A Battle of Heartbeats

For me, riding the lift is probably the worst part of any mission. The brief period of time between my quarters and the Halberd's launch deck, where all I’m doing is standing here and waiting, but my body knows what’s coming and anticipates it. My fingers drum out an impatient rhythm on my thigh as I watch the numbers blink by on the console, counting each deck that passes by. Time seems to stretch out to a torturous length, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear the engineers deliberately slowed down the lift, just to spite me. I have to resist the temptation to scratch at the implant set in the base of my skull. They said the itching would go away eventually. Liars.

         Finally I feel the faint pressure of the lift slowing to a stop. A grin spreads across my lips as the doors open, taking in the familiar scents of oil, fuel, and the faint hum of the rail driver warming up. Isabel, Rick, and Javier were here already, clustered by the railing.

         Rick catches sight of me first and smirks. “Hey, look who’s awake. Finally managed to haul yourself out of your stupor, eh Lil?”

         Isabel rolls her eyes and punches him in the shoulder. “Lay off her, Ricky. You know what Calanians are like. They sleep hard and work harder.” She gives me a coy smile as she walks toward me, her hips swaying more than was probably needed. “And play even harder, right Lilly?”

         I have to chuckle. “Shut up, Izzy.”

         As we embrace, she whispers in my ear. “He still looking?”

         “Stupid question.”

         “Good.” Her hands slide down the back of my flight suit, and I barely manage to keep a straight face as she squeezes my ass.

         Drawing back, we lock gazes as I give her a wry smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you enjoy this more than Ricky does.”

         A heartbeat passes, two heartbeats, and she winks at me as she pulls away. “Maybe.”

         Javier shakes his head as we join them, gesturing at Rick’s far-away expression. “You girls are going to break him, you know that right?”

         I reach out and bop the well-built pilot on his head, breaking him out of his reverie. “Fair’s fair, Javi. We know all about his ‘pre-flight relaxation ritual’ that he always does.”

         Rick grins unrepentantly, then stands at attention when the Commander’s voice speaks through our ear implants. “If you are all finished with your socializing, we have a mission schedule to complete.”
          My fingers start tapping against my thigh again, and I turn and salute to the elevated control booth. “Breaker Squadron, on deck and ready to deploy, Sir.”

         Up above, Commander Rankel returns the salute. “Good. Bring in the Strikers, Lieutenant.”

         The omnipresent hum alters in pitch, and I turn to watch the hanger deck doors split open, allowing our ships to be lowered and locked into their launch cradles. The Long Range Warp Strikers, or simply Strikers, are a brand new type of craft designed for lightning assaults on heavily defended positions, and in my opinion, are the most beautiful things in the world. Compact, torpedo shaped vehicles, with a stubby rear filled with four high-powered pulse engines, armed with four MK VI Burst Missiles that could destroy even an assault cruiser like the Halberd in one hit, and capable of ‘piercing’ through space to hit any target anywhere in the sector, they have the potential to be the most lethal weapons in the League’s Navel Fleet.

         Assuming, of course, that they succeed in their maiden mission. Otherwise they’re just big, expensive failures.

         As the four Strikers lock into place, I grin. “Maaadeleiiine. Wakey-wakey.”

         A ripple of electricity races across the surface of one of the Strikers, and the four warp panels that running the length of the hull lift into the air and begin to slowly orbit the craft. One of the two revolutionary pieces of technology, the panels can also be configured to act as wings for when the Striker has to operate within a planet’s atmosphere. I can almost feel the charge in the air as my craft begins to ‘awaken’, a familiar and comforting buzz around the implant at the base of my skull.

         As the other three Strikers go through a similar process, a chirping sound echoes in my ear implant, followed by a low, feminine voice. “Greetings Lillian. Running system diagnostic. Are we ready to begin?”

         I glance over at a nearby flight engineer, his expression slack-jawed. There wasn’t another craft in the universe like the Striker, and certainly not like my Madeleine. Beside me, Javier chuckles. “You know, I don’t think that’s ever going to get old.”

         I wink at the engineer, causing him to flush in embarrassment. “Damn right it’s not.” I turned back to the control booth. “Sir, permission to deploy?”

         The Commander nods. “Load up, Breakers. Launch in T-minus 10.”

         The four of us split up, and I resist the urge to look behind me when I feel someone slap my ass. It has to be either Rick or Isabel, they’re the only ones stupid enough and know me intimately enough to get away with it. Truth be told, I don’t care. I’ll get them both back later.

         As I jog along the loading walkway, I run my fingers along the side of my Striker, admiring once again her sleek curves. Warmth blossomed low in my gut as I thought about what was to come.

         “Did you have a good sleep, Lillian?”

         I grin. “Yes I did, sweetheart. Ready for your big debut?”

         “All systems are optimal. The only thing missing is you.”

         “Awe, you know just the right things to say.”

         The cockpit opens up ahead of me, and I slip in the crash gel seat, taking a moment to stretch and relax as the gel conforms to my body. More than once I’ve requested to have a similar seat as a bed, but apparently the stuff is expensive to produce.

         As I settle down, twisting back and forth to crack the vertebrae in my back, a younger male voice sounded in my ear. “Initiating pilot integration.” He pauses. “And, uh, Lilly? Would you mind being a little less…vocal, this time? It’s kind of… awkward to listen to.”

         I smirk as I lay my head down, a connector cable rising through the gel. “No promises, love.”

         “Are you ready, Lillian?”

         As the cable attaches to the implant at the base of my skull, I close my eyes. “Show me that magic touch, sweetheart.”

         The Intralink, the perfect fusion of human and machine, organic and artificial. Originally named the Pilot/System Interface, it was renamed after we found that it was so much more than that. Isabel once described it to me as being like riding the barrel of the giant tidal waves on her home world of Isthela. That rush of adrenaline that comes with being surrounded by hundreds of gallons of water roaring around you, when your vision narrows to that single circle of air ahead of you as your skin is painted with dappled patterns of light, and knowing that if you make a single mistake, all that awesome power will end you. The more spiritual Javier described it as being almost like achieving enlightenment, as your mind expands outward beyond your body and becomes something more than you were before. Rick never told me what it was like for him, but I can tell that he becomes much more aggressive, almost primal and animalistic in his actions.

         And for me? Everyone joked during training that I’d come out looking like I just got laid. They had no idea how right they were.

         I try my best, mindful of the engineer’s words, but I can’t keep a moan from escaping my lips as a charge surges through my body, burning down my spine and flooding my extremities. Liquid ecstasy pumps through my heart, and every sensation and sense is magnified a thousand times, until the crash gel feels as though I am floating on a warm ocean. The distant ceiling of the hanger fades in and out of focus, and I can almost count the individual weld lines. My eyes drift closed as I take a shaky breath. “Ooh yeah, that’s the stuff.”

         Through the drumbeat of the blood in my ears, I barely manage to make out a sigh through my earcomm. “Well, at least she didn’t scream this time.”

         “Beginning Pilot/AI Synchronization.”

         Words cannot fully do the process justice. I can feel my tangled thoughts drifting outward, filling a void that I can only faintly remember from the last time. Madeleine is a star, a solitary bright spark in the endless darkness, bathing me in her brilliance as we grow closer, and I feel myself growing larger, more complete. When the cockpit door descends, I take my first breath through the breather mask as the other half of the gel seat closes on top of me.

         And just like that, I pass the threshold. I can feel the Striker’s energy core pulsing in time with my own heart. My vision is gone, but I know everything around me through my scanners. I know the three other Strikers locked in place beside me, I know the position of every living being in the hanger. The warp panels are the strangest feeling, not physically attached to my body, but nonetheless reacting and moving in response to my thoughts as quickly and easily as my own arms and legs. My rockets flare to life for a moment, and I know their exact temperature as easily as I feel the thrumming vibrations. I exhale as my engines fall silent. There is no Lillian, there is no Madeleine. Taking another breath, I speak, a harmonized fusion of human and machine.

         “Synchronization complete. Intralink successful. Freyja online.”

         In my ear, I hear Isabel and her AI Cassandra whoop. “Namaka, synched up and ready to roll!”

         “Mitra is prepared and at peace with ourselves,” Javier and Mattias intone.

         “This is Rick and Alexei. Makhai is ready.”

         I can almost hear the engineer shudder. “Nope, still creepy.”

         “Lieutenant.”

         “Sorry Sir. Setting up squadron link.”

         One by one, I feel the others join up with me, our artificial exchange making me sigh. Namaka is eager, practically vibrating in her cradle as the oceanic roar of her thoughts wash through me. In contrast, Mitra is a mountain towering against her chaos, still and unchanging in his presence. As Makhai enters, his barely leashed primality lights a fire in my mind, a compliment to my razor focused and patient hunter. As I gather each of them into myself, and I am gathered into them, we merge and coalesce. Autonomous and contiguous, individuals within a Collective. I, and Us.

         “Link is… good. Solid connection. I think we’re good to go.”

         “You think?”

         “Sorry Sir. We’re good to go.”

         “Good.” Commander Rankel clasps his hands behind his back. “We’re ahead of schedule, Breaker Squadron. Prepare for launch.” I could see his expression grow more somber. “Good luck, and be safe.”

         “Safe? Ha! By the time they figure out they’re being attacked, we’ll be long gone.”

         “There is no guaranteed outcome, Mahkai. Impatience and rashness can be the death of you.”

         “Yeah, but he’s got a point, Mitra. Twenty thousand lightyears in a heartbeat at seven thousand meters a second? We’re in, we’re gone, they’re gone.”

         The Collective begins to fracture, and I spike each of their thoughts, gathering them back into a cohesive whole. “Enough, Breakers. Mitra is correct that our success is not guaranteed, Namaka. Our actions will make it guaranteed. Apologies, Commander.”

         Rankel nods. It was not the first time such an outburst had happened. Given our states and the effect the Intralink had on us, it would not be the last.

         My launch cradle jerks as it begins to move, and in preparation I clamp my warp panels against my hull. I can sense the others following me into the , and as the driver’s muted hum begins to rise in pitch and vibrate through me, my breath grows shaky with excitement.

         The acceleration makes me gasp as all four of us are hurtled into space in rapid succession. From the Halberd, space always looked like an inky blackness speckled with stars. But as a Striker, I see so much more. Every wave of energy is visible to me in ways that are simply impossible to describe. Were she not merged with Madeleine into me, Lillian would not be able to comprehend it. Out here, my mind a focused blade suspended in a cocoon of liquid pleasure, I am whole, and I am free.

         We move into formation as one, each knowing of the others movements and intentions. Our warp panels lift and begin to rapidly orbit us, energy crackling between them to form a ‘bubble’ of energy. Space distorts and tears before each of us, openings through which our bubbles slip. In the space of a heartbeat, the holes close behind us, lightyears away from our place of origin. Ahead of us looms a large blue-white planet, and between us, an armada of ships and defensive platforms.

         One of the ancient civilizations that gave birth to us had a word for what we do: blitzkrieg, the lightning war. Here, in a battle of heartbeats, there is no other more apt description. Even before the hole in space closes behind me, I acquire and process every target only a few kilometres ahead, calculating trajectories and the necessary positions to hit them from. In the span of a few nanoseconds, I make minuscule changes to my position with my maneuvering thrusters, using the energy fields of my warp panels to ‘fling’ some of my Burst Missiles into new directions. As the first of the enemy’s alarms activate, I adjust the energy bubble that encases me and relax, allowing inertia to do the rest of the work for me. For now.

         Before the enemy even as a chance to fire, their timers calculated down to the picosecond, the missiles detonate less than a hundred meters from their targets, turning them into clouds of hypervelocity shrapnel and pure kinetic shockwaves that perforate and pulverize cruisers and battle stations alike. We ourselves punch through armoured assault cruisers as though they were made of tissue paper, protected by our energy bubbles. Each repeated impact slows us down, guided by our thrusters to new targets. In the span of a second, we pass through the sphere of defences and enter the planet’s atmosphere.

         There is no hiding our presence now. Further slowed by the air compacting and turning to plasma against the bubble of energy, I scan the rocky surface of the planet while Namaka, Mitra and Mahkai propel themselves away in different directions. Once I’m no longer in danger of being liquified by my own velocity, I shut down the bubble and arrange the warp panels into ‘wings’. Even at this reduced speed, however, there is nothing capable of stopping me. Weaving across the sky, I fire the remainder of my Burst missiles towards a small cluster of targets on the planet’s surface, and in a matter of seconds they are consumed in a massive fireball. The sheer force of the aerial shockwave is enough to flatten anything beneath it, leaving nothing behind but a flaming crater, while I am already curving back up toward space, Namaka, Mitra and Mahkai following behind like a school of fish. Once again rearranging my warp panels to reform the bubble of energy around me, I slip through another hole in space and am gone. Utter devastation wrought in less than half a minute.

         In a battle of heartbeats, there is no room for mistakes. And none were made.