They can’t have been chickens. What would chickens be doing at that altitude?

And the Crash Investigation Report was right: Human Error. He’d left the Ion Thrust Guards open. He’d left himself open. But Captain Stellon had always seen his life playing out like a Sci-Fi film, especially when he’d got to fly the 36. So the bird strike was not how things were supposed to end.

Instead of seeing his life flash before him in the conventional manner, Captain Stellon had watched as a whole series of chickens were obliterated, one after the other, just inches from his nose. Such messy birds. Like something he’d never quite got round to.

Twelve years earlier he’d sat in the cockpit of the 36 (officially the XDR815Mk4.36) for the first time, overwhelmed by a sense of childish delight. Not only was it the fastest and most agile fighter of its time, but some brave retro-design features had given the interior a look that owed more to warplanes of the Common Era than contemporary cybernetics. None of which detracted from the ergonomic ease and seamless transition phases of the CI system, delivering its famously responsive handling.

As Captain Stellon took to the skies of Terraform 8 on that maiden flight, he was warmly reunited with his fourteen-year-old self on the day his father had upgraded his bicycle to a brand new HillSpiller. And just like the teenager scrambling across the dome-encased Crumplelands of Terraform 7, Captain Stellon’s eyes were wide and bright as the 36 climbed out of terrestrial sight.

He’d been given a full cycle out of training just to get used to it – total freedom to fly, without set objectives or destinations. No other mission than to please himself. So he’d swooped down through the thin atmosphere of Caviteus and plunged the 36 into the huge fissure in its outer crust.

Entering the vast subterranean tunnel system, he found he could negotiate every twist with total confidence. It was like having superpowers bestowed upon you. Then easing back on the FAU stick he felt the 36 surge upwards out of a crater and hurtle into the eternal starlit nothingness of space.

As G-force goes, it was close to orgasmic, and walking back across the strip on Terraform 8 he saw his commander waiting there with raised eyebrows and a big grin on his face. All Captain Stellon said by way of response was, “Sex. Good as sex.”

Of course, there had been some close calls since then. To put it mildly. He’d lost two wingmen over those twelve years. And it was true that he sometimes sat for a few seconds after he’d strapped himself in, just looking at the familiar lines and angles of the interior, wondering if there was something funereal about them. A similar worry had probably been preying on the minds of fighter pilots since the dawn of aviation (Captain Stellon liked his history, especially all that stuff about Earth: the two World Wars, Planetary Degradation and the Battles of Exodus. Fascinating and mad. All leading up to the AFZ he now patrolled. The Autonome-Free Zone. The last bastion of human conflict in the Near Interstellar, a region of space completely free of unmanned craft, by Universal Treaty. Just like nuclear warheads and biological terrorism in earlier times, the potential for Autonome supremacy was accepted as the latest existential threat to humanity. Or at least, that was the theory. In practice the AFZ was really an arena: a place where man could still exercise the freedom to kill man, where power struggles could still be played out and human history could continue unhampered by the regulatory effect of Autonomous Society. Conflict was legitimized now as an essential feature of what it is to be human, with conventional warfare its most sustainable expression).

So Captain Stellon was just another player in an ancient martial succession. Nothing out of the ordinary. That’s what he kept telling himself when he faced potential dangers. And make no mistake, Captain Stellon knew what it meant for things to be out of the ordinary. Because there was something about him that was not at all normal. Something he kept secret.

It had plagued him for as long as he could remember. A presence coming and going but never far away. Always just waiting in the wings until things got too comfortable for him. Just like that second day in the 36.

Things started going wrong. Failing display signals, emergency warning alerts. Most worrying, the holographic co-pilot had failed to materialize, let alone diagnose the problem. So he was reduced to tugging at the User Manual which had got wedged between his seat and the moulded interior. It fell open on the page identifying all the various controls: Large FAU dial, Switch Column, FAU Gauge, Directional Joystick.

It didn’t seem to be telling him much.

Small FAU Dial, Alternating Button Row (Big/Small), FAU Stick, Alternating Button/Switch Column.

In fact, it was as good as useless. And then it started getting really wayward:

FAU (Fuckwit Acceleration Unit), Shitehawk Release Switch, Twinge Diaphragm, Twat Refraction Dial, Knobend Beach Party.

He didn’t need to turn the page. It was obvious. This was one of Felquick’s little jokes.

Captain Stellon heard the sound of a familiar throat being cleared behind him and turned to see Felquick’s smug expression: “Well you don’t think those controls actually do anything, do you? Have you never asked yourself why you’re always surrounded by so much bullshit technology?”

“What the hell are you on about? What’s Knobend Beach Party got to do with astronautics?”

“Exactly, Captain Stellon. My thoughts exactly. A question for our time.”