But celebration would have to wait—
because the security squadrons saw
that mommy-corporation was eating shit,
and twenty-four cyber-psycho fighter pilots
decided to vent all their childhood trauma
onto the Z-P-N-E-S.
Five wings in total—
four flanking, one tucked beneath—
dived after our rustbucket in perfect attack formation,
already opening fire.
The hull of the Z-P-N-E-S shuddered,
alarms wailed, lights flickered,
the floor vibrated like the ship was preparing
its final, dying fart.
Blindy flailed at the console,
screeching incoherent profanity,
while Zeros sat perfectly still—
his eyes darting over mechanical instruments
as though reading ancient runes of destiny.
Then, suddenly, calmly, evenly:
“Throttle to zero.”
Blindy choked on pure panic.
“WHAT?! If we slow down WE DIE!”
Madeline, strapped to the couch between the seats,
didn’t even raise her voice.
She just sighed and said:
“Moron. You’re misunderstanding the metal moron.
We’re not slowing down.
We’re in space, you dumbass.”
Zeros gave her a brief, respectful nod.
“Finally—someone in this rusted coffin
whose brain works at least better than a cockroach.”
Blindy shook his head like a malfunctioning ceiling fan.
“Wh—what the hell are y’all talkin’ about?!”
Zeros decided it was safer to educate the moron
than let him combust from fear.
“Let me dumb this down:
we’re reassigning the front of the ship.
Your turret hasn’t rotated since the last twelve-year cycle—
it only fires forward.
So… give me the damn controls.
And shut your meat-hole.”
He reached across the console,
flipped three protected switches,
and killed the overtaxed engines.
Utter, dead silence.
All indicators went dark.
The Z-P-N-E-S drifted on inertia,
maintaining speed—
while the pursuers rapidly closed in.
Blindy shrieked like a pig at grooming day:
“WE’RE DEAD! WE ARE SO DEAD!”
Zeros unbuckled, leaned forward,
and gripped the ancient pilot’s yoke
that Blindy called “decor from dinosaur times.”
“Inertia. Fundamental principle.
Brace your meat-ass self.”
He stomped the left pedal
until the metal howled.
The ship GROANED,
bolts prayed for mercy,
the frame begged for a quick death—
and the Z-P-N-E-S swung around 180 degrees
in absolute silence.
Now it drifted backwards,
nose pointed directly at the oncoming cyber-bastards.
The enemy targeting computers freaked out.
The pilots freaked out.
Blindy freaked out—
for the third time in a row.
Zeros crawled to the rear gunnery console—
the one that “hasn’t worked since 3467.”
He flipped a rotten switch.
"TARGET LOCK ONLINE. FIRE-CONTROL SYSTEM ENGAGED."Blindy screamed:
“HOW IS IT ONLINE?! IT NEVER WORKS!!”
Zeros, calmly dusting off the ancient panel:
“It works when I’m the one using it.”
And he opened fire.
PEW! PEW!—TSHWEE!—VRRRMM!
A perfect stream of kinetic rounds—
the kind that usually only hit drifting space junk—
now flew with surgical precision.
Every shot—ZOWIE!—a hit.
Every enemy craft—KABOOM!—a fireball.
Every cyber-pilot—ARGH!!!—a melted scrapyard donation.
Blindy’s jaw dropped.
This time it hit his own chest.
Zeros slid back into the pilot seat,
hit the ignition,
and the Z-P-N-E-S coughed, rattled, screamed—
then shot forward again
like nothing unusual had just happened.
Blindy finally exhaled.
He stared at Zeros like he was seeing him for the very first time—
not as a walking tin-can psychopath,
but as something else entirely.
“Holy shit… I—I didn’t know my baby could do that.”
Zeros didn’t even turn his head.
“I can list a quintillion things you don’t know.
This, for example, is called Z-Physics.
A beautiful cocktail of cosmic nitro-boosting, Tokyo drift,
and Einsteinian fuckery all happening at once.”
Blindy grinned—
that unique expression of his that managed to be
admiring, stupid, horny, and impressed all at the same time.
“Well… that kinda physics is sexy as hell.”
Zeros sighed—
a deep metallic exhale that echoed across the cockpit
like the ship itself wanted to leave this universe out of shame.