To save humanity, she must become the machine. Lizzie's squadron of elite starfighter pilots is the only thing standing between Earth and annihilation. But to stop the alien invasion, she must fight at near-light speeds, merging her mind with her starfighter's AI. With every new battle, she loses another piece of her humanity, and the world that she's fighting for slips further into the past. This story was originally published in issue 12 (August 2019) of Serial Magazine.
Author
Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read A Wrinkle in Time and The Neverending Story as a child. He wrote several unfinished novels in high school and took Brandon Sanderson's writing class at Brigham Young University. He first came onto the indie writing scene in 2011 with his debut novel Genesis Earth. Since then, he has written more than twenty novels and novellas, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. His stories have been published in Perehilion, Mirror Dance, Sci Phi Journal, Uprising Review, Kasma SF, and Leading Edge. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He has also traveled across the United States, and has lived in Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Utah, Washington DC, and Iowa. Wherever he goes, though, he's always writing.
