I remember…my name. I went by Sol Arcturus back when I lived on Earth. I was part of a loving family with a younger sister and two wonderful parents. I had pursued my dream of being a pilot and creating the first ever transformable plane. The plane had some kinks to work out still, but it was a success and could fly like a jet, take on an eagle-like form with legs under the fuselage and arms under the wings that would allow for it to hover over the ground and in between buildings. Its last mode was a 60ft tall humanoid robot, think like a giant knight in shining armor. This is roughly 40ft shy of a 100ft building for reference.
I also got to be one of its test pilot's though after it had managed to survive rigorous testing by a few others due to being the lead engineer of the project. The year was 2109 C.E. and as a species we'd advanced our technology to around a Type 1 civilization or just slightly more than a Type 1 civilization. Wars were still occurring but instead of them being highly detrimental to Earth and its population that had started to spread to the rest of the solar system it became a "game" where soldiers would utilize remote androids or similar bodies to help groups settle certain differences without leading to long term hatred from loss of life. Obviously, this wasn't perfect as there would still be extremists that would lead terrorist attacks on where people lived. The plane I developed though and hadn't yet given a name to was developed to help in defense of space exploration vessels that were being sent outside the solar system. After all, while we may have selected people with a proclivity for peace and seeking to understand others predominately that in no way ensures that any people, we meet would be non-hostile to us without any warning.
We had managed to develop two things that would help in maintaining conversation with the expeditions as well as enable better travel through the vastness of space. The communication arrays that were developed involved a special use of quantum entangling, encoding, and decoding. This allowed for normal conversation and sharing of data between any two set points. We were also able to make it so that the two main devices could support sub-devices enabling multiple communication channels to occur in parallel. The travel aspect was a little different though. Instead of finding a means of traveling near or at light speed we managed to create tunnels through space. The means of doing this involved quantum understanding but also a scanning ability. Though, the best way to describe how this worked would be to say that we would send a blip of "radar" or sensors connected to us through quantum entanglement that would send data in real time allowing us to target a safe area and thus open a "tunnel" that would take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of weeks to travel depending on the actual distance. Anything further than that would lead to instability and fluctuations our tech and ships would be deformed or destroyed by.
Anyway, I got off track. The main point was that as the main developer I started to work on enhancing the designs, abilities, specifications of the fighter. One of those specifications required I be the pilot or at least a co-pilot in the prototype. It was a new shield that had been developed to cover the plane and enable greater protection from various energy weapons and standard weapons as well. So, Captain Luise Archer and I, who had been testing the planes since the beginning, took it up. The start of the tests was pretty normal, and the energy draw was well within tolerance ranges. I started to notice a strange spike though about 30 minutes into the flight. We were just testing it in the fighter mode first and would do remote tests when changing modes and having live fire tests.
This spike happened again at the 50-minute mark of flight. Normal flying was all that had happened so far, and we would start to test maneuvers after the hour mark. At the hour mark the spike occurred again and lasted for a whole minute. I had then said we should fly closer to the sensor arrays on the ground to see if they could pick up on any faults in the machine. However, the next spike was also followed by an energy warning from the reactor. Knowing that things would easily get worse if we didn't turn off the shield, I hit the off button. That didn't work and so I hit the emergency off button. That also failed to shut the shield off for more than a few seconds. I notified the ground crew and also said to Captain Archer, "We might need to bail from the plane if the next attempt to shut down the shield fails."
"Roger that sir, it'll be a shame to lose this one, but our lives are a bit more important." She acknowledged and agreed. I made a sound of agreement and tried to shut down the main engine. It worked, and we were now just gliding towards the tarmac. I raised my helmet's visor and wiped a bit of sweat off of my brow. "Phew, glad that worked," I said with relief evident in my voice. "Indeed," Captain Archer commented. Then, without any warning or manual activation…the reactor came back on and a message was relayed from the group monitoring everything from the ground.
"There was a sudden command code sent from somewhere off base and has overridden all safety measures on the plane. You need to bail now before it detonates." A male voice filled with worry and slight panic came through. I looked at Archers eyes from the small mirror that enables visual conversation when needed and made the motions for climb as high as we can before ejecting. After all, while the explosion from the plane's reactor would be less than a bomb it could still cause problems for anyone on the ground and outside.
She nodded and we climbed quickly before pulling our ejection bars. Next thing I knew I was vaguely aware of crying sounds and calm, excited, and somewhat exhausted voices.