Remember the Starfighter (3 page)

We miss you Julian.

The girls hope to see you again. Catherine is five now, and Rehana is already three-and-half. Next time you visit, it would be great if you could bring them some gifts. They loved that Anium chocolate you brought last time.

I haven’t heard from you for much too long. I tried calling you in the past, but I could never reach you. I know things have been difficult. It’s been difficult for everyone, but especially you. Mom and Dad are still here, helping to take care of the kids, and they’re doing fine. Your brother Darien has been working hard in the government, and last month he was promoted. As for me, it’s been pretty stressful I have to admit. My unit has been trying to synthesize a new kind of Tricaline for use, but we are still behind schedule. It’s forced me to put extra hours in the labs. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it done.

Things on Haven haven’t really changed. They’ve stopped a lot of the rationing, and the protests have died down a bit. Even though it’s about a decade away, they’ve started signing people up to take colony ships. My unit might make the transfer to Isen as part of a new weapons plant, but it’s still too soon to say.  

Anyways, you must come visit when you have the time. Even a call will do. It would make me, and the rest of the family feel a lot better. We’re always here for you. You’re not alone brother. I worry about you a lot. So please call if you can.

Your sister,

Angela

Julian closed the message, its contents dimming away into darkness as the three-dimensional hologram shutdown. The message had been two months old, but only now did Julian read the words. He rubbed his brow while closing his eyes, the needle of longing picking into his thoughts.

He was alone now, once again, sitting inside his quarters on board the orbital space station. Cramped was his room: a bed, washroom, and storage space tightly tucked together and shelved between long columns of other living quarters. It was plain, and lifeless, nothing of sentimental value, all merely just functional. He had no need for such material goods, no need to remind himself of his past. Soon he turned off the lights with an order from his voice, and lay on his bed, his body fatigued from the alcohol and the events of the day.

Julian then took a final glance at the window to his room, where a field of stars hung in the view. 29 light-years away was where his sister and family was, on Haven, the home system. It had been over two years since he had set foot on the planet. His youth and upbringing had all started there. But Julian had little interest in returning. He instead found himself out here, in another star system. His new so-called home: Meridian station, a key outpost of Haven’s military.

The air was synthesized, the gravity artificial, and much of the food he ate came fabricated, never cooked. These were the comforts of living in space, everything entirely manufactured. Below Meridian station orbited the desolate planet of Eras. There, the government had established mining and weapons facilities, much of it automated by robotics. The raw minerals and manufactured equipment were then sent above to the station, which served as a supply depot and shipyard. Each day, Julian made his tiny contribution, transporting containers to and fro from station to ship. For almost two years he had done this, thinking little about life and just doing.

But soon that would all change. In spite of his past fallings, the military was calling him back. The war was coming.

He felt the sensation, the pain burning through his mind. Drips of blood fell from his nostrils, and down to his chin. Rather than wipe it away, Julian massaged the side of his head, and warily remembered where this all began. The old wound would fester, as it always had. It would not let him forget.

She placed the bandage on the wound, and let it work.

Settling on the skin, the patch of white fiber latched on, covering the cut at his forehead. In a few seconds, the microscopic machines under it would begin rebuilding the tissue.

“This should make the pain all go away,” she said.

She called herself Nalia, a lieutenant in the military. He had seen many officers on Meridian station in the two years he had worked there. But never her. She was focused and carried herself confidently. Julian, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel utterly tired from everything they had just gone through.

He guessed some had survived the attack on Meridian, although surely many had died. The station had more than 500 people on board. 

“These bandages will have to do until we can get you to a functioning medical bay,” Nalia said. “There’s not much here I can work with.”

She waved her hand at the equipment. The Crusader’s med bay was nearly barren, only a pair of examination tables left standing in the vacant room. Basic medical kits, however, were still in stock.

Julian pushed himself off the examination table; his bloodied clothes were now changed into a spare gray uniform. He touched his ribs, feeling the outline of the bandages around his cracked bones.

“I don’t know how we survived that.”

“Neither do I,” Nalia replied. “I’m just glad I bumped into you. Else I’m not sure I’d be able to pilot this ship.”             

“No,” he said. “I’d be dead if not for you, lieutenant.”

“No need for the formalities. Nalia will do.”

She walked off, moving to sit on a chair nearby. Minutes ago, she had cleaned herself up, washing away the smears across her hands and cheek. While the enemy’s attack had been brutal, she appeared unfazed by the trauma. The mark of a veteran, even as she was young, perhaps no older than himself. SpaceCore Intelligence had always been known to recruit from the best and the brightest. In Julian’s experience, most were no-nonsense, and rarely social. This woman, however, was something different.

“What a total clusterfuck,” she said. Nalia groaned as she spun in the swivel chair.

“The Endervars attack and wipe out Meridian and our weapons plant on Eras. Strategic command didn’t even see it coming.”

“What happened back there?” Julian asked. “Why are the Endervars here? Didn’t the military projections put their arrival to this sector in another half-century?”

“Officially, yes,” she said. “But just in the last few years, we’ve seen the Endervars aggressively expand into this region of space. We count thousands of ships, maybe more. We have no idea why, only that they’re clearly on the search for more sentient life.”

“So the rumors are true then,” he said. “That’s why I was called back into duty. I was scheduled to report to Haven’s military command. But then this all happened.”

She chuckled at the irony. “Well, we’re headed there now,” she said. “I was originally stationed on the Avenger, but was transferred to Meridian to help lead operations there. My big promotion.”

“The enemy ended that.”             

“True, but I aim to see we deliver some payback. SpaceCore is assembling a fleet with the help of the Alliance. It will be our biggest operation yet. We aim to beat those bastards back where they came from.”

The woman pounded her fist on her knee. He could see the excitement mixed in with grief brim through her eyes. Perhaps it was holding back an anger at seeing such a huge loss at the hands of the enemy. The disappointments with the military and the SpaceCore were always abundant, with victories few and far between.

“So what brought you out to Meridian?” she asked. “I hope you didn’t lose any friends back there.”

The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Friends, he had none on Meridian, except maybe a few acquaintances, Mac the bartender, being one of them. What had become of him, Julian didn’t dare to envision. He had no connections with that place, nothing but his job. He could only feign his sentiments, saying he hoped most of its crew had escaped.

“I just came there for the work. It was easy, nothing too hard.”

“I guess that’s gone now,” she said. “This war seems to ruin everything, doesn’t it?”

He stared down at the floor, slowly nodding to the woman’s comment.

“You should rest. I’ll take you to a room, where you can lie down. It’ll be a short while or so before we reach Haven.”

She was right. He was exhausted. Julian rose to his feet and Nalia came to his side, interlinking her arms with his.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Julian,” she said. “When the shit hits the fan, somehow you still end up meeting good people.”

He had been shot. The blood everywhere. In his eyes, even in his mouth. His vision red; his brain matter was scattered about. A hole passing in and out of his head. His body about to collapse.

It was a nightmare, one that left Julian shaking from the bed. He rose from the thin mattress, his heart rate racing, like his body was trying to stay alive. He told himself it was just a dream. A figment of the imagination. Out of his control. But the lie would never take hold. This was an actual memory. A broken shard of one, the images a flashback — so graphic and real. The past incident perhaps altering his mind for the worse. 

Julian felt sick. He wanted to run away. Hide like a scared child. But as his senses came to, he realized that he already had. He had been discharged from the military over three years ago. Exiled into a different kind of work, disgraced. A washed-up pilot running freighters, in a floating warehouse, he had no attachment to.

He left the bed, and ran his hands into a nearby sink inside the personal quarters. 

As the cold water hit his face, Julian couldn’t help but remember. The call to evacuate, the emergency alarms, and the erratic rumbling across Meridian station. A muted scream of an unlucky engineer sucked out into space. The empty void wanting to claim him too. Images of the dead ships all flooded into his mind. And suddenly, those distant memories, filled with violence, appeared as well. He now saw himself again, dying on the floor, the back of his head punctured, the guts bleeding out.

Why? Why did I do it?

Julian’s hands jerked, clasping together to stop the shaking. The physical pain in his body had largely disappeared, but Julian shrank as the trauma came knocking into his mind. He could only hold on to the sides of the sink, clutching them tight, when the reality of the nightmare reared its ugly head. Julian sucked in the air, as the long sigh then came from his breath. Already, he could feel it. The nose bleed aggravating once more.

“Shit,” he said, the red rivering down to his lips. Julian then thought back to the lieutenant and what she had said earlier. Indeed, this war had ruined everything, especially him.

Hyperspace, the means in which interstellar travel was possible, throbbed in the distance. The violet hues in the background, beating like a living heart. 

Cosmic light waxed and waned across the Crusader as it navigated through the milky medium. Peering at it was like being submerged in an ocean of exotic space, waves of stars glistening across the expanse. Scientists from across the galaxy had yet to fully understand the phenomenon. But without it, space-faring races would be forced to spend decades, if not centuries or millennia traveling by means bound more closely to the physical laws of the universe. Hyperspace provided that alternative: where gravitational fields were weak, a ship in any star system could open a gateway into a realm that folded space and time. And through it, the almost infinite distances between stars could be reached within weeks, to days, and even hours.

Although Nalia had told him to rest, Julian could not sleep. He stood on the bridge of the Crusader, looking out from a window into the strange emptiness that stared back at him. In a few moments, the veil of hyperspace would recede, and in its place would be the Haven star system, his true home.  

What would he say to them? Julian kept circling the question, trying to find the courage to answer. His sister, his brother, his parents, they were all there on Haven, having heard nothing of him for more than a year. Things had moved so fast, the pressure making it difficult to think. But he knew it full well: this might be his last chance to see them. If not now, then perhaps never.

“Julian, are you okay?”

She approached to his side, wondering what he was looking at. “You seemed to have spaced out,” Nalia said.

“It’s just been a while since I’ve last seen Haven.”

“Me too. I’ve been out in the dark for the last four years. I’m sure you’ll get some time to visit.”

“I bet I’m going to have to report to duty soon,” he replied. “Not much time.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” she said. “Any free time you get, try to enjoy it while you can.”

Nalia’s voice was calm as she tried to lift Julian’s spirits. He realized he had nothing to complain about. He was alive, thanks to this woman.

“What will happen to you?” he asked

“I imagine I’ll be stationed at SpaceCore Command, planning our counterattacks. A lot of strategy sessions and meetings with the higher-ups will ensue, leaving me with piles of reports to go through.”

“Well I hope you tell command to cut down on those Lucifer orders,” he joked.

She laughed, giving him a lighthearted salute. “Will do.”

“You’re a good pilot Julian. You work quick. Kick some ass for me when you’re out there.”

He saluted back.

Julian then dropped into the pilot seat. The ship’s computer showed that they had closed in on their destination. Using the navigation controls, he calculated a trajectory back into normal space. Re-entry would bring the vessel close to Worthy Station, SpaceCore’s largest orbital facility. Located on the edge of the star system, it was the major staging ground for his people’s military operations.

“Re-entry point calculated,” he said to Nalia. “Commencing synch with normal space.”

As Julian inputted the orders, the Crusader’s hyperspace drive energized, emitting a gravitational field around the ship that lasted over a span of minutes. The pull generated by the vessel immediately counteracted with the cosmic energies that made up hyperspace. A tremor vibrated through the ship, as the stability of the area around it fractured. The Crusader’s connection to hyperspace began to sever, pulling the ship back into the normal physical laws.

On the bridge, Julian could see the transformation. The Crusader’s surroundings flickered in a white glow. Seconds later, the shroud lifted, revealing what lie in wait.             

Julian still recollected the sight of Worthy Station. Along with ranking as the military’s largest orbital facility, it was also the oldest and comprised of an expanding patchwork of space modules. Decade after decade, it had grown, making it resemble a giant interlocking chain of parts. Worthy Station was hardly appealing to the eye. But within the confines housed some of the SpaceCore’s top military commanders, in addition to the most advanced technology mankind had in its possession. It would likely be there, where Julian would receive his first orders. Just like he had, years before.

However, as the Crusader emerged into normal space, Julian could see what Worthy Station had become.

He saw no patchwork of modules, or any military monument on display. There was only the debris field in front of them, the fortress of humanity cut to pieces.