Recommended listening
The Federation of Polish Systems, a nation taking pride in its military history and technology, secured a safe spot at the Eastern arms of the Azure Galaxy. Yet as far as history goes, we only dare to look back at the so called "glorious days" dating way too far for us to remember them first hand.
We take comfort in the distant past to escape from the horrific memories we faced only a few decades ago. We've struggled with years of occupation, pitted ourselves against our own allies and worst of all, almost doomed ourselves with civil war.
With all the casualties suffered it would take years, if not decades, to rebuilt our infrastructure and stand a chance against further incoming crises. We managed to make up for our decimated manpower with androids to take care of tasks we deem "too mundane", yet our resources can only get us going for so long.
It wasn't until two peculiar patients fortuitously ended up in my care. As an army doctor I have dealt with many cases of soldiers getting carelessly drunk after combat but very few of them right on the frontline. Even thought they were unconscious on arrival, their comrades claimed that a murderous frenzy overcame them on board the star ship on their way home. Only the combined efforts of the crew could restrain the two until they ended up exhausting themselves.
After examining the patients' blood samples it became clear that this was no ordinary intoxicant substance they consumed. Indeed, the whole mission of these two men was to retrieve whatever they had consumed in copious amounts. Fortunately, the soldiers still spared some bottles of it, instead of wasting the whole stock, allowing me to take a look at its composition for better understanding. However, I would have never expected what I uncovered upon further examination.
Although this liquid, known as "Maniac Beer", indeed possesses intoxicant traits, it is more akin to a propellant, a highly potent one on top of that. With it we would no longer need to rely on wasting our mineral reserves to fuel our engines; we could finally reinforce our infrastructure and work towards a brighter future.
As long as we do not end up wasting this chemical to escape our present...
