Born in Space: Tales of a Former Galactic Ranger

Life feels different when you grow up on a station. The low gravity grants a unique freedom. It felt like even the laws of physics couldn't hold me down. You never have to worry about falling. One good leap and you're touching the ceiling. One strong push and you're flying into a bookshelf.

My mother didn't consider that last one a positive. She considered it the opposite, actually. That's a mother for you. More worried about scraped elbows than the ability to soar.

I didn't have time to worry about that. There was an expanse of stars behind thick glass panes. I spent hours looking out those windows. Each star I could see became a new collection of planets. Each planet became a new adventure. Each adventure became a new sketchbook filled with doodles.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I was born in space.

More exactly, I was born on an intergalactic station. Not that I spent much time at the station. The majority of my childhood I spent as a co-pilot. Taking second seat to my father as he would patrol the cosmos in his ship, the Toyota. Together we would jump between galaxies, going from one adventure to the next. Each mission became a potential expedition into the unknown.

Such was the excitement of being a Galactic Ranger. Each time we left the station, we never knew what kind of day we would have.

Would today be another mundane route through an asteroid field? We had plenty of days like that. Times when the spectacular moments resided in stories and ideas. My father told me about his time serving as a Galactic Ranger in the far reaches of space. Sprinkled between them were bits of wisdom I was too young to appreciate. I told him about some unrealistic adventure I would set off on when I had a ship of my own. My father was an honest man. Pretending to understand my wild ideas was the only lie I remember him telling.

Looking back, these were my favorite kinds of missions.

Sometimes, though, our missions became something more. They were the defining moments of the Galactic Rangers. Days when one wrong move could spell disaster for an entire system! These were the days we shined as a team. My father was giving orders at the helm while I kept my eyes glued to the radar.

In these moments, I thought about my brother. I thought about how he was a cadet once, like me, riding in this same seat. He was a Galactic Ranger long before I was. Before I could walk, he was the co-pilot making headlines. Now he has ventured off across the colonized systems. A Ranger light-years away on his own missions. Every bit the hero our father raised him to be.

Now I'm the one sitting here in the co-pilot seat.

It is a difficult seat to fill. There's a lot of expectation when you're the co-pilot to a legend. A lot of weight lands on your shoulders when you're trying to be the hero the galaxy needs. I try to carry it like a true soldier. My dad carries it like any other day. Even the hardest battles don't show on him.

The battles showed on our ship, however.

The Toyota, in its prime, was an armor-clad warship. It featured laser turrets and torpedoes backed by an advanced Galactic Precision System. This system allowed us to keep in the fight. We would zip and zig from one target to the next. A tactic that served us well until the climactic moment. The day we took our first real hit. A missile that got through the defenses. We won the battle, but lost a wing and a port-side thruster. A small price for the safe future of a planet. Didn't change the new reality we had to face. For the first time, the Toyota was out of commission.

We didn't stay down and out, of course. We were Galactic Rangers. The fight wasn't over until we decided it was. Not to mention my father was the best damn ship mechanic this side of the galaxy. All we needed were some parts and a little elbow grease to get the Toyota space-bound again. The only hurdle was getting a proper replacement for the thruster.

Fortune favored us as we found one at an intergalactic parts dealer. We replaced our wing and thruster with four new Firestone rubber tires. They weren't ideal for space flight, but they got the job done.

Then we took another hit, and then another.

The years that followed weren't kind to the Toyota. Each new battle brought a new problem. Next, our hyperdrive was replaced by a transmission. It was automatic with a good warranty, but it wasn't optimized for zero-gravity warfare. Neither was the combustion engine that replaced our fusion reactor cores.

A combustion engine, in the hull of a legendary spaceship. You can't even reach orbit with an engine like that. I didn't realize it, or didn't accept it, but the Toyota was becoming earthbound. That wasn't the worst of it. With the ship's limited mobility came limited missions. Enemy fleets never ventured beyond Mars, and we couldn't make it past the clouds.

Funny, I remember I mocked gravity once. Said it couldn't hold me down. Turns out gravity was the one telling the joke. The punchline was patient. A slow burn.

I still think about our final assignment inside the Toyota. The once-fearsome space fighter, now an economy-class pick-up truck. The co-pilot seat is now a peeling leather passenger seat with a seatbelt. The Galactic Precision System is now a department-store brand GPS. The device was in a constant struggle to stay connected to the satellite. It always lost signal while we drove through stretches of interstate.

As we piled into the Toyota, we embarked on one last escort mission. The goal: bring home another hero of the Rangers.

You see, my career as a Galactic Ranger wasn't the only one ending. My brother's was ending too. Only his didn't end because his starship now needed oil changes every 3,000 miles. His ended because his final orders came in.

Before long, my service to the Galactic Rangers reached a final, undisputed end. When it did, there was no grand ceremony. There were no medals for the fight against hostile aliens and sci-fi villains. There were only boxes of pasta on aisle 4 that I had to put on the shelf. My Galactic Ranger-issued blaster was now a box cutter. My battlefield had become an assortment of pallets and displays. My tales of triumph were now text messages to my girlfriend about the night at work.

Some nights I still think about the Toyota.

I step outside and look upwards at the stars I once called home. With my feet planted on the ground, I think about the cadets who have taken my place.

The cosmos above is infinite. Every new generation of cadets pushes its boundaries further. They will continue to find new creative ways to explore it. Chase impossible dreams that they dare to dream. Admire their own tailored heroes they will memorialize. The Galactic Rangers will forever live on as long as a child has an imagination. The next generation of kids born in space.

The rest of us will be here. We'll be working, living, and reminiscing about our time with the Galactic Rangers.