You are sixteen years old. You are one of the first recruits to make it into Space Force as an infantry spaceman under the new law permitting anyone sixteen years young to join. You are aboard the Kobayashi Maru, a battleship at space for over a month now.
The Commander stands at the podium facing you and the rest of his troops. The Commander says, “Our mission is to control the L5 Earth-Sun La Grange point.” The green dot of his laser pointer pops against the black void on the cisEarth map on the large monitor. “Its location is programmed into your TDUs (tactical display units).”
You speak out, “There’s nothing there but empty space.”
The Commander responds tersely, “This a key control point of cisEarth space.”
You repeat, “But I don’t see nothing there but empty space.”
The Commander represses his anger at the insubordination. “You look but you do not see.”
You respond defiantly, “I see fine. There is nothing there but empty space.”
The Commander practically spits at you as he speaks. “This point is a La Grange point, a key strategic area in space. It may be 93 million miles from Earth but it is vital to the interests of cisEarth space.”
“What the hell is cisEarth space?” You never made it to physics or astronomy class at high school. They are classes for juniors and seniors. You haven’t made it that far in your high school career yet, but you aren’t going to let your ignorance stop you from asking questions.
“Everything on this map,” bellows the Commander, circling the 93 million mile radius of the Earth’s orbit about Sol. “The objective of our mission is to secure and hold the L5 La Grange point. If there are no further questions.” The Commander ends his statement with an understanding clear to all in the room except for you that there are to be no further questions.
“I have further questions. What is a La Grange point?”
“It’s Hill 1022. You understand the importance of high ground, don’t you? A La Grange point is the high ground of outer space.
“Now if there are no further.”
You miss the meaning of his incomplete sentence. You ask, “This is our secret mission? To take over a piece of empty space? This is what you pay me for?”
“I pay you to follow orders, goddammit. No more questions. Gunny, get control of your man.”
“Sir, yes sir,” shouts out the Gunny.
With that, the Commander dismisses you and the rest of the troops.
You turn to Gunny Highway, “He never answered the question. What the hell is a La Grange point? Why are we here?”
Highway, in his own idiosyncratic way, jerks his head sideways and snarls responding in a hoarse voice, “The La Grange points are points in space with no gravity to pull you back to either the Sun or the Earth. Like floating on the water on a surfboard just beyond the surf line.”
“A point? How big is a point?”
“Well, mathematically it’s a point, but practically speaking, it’s about the size of the Earth, maybe bigger.”
“You mean the space is so frickin’ empty it doesn’t even have gravity? And it’s as big as the goddamn Earth. Why do we have to fight for it?”
“These will be holding points for asteroids captured or piloted to the Earth for mining. So they have strategic value to the tune of trillions of dollars.”
“I don’t get it. You could fit a million asteroids into space the size of the Earth.”
“Like the man said, you’re not paid to think. You’re paid to follow orders.”
“I thought I was being paid to finish high school.”
In his gruff manner and guttural voice, Highway says, “Welcome to the real world son. You should have stayed at home.”

#
A blaring siren noise sounds, “Battle Stations. Battle Stations.”
The Commander stands on the bridge of the battleship monitoring the tactical data display. A bright dot is heading straight for the ship.
“Damn it, they’ve been shadowing us in the light of the sun.” No one catches the irony.
The tactical AI application speaks, “Inbound missile detected. Recommend evasive maneuvers.”
“I need a goddamn AI to tell me that? Evasive maneuvers,” responds the Commander. “Prepare to launch countermeasures. Ready missile bay.”
“Missiles ready,” responds a voice over the comm link to the First Strike Defensive Weapons unit.
“Make the initial trajectory of missile one degree off target. They can’t hide in the sun from both us and the missile.”
“Trajectory plotted.”
“Fire away,” orders the Commander.
“Missile away,” responds the First Strike Defensive Weapons unit.
“Inbound missile intercept in thirty minutes.”
“Launch countermeasures,” commands the Commander.
“Countermeasures away,” responds the Counter Offensive Defensive unit.
“Ground troops at the ready,” bellows the tactical leader of the first infantry unit.
You and all the men in your unit race for your suits and helmets and weapons. Your unit takes its positions in the airlocks.
“Troops deploy,” commands the Commander.
The first infantry team deploys out the airlocks positioning itself off the ship’s midsection about one klick. You and the others fall into formation separated and equidistant from one another. You have nothing to gauge your motion in the deep vacuum of space. It looks to you like you are just hovering over the ship.
An energy beam becomes visible as it closes. The iridescent beam passes through the countermeasures like an asteroid through Saturn’s rings.
In an instant, the ship is nothing more than muon shards in the quantum foam of space. The Commander and the ship have been atomized like the photons out of a light bulb. You don’t hear so much as a single scream from the wreckage. The crew of the Kobayashi Maru is as silent as the space you drift in.
In the distance, a rapidly expanding spherical rainbow of colors marks another explosion. The leading edge of the distant ship’s exploded energy field expands past you and the Kobayashi Maru troops passing like water through a fishnet. Your TDU detects enemy combatants approaching. You and the others speed toward your enemy face on and upright like the offense of a football team charging towards the defense without the bother of actually running. In the anger of destruction, no one bothers to worry about rescue and recovery.
Your tactical display registers a hundred enemy combatants on an intercept course. You charge up your weapon. You lock on to a remote target that you can’t see.
Gunny Highway shouts over your ear pod, “Fire at will.”
You fire.
Other shots from the first infantry unit fire into the void. You see Gunny Highway on your three. You recognize his shape and his inimitable sideways head jerk even through the obscurity of his uniform. He fires off three rounds. You see inbound energy spikes speeding towards yourself and the others. You lock on to another target and fire into the void.
An inbound energy pulse speeds to your right. Gunny Highway is split in half vertically from the top of his head to his crotch. The two pieces of him spin counter to one another like two tops, one in the Northern hemisphere and one in the South. You lock and fire into the darkness at an enemy that is nothing more than a blip on your TDU. Again and again. The TDU-indicated remote targets decrease from a hundred to fifty to ten.
More inbound fire. The men about you split in half like a high-speed wire is cutting straight through them. The sectioned parts spin at the cuts in the strangest of ballets. The feet of one man point toward each other than away and then toward each other again like interlocked gears. Another man’s torso and head appear together but then spin so it looks like he is kicking himself in the back of the head and then he is momentarily whole again. A frozen eyeball drifts past you looking blankly into the emptiness of space. A hand frozen on its trigger fires, again and again, the armed appendage recoiling about like a pinball in a game with no bumpers or paddles.
In seconds, no blips remain on your screen. The enemy fire has ceased. You shout out on your comms. “Kobayashi Maru report.” Static. “First infantry, report.” Static. “Anyone, report.” Static. There is no response. There is no purposeful movement. There is no enemy fire. There is no enemy ship. There is only.

#
You. You are the sole survivor. You have won the battle. You never even saw your enemy. You look at your TDU. You have drifted to the exact location of the mathematical abstraction of the La Grange point solidly painted on your screen. You fire your jetpack to stop your forward motion. Aside from a brief deceleration, with no reference points, before and after makes no difference in your speed or direction as far as you can tell.
You switch your comms to an Earth station frequency. You say, “I claim victory for Space Force and our Great Country. I claim this La Grange point for Space Force.” It takes about eight minutes for Earth to learn of your great success.
In another eight minutes, you hear the ground station response, “We don’t have a signal from the Kobayashi Maru. What condition is your ship in?”
You respond, “It’s only me. No other survivors. No ship.” And spinning corpses beginning to orbit about you in the deep gravity well of the La Grange point.
A distant blue dot hangs in the distance. The moon is barely a pixel in your vision. You are in the greatest nothing, both a real and existential void beyond your comprehension. You chose this job. You chose this path. To get to physics and astronomy classes. To get to prom and teenage awkwardness. To escape your mother from smothering you in a bubble. To hide from your father’s never-ending disappointment.
It takes way more than eight minutes before you finally receive a response. “God speed to you son.”
Spinning severed frozen partially uniformed body parts immerse you in a perverse ballet of rotating harmony. Highway’s neatly halved body continues to spin each eye spying its counterpoint for a brief moment then looking away, then looking again. One side gives an eternally frozen snarl to the other every corporeal rotation. The ballet of the battle-lost bodies orbits about you at the La Grange center of emptiness in a gruesome caricature of a solar system with you as its sun.
Your oxygen is redlining. A voice shouts in your ear in alarm. “Warning. Atmosphere depletion imminent. Warning.” You turn off your audio. You release your weapon. You release your TDU. You extend your arm towards Earth and then your middle finger. You detach the glove from the uniform with your left hand while your right arm remains extended with your gesture intact. Your middle-finger and hand freeze instantly in place as the air rushes out of your uniform.
Within a few seconds, you are frozen-dead, locked in a La Grange orbit forever by the negating gravitational forces of the Earth and the Sun. You are a corporeal monument of the “La Grange Wars” preserving your last commentary on the stupidity of your choice and the feelings about the purpose of your effort for all eternity.

<<<<>>>>