everything worth saving, including the fission torpedo, over to this ship. Then, there are some things that need to get fixed before we go anywhere. After that, we can decide what to do. Until then, I’m voting that we concentrate on trying to stay sane and getting organized.”
“Ok, fair enough.” Daren fell silent.
Vincent left the radio on, and let the tears begin to fall. He found so many things wrong with what he had done that it was difficult for him to find a reason to continue to live. He was five years away from an Earth that didn’t know he was gone, and for the most part, and Earth that didn’t know who he was. He was a bachelor, never married, and no surviving relatives. At that moment, the only friend he had was a broken down, crazy pilot named Daren, and the thought that Daren was his only friend made him feel worse. He cursed to himself, remembering he was just as broken down and crazy.
Death was not far from his thoughts; he contemplated simply invoking an integrated program designed to be executed if he was captured. But a curiosity arose about the hallucination that had been woven into his mind. Why did the psychologists and psychiatrists elect such a primal scene as a pride of lions trampling through a meadow? Vincent was perplexed, but his attempts to escape from guilt into a morbid re-enactment of recent events failed. He could not describe the overwhelming dread that he had done something awful, and it was strange that he could not remember what he had done. But with so many dead and the telltale signs of battle soiling his cloths, he could not deny that he had played more than a passive role.
Daren’s bomber swept through a narrow band of the nebula and space began to thicken with lustrous gases and refractions of light. Countless souls floated in space somewhere between the pilots’ dimension and the destination as dictated by their religion. And yet, even through the precise bands of genocide that the Panthera fleet had cut through the entire system, beauty glimmered in the distant stars. When the bomber entered the thick body of the nebula, Vincent watched as the reactor and engine were jettisoned. The bomber applied breaking thrust using its maneuvering thrusters, and Vincent did the same.
With no communication from Daren, Vincent spent the silent minutes rationalizing what he had done and what he would do. Glancing at the ship clock, Vincent noticed that two hours had passed since the passage of time first registered. From the clock, he looked across the main view screens before his eyes fell upon the Panthera emblem, a bald eagle clutching a galaxy in one talon, and an ancient space fighter in the other. He wondered what sort of man could have founded such a company that would send so many millions of people from one race to strategically annihilate a race that probably did not pose much of an economic or military threat. Vincent traced the emblem with his finger. “Why go through all the trouble of altering our minds and risk so many citizens of one race with the sole intent of destroying another?” He mused over the question, understanding that his subconscious was feeding him these thoughts in an effort to keep him from thinking of his actions. Images of the meadow, waist high grass bristling in a light summer breeze, continued to infect his mind.
Vincent tried to raise Daren on the radio, waited several minutes before a reply crackled through the cockpit speaker.
“There must be some sort of communication between our computers. My blood was cleansed, and ..” he broke off. “I’m still seeing that damned meadow,” he confessed moments later.
“I still feel pretty bad too, if that’s what you mean,” Vincent offered.
“You do any thinking on what we should do?”
“I’ve only managed to keep myself sane.” It was a cop out, but the only answer Vincent felt like he could provide.
“The information is stored in our heads. Isn’t there a way to get at it without having to go through one more atrocity?” Daren sighed into the microphone. “I don’t want to die out here, Vincent. But I don’t want to have to decide the fates of so many lives for the price of ours.”
“I understand. And we don’t know why we’re out here or what sort of threat this civilization poses.” Vincent had been wondering about why Panthera saw the unspecified race as hostile or threatening. “I think most of the information is in our heads, but I’m not particularly eager to directly manipulate my thoughts given they were already thoroughly manipulated before we left. I hate to bring it up, but for all we know, we might very well get coordinates to a drinking pool rather than Earth. There is no way to know with altered minds.”
“Well, whatever algorithms were plugged into our heads still operate on external information. What if that information was incorrect?”
Vincent thought about Daren’s suggestion for a few moments. He had to admit that it had merit. It was a very good suggestion. But if the pilots knew that their environment was based upon fictitious information, then the trigger that would release the information would most likely account for that circumstance. Daren’s idea was worth keeping in mind, but it didn’t seem feasible given their position. “If we were captured, do you think our captors would be after the location of our base?”
“Yeah,” Daren agreed.
“And if the information wasn’t yielded at first, would it be reasonable to assume that other tactics might be employed?” Vincent asked.
“Yeah,” he said again, then continued. “So it probably wouldn’t work.”
“It was a very good suggestion,” Vincent offered, wishing to do whatever was possible to keep the other pilot’s spirits up.
“Thanks,” he muttered. “How much time do you suppose we have to think about this?”
Another good question, Vincent thought. “I’m not quite sure. It depends on whether they know the actual size of our force, and if they decide to take an offensive or defensive position.”
The confines of the cockpit began to close in on Vincent and he remained quiet. Haunting images of the meadow returned to his mind and he began to wonder if it was possible that the induced hallucination that he was supposed to never remember would ever go away. New fears began to plague him. Even if he could reconcile his actions with himself, how could his society accept someone that remembered what it was like to be a predator for an extended period of time. He decided to ask Daren.
“If we decide to finish this mission, what do you think will happen when we return?”
“That’s ..” Daren broke off and continued after a length pause. “That’s a good question. What would we be returning to? I can’t even begin to imagine the broader scope of what they put into our heads. When they go to remove it, they won’t be able to remove these memories. I guess what matters is what their intentions are if and when we return.”
“I don’t know if we’d even be having this conversation if we were in one of the Earth military units from almost any civilization. We’d just do what we were told and go home.” Vincent didn’t think it was the best thing to say, but his mind was still muddled, as Daren’s must have been at the moment.
“Would they, though?” Daren countered almost immediately. “If this was some other battle, would it be any different? Scientists know that the human body is continually evolving, but there have been no major changes in the last twelve millennia. And we as a people haven’t changed, have we?”
Another good question, Vincent thought. He didn’t offer any reply.
“We have the same prejudices as our ancestors. We fear what we don’t understand and loathe what is even minutely different than ourselves. If any one else was in our situation, and somewhere in time it must have happened, then I surmise they had the same conversation we were having now. Some of them probable chose to run, others probably chose to stay and finish the mission. But what it comes down to is that we need to make what we think is the right decision. Vincent, I don’t know what the right decision is for us.”
“For the moment, let’s worry about our immediate situation. We should move everything worth salvaging from your bomber to my fighter. I think we’ll be able to make more rational d
ecisions once we have that much less to worry about.” Vincent touched the icons on the primary display screen that began an emergency docking procedure. “Is your environmental suit functional?”
“Should be,” Daren said. “Let me check.” He broke off the radio and checked the condition of his space suit. “The suit regulators look nominal.”
“Ok. We probably shouldn’t bother with a docking tube since we will need to be outside anyway. A tether between the two ships will suffice.” Vincent pulled himself out of the pilot’s seat and drifted over the top of his seat and the empty navigator’s seat. Behind the second seat, a small corridor ran the length of the fighter and provided access to a compact medical bay and storage area. Once clear of the seats, he pulled himself horizontally through the cylindrical corridor towards the storage compartments in the aft of the vessel. “I set my computer to navigate within docking range of yours. I’ll suit up and ..” he broke off while unpacking the environmental suit. The suit itself showed no signs of damage, but the extra-vehicular thruster was shredded from laser fire and fragmentation explosions. “Looks like I have half a suit,” he finished.
“Which half?” Daren queried.
“The good one. But the EVT is smashed. Fighters are only