything that happened after the jamming signals came on upon reanimation. The data - the memories - would be gone.

The pilots who joined me were @glitchmaker and @novaheart. I vaguely knew of them, @glitchmaker more so because we had been in six combat runs together. I've clocked 371 combat missions alone, so it's not like we were buddies or anything. @novaheart and I had been on only two missions together (and a half if you count dying on the way to the mission).

Stolen novel; please report.

I opened my comm to say hello just as three enemy ships fired their missiles.

Blammo!

@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.)

kittyboy: "Hey @glitch. Uh, we screwed here? Think we're on our own."

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 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

> singin' in the ship gonna take on the world some day

> you got blood on yo' face

> the sweet embrace

> sendin' your memories out into deep space

> singin'

> 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, let's rock them! Fun fact: there is a city on Mercury named Freddie, but it is 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 #clairvoyantnebula."

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. So go away already!

But no. 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. But these ships meant to fight. Still, I couldn't get it out of my head that it was strange 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.

@glitchmaker's ship was signaling a power loss. 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 sort of intuitively make assumptions on which are reasonable. 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.

kittyboy: "@glitch, let's get out of here. One of us should be able to make it."

glitchmaker: "Thank you for the memories."

kittyboy: "May you remember."

This was a customer 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 4 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. When I triggered my DEAD drive to warp bubble away from here, I realized I was as good as dead myself.

The DEAD drive did nothing.

Did @glitchmaker glitch me, I wondered?

"Motherfucker!" I screamed.

Whether he did or not, I was not going to remember to shoot him and ask him about it later, unless I did something quick to save myself.

I stopped. I rotated my stupid i35 while the ships closed in.

Facing the three 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 forward, passed them, and into the dark of space.