Cohost writing prompt: @make-up-a-starship-pilot — Starship pilot who is about to show the fighter jocks how a REAL ship flies
"See, modern fighters, it's a weird multirole thing, isn't it? Nobody dogfights in space. Nobody wastes a piloted hotrod launch on anything you can do by lobbing a lo-smarts torpedo or a particle beam. Space superiority doesn't mean the same thing as air cover. What are you even for? Transatmo assault? Special Ops shit? A 3AM low-executive-function week-before-payday mismatched charcuterie board of leftover stuff, riding the wave of doctrinal inertia as much as anything, to keep getting your birds built, never mind flown.
"Oh, sure, people still think fighter pilots are sexy. You're noble sons on cavalry chargers, strutting about with your sabres and dress plumed hats, while the battlefields have turned into the arcs of fire of repeating guns. Fucking fighters.
"It's like knotting a cherry stem with your tongue: it's a show-off party trick. Doesn't mean you can fuck.
"You want to see flying? Oh, she doesn't have the raw acceleration, I'll give you that, but she can pull half a megaton of cargo, she's got the same manoeuvrability out of atmo as, you know, literally anything else with competent attitude jets, and she can hit an orbital paint chip without turning into an expensive firework.
"Awwww. Aw, diddums. Why don't you order something with a cherry in it, and get knotted about it."