It is 23:50 hours, by the reckoning of our fleet. At this time, P150 is plummeting, suspended in drug-induced sleep, past the white-washed letters thrice a man high which mark my hulk, our home. My computations will take him past the chance of disintegration in the upper atmosphere of the world below, at which point I will wake him. He will spread his wings, and at supersonic speeds hasten to the battle that will likely end his life.
The cold cathode display of the command desk blinks. I can hear - no, remember - the clatter of the overlarge split-flap display and accompanying cheers in the galley, somewhere up and behind me, in the churning belly of this machine. It is officially the 14th of February, 00:01 hours.
The internal time-keeper of the machine which bears P150 toward noisome death measures down to the nanosecond. For purposes of human organization, hours and minutes suffice.
Earthside, SDF time is 03:01. My husband and daughter, whose habitat is located in the world’s north-western quadrant, have already lived through the Valentine’s Day which has just begun by our reckoning. They have eaten dinner, and they are now at church.
My daughter knows me only as an icon of maternity. I have not seen her since she was removed from my womb and I departed for this deployment, five years ago. She will struggle to stay awake, ashes smudged on her brow. They will have just told her that she will die.
My husband has told her that her mother has been gone so long because she is a hero. He is wrong.
They say the most replaceable part of an Intuitive Control Unit is its pilot, but this is not true.
The economies of scale afforded by a planetary system-spanning supply chain, along with the steady advance of computing technology, ensure the production of Units at a steady clip, and in fact they cease production only when too many have been stockpiled to maintain. Pilots are the bottleneck. Operating a war machine by way of myoelectric and neuro-computational interfacing is a delicate art which requires years of training with their Skin, and years before in preparation for that task. They begin this training young, so that it may be completed before they are too old to serve.
I have nurtured P150 for nine years. I met him a year before, on his ninth birthday. In that time, I have personally arranged his every meal and psychological evaluation, fine-tuned his every hormonal imbalance. There are ways in which I know his self more intimately than I do my own. He needs me to. He can’t monitor his own vitals in flight.
There were others, too, and they are aboard my vessel, but for these ten years he has been my focus. There was another before him, and there will be another after he is gone.
I never met his mother.
Something I wrote in 2024 on the coincidence of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day in response to a prompt from a friend, lightly edited. Idk, something different!
So beautiful. And odd. Who is this P150? Why is she caring for him and not her own child. Fascinating.