Just because I hadn’t been on Earth in years didn’t mean that I’d lost my love for my planet. As much as I needed to escape from my parents, there were good memories on the blue marble. I remembered being the class clown, savoring the moment where I got even the teachers to crack and laugh at one of my comments. My father thought the military would turn me serious at last—and I was determined to prove him wrong. There was no awakening out in space, other than a wistfulness for looking at a blue sky, hearing a busker pound on buckets, and the taste of funnel cake on Mardi Gras.

  Life was music, humor, and beauty; it was the feeling of the parades and carousing that I chased, and spread to others. Earth was a small tangled web of silly things that I loved, and carried with me to the edges of the Sol system…and beyond. If there was ever one thing I was serious about, it was that I would die to protect humanity’s home.

  Larimak only learned that my people came from another dimension, and started looking for our portal, because I got captured and used as a bargaining chip. That knowledge will haunt me for the rest of my days, far worse than the torture.

  I had to get to a ship, in the hopes that my intervention could avert the disaster that Capal had foretold.

  “I swear, this prick is following me. I don’t accept our fate! I won’t give up…not on this,” I said, in a voice that was choked with hysterics; I was wrecked by emotions. “I’m going to get on a ship and fight; I have to try. That’s the only way to make any small changes to the future.”

  Mikri shook his head, reaching out for me. “You cannot reasonably affect any difference, Preston. Please listen to me! I understand that you value this above any personal concerns, but if Sol is destroyed, it is more helpful to humanity that you stay alive! You will need every unit possible to continue your species.”

  “No, fuck that. That’s my home, and I won’t go down in some bloody conservation reserve you build to keep me alive forever! I’m not a fucking white rhino, living carefree as the last of my kind! It only takes one shot to kill Sol. Maybe it takes one ship to stop it. I’ll find out.”

  “You should. There is still hope. It’s possible other humans will see the sequence of events to be avoided too,” Sofia chimed in. “Preston, I already know you have precognitive abilities. You can dodge shots just as well as any pilot at Temura, so Mikri shouldn’t worry.”

  “Let me help Preston. I know there is one seat in the smaller fighters, but I can also get another ship to protect him. My hull could intercept any lethal munitions bound for his vessel,” Mikri beeped.

  I shook my head in an emphatic no. “You don’t have the foresight! You would not be helping me, Polycarb. I never asked you to protect me. What I’m asking you is to protect them: you can help more looking out for Sofia and Capal. Please. That’s my wish, and logically, the safety of two friends should override one. They’re the brightest minds on our side, if Sol goes kaput. Our best hope.”

  “Your words honor me. If there are multiple futures, I will find the one where humanity finds its way in Caelum. I’ll help you adjust to your…new status,” Capal said solemnly. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t warn you soon enough.”

  Sofia pressed a fist over her heart. “You gave us what you could. I’ll do what I can from here, looking into the future for any clues that might help. Mikri could add a lot of processing power to our efforts. We still have time to figure out a solution.”

  “I…will help Sofia and Capal with this objective. I do not like saying goodbye to Preston,” Mikri lamented. “My core functions have gotten used to the organic’s presence and antics. I would be disappointed not to include his behaviors in my predictive algorithms. A future without him is one I would not wish to calculate.”

  Tears welled in my eyes, as those words broke my heart further. “Goodbye, Tin Can.”

  I took off running at Caelum speeds, not wanting to feel any more rotten about leaving Mikri; I knew the android didn’t understand. Larimak finding the Space Gate was the worst-case scenario, regardless of how we’d thumped him at Jorlen and Temura. He’d have some kind of shitty, dirty-ass plan that we had to be ready for. Sofia and Capal would warn our command, and maybe they would adjust strategy accordingly.

  My feet moved frantically, racing past other humans who were jogging to the hangar bay—and by “jogging,” I meant a light, comfy 60 miles per hour pace. I squeezed my eyes shut, and willed myself to have any kind of vision. There had to be some way to sense which actions would lead to our demise, unless that was the only possible future. It was like standing in a nuclear power plant that was about to blow, and having no clue where the kill switch was.

  What I want is for my friends and my people to survive, whatever happens to me. Mikri isn’t the only one who can sacrifice himself! I was and am a Space Force pilot, before command waved a magic wand and called us the best foot soldiers ever, because there was no one else. Funny how the “Space Force” is the only branch out in space, huh?

  If Sol didn’t get rekt before Earth could send more soldiers, we really needed a whole new military for Caelum-only; now that the Gate’s location was out there, humanity had to haul ass through those molasses physics and send us reinforcements. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Mikri had said about me being one of the last humans, breeding like rabbits in some futile attempt to restore our species. My lungs burned, but I welcomed the pain and ran harder. I wasn’t sure what my plan was when I finally rounded the corner into the hangar bay, other than to fight.

  “Preston!” Livid squawks came from above me, as I saw Jetti perched atop a raised speaker—waiting for me. “You told us we’d be safer here, that we were getting out of harm’s way! You brought Hirri right to Larimak’s next attack: his main offensive. Why would you bring us here?!”

  “You can’t be serious. So everything is my fault?” Rage snaked through my blood, so unspeakably infuriated at the Derandi’s audacity and selfishness; how dare she? I could feel the veins in my neck popping beneath my scowl, as the stress of losing my dimension overrode my restraint. “You say everything I fucking do could kill Hirri—you what, think I planned this? You have no idea; you don’t worry about us at all! It’s not like I knew they were going to attack here!”

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  “Really? I thought you can see the future!”

  “I can, and humanity is about to die. So fuck you; go caw about ‘your son this, danger that’ to another goddamn sucker. I’ve had more than enough of it. Go jump out the airlock if it’s not to your liking here.”

  Of all the times for Jetti to grow a spine and talk back to us; what’s she even doing, inserting herself into an active combat situation? I try to save Hirri, and this is the thanks I get? Never any worry for my concerns! The Derandi would be happy not to have to fear humanity anymore.

  I turned my back on the stunned Derandi ambassador, and hurried over to find a hangar crew member. Command hadn’t assigned me to a ship, so I’d need to get clearance from there; the clamp release and even the ignition wouldn’t work unauthorized. I could see spaceships being loaded into vacuum-sealed launch tubes and shot down that tunnel, escaping past the closed airlock door. I grabbed a technician by the jumpsuit, and fixed him with the intense stare of a wild animal.

  “I’m not messing around. Put me on a fighter, right now!” I shouted.

  The crew member hesitated, pulling up my file without asking for my name. “Captain Preston Carter, you’re not cleared for combat. Your flight status was revoked due to observed dissociative—”

  “I don’t care! I’m perfectly fine, but that’s not even the point. Are these really the molehills you want to die on? Because that’s what will happen if you don’t put me on a ship. Sol is about to be destroyed, you hear me? Wiped of all life!”

  “What?! You…you saw that in a vision? That can’t be. I…I don’t know. Sir, my orders—from your superior officers—are clear.”

  “Nothing is clear when the stakes of making the wrong decisions are our entire universe. When it comes to using precog, I have the most seniority; you can’t sideline me today. You know there’s no other soldiers in reserve here to take my place, so that’s a bird that’s not getting off the ground without you sticking my butt in a chair. We need every ship. Please, let me try.”

  “I…I heard how you took down that spaceship with your hands, sir. That makes you competent in my book. If you say Sol is in trouble, I believe you. There’s an open ship waiting in Tube C. Get on it before I change my mind. Do what you must.”

  I ducked my head in acknowledgement, inhaling with relief. “I will; thank you. Rest assured, I won’t hesitate.”

  Not even wasting the time to grab a helmet, I bolted for Tube C like it was the last lifeboat off the Titanic. The last mission I’d piloted had been that first foray through The Gap, when Sofia and I flew ourselves at a hole that disappeared objects with zero self-preservation. I knew how to handle setting a course for certain doom, on the off-chance that it might have a different result. What was important was to remember my training, and to do as well as our pilots at Temura. I hoped those ships were hoofing it back our way.

  Muscle memory carried me through the startup sequence, though I was careful not to flick any switches too hard. I felt the sudden acceleration as my engines booted, and the slingshot jettisoned me away from our base; it took a few seconds to be surrounded by an ocean of stars. There was no guidance from the internal oracle like I hoped to hear. I studied my sensors in real-time, and locked my course in the direction that Larimak’s ships had been detected.

  “Feel free to ask your onboard AI for help.” The sound of a singsong mechanical voice coming from the speakers, before I’d even patched into the command chatter, made me jump—especially with how tense I was. “I can calculate many variables for you, and help the scientists from here at the same time!”

  “Jesus, Mikri! You scared the piss out of me!” I shouted.

  “My presence should not be frightening or affect your control of bodily functions. I suspect you are afraid of and distracted by other things. I do not like goodbyes, and was unable to accept the outcome of leaving you alone. I went to great lengths to implant myself to this vessel.”

  “Let me guess. You hacked my ship,” I sighed.

  “A partial truth. I tapped into every ESU spacecraft to eliminate the possibility of missing the ship you were on.”

  “So you were wasting processing power doing this, instead of helping Sofia and Capal like I asked?”

  “The task was inconsequential. Your encryption is no match for me; you know this from when I first found you on that asteroid. You are lucky I am a nice machine.”

  “Are you though?”

  “Yes. Do not bicker with me. How can I help you defeat Prince Small Dick?”

  I chuckled, despite not being in the mood for humor at all; this was beyond my normal coping mechanism. “You got his name right. Why don’t you hack his ships instead of ours?”

  “The creators are prepared for such attempts. They are familiar with our capabilities, as they engineered us and thus, have computers on our level. Is there anything else I can do to assist?”

  “Yes. Be quiet unless spoken to. You’ll distract me from harnessing my precognition.”

  The silence that ensued told me that Mikri was going to obey my command, and I shook my head at the thought of him installing on every ESU spaceship. We already had AIs that could handle many functions, but it wasn’t as easy as having the Vascar boot up every empty ship and buzz around in Larimak’s face. For all of his calculations, even an android didn’t have the one thing that made our weaponry viable here: the foresight was all that could help me now.

  I checked my sensors again, noticing that a few small dots were closer—in visual range. My eyes lifted up to the windshield, to see that these contacts weren’t visible at all; they were microscopic. The instruments’ scan of that area suggested these were tiny camera drones, scouting an area for Larimak. Looking for something.

  “Okay, you can talk for one second,” I said to the air, knowing that Mikri was listening. “Why is Larimak sending in camera drones? Surely he can see our infrastructure from afar.”

  The android offered a muted whir. “Preston, I believe they are obtaining an exact visual so that they have the coordinates for The Gap. This may be what Capal has advised us of. It is a logical objective to seek to destroy the layered protection over the portal…and to succeed in sending a faster-than-light object into Sol is their only hope at victory.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “I knew that was a possibility from the moment you explained it to me. Fuck! We have to stop this. For all of our strength, it takes just one lucky shot to sink us.”

  “I believe an apt literary comparison is an Achilles heel. You should hurry.”

  As the events that would threaten the very existence of our dimension began to fall into place, I pushed my single-seat spaceship to its limits in desperation to get to Larimak. Multiple seals made of Sol metal provided layers of protection for the portal, but each of them could only sustain so much damage before they succumbed. The prince had to be taken out before he could cannonade the Space Gate past the point of no return. The Elusians’ gateway was just a door to destroy our universe at will, nothing more!

  A fear that felt quite real nestled in my throat, having yet to determine any way to change the sands of time. I would fight until the end, but much like before my capture on Jorlen, I felt as if I had already failed. Within a few hours, this battle would dictate whether the worst future would come to pass.