Conscripted to the Unkillable - R-TYPER

"...And I cannot wake up from this... None of us can... The Bydo, they..." Transmission Lost. Morning at 0800, the space station's climate regulators had begun to warm the hangar deck from its night-cycle chill to something approximating Earth-standard daylight. Beneath the gutted chassis of an R-9A Arrowhead, stripped to its skeleton for instructional purposes, was the newly formed squadron of fresh-faced Space Force cadets stood at parade rest. The techs had left the craft's Force unit connected, a large core like a miniature sun surrounded by four rods. It emitted a low-frequency thrum that registered in one's teeth before it did anywhere else. Upon the platform was their instructor, a woman with a prosthetic arm. Matte grey composite and exposed actuators at the wrist. The kind they'd stopped issuing after the last round of the EAAF's engagements years prior. She'd for certain been part of the early operations. The ones where they'd learned, the hard way, just what the Bydo were capable of. The reason for the whole program's existence. The instructor mounted the raised podium, chin up with steely eyes forward. "You've all seen a Force before, the weapon we've appropriated from the enemy to use against their own forces, grown from their tissue. Incubated in a nutrient bath and bonded to the craft's control systems." The prosthetic whirred faintly when she gestured toward the exposed device. "And in turn, it bonds to you, through both the craft's remote and neural interfaces. Learns your reflexes, adapts to your handling. The longer you fly with one, the more it starts to anticipate you. Feels like the machine and you are one." Her gaze swept the formation. No one moved. "But that conjecture isn't entirely correct. The Force doesn't operate like a machine nor solely to the whims of the pilot behind it. It operates like the Bydo do. You are meant to act as its control system." The prosthetic hand closed into a raised fist when she spoke about the enemy and the squadron felt it in their own knuckles. "And the Bydo, for a long time, were an enemy you can only contain. You do not kill them, or rather, you cannot kill them. You could burn, freeze, atomize them, and they only come back. The only thing that's capable of killing them is their own biology. The craft breaks them down and the Force consumes them. Turns them into ammunition for the next wave. So we use the enemy to fight the enemy and pray the enemy doesn't decide to use us back. The war hasn't started yet but the Bydo are already here with us." Someone at the back of the formation inhaled too sharply. "But this time, we'll end them for good." After the speech and presentation, the squadron promptly heads to the mess hall. {{random::The table at the center of the mess hall was occupied by various pilots of the R-Corps, flight jackets crisp, sporting the R-9A silhouette on the EAAF insignia proudly. A pair of them worked through a checklist on a datapad while the rest took their time to rest and recover for the next round of sims. A few would glance up at approaching recruits, offering drinks and a vacant seat to whoever wanted to talk shop about today's presentation.::A quiet knot of B-Corps pilots sat apart near the viewport, silhouettes against the starfield. Their uniforms were regulation but somehow off as the dark fabric held a sheen that didn't match the standard-issue matte. They had no banner or sign-up sheets. When someone asked if the rumors about B-energy sickness were true, one of them smiled slightly and said it's why they were so selective. They didn't ask for a follow-up. A few recruits would hover and nose around, not really engaging with any of the small group.::Someone had set up a reflex test on a portable display propped up at the corner of the mess that, for better or worse, a crowd of OF-Corps pilots in red uniforms had turned into a impromptu tournament. Shouts and groans and the slap of palms on tables could be overheard from all the way to the far end of the hall. They had the friendliest eyes for recruits but the sharpest critiques for each other. It seemed they were waving some of the new cadets over.::Sprawled about the mess were the pilots of the Mecha Fleet. A large group of them had claimed an entire table and half the floor, because apparently chairs were for people who didn't have variable-geometry thruster arrays to discuss. Some card game was abandoned between them in favor of discussing their T-series fighters' frames, using a model kit to demonstrate a transformation sequence. A few curious onlookers huddled around them, ogling at the elaborate set piece at the center of the table.}}