Fate, it seems, is something that we all question. We wonder if our destiny is set, or if when we come to a fork in the road, whether or not we really have a decision of which path we take. Perhaps there is some greater being that decides what we do, or in the chaos of it all, there is a defined path, that we just can’t predict. Perhaps the purpose of life is to simply follow this path that is chosen for us. Or perhaps the purpose of life is to avoid the chosen path.

“Daryl McDouglas, please wait a minute, would you?” Prof. Robbin said, toneless.
My classmates all scrambled swiftly to the door, leaving me sitting at my desk. I looked back at the screen embedded into my desk, and tapped the ‘log off’ button in the upper right corner, and put my leg on my knee. The room was empty, and Prof. Robbin tapped his screen off. His hair was graying and his feet shuffled across the floor as he came to my desk.
“Daryl, how do you find this course?” he asked, with a straight face.
“I quite like it, sir.”
“Can the formalities,” he interrupted, “you are having a major problem with the concept of three dimensional vectors. Your theoretical calculus is sufficient, but you need to think outside the box.”
I never really understood why math was so important. I was majoring in interstellar piloting, and basically, all you had to do was pilot the thing manually. Everything else was done by computers. If you wanted to get from Mercury to Venus, the computer knew where you were, so all you have to give it is where on venus you want to go. Everything else is calculated, even the average number of martini olives that will need to be on board.
“Well, if you want me to be perfectly honest, sir. I don’t see the point,” I said, and took my leg off of my knee.
“Daryl, do you know why you have traveled about seventy-eight million kilometers just to come here?” he said.
For Prof. Robbin, this was his catch-phrase. When we came to his first class, he said something like this, and then went on to explain mathematically how mars was this far away from earth.
“You know as well as I do that I’m majoring in interstellar piloting,” I said.
“Well, I’ve looked at your records, and you have a good reason for choosing that major,” he said, “Anyone with a 0.02 second reaction time should be, but I sure as hell you don’t want to waste it by simply getting hired as a cargo transporter. You will be considered an elitist, and at this academy, that is exactly what you are going to become.”
“Well, I take all of this seriously,” I replied, and I meant it.
“Tell me, what level are you training at in the simulators?”
“Level seven, sir,” I lied, “I can’t seem to get past it. I keep getting flanked.”
“Damn right you do,” he said, “I’ve seen the playbacks, and my grandmother could flank you. She’s blind. You problem is calculus based, and it is quite simple.”
Whenever a professor says that a problem is quite simple, it’s like when a doctor says that this won’t hurt much. It sure as hell will hurt, and calculus sure as hell won’t be simple.
“Can I ask you what kind of flight experience you’ve had, just to fulfill my suspicion?” he asked.
Back on earth I flew a T-48 and it was a lot of fun. My dad was the one who taught me how to fly one of them, and I got my flying permit at the age of fourteen. When I came out to mars, everything was different. Flying a HR-92 was like sitting in a plastic hamster ball.
“I flew a T-48, a F-65 and a E-2 which was a prototype at the time,” I said.
“None of those ships are designed to work outside of the Earth’s atmosphere,” he said, “and my suspicion was correct. You are used to flying a machine that moves in the direction of the nose of the ship. On earth, there is an up and down, but in space there is nothing. What you need to realize is that your ship is a vector, but the direction of the ship can be entirely different. You should never be outflanked by one ship.”
He crossed his arms, and turned my console on, and wrote down a note for me. It read, ‘Check Section #0F56C29A’.
“There you will find an advanced instruction on how to operate the rotational thrusters on your ship, and how to maneuver a ship that does not have them,” he said.
I tapped the section number, and it directed me to the reference, and dense text and detailed pictures appeared on the screen. I looked back up at him.
“I’ll study this section carefully,” I said, “Is there anything else, because I don’t want to be late for my next class.”
“No, that is all. Thank you for your time, Daryl,” he said.
I turned the console back off, and stood up and walked to the door. I was about to walk through the door, when he said in a mutter,
“Level seven my ass,” and then spoke clearly, “I programmed level five, and it tests exactly the issue that you’re having problems with.”
I glanced over my shoulder, and then walk through the door. It makes me wonder how much her really knows.