Fiction: A Fragment? · The Gaming Outpost

Drifting. Drifting through the blackness. The memory of Marieta, her voice, her image, her smell, floating through my mind.

"Hi! My name is Marieta, I'm a friend of Carl's sister."

It's been love from the first moment. True love, not lust.

"Yes, I will."

Collision alert, collision alert, collision alert.

The automatic system jerks the forward thrusters into action. The whole structure screams from stress as the ship evades the potentially dangerous situation.

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssss

The soft hissing of the life support system infiltrates my mind, slowly penetrating the barrier of unconciousness.

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssss

Starting barely audible, it slowly gets louder until it fills my mind like my life depends on it. Ha. No pun intended. Didn't even notice the double meaning of my words until the thought already had passed away into oblivion. Where do thoughts go when they are thought? A quiet realm of their own? Or do they become mere energy, photons speeding through empty space into eternity? I like this thought. It would lend a nothing of eternity to even the unimportant.

Slowly the pictures come back. No, not Marieta anymore, but monitors flickering in the near darkness of empty space. Damage Control reports a minor hull fracture, probably from the automated evasion maneuver, must have been a near miss. The fight takes place more than 60 kilometres away now. I seem to have been unconcious for nine, ten seconds. As I haul the ship around in a wide arc to get back into action, the blinding light of an explosion fills my vision for a moment. A second later another ship bursts silently, in a ball of blue and orange fire. Poor sucker. Killed himself the moment he shot at the enemy; nothing will stop splinters of aluminum from penetrating the hull if they hit you at 50.000 kilometres per hour.

As I activate the railguns, the soft hissing that fills the ship becomes a loud humming from the electricity that flows through the magnets; with a soft stuttering sound the bullets leave the cannon. Wish you luck.

Another swift maneuver; he really tried to kill me off by melting my windscreen with a phased high-energy laser! "I'm not that dumb, hear me?" ... of course not ... Anyway, the weapon's tracking system won't get a lock for a while.

Unidentified vessels at 130.1, 08.5, distance 300, relative speed 16.280,

"Be quiet, damn thing!" More bogeymen coming, as if five of them weren't enough, oh shit oh shit oh shit, Marieta, seems you'll be waiting in vain today. All this seems as senseless now as it did make sense all these last years. That day in the park, remember? We'll it wasn't exactly summer, but the golden light of one of the last warm days filtered through the leaves of the trees, now I got you, you bastard, two rockets will suffice. See you later today! You and me walking through a golden age, or so it seemed to me; these two hours changed all my life, all my beliefs. Wouldn't have thought a moment I'd have to fight this senseless war, then. Hey, bastard, I only wanted to be a pilot, because it was a high-paid, interesting job, I've no need for all this dying and killing. "Go home, and I'll leave you alone" ... said the mouse to the cat.

I wonder. Does this damn pilot at my six have similar thoughts? I wish I still had a wingman. Bet you don't reckon with me turning my ship around while still speeding in the same direction at 15.000 kmph. Desperate maneuver. "Your ship can turn around at full speed. Never. Ever. Do. This. You'll have to turn off computer assistance to do this. No automatic evasions. No collision warnings. No one to tell you what's in your line of flight. You'll be an easy target. Most probably you won't even have enough time to feel delighted at having shot the one who followed you. His comrades will get you in no time, even if his last action wasn't shooting you to oblivion." I never thought I'd get desperate enough to try this. Funny, isn't it. This is probably my last moment in this world and I let my thoughts drift back in time to this day, when Commodore Ganlan told us all those things we shouldn't do, almost five years. He even warned us this could happen: "If you don't keep yourself under control, you'll die. A name and a number on the list of the day's losses. Nothing more, nothing less."

Got him.

Damage to thruster-Array four. Maneuvability down to 78%. ... Missile Alert "ECM, ECM!" Lost main control over thruster-Array one - switching to backup systems - failed. Ganlan was right. They got me. God. Please. Into your hands, my spirit. "Mayday! Mayday! I'm going down." It's getting hot. Thrusters! Must. Slow. Down. Or .. I'll ... Burn.

This is an automatic message.
PDC KW-4312-B is in emergency.
Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.