Lost

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Everyday I fight with myself about wanting to find out. The allure of launching myself into the cosmos, to return to the stardust that my cells originated from 14 billion years ago, is a feeling I struggle with often. Being lost in space will do that to you. Looking out through the viewport of my starfighter, I imagine what it would be like to float away into nothingness. The view would be incredible and the weightlessness of floating relaxing. Eventually, the oxygen in my X390 pilot suit would run out.

Suffocating doesn’t sound very pleasant.

But the view. The view would probably be great.

Maybe I would take my helmet off and truly succumb to the darkness of space. But, the idea of instantly freezing to death does wonders to kill the poetic vibe of drifting off to sleep staring at the beautiful solar flares on the surface of a massive Red Giant. Now that sounds like a hell of a way to go out. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a nebula in the distance, using the various light spectrum filters the Alliance Council so generously installed for each of us.

My point is, dying in space might not be the worst thing.

Then again, it could be incredibly painful and lonely.

Thinking of dying used to be incredibly painful and lonely. Not so much anymore. Barely surviving countless starfighter battles slowly numbs you to the inevitability of death. I’ve flown over one hundred successful missions since joining the Alliance, and each one of them has shown me the various faces of Death.

Death and I, we kinda have a thing going. After a hundred dates, you really get to know someone. My problem now is Death keeps getting a little bit more handsy with each meeting. For a long time I wasn’t ready to go all the way, but like any relationship you slowly get more comfortable with the idea. Eventually, you start changing. It happens to everyone. Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes for worse, but change happens regardless.

I think this time I might just let Death take me home after dinner and a movie.

Back to my current situation.

The main thruster of my ship is out. That’s the bad news. That means this star system, and its beautiful Red Giant centerpiece, is my new home. At least for now.

The good news is that my two secondary thrusters are fully operational, which is great.

The really bad news is that I’m no longer in Alliance space. In fact, I’m in a really bad neighborhood right now, and the locals know I’m here.

The slightly better news is that they don’t know where I am yet.

How I got here is sort of a long story. It all starts with the Alliance not paying as great as they should, but whenever have soldiers been paid well? Side jobs are a way of life, but a recent change in leadership has tightened the grip on our extracurricular activities. The dark alleys where these jobs are typically found have become darker and more scarce thanks to the punishments being handed out. But this job is hell, and living in hell is something we’re used to. So navigating those darker alleyways is nothing for a seasoned Alliance starfighter.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

The job was a typical escort mission. The only red flag was the encryption on the request. I hadn’t come across it before, which is rare. Also, the service bot I met to collect the assignment had zero information about the requestor, which isn’t common. Nevertheless, money is tight, and I haven’t been on a vacation in a long time. Beggars can’t be choosers as the old saying goes.

Everything was fine until we approached this star system. Our high speed jump was going as planned until the sensors on the ship carrying the package started going off. The distraction was enough to pull us away from our radars and completely miss the attack from normal space, which, until now, was unheard of. I’m still not sure what technology can pinpoint ships in the void, but the thought is frightening.

And I might be the only one to survive it.

The concussion missiles that struck the envoy sent our ships careening off into normal space at incredible speeds, destroying most of us. Somehow, I got lucky. Starfighter pilots thrive on luck. The cries of the unlucky ones are still echoing in my ears.

So, yeah, things are a bit tense right now. Especially, being behind enemy lines. The funny thing about space is that we still have lines, despite the grandeur of it all. Beings have a hard time sharing, and no matter what primordial soup you crawl out of, everything likes to have a “home”. Protecting that home becomes the main focus of the organism that crawls from said soup, until eventually they evolve the intelligence to expand to other rocks with their own soups. Strength is the talk of the town in the Universe. If they’re the most lethal, not necessarily the most intelligent, then they’ll take over those rocks. If not, they’ll turn tail and run back home, licking their wounds as they go.

It’s a never-ending cycle.

One of which, I find myself a pawn of. Me and every other starfighter pilot in the Alliance. Our ships are the fastest, the most powerful, and the most advanced…or so they say. The nice thing about ignorance is that you never know about someone else’s faster, more powerful, or more advanced technology until it’s too late. And then, well, it’s too late to care that you were wrong. You’re now floating into the blackness of space, kindly returning your cells back to the Universe where they’ll be used in the next batch of primordial soup on a distant rock.

I’m not there yet, but I’m getting close.

Lucky for me, my frustration can only be directed at my lack of main thruster. The rest of my ship is in great shape. All monitors are working, alarms aren’t blaring, and none of my windows have any cracks to worry about. So, despite being stuck in this system, I’m still relatively dangerous.

Whether I’m dangerous to myself or others is yet to be determined.

Looking at my radar, I can see the locals still haven’t caught wind of me. I pull up my star map to try and pinpoint exactly where it is I am. Coordinates in space are based on about 500 major stars in the galaxy. Once we expand past our galaxy, who knows what kind of scale that will bring to the mapping system. All I know is, I sure as hell don’t want to be one of the cartographers tasked with that in the future.

The Alliance won’t be sending out any probes to find me. Technically, they don’t know I’m off-base. I tap my screen and pull up the help menu to see that my beacon is still in one piece; the button to enable it blinks softly in my face. One press of that button and the Alliance will know my location. But, so will the not-so-friendly locals in the area looking to shoot me down. All this means is that I’m on my own to get far enough away to activate my beacon and wait for help.

How hard can it be to fight off a squadron of enemy ships, in a star system I’ve never been in, while at 50% engine capacity? I’m sure I can fight my way into neutral space without getting blown up.

I could do that. Or, I could float off into space, watching the Universe around me go about its business like I’m not even here, gazing at nuclear reactions launching brilliant tendrils of energy on the surface of the Red Giant.

Decisions, decisions.

A soft ping pulls me back to reality.

I close out of the star map and tap the notification in the corner of my screen. The radar pulls up. It seems the locals have made my decision for me. No sense in ejecting myself into space for a peaceful death among the stars if there’s a chance of me being splattered across the front of one of their ships.

The ships are looping around a nearby moon that I’m using as cover. According to my computer, they’ll break the horizon and have visual confirmation of me within five minutes. Time to think through the exit plan.

Double-checking my remaining thrusters, I see that all signs are green. Weapons diagnostics are green across the board as well. I check, and re-check, the firing procedures for my various missiles, all while silently cursing the not-so-friendly ships coming to ruin my peace and quiet.

Going through the motions of preparing for battle starts to clear my head. A new emotion comes to the surface. Anger at my situation boils up inside of me. I can’t tell if it’s directed at them for ruining my thoughts of a blissful ending, or if it's my own realization at the anger at myself for letting my mind wander to such dark thoughts.

Space is a funny thing. Just when you think you’ve been there, done that, you discover that the enormity of it is too much for our brains to comprehend. Before long, you start realizing how crazy it makes you think. Crazy thoughts rarely tend to be positive.

Thankfully, routine has a way of grounding us. Preparing for battle has built calluses in my mind. Calluses are good.

My timer clicks across the one minute threshold after I finish triple-checking all my systems. No issues across the board, but I still need a plan. I pull up the star map again to get a better idea of the celestial bodies around me.The outline of those ever important boundaries in space showing me the delineation of Alliance, and non-Alliance, territory.

Luck is on my side yet again.

An Alliance trade route, of course not the route we used for our black market transport, passes through outside the debris field that surrounds this system. I’ll need to break through that barrier, and doing so will expose me to the nearby bogies. If my main thruster was functional, outrunning them would be easy. Instead, I’ll need to be strategic with my escape route.

The seconds click past thirty while I draw a line through the moons around me towards the Red Giant in the middle of the system. Staring at it for so long gave me a crazy idea, but one that should work. The clock ticks lower, but I don’t wait for it. After re-checking my math on my route, I slam my accelerator, lurching my ship forward as fast as she’ll go.

Come on, sweetie. Don’t fail me now.

Launching through the moons towards the open space between myself and the star, I drag my radar over to a side monitor that I procured during my last shopping spree back on station. Standard issue starfighters only have so many monitors, but many pilots find ways to create a more custom experience within their cockpits. When you spend as much time in our ships as we do, the commanding officers tend to look the other way.

Accelerating into the openness, I glance over and see the two enemy ships are actually four, and they’re starting to spread out now that they’ve caught my scent. I need to keep pushing my ship faster if I don’t want their numbers to overwhelm me. Speed and chaos are my greatest allies right now. I shove my flight stick forward as hard as I can, dropping my ship into a nearby asteroid field for cover. Rather than attempt to fly through it like some hero from a movie, I continue my dive through the field and out the bottom, although my luck is momentarily halted as I struggle to find the “underneath” of the asteroid field.

This one is thick.

Two of the bogies follow me in, while the other two continue a flight path across the top of the field, presumably to catch me on the other side. I can’t help but slow down as I weave through the pieces of rock and metal, knowing that any damage to my ship will surely lead to a fiery death. The decrease in speed allows my new friends to get closer to me. I try evasive maneuvers from every textbook and simulator to keep the bad guys at bay. It works, but I’m not sure for how long. The two above have flown outside my radar’s range which sends an uneasy tingle down my spine. I can’t forget about them.

The bottom of the asteroid field finally greets me with open space enough to push my accelerator forward again. The fastest ship in the known galaxy does a good job of creating distance at the start, but the bogies still have a bead on me as I continue my flight beneath the asteroids. Straining my neck back and forth, I try to get a visual on the other two above me, but the rocks are flying by too fast. I hoped I could get help from the Red Giant ahead of me reflecting its beautiful red glow across the bow of their ships, but my luck continues to run out.

Damn.

Continuing to race forward, I check the star map again to make sure I’m on course. Nothing’s changed. Good.

It dawned on me that despite the proclamations of the Alliance’s brochures back home, my ship isn’t the fastest thing in the known universe. I accounted for that in my escape plan. What I do know is that the mass of my ship is enough to help me another way.

Physics is a great course to take, regardless if you spend your life flying among the stars or not. A fun, yet practical, idea that you learn at some point is the science of a gravitational slingshot. Taking a large object’s mass, like a Red Giant star, and using it to your advantage is very simple in theory, but rather tricky to execute in practice.

If I survive this maneuver, I’ll be calling my physics teacher back home and letting her know it’s possible.

I clear the asteroid field and head straight for the star. Its brightness is incredible, and once again, I thank the Alliance for thinking ahead and installing the dimming technology in our viewports. Almost instantly my forward view is dimmed to an acceptable level.

However, the momentary distraction from my radar means I forgot to double-check for my two, now four, friends that are once again on my tail. Small-arms fire streaks across the space above and ahead of me. My onboard computer starts blaring warnings as bullets connect with my rear shield, and missile locks are detected.

Things are about to get hairy.

I dance back and forth at random intervals to hopefully avoid the strafing fire that continues to pepper my rear shields, dropping their capacity to almost half strength. With the distance I have left to go, I’m not sure they’ll last, so I need to get creative.

The snap of my flight stick back towards me happens at the same time that my other hand pulls the accelerator all the way back. What happens is an almost instantaneous stop in space. An oldie, but a goodie, my flight instructor used to say. The four ships on my six are now screaming past me and find themselves sitting perfectly between eleven and one on my clock. Without a second thought, I let loose a handful of missiles in their direction, only giving my radar a few seconds to lock on.

I’m not worried if they all hit. I just need the distraction. As they scramble to avoid my haphazard attack, I continue to hold my flight stick back, but push my accelerator forward again, launching myself upward, away from them. The chaos should distract them enough that I can resume my pursuit of the Red Giant’s horizon.

It works.

Pushing my ship to its limit, I race for the edge of the star. Eventually, radar loses track of the ships behind and below me. All I can see in my viewport is a beautiful red-orange factory of nuclear fusion. As I approach the horizon, I tilt my ship on its side, relative to the star, and race across the surface of it with the top of my ship facing towards it.

The view is absolutely breath-taking. If I wasn’t fighting for my life, listening to the symphony of warnings and alarms emanating around me, I might have taken another lap around the beauty. Alas, time is not on my side today.

Fighting the g-forces that are simultaneously granting me the speed at which I need to launch myself into the safety of Alliance-controlled space, and forcing the blood from my head, I try every trick in the book to maintain consciousness. The X390 pilot suit has built-in adrenaline injectors for such an occasion, but I quickly discover how ineffective they can be in real world situations. Forcing my breath in and out as quickly as I can, I push my ship across the backside of the star. For a moment, I glance down at the map to see that I’m still on course, and the radar shows no sign of enemy ships chasing me.

Hell, they might think I crashed straight into the star.

Fingers crossed.

A handful of solar-explosions threaten to push me off course as I clear the other side of the star. My ship can’t even register how fast it’s going as I explode past the horizon going faster than I ever have in my life.

I lose consciousness at least once as my starfighter launches through the star system, past the moon I hid behind not so long ago, and through the cloud of space-debris surrounding it, away from danger.

They say nobody can hear you scream in space.

The technician that pulled my audio logs when I returned back to base said that she had to listen with her headset on the table in front of her. Apparently achieving those speeds while rocketing around a giant star causes you to scream like a child. Who would have thought?