13:59, January 13th, 2134

“Look, all I’m saying is I can’t ever really see you leaving the navy.” The voice chattered over the radio in his cockpit.

“Wait, what? LT Reynolds is leaving the navy?” Another voice chimed in, much younger and unsure of himself.

“No rookie, I said he’s not leaving the navy. You sure you got your ears on?” The first voice answered.

“What does that even mean?” The second voice responded.

“Holy shit. See what I mean Reynolds? The new recruits are that green. You can’t leave us to train them alone.” The first voice said, clearly frustrated.

“Ace. Rook. We’re supposed to be on patrol.” Reynolds finally responded. “Maybe you could spend a little less time talking and a little more time patrolling.”

The squadron of spacecraft soared through the empty space between the planets of the Virgo system, their engines glowing a bright blue as they powered at almost a kilometer per second. Lieutenant Kayden Reynolds checked his displays for what felt like the thousandth time in the last few hours – there was nothing in this sector of space. His squadron of pilots were getting bored, and filling the time by talking about whatever random thoughts popped into their heads.

“There’s nothing out here though. They sent us on a milk run to train the rookie and you know it.” Kayden’s wingman, Ace responded.

Petty Officer 1st Class Regus ‘Ace’ Kerfoot was a good pilot, and had known Kayden since boot camp. He was born on Haven, a planet in the Sirius system which was deep behind the Roccan Alliance battle line. His parents - like most people who weren’t­ ­born on Earth - were wealthy. Ace probably wouldn’t have to work a day in his life, and had signed up for the military despite that fact. He did it because he loved the adventure, which was something Kayden respected and liked about him.

“Sure, but you could at least act like you give a shit Ace. I don’t want the rookie picking up your bad habits.” Kayden responded good naturedly.

The laughter came through the radio from the four other pilots in Kayden’s squadron. There was the aforementioned rookie Ensign Kyle Myrtle, fresh out of boot camp. He was on board the larger Insight Class spacecraft alongside Lieutenant Junior Grade Valentina ‘Radar’ Antonov. The last member of the squadron was Petty Officer 2nd Class Jake ‘Taco’ Ramirez, who was flying escort in a Pegasus Class interceptor like Kayden and Ace.

The Pegasus Class fighters were the newest interceptor in the Roccan Navy. Each of them housed one pilot in a small cockpit at the front of the craft. 2-meter-long wings spread out to either side, and the fuselage of the craft flared outwards from the cockpit to house a missile bay. On either side of the fuselage there were two weapons mounts which had been outfitted with guns that could fire either energy or projectile weapons. At the back of the fuselage there was a large engine which powered the craft. It quickly gained the nickname of the ‘firefly’, given its resemblance to the Earth animal.

By contrast, the Insight Class shuttle was much larger. It was lightly armed for its size, housing weapons emplacements at each tip of its triangular frame. The craft sloped backwards, with two large engines jutting out the back. The cockpit was more spacious than the interceptors though, allowing room for two operators to sit side-by-side.

The patrol they were on was simple. The Insight Class shuttle was outfitted with special sensors, allowing it to act as a spaceborne warning and control system – or SWACS. The three fighters would escort the shuttle as it patrolled along a predefined route through this sector of space, ensuring that there were no enemy ships lurking in the shadows of an asteroid or hiding in the magnetic poles of a gas giant. Although he wouldn’t admit it, Kayden knew Ace was right – even though this sector of space was on the frontier of Roccan Alliance space, it had been months since they were attacked. It was a good chance to train the rookie pilot that had been assigned to their squad. The easy work also was an opportunity for Kayden to let his mind drift as he stared out into the void.

If the rumors around the officer’s mess were to be believed, the Roccan Alliance they served was in peace talks with their adversaries, the Lokken Star Collective. The war which started over territorial and resource disputes had been raging for over a decade and sat at a stalemate with neither side gaining significant ground. Moreover, both sides military strength had been depleted to the point where battlefield commissions had become more common – which is how Kayden had earned his officer’s commission. Still, a chance at peace between the two sides would mean that Kayden could have the option of being honorably discharged. He had saved a small amount of money during his 8 years of service, and he was looking forward to using it to do something else with his life.

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking.” The rookie started to say. “Why’d you join the navy in the first place? What changed if you’re ready to leave now?”

“Didn’t get much choice.” Kayden responded. “It was that or work in the factories on Earth. Most of those folks are dead by 60. Flying beats the hell out of that – even if it means I might get shot down tomorrow.”

“Woah, you’re from Earth?” The rookie asked.

“You didn’t know?” Kayden responded.

“No. Does that mean you’re a… a…” The rookie stuttered, unwilling to say the word.

“It’s fine rookie. Yeah, I was a ‘warpee’.”

“What’s Earth like? They told us about it in school, but there wasn’t a lot of detail.”

Kayden thought back to his upbringing on Earth. “It’s crowded – even after the mass exodus of everyone who could afford to leave, there’s still almost 11 billion people there. That’s more than all the colonies combined.”

Crowded was the least offensive adjective Kayden could have used to describe Earth. ‘A living hell’ might be closer to the truth, but he wasn’t trying to make the poor rookie pity him. They likely didn’t teach in-depth classes on the colonies about the reality of Earth, and for good reason.

In 2036, an eccentric billionaire from Earth successfully funded his ego project to send humans to Mars. He expected that the expedition would return with some interesting soil samples, and he’d be able to buy a place as a footnote in humanity’s history books. The bad news for him was that the expedition wouldn’t return with soil samples.

The good news was that they would instead return with the most significant scientific discovery in human history: proof of intelligent extra-terrestrial life.

The expedition stumbled across an alien outpost that was millions of years old. Even more astoundingly, some of the computer records from the aliens survived. Those records advanced humanity’s scientific knowledge by centuries. Unfortunately, the name that they gave themselves as a species seemed to have been lost to time, so humanity took to calling them “the precursors”.

Suddenly, humans had the ability to build spacecraft which could travel faster-than-light, genetically engineer themselves to alter their appearance at a whim, heal disease, and terraform worlds.
These technologies could not have come at a better time for humanity. After decades of poisoning Earth’s atmosphere with greenhouse gasses, the future for life on Earth was looking bleak. The oceans were steadily rising, causing mass migrations which led to rampant xenophobia and anti-refugee riots. Traditionally fertile land was drying up from the heat, causing food shortages. Giant wildfires were common during the summers, and in their unending need to spread humans began to destroy more natural animal habitats – leading to a sharp uptick in zoonotic diseases.

Unfortunately for humanity, the billionaire who discovered and held the key to humanity’s salvation had only one thing on his mind: making more money. Over the next 30 years he created the first wave of colony ships, charging exorbitant sums of money to anyone who wanted to leave Earth. Most people were unable to afford the trip however, leading to them toiling away on a dying planet. Eventually some token charity efforts were made to stabilize Earth’s environment, but it was only enough to prevent the situation from getting worse.

As humanity spread further and further across the galaxy, the wealthy elites in the colonies gradually took advantage of genetic engineering technologies, changing themselves to become less and less ‘human’. By 2096, the population of the colonies of Eden Prime in the Virgo sector and Elysium in the Sirius sector had become so different that they no longer recognized themselves as the same species. The resulting xenophobia was far too predictable. Political relations quickly broke down, and they declared war on each other.

Gradually, Eden Prime gained the upper hand in the conflict. Desperate for any sort of advantage, Elysium sent ships back to Earth with a sales pitch. In exchange for a 5-year tour of duty, they offered access to genetic engineering treatments and a home on Elysium when they completed the tour. The program was wildly successful, and the steady flow of new recruits turned the tide in Elysium’s favor. They quickly conquered Eden Prime and won the war, forming the political block which would later be known as the Roccan Alliance. Officially termed the ‘Wartime Active Recruitment Program’, it was so successful that it was replicated in every major conflict since the Eden Prime – Elysium war. Even in peacetime the colonies continued to recruit, as it gave them a steady influx of new colonists who could act as a militia in emergencies.

The recruits in the program became derisively known as ‘warpees’ by the officer corps who tended to hail from the colonies. Their general lack of sympathy for the enlisted personnel stemmed from the fact that people from Earth were seen as dirty, uneducated, and lower class. They were often treated as ‘expendable’ troops, their lives thrown away carelessly for meaningless objectives.
Of course, it didn’t help that to boost recruitment numbers several corporations had conspired to keep living conditions on Earth as miserable as possible. After buying, coercing, or eliminating most of Earth’s politicians they eventually just replaced governments outright, setting up a ruling council of their own. Their power was absolute – law enforcement, infrastructure, societal norms – all of it was dictated by the corporations.

Under the guise of ‘providing employment’, the corporations set up giant factories which employed a sizable chunk of the population to produce all manner of ships, weapons, and other supplies which were then sold to the colonies. Those corporations also ‘managed’ the recruitment program, acting as a paid broker between the various militaries of the colonies and the citizens of Earth. These deals had made the corporations tremendously wealthy, and they protected Earth with a sizable fleet of their own.

Even though Kayden had already finished his 5-year tour some time ago, part of his contract stipulated that he couldn’t ‘graduate’ from the program while the Roccan Alliance was on a war footing.
The rumored peace talks would resolve that last hurdle though, and patrols like this gave him time to think about his post-military life.

“I’ve got another question.” The rookie said, breaking Kayden out of his thoughts. “Why doesn’t LT Reynolds have a callsign? Everyone else except for me has one.”

“I have one. I just don’t use it.” Kayden responded.

“Why, what is it?” The rookie asked.

“Stumpy.”

“Oh… shit. Is that because of…” The rookie trailed off.

“Yes, it’s because I have a prosthetic arm.” Kayden said.

“How did it happen? If you don’t mind me asking sir.”

“It was about 9 years ago. I got caught by an automated security robot trying to take some food during one of the famine riots. It crushed my arm, and there isn’t really a lot of medical care available to poor people on Earth, so…” He shrugged.

“I’m sorry sir.” The rookie said, not knowing how to respond.

Kayden was starting to lose his patience. “You wanna know the real reason I chose to sign up with the Roccan Alliance over the Lokken? If there are multiple nations recruiting, they give us a choice you know. It wasn’t because I believed in what they were doing or anything like that. It’s because when my arm was crushed, they were running an experimental medical trial, trying to figure out how to directly connect human brains to technology. They thought they could enhance the effectiveness of people in combat suits if they were linked directly with the brain. They told me if the trial was successful, they could replace my arm with a prosthetic linked to the neural interface, giving me full functionality.”

“Isn’t that sort of surgery dangerous though?” The rookie interrupted.

“Out of the thousand or so people in the trial, I was the only one who survived. They couldn’t figure out why I lived, so they canned the project. I should have read the fine print though: the contract I signed when I volunteered for the program stated that if it failed, I’d have to pay back the costs of the surgery, the prosthetic, everything. Obviously, I didn’t have money for that, so they gave me another option: join the WARP program and pay them back over time. With a working arm again I was eligible to serve, so I ‘accepted’ their generous offer.” Kayden finished bitterly.

“LT. Go to channel 2?” Ace said.

Kayden switched his radio channel so he and Ace could talk privately. Ace started speaking immediately. “Kay. I know you’re still bitter, but that was years ago. Don’t scare the kid, okay? He had nothing to do with what happened to you.”

Kayden took a deep breath, knowing his friend was right. “Fuck. You’re right, sorry. I’ll apologize to the kid when we get back. Sometimes when people ask me about that shit, I just get pissed off.”

“I know man. They did you dirty.”

“I just want to be free for the first time in my life, you know? First it was the factories on Earth, then the Roccan Alliance. Someone has always been telling me where to go, what to do. For once in my goddamn life I want to decide for myself.”

“Everyone deserves to be free to make their own choices. Listen… you know I can never really understand what you went through. But you’re my best friend, and the first person who made friends with me that doesn’t give a shit about my family’s money. So if the war ends tomorrow and you still wanna leave the military, I’m coming with you.”

“What?” Kayden responded, shocked by the offer.

“Yeah man. You had my back in the academy. Everyone thought I was the rich kid buying a symbolic officer’s commission, so they kept trying to push me towards being on the bridge of a battleship where it’s ‘safer’. I wanted to fly an interceptor, and you were the only one who encouraged me to actually do it.”

“Yeah, well you needed the help. You were a shit pilot when we met.” Kayden said, ribbing his friend.

“Fuck you man. Not all of us can use a neural interface to plug directly into the ship. If I could do that too, I’d be the best goddamn pilot in the fleet.” Ace responded good-naturedly.

Kayden went quiet for a few moments, thinking it over. The only attachment he had to the Roccan military was his squad – and now it suddenly seemed like he didn’t have to sacrifice that to leave.

“Think about it, okay?” Ace said, interrupting Kayden’s thoughts. “We’re coming up on point Zulu now. We should check in with the boss.”

“Alright. Go back to the main channel.” Kayden said, before switching his own radio. “Radar, anything on sensors?”

“Negative LT. All clear.” Valentina said.

“Alright. Rookie, can you patch me into Prometheus Station?”

“One second LT. Aaand…done. Switch to radio channel 4, and go ahead.”

With his mind, he keyed the electronic switch to the correct channel. “Prometheus Station this is red-1. How copy?”

“Five by five red-1.” The voice came in on the other end.

“Red squadron has reached checkpoint Zulu. SWACS isn’t picking up anything in this sector. Do you want us to proceed to the next one?”

“Affirma-Disregard red-1. Control wants to speak to you.”

There was a brief pause, then a new voice came on the radio. “Red-1, long range warning sensors have just picked up two signals which will be emerging from the hyperspace lane to the Tau Ceti system. I need your squad to go and check it out.”

The woman on the other end of the radio was Captain Ashley Brown – someone Kayden had immense respect for. She was a fair leader, one of the few that treated you the same no matter which planet you came from.

“Roger Control. Are we expecting hostiles?”

“Unknown. Officially Tau Ceti is a neutral system, but the Lokken could just be transiting through on their way here. Can you make an in-system hyperspace jump from your current position to the following coordinates? They should be appearing on your screen now.”

As she said it, the coordinates popped up in front of him. He quickly entered them into his ships NAV computer, and after a brief pause it gave him the green light. “Affirmative Control. We can make the jump from here.”

“Roger red-1. Let us know what you find. Out.”

The line went dead as Kayden switched back to the channel with his team. “Alright rookie, looks like you’re going to get to see a little excitement today. Command has picked up two unknown contacts coming from Tau Ceti, so we’re going to do an in-system jump to meet them. Coordinates should be appearing on your NAV computer.”

“Yebat. I hate in-system jumps.” Radar groaned. “They always make me sick.”

Hyperspace was a tricky technology. It could be used to travel great distances in seconds, but only if there were no small objects in between the two points. For short-range in-system jumps this wasn’t as big of an issue, but longer range jumps were challenging. The oort cloud surrounding solar systems blocked most angles of approach, meaning that transit was only possible between certain systems. Thankfully, the precursors had mapped out approved areas of safe passage between specific systems, known as ‘hyperspace lanes’. If a destination was too far away for direct transit, ships would often have to transit through many intermediary systems in between.

Kayden keyed in his authorization to the NAV computer, and called out to his squad. “Prepare for hyperspace jump on my mark. 3-2-1-mark!”