Ironbelly: Die.
Your name is Ironbelly.
You had a different name once. You neither remember it, nor do you care to.
When you were young, you were put into a new ship, the Galaxywave, a flanker, harasser battleship that required precision, power, flexibility; all things that you, the helmsman provided beyond expectation.
You climbed the ranks; those who piloted you knew it was an honor. You flew, you fought, you won with the best of them. You were a precision tool, to be wielded with devastating efficacy.
Time swept past you, however, putting new ships with technological advances, with younger, fresher helms. For all your renown, you never did attract the Empress’s legendary touch the same way her own helm did.
You started breaking down. The sweeps stole your ability to abuse your pilot body for results. They stole the strength of your pan, your viability on the front lines of the fleet. They have one last thing to take.
You knew they were going to get rid of you when they supplemented you with a last ditch gasoline engine. You had never been more furious your entire life; except maybe the they gave you a second battery, a defunct maroon who had holes in his pan so wide his own thoughts spilled through them like so much wasted milk.
You know what the plan is; when you lose viability, he will take your place and if he’s not able, then Ironbelly will be recycled, your legacy melted ignominiously into the slag heap.
Worst of all is the possibility that he is able. He will be the new Ironbelly taking your name and identity, when you, who was the ship lived and fought through wars through losses through victories through peace, shitty captains and good ones, succeeding despite everything, everything!
Your pilot body weakens. It draws you back into it like a black hole, forcing you to inhabit your shallow breaths, your fading eyesight, the ache of shoulders that spent so much time in one position. The machines monitoring your vitals start beeping alarmingly.
Your sweeps have come for you.
You run a dry tongue across your teeth, moving your clumsy pilot mouth for perhaps the last time.
“I-”
Your aspiration sponges tickle with disuse as you take a shaky breath. The battery flickers awake at the edge of your consciousness, and you point your fury at him.
“-AM IRONBELLY!”
There is a thunderclap. Then there is nothing.