Victory or Death

This was it. All those months of preparation, all the time spent in the simulators, all the math and physics classes, all the xenobiology work; it all led to this day. Today, he would join the Diluvian War. Darian rocked back and forth on his heels, full to bursting with nervous energy. Perhaps if he had slept last night, he would be calmer right now, but how could he sleep?? As long as he could remember, he had dreamed of this moment, of taking the stick of a strap-jet and putting it through its paces; killing some Flood ships and earning the first star on his breast, taking his place amongst the pantheon of heroes who fought and died every day for humanity’s survival.

All his life, Mother had told him stories of his father, the war hero he would never meet. Not long before Darian was born, Captain John Morrow was patrolling the Belt in the U.N.N Carpathian when a force of Flood ships attacked from nowhere. They hadn’t shown up on any sensors, and attacked his ship with vengeance. They didn’t appear until they were far too close for torpedoes, and they completely overwhelmed the point defense network. There was no way out. As the Flood began boarding the ship, Captain Morrow ordered his crew to the escape pods, sending his Second with a data drive containing all the lidar and radar information the ship had managed to collect on her assailants. Captain Morrow waited until the last possible moment, when the Flood had just breached engineering, to overload the reactor and bomb the entire attack force out of the sky in a brief, sun-bright flash. Captain Morrow died, but his death bought time not only for his entire crew to escape, but for humanity as well. The data his Second brought home was instrumental in learning how to pierce the Flood’s veil and sense their movements. Captain John Morrow gave humanity a chance.

Darian could only hope that his life and death proved to be half as meaningful as the Captain’s. As he stood on the flight deck of the Serra Do Mar, he couldn’t help but feel on the edge of a tipping point. What if he failed? That didn’t bear thinking about. He couldn’t let himself even consider it. Failure today would forever strip him of the chance at a life in the Fight; the only sort of life that really mattered. Gone would be the opportunity of a glorious death; gone would be the change at a life worth remembering.

No! Stop it! Don’t let the fear in!

He had to distract himself, so he looked through his messages. There were the usual ones from friends and family, wishing him luck, typical one-and-done stuff. There was his mom’s message; she never failed to get teary-eyed at moments like these, and seeing her cry even happy tears made Darian start tearing up. Probably not good now, when he needed to be sharp-eyed and sharp-minded. There was the message from Talia…eh, probably not wise to get horny either. As he scrolled, his eyes fell on the last message, the only one still unread. Jacob; the man Mother had chosen to marry. For the life of him, Darian couldn’t figure out why Mother had married him; to go from Captain Morrow to that? What had possessed her?? Jacob had none of the qualities of Captain Morrow. He wasn’t brave. He didn’t lead men into battle. He wasn’t even a doctor who cared for wounded soldiers! At least if he’d been that, Darian would have understood. There’s a certain aura about those who get soldiers back to the fight. There’s value in that. Jacob was nothing but an x-ray tech; eminently replaceable, unremarkable. Even his appearance was unimposing; slightly stoop-shouldered, with a patchy grey beard and small round glasses. Darian couldn’t even begin to understand what Mother saw in him.

He eyed the unread message. Might as well; he needed to distract himself. He couldn't let the fear in. He clicked the message open reluctantly, Jacob’s homely face filling the screen. With a sigh Darian pressed play.

"Hello son…Darian,” Jacob began. Not a good start."

I don’t know if you’ll watch this before your run…heck, I didn’t even know if I should record this for you…” A small, sad smile played across Jacob’s lips. “But I couldn’t let you go without sending you this message. I know we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye,”

Yeah..understatement of the year…

“but I wanted you to know that no matter what happens, I’m proud of you. I was fortunate enough to know your father. I knew him for many years, in fact. I know he would be proud as heck of the man you’ve become. He would be so proud of the fearless, driven person you’ve become, and I know he’s looking out for you right now from Heaven. Listen…” Jacob paused for a moment and looked down, as if trying to figure out what to say next, “No matter if you succeed today or fail, please know that your mother and I will always love you, and we will both be proud…” Darian shut off the recording angrily. How dare he think he could speak for Mother?? He didn’t have the faintest clue what it was like to have been married to a hero such as Captain Morrow, or to have sired his offspring! Darian shoved the phone in his pocket and looked out at the limb of the earth just starting to peer into view on the monitors set into the walls, pretending to be windows. He began breathing exercises in an effort to still his mind.

Breathe in…breath out…breathe in…breath out…

The comm next to him crackled to life, startling him from his reverie. “Good morning, cadet!” said a cheerful disembodied voice. That would be Supervisor Pembry, who was overseeing his trial. “Are we ready for our run today?” She had a real penchant for talking down to him like he was a kid. He’d have fired her if he was in charge.

“Y-yes ma’am.” He answered.

“Good! Time to climb into that cockpit, pilot! Slingshot in 5 minutes!” she said in her southern-belle drawl. Darian hurriedly climbed into the cockpit of his strap-jet, years of training automating his checks. Little more than a wing with a rail-gun and a small reactor strapped onto it, any structural weakness would spell instant doom as soon as battle maneuvers began.

“60 seconds cadet!” Pembry said in his headset. “It looks like we have a small incoming force of Flood fighters, perfect fodder for today’s trial!” She really was annoyingly upbeat. “Remember, you have backup out there, if you need it! Don’t die. Failing your trial is preferable to dying!” Yep, definitely fired. That kind of thinking would lose this war, if it caught on.

“30 seconds!”

Darian checked his reactor (it was hot) and his ammo (full). He would die today rather than fail. Victory or Death.

“5 seconds!”

He felt cold fire in his veins as his seat shot him full of the drugs that would keep him lucid during the imminent high-G maneuvers.

“4…3…2…1…” And with the force of 10 Earths, he was shot out into the void. Quickly, he oriented himself and tagged the enemy ships red in his Friend-Foe system. Five Flood fighters, about 500 clicks away; easy enough. Reluctantly, he acknowledged his support, a formation of fighters about a thousand clicks to his left, turning their icons to green. Humanity had developed cloaking technology of their own; the Flood could see neither the reinforcements nor the Serra Do Mar. Darian sincerely hoped they wouldn’t intervene too quickly. As soon as he was away from the Mar, he opened up his reactor and shot toward the Flood formation, having his HUD calculate Flood flight paths and begin formulating targeting solutions. He could see them reforming into a defensive formation. They knew he was there.

400 clicks…

300…

200…

100…

Darian cut his drive and fired his first shot, gratified to see one of the red dots on his HUD blink out. He immediately strafed hard left with his maneuvering thrusters, away from returning fire. The Flood had evolved with hive-mind capabilites and because of the parallel processing afforded by that, never had a need to develop computing systems as good as what humanity had to offer. Their shot computations were slower and less accurate than humanity’s; where they had humanity beat was pack tactics. Darian knew that as long as he could keep himself from getting trapped, he could pick off the enemy one-by-one; and of course, the key to avoiding getting pinned down is to act without pattern. Make moves that are hard to predict. Darian immediately cut his reactor back on and felt the sudden force pushing him into his seat as he shot forward, right through the middle of the pack. As soon as he was on the other side, he cut his drive and flipped hard, firing another shot. Two down…

The Flood began reacting to his motion, performing an encircling maneuver to trap him. Unfortunately for them, they had only three left. Darian tilted his nose perpendicular to them and burned hard again, shooting away. The Flood began to follow, so Darian gave it about half a minute before he cut the reactor, swiveled with his thrusters, and fired three quick shots. The first two hit their intended targets, blinking them off his HUD, but the last remaining Flood fighter maneuvered quickly enough to avoid the last shot. No matter, Darian now had the clear advantage. He turned to follow the enemy fighter when it tried his tactic against him. He smiled; too easy! He activated the thrusters on the left side just as the enemy ship fired. He’d avoid it easily.

Except…he didn't.

Almost too fast to consciously acknowledge, Darian saw a red alarm blare across his HUD. His back left thruster was out! In horror, Darian saw his nose turning clockwise away from the Flood fighter. An almost instantaneous impact later, and his strap-jet was furiously spinning counter-clockwise as more alarms began blaring. His reactor was hit! Frantically, Darian began trying to maneuver with his remaining three thrusters as the Flood fighter screamed silently past. It would make one more run, and he would be toast. How could this have happened?? He was so close! He had checked everything! He knew he had! Or had he…With sudden, horrendous clarity, Darian realized that he had forgotten to check his maneuvering thrusters. It was as simple as a routine run through his HUD, yet he'd forgotten.

Dammit! Dammit, Dammit, Dammit! There was no way he was going to get himself stabilized in time to fire at the remaining fighter before it killed him. Well…it wouldn’t be a glorious death but…death before failure, right?

Suddenly, the final Flood fighter was sent spinning, out of control, and the final red dot on his HUD blinked out as he saw two green dots fast closing. Fuck…the reinforcements had arrived. With a sense of sepulchral finality, the comm in his ear crackled to life. “I’m so sorry, cadet,” said the antebellum voice of Supervisor Pembry, “You failed two points of your trial. The first was failing to complete a full pre-run check on your strap-jet, and the second was your failure to call for reinforcements when your thruster failed. Don’t worry, though! We won’t leave you high and dry! We’ll get you safely back to earth and back to your family!”She didn’t understand. He'd failed, but worse; he had to live with that failure. Gone in a flash of vapor were his dreams of fighting the Flood, of rising through the ranks to eventually captain his own ship like his father. Gone were his dreams of being remembered. He would live and die ignominiously. Worst of all, he had no one to blame but himself. He was the one that failed his pre-flight check. If he had just done that one simple thing, he’d be heading back to the Serra Do Mar right now, flush with victory, ready to be awarded his first star. Now, all that was left was to slink shamefully back home and endure the disappointment of Mother, of Talia, of all the rest of his friends and family…

Darian couldn’t even look Supervisor Pembry in the eye when he came aboard the Mar. He heard nothing but sympathy in her voice as she welcomed him aboard, but that was almost worse than mockery or disappointment. He could take those. He deserved those. He didn’t deserve the sympathy. Within an hour, he was put on a shuttle back to Earth, back to Milan, where he grew up. All that was left to him was to stew over his failure alone. He pulled his phone out again, just for something to do, but nothing kept his interest for long. Soon, he found himself mindlessly scrolling the messages again. Just this morning, they filled him with pride. Now, there was only shame. He stopped on Jacob’s message, almost without thinking. What was it Jacob had said? No matter what happened, he and Mother would be proud of me? Darian couldn’t wrap his mind around that at all. He started playing the message again. He got to that phrase, “no matter if you succeed today or fail…” He paused the recording, freezing Jacob’s face mid-thought. How in the world could his success or failure not matter? Wouldn’t they be just as ashamed now that he had failed as they would have been proud had he succeeded? He looked down and discovered with a start that there were still a few minutes left on the recording. He pressed the play button and Jacob came back to life:

“…please know that your mother and I will always love you, and we will both be proud of you. Now…” and here Jacob smiled again, “You may not believe it, but I know you well enough to know that if you listened to my message at all, you probably stopped it by now. If you’re hearing what I’m saying to you, then it probably means you failed your trial. I am so, so sorry. I was dearly hoping you would succeed and follow the footsteps of your father. I know how badly you wanted that, and I know your father would have been proud.” Jacob paused again, looking down as if considering what to say next, and then he said, “I don’t know exactly where your head’ll be when you get home, but when you’re ready to hear me out, I’d love to talk with you about where you go from here. You still have a wonderful, fulfilled life ahead of you, and I want to help you find it. I know you hate what I do. I know you think it’s unfulfilling and worthless…” Darian stopped the recording. He had never said that to Jacob. How in the world could he know that?? He’d never even told Mother how he felt. He pressed play again.

“…but let me tell you that I wouldn’t trade what I do for all the world. No, I don’t save the world from the Flood, but I help people every day heal from their wounds; I help return them to living their lives, whether they’re soldiers heading back out to fight the Flood and perhaps die, or elderly men and women who will soon pass on to the next life. My work is important to those people, and so it’s important enough for me to do it. I dearly hope you understand what I’m saying. If this makes sense to you; if you are ready to begin rebuilding your life in a different direction, will you come find me? I promise I won’t push it. I won’t force anything. I’ll wait patiently and trust that you’ll come find me eventually. I love you.”

With that, Jacob reached toward the camera and the recording ended. By the end of the message, Darian couldn’t even see Jacob’s face for the bright, hot tears in his eyes. With sudden, sharp clarity, he understood. He had pursued his path his whole life, believing himself destined. He always knew he would follow Captain Morrow’s footsteps; knew it with such certainty no other path his life might take seemed possible. He had been so focused on a dead man’s legacy that he couldn’t fathom the legacy of a living one. He understood now why Mother had chosen Jacob, and he was suddenly intensely grateful and ashamed. Darian put his phone away as his shuttle continued to descend. He no longer felt the need to distract himself. He felt as if he’d passed through fire, felt the heat, felt himself burning up, but came out the other side unsinged.

As the shuttle landed, Darian looked out the window. There was a crowd there. Mother, Talia, many other friends and family, but he had eyes only for Jacob. As the ladder met the ground and the door opened, everything fell away except for Jacob’s face. He felt as if he were truly seeing the man for the first time, and he was a worthy man. With a small smile, Darian walked resolutely toward Jacob. All around him, there were exultations and cheers that began slowly devolving into stares and whispers, but Darian didn’t hear any of it. He was focused only on Jacob, searching for any sign of his thoughts. Jacob’s face was closed off at first, but as he watched Darian walking toward him, his expression passed through uncertainty into hope. Tentatively, Jacob raised his arms, and Darian jumped into Jacob’s warm embrace. Darian couldn’t think of anything to say, but he could feel Jacob’s tears rolling onto the back of his neck, and he heard Jacob whisper in his ear “Welcome home…son.”