1: Bad News

Major Jack Sharp

United States Space Force

I’ve had a lot of bad news lately, some very recently. I’m not going to space. I just found out today. I’ve got another shot at a space flight in about six months. But I got more bad news six months ago that really complicates things.

I’m dying. 

So I might not be able to fly in six months. 

Death itself is not scary to me. Afterall, you have to accept death as a real possibility when you sign up to be a test pilot in the Air Force. But I expected death to be quick, easy. Out in a blaze of glory and all that. ALS is too slow. It was torture at first. But I thought if I timed this right, I might just make it to space before I die. Or before I am such an invalide that I can’t fly anymore. ALS is a neurological disease where you gradually lose control of your muscles and eventually die of respiratory failure. Slow death. Yet not slow enough. 

But I can’t tell the military, or else they’ll yank my flight status and I’ll be grounded. And flying is about the only thing keeping me sane these days. I haven’t told my family either. But to be honest, I can’t tell them a lot of things. We had a falling out a few years ago, so there’s that. Also, I work for a top secret branch of the military test flying experimental aircraft, so there’s that too. 

Long story short, I’ve got too many secrets, so I’ve started keeping this journal. I don’t know if anyone will ever read it, but I’ve got to write this all down so I can make sense of it in my brain. Plus, I studied English Lit back at the academy, so I kinda wanted to try my hand at writing again. Plus, who knows, I may be out of a job soon. If I can’t fly maybe I could write science fiction. I mean that’s what my life has been ever since we found a crashed alien spaceship and started a secret faster than light space program. Maybe the military will let me publish my journal as Sci-fi and they can use it as a cover story, or plausible deniability. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start back at the beginning. 

I joined the Air Force with the idea that I’d eventually join NASA and fly in space. Then The Asset, that’s what the Air Force calls it, crashed out in the West Desert of Utah. What are the odds that a huge alien spaceship would fall out of the sky right in the Air Force’s testing and training range. The theory is that they had a malfunction and spotted our aircraft, and were attempting to set down to get help. 

Anyway, I was one of the pilots out there when they crashed, so I was one of the first on the scene. The ship was massive, but there were only three people aboard. I say people, but they were not from around here. They looked just like us. Taller though, like seven feet tall. And maybe a little bluer, but I thought that might just be because they were dead. No one survived the crash. 

The Asset was pretty banged up. The engines and a little bit of navigational data were the only things that really survived. They used some kind of generator to create a particle our scientists thought was only theoretical until they saw this. Gravitons. They project those particles around the spacecraft to manipulate gravity and cheat Einstein's theory of relativity and travel faster than light, or FTL.

The Air Force thought it would be best to keep it a secret while they studied the technology. They wanted to be ready if the aliens came back. You know the military. Assume unknown is a threat. So we’ve been preparing ships and weapons that can be used in space. 

Some of our experiments leaked to the press, so the Air Force had to cover it up by creating a new branch called Space Force. So now I am Major Jack Sharp of the United States Space Force. Sounds very Buck Rogers, doesn’t it?

They recruited me because of my experience with the technology on The Asset - I was the first one to start opening doors and pushing buttons - and because of my aptitude as a pilot. 

There were two other pilots on the range with me that day who were drafted into the Space Force. Colonel Tyler Zody. His short brown hair is too straight. And his arms are too muscular. Who are you trying to impress? He’s been flying longer than me, and his reflexes are sharp. Sharper than mine if I’m being honest. But I’ve got him beat in the space flight simulator when it came to situational awareness. In space, there is no horizon. It can be confusing for pilots who are used to having a horizon for reference. Without it, there was no up or down. Enemy pilots could take advantage of that and attack from somewhere unexpected, and I frequently did.

The other pilot was Lieutenant Mackenzie Packer. Mac has good situational awareness but her flying was technical; by the book. She’s only been flying for a few years, but she’s smart, and very good looking in her jumpsuit. She is tall with shoulder length brown hair and intense brown eyes. When she smiles she can light up a small city. 

I’ve always been able to outfly anyone until I came here and met Mac and Zody. It’s led to a rivalry between Zody and me. 

You’d think it would have done the same between Mac and me, but with her it’s different. There’s something intense about the way she looks at me with those brown eyes of hers. But then things got complicated when she overheard me on the phone with the doctor. 

I got the bad news before we headed into the simulator six months ago. Our Space Force simulators are state-of-the-art, complete with all the buttons and switches that will be in a real Valkyrie. Valkyries are basically the closest thing we can get to a real life X wing. I was really looking forward to flying a real one.

I’ve already started to feel the symptoms. I feel it in my left arm, muscle spasms, fatigue, and loss of strength. I was diagnosed six months ago. I went to a private practice doctor, not the flight surgeons. Once they catch wind of this I’m finished. There’s only one other person who knows. Mac was there when the doctor called me. I didn’t know anyone was listening at the time, but she had been in the hallway when I took the call on my phone. We’ve never talked about it. But she’s also kept my secret. 

But yesterday I got the most recent bad news. We were in the simulator again, and I was just pulling a high-speed turn around Saturn’s moon, Titan. The rings of Saturn whipped passed my view through the canopy. I slowed to sublight. A warning alarm sounded as I skimmed Titan’s upper atmosphere. I knew my slingshot maneuver had worked as the squadron of enemy Valkyries came into view. Before they could react I had tone. My radar locked onto the targets, and I hit the trigger. 

Multiple small missiles from my javelin pod. Five targets, five explosions. 

“Sorry guys, looks like you guys are buying the first round tonight,“ I said, a little cocky. 

I was in a good mood. Things were going great. I had been keeping a close eye on the stats of the other pilots as the official launch date got closer, and I was near the top. General Layton posted stats sheets weekly. There were only two other pilots who could knock me out of the running for the final selection: Tyler Zody, and Mackenzie Packer. 

Then I got the message on my screen in the middle of our after action debrief. The message announced that Zody had won the top spot for the first FTL flight. I was his back up, and assigned to mission control for Zody’s flight next week. 

Bad news. 

Everyone else was checking their screens when I looked up. A few glanced at me, but then looked at their screens again. Colonial Henrie resumed the debrief. 

After the debrief ended a few pilots asked if I was going to The Landing for that drink they owned me on my way out the door. I told them I needed to get home and blew passed them. The last thing I wanted was to sit in a bar full of pilots looking at me with pity in their eyes. 

But it was more painful than that. They all thought I’d get another shot at flying the next FTL prototype. But I didn’t have that much time.

***

I showed up late the next day. Who cares, I thought. No reason to impress anyone today. This was it, I thought. My career is over. I’ll retire from flying as a sim pilot, never having been in space. 

Walking down the hallway to the preflight briefing, my eyes on the floor but my head in the space somewhere, I nearly ran into the one person I didn’t want to see. Zody.

“Hey, watch where you’re walkin’ there little man. It’s a good thing they didn’t hand the keys to the prototype over to you.” He chuckled to himself. I tried not to glare at him.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. You’re a great pilot. Almost as good as me.”

“Thanks,” I said, deadpanned.

“You’ll get up there one day. Just not before me.”

“Just try not to crash into anything up there,” I said. ”Don’t want the Joint Chiefs to cancel our program before we even leave the Solar System.”

“So long as you don’t push any wrong buttons at mission control, I’ll be fine.” He clapped me on the back and walked into the preflight briefing. 

Gah, just kill me now so I don’t have to put up with this guy anymore, I thought as I walked in after him.