Lenin of the Stars by Robert T. Jeschonek

Author:Robert T. Jeschonek [Jeschonek, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pie Press

Thirty-seven years later, in the Earth year 2004, I was in the pilot seat of a fighter spacecraft, soaring through the bright blue sky over the Indian Ocean.

Morning sunlight gleamed off my topaz crystalline clusters and multifaceted eyes. I'd reverted to my native form; it was the only way to handle the complex controls of the fighter, which was from my homeworld.

And flying that fighter was the only way I could help win an interstellar war.

Checking the holographic displays in the cockpit, I spotted my target down below. I manipulated controls, and the fighter dropped through the cloud deck.

Emerging from the woolly clouds, I stared in stunned amazement at the tableau before me. Two huge vessels hung in the sky, vast starfaring warships from many light years away. As I watched, they fired enormous cannons, blasting each other with monstrous beams of fiery golden energy.

Tiny fighter craft like my own swarmed all around the warships, spinning and swooping and shooting. One exploded in a burst of orange light, then another; a third tumbled out of control and cracked up against the side of one of the warships.

So this was how civil war looked among the peoples of the interstellar workers' paradise. It was so much different from the hordes of humans hacking each other to bits in the mud with primitive weapons.

And yet, it was so much the same.

The war had been part of my life for years, of course. I'd seen plenty of action on Earth...but this was the first battle of this scope I'd been part of. I'd never seen anything like it in space, either, before coming to Earth. There hadn't been an interstellar war in millions of years, thanks to the lasting peace of the galactic revolution and workers' paradise.

But that was before the counter-revolution. That was before the twisted ideas of Earth had infected the interstellar community.

Suddenly, a flash of light seared across my forward shields, and I knew it was time to take action. Spinning my fighter counter-clockwise, I saw a gunboat coasting toward me like a big silver needle, artillery blazing.

I let loose a few rounds from my fusion guns, then whipped around and hightailed it toward one of the giant warships. The gunboat stayed in pursuit part of the way, until a shockwave picked it up like a toy and hurled it off my tail.

Finessing the controls, I closed in on the warship. I knew it was the enemy from its colors (red and black) and the symbols etched into its hull. It was a ship of the Capitalist Alliance, believers in the wealth of the few at the expense of the many...staunch enemies of the communists of the Interstellar Proletariat.

They were my enemies, though they were no different in appearance than me. I'd come to kill them, though we'd originated from the same homeworld, maybe even the same city or street.

Such was the legacy of the counter-revolution I'd first learned of thirty-seven years ago in Pamplona.

Not that the reasons for the fight much mattered anymore.

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