episode_0083

Alex, 20 years old this year.

He was born in a colony in the universe and raised by ordinary parents, but one day he was kidnapped by space pirates and forced to live on a pirate ship.

The space pirate did not raise himself to be a soldier.

However, I kept riding a simulator so that I could ride AS in case of emergency, and I had to do dirty work like cleaning pirate ships during the day and hone my skills as an AS pilot at night.

Alex thought.

If I stay like this, I will die, and I will die without ever seeing my parents’ faces.

In order to at least let them know that he was alive, he struggled to get into the eyes of the pirates and excelled at controlling AS.

3 years.

From the time he was kidnapped, he gained the trust of the pirates by saying, ‘Is this enough for you to use him as our subordinate?’ and gained some freedom.

He was frustrated.

His parents died while searching in every possible way to find him.

He was desperate.

He suffered all sorts of hardships under the space pirates with the sole thought of somehow contacting his parents, but his parents were already dead.

I feel like I lost everything.

Frustrated and despairing, he began to express his anger and hatred towards the world.

I can’t be the only one experiencing this sadness.

Others must experience this grief too.

He realized that among the space pirates who treated him harshly, there were others who had such thoughts, and eventually he learned that such behavior was passed down from generation to generation.

I don’t think that’s true, but Alex had no choice.

If you were given a new life, wouldn’t you have lived the same life you have now?

If he had grown up in the arms of his parents and lived in a colony as an ordinary boy, he would probably have become a soldier in the National Guard by now rather than a pirate who steals and destroys other people’s things.

That’s all an assumption.

Because time cannot be turned back.

All you have to do is make a new choice in a new situation.

[You are trapped in the brain mattress.]

In a space where there is nothing.

A huge mask appeared before my eyes and began to speak as if giving notice.

[There are three fates for you. You can be sold for 30 million credits, you can be ejected into outer space and die, or you can become a soldier of our colony and protect the colony in AS until you have served your sentence.]

Alex was amazed to see that they even kindly showed a 3D simulation implemented in virtual reality.

Alex is trapped in an ether tube and ejected into space.

Alex is sold an entire tube of ether to a colony, becomes a human slave to a woman who purchased it as her ‘family’, and spends his entire life picking cotton on the colony’s farm.

And Alex climbs into a cockpit and takes on enemies by controlling a drone connected through etheric radio signals and income.

“Ah.”

last scene.

The enemy charging towards the colony was not someone else, but himself on a modified Harkon.

There was a distracted pilot in the cockpit, proudly wearing a skull symbol representing a space pirate on his shoulder, controlling the aircraft while sticking out his tongue as if he was on drugs.

“Ugly.”

I just think it’s ugly.

It was so ugly that I felt ashamed of myself, and thinking that it was my past made me want to die right now.

[The brain mattress serves as a kind of ‘resocialization.’]

Could he have read Alex’s mind?

Or is he just reciting the recorded comments verbatim?

[Your identities have already been revealed to the world. Each family has been contacted to receive compensation from your family, and your family knows that you are trapped in the brain mattress.]

The mask whispers.

[Since you are controlling an unmanned AS, you are not risking your life. If you are shot down by an opponent, you will experience death, but it is no different from the experience of being hit by a car in a 4D movie theater. In other words, even if you are shot down, you will not die.]

A soldier who never dies.

[Rather than simply adding AI to the drone, it is more efficient to control it remotely through brain quantum waves. No? Statistics prove it. My statistics.]

I wonder if it would be more efficient to control the drone with an AI chipset or at least have an Android robot as the pilot, but that mask seems to be a person who seriously thinks about ‘human potential’.

[If you want plastic surgery, I can do that. If you want to change gender, he can do that too. Of course, if you are a model prisoner who has achieved solid results.]

“……!”

[There may not be as many choices as you think. You tried to take over us, invade and plunder our land. Although they are people I wouldn’t mind killing, I decided to show them some mercy.]

Weeeeing.

Three buttons appear before my eyes.

Space ejection.

Waiting for sale.

Active duty enlistment.

There are a list of words that send shivers down your spine just by reading them, but what gives you even more chills is the countdown that appears in front of them.

[Give 10 seconds. There is no such thing as 9 seconds or 11 seconds. It is always 10 seconds.]

As soon as I finished speaking, the 10 that came to mind changed to 9.

[After time passes, it automatically goes on sale. Malicious inventory that has passed its expiration date must be disposed of.]

It was a rather leisurely countdown, not the actual 10 seconds, but because of that, Alex had to make a choice even more quickly.

Whatever choice you make, it’s better than making no choice.

At least I was forced to live on the rails of becoming a space pirate, but at this moment, I was given the opportunity to choose.

“Totally false….”

Alex raised his hand.

“Ha, give it a try!”

Kwa-euang.

Alex slammed his fist down on the option, and soon he saw a new scene.

“…cockpit?”

New cockpit.

My body began to move as if I was sitting in the cockpit and was linked to the mannequin doll sitting in the cockpit.

“It’s a little different from the specs I’m used to… Wait a minute.”

The moment Alex grabbed the control stick and knocked on the panel, a shiver truly went down his spine.

“Take this ride?”

An English word appeared before my eyes.

[EtherRaFal.]

“Ah, shit.”

Alex momentarily regretted his choice.

* * *

Rafale.

It is France’s most famous fighter plane, and is notorious for being the least-selling aircraft.

is not.

In fact, despite its notoriety, the Rafale fighter jet sold quite well for generations before the start of the space century, and that is why it continues its name even now, even after entering the space century.

The Rafale of today is different from the Rafale of the 21st century.

In order to solidify the image of Rafale as an AS, it established its identity as ‘RaFal’ rather than Rafale, even though the pronunciation is similar, and became AS, breaking away from the existing image.

However, since it is an after-sales service produced by a new company that transferred the technology of the company that produced the Rafale, it often retains its previous appearance.

“In an era where bipedal mechas leap through space with flight units, romantic trash is flying in the sky.”

I read the text on the wiki with information about Rafale and went to an observatory with a clear view of the universe to see the universe.

Buuuung ㅡㅡㅡㅡ

Rafale flies in the sky.

Among those on the brain mattress, the first to become space marines became the colony defense force, flying fighter planes across the ocean of space.

There is no rest.

They patrol 24 hours a day and must move according to given orders.

Of course, when the brain demands sleep or is mentally pushed to its limit, it enters a resting state and the aircraft is patrolled by an autonomous AI, but when it enters a combat state, it immediately wakes up and fights.

[haha. This is it. I had no idea Paladin would become our customer like this.]

“It’s noisy, Rafalpal.”

[…I feel bad when you call me that.]

The ‘seller’ connected through the watch let out a low laugh.

[Still, is there anyone else but us who has been so hostile to the colony that has become a public enemy?]

“Red line? Didn’t they send the Rafale drone to carry out a large-scale attack?”

[Oh my. If a war had really started, wouldn’t even Rafale have been able to ignore it? From our perspective, the number of captured Rafales is as many as 500?]

“Thank you so much for sending me 500 paper airplanes.”

[Hehe, I don’t like the idea of burning a space pirate on a brain mattress, but could you please send me the battle data? Even though it looks like that, it is the latest model.]

“But isn’t it Rafale?”

Brand is important.

No matter how latest it is, there’s something wrong with it being called Rafale.

[hey. I’m saying this as a Frenchman, but if this were called a ‘gust’ or a ‘storm’ in another country’s language, it would be a really awesome aircraft, right?]

“I guess so. Tempest, or something like that.”

[How about Kamikaze?]

“……I don’t know if you’re doing this because you know I’m from Korea, but are you trying to make Rafale, which already has a bad image, even worse? Well, if you want to collect battle data in that way, I can’t help it.”

I operated the panel and checked the pilot status of the new Rafale patrolling in front of me.

Alex A. 20 years old.

“I thought they sent a space fighter, but if they tell me to operate it in a self-destructive manner, I have no choice but to do so.”

[…If you’re going to use it as a Scourge, just give it back.]

“Kamikaze.”

[I apologize.]

With one apology, he became a wraith in Scourge.

Although it is Wraith-Rafale.