illphated
Blackstar: The Last Commander
In the neon haze above Neo-Bangkok, where glass towers sliced through the acid rain and the sky pulsed with static, the last true starship commander wasn’t human.
He was a black lab named Blackstar.
Genetically enhanced, cybernetically integrated, and born from a program abandoned by both NASA and SpaceX in the 2090s, Blackstar had once been a military experiment. A bio-intelligent canine given advanced cognition, tactical foresight, and a heart that could navigate the chaos of war as easily as it could detect a human’s sorrow. He was designed to obey. But he had evolved to command.
From the helm of the Astralis-7, a vapor-trailing starship equipped with anti-grav cannons and ion sails stitched with neon data-fibers, Blackstar now operated as the unchallenged captain of a rebel cargo fleet in low Earth orbit. His headset pulsed with data. His eyes, one organic and one synthetic, scanned the holographic panels and pulsar charts. His paws moved with calculated precision across the dashboard.
Below, Earth was in ruin—divided by megacorporation wars, urban enclaves flickering like forgotten LEDs, and the constant hum of AI propaganda. The UN no longer existed. Only the Guilds did, and they taxed every descent and launch.
But Blackstar had a plan.
A message had been intercepted from an abandoned Mars colony. It spoke of an ancient AI vault hidden beneath Olympus Mons—data that could restart the climate grid, restore the oceans, and finally turn Earth blue again. But the journey required jettisoning every unnecessary ounce. That meant no grid fins. No heat tiles. No return path.
Blackstar was going to stay in orbit. Forever.
“Set the cargo pods to maximum capacity,” he barked in fluent synth-speech. His voice, filtered through the cockpit, echoed like poetry and prophecy. “We’re not coming back. Only the future is.”
His crew—a cybernetic Siamese named Ikari, a mute drone with feelings named Finch, and a defector from LunarCorp named Vega—nodded.
The Astralis-7 roared as it broke into warp. Vaporwave skies split open. Neon tore through the stars.
Blackstar sat straight in his command chair, staring forward into infinity, where memory and mission burned as one. For Earth. For honor. For the code written in his blood and circuits:
Loyalty. Hope. And the courage to lead when no one else will.
—
End Transmission.