3.25.
Captain Nathers scowled as he took control of the Rosantean battle plans. He was the sixth commander of this shit-show of a battle. For some reason, the enemy had a knack for identifying the ships aboard which the overall strategy was being disseminated to the fleet and targeting them with that cursed subspace munition, to which there seemed to be no countermeasure.
Fortunately the enemy seemed to have a limited supply of the deadly weapon, or some other consideration that prevented them from using them to destroy the fleet en mass. If only he could identify where they were coming from, he’d order the carrier to be destroyed. But the subspace foam of the star system was quivering with instability and excitement, preventing any sensors from triangulating the origin point.
He frowned as he examined the data. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he came to an unfortunate conclusion.
They were loosing the battle.
They had arrived in force. They had made planetfall with almost half of their infantry troops. They had destroyed eighteen of the enemies ships.
But they had lost over a third of their fleet.
The commander in charge of destroying the Mars Space Station continued to report that his situation was untenable, and Nathers didn’t envy the poor man his position. None of their intelligence reports or plans had prepared them for the possibility of a diplomatic corps being ensconced in a military target.
The Empire could not endure a war with both the Yonohoans and the Triumverant at the same time. Nathers knew that. As things stood, it was taking all of the Rosantean’s political maneuvering to keep the entire universe from declaring war on it. The Yonohoans mutual defense pacts were being tested for the first time in centuries, and while the Emperor might be certain that their enemy would receive little to no support from outside the Milky Way Galaxy, Nathers wasn’t so sure.
They needed Earth. Nathers knew this in a way that most of his companions did not. If they didn’t claim the planet, then the war was lost. Their only hope of victory was to force the Yonohoans to sue for peace.
They had no bargaining chip to bring them to the table. The only thing which might convince the Yonohoans to suddenly put down their arms would be the liberation of their pet Darkworld. If the Rosanteans could take Earth and hold it for a few years, then they might be able to exchange it back to the Yonohoans before the Yonohoan war machine really got a chance to get going.
The advantages of doing so were clear. They’d be able to demand all sorts of concessions. They’d appear magnanimous. As the victors, they could paint the people of Earth in whatever color they wanted and claim that their actions were necessary to gentle the savage Darkworlders. Were they not, after all, the source of pirates and thieves which had provoked a war?
He scowled as he triggered his system to draw a lock on a Toormonda, only for the computer to override the target. Why was it that the computers accepted the Earth itself as a legitimate target for orbital bombardment, but not a Toormonda? The Toormonda’s sensors were a legitimate threat to the empire’s interests. But the AIs of the ship simply didn’t listen when they were ordered to destroy them.
A sudden thud struck the ship, and Nathers turned to his damage control center. “What was that.”
The woman looked at him, her face grim. “Subspace munition, sir.”
Nathers closed his eyes and counted to ten.
He made it to three before the atomic explosion vaporized him.
~~~~~~
Dornodo’s arms wrapped around her, offering her comfort as she watched the fighting unfold throughout the system. She shivered despite the warmth of his body.
They were aboard his Toormonda, having left the space station when the fighting began. She and Dornodo had ignored the calls for civilians to evacuate the area, remaining to witness the sacrifice of the men and women of the ESF.
The Toormonda’s data was crucial to undermining the Rosantean empire’s propaganda machine, and having one more data point would assist in that effort. When they had transmitted their intentions to ESF, they had received a simple “Confirmed,” in response.
She watched as a Rosantean ship exploded suddenly, for no particular reason that she could determine. She frowned. Were they driving lemons?
“How many are watching through our eyes?” Sarah asked her husband.
“Everyone,” Dornodo answered. He waved a hand and pulled up a dataset to show how many people were currently tapped into their sensors, which were broadcasting to every news organization or military who had initiated a request. “Thirteen billion connections active. Everyone is watching this.”
Sarah nodded. “Good. Let them watch.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
She leaned back into Dornodo’s embrace and watched. She felt helpless, but she knew that they were contributing to the war effort.
~~~~~~
Yunono frowned as she watched the events take place from light years away. The fools, broadcasting their location like this. She reached out to stop them and realized that she could not. Something had changed, and the Toormonda in sol-system were no longer accepting her military override.
She tisked.
Well, nothing to do for it but use the data as bate. She ordered her targeting systems for her TDM weapons to utilize the data to calculate the location of earth one hundred ten thousand years ago, then sent a small swarm fleet to defend the location from all intruders.
It shouldn’t be enough to actually land a shot with the TDM. It would take more than a few hours of data to successfully triangulate the exact position of Earth in the past. But if anyone wanted to try their luck, they’d find a welcome party waiting for them.
~~~~~~
Emily sat in the corner of the mall, her phone in her hand as she pulled up video after video of John. John waving his hand and creating weapons for the citizens to defend themselves with. John leaping from the pavement into the sky so far away that the camera couldn’t tell where he’d gone. John killing a soldier with a blade that was taller than him.
Emily swallowed.
John was killing people.
The enemy, yes. But people. People from space, who were here to hurt the people from Earth.
She wasn’t certain how she felt about that.
She liked John. She’d been getting to the point where maybe she liked John, where maybe the kiss on his cheek wasn’t just a joke to see how he’d react.
She heard a sudden thrum thrum thrum , and she knew that someone was shooting the weapons on the roof. She wondered what they were shooting at.
She decided that she didn’t want to know.
Peter sat nearby, a cigarette in his hand.
“There’s no smoking in the mall,” she reminded him.
Her driver took a drag on the smoke. “It’s the end of the world, Emily. I’ll smoke wherever I damn well please.”
“Do you think that it really is? The end of the world?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s the end of something. Have you been watching the news? There’s thousands of ships in the system. The sort of weapons they’re firing … if one of those lands on Earth, it won’t be like Western Europe. If we’re lucky we won’t even know we’ve been hit. Just poof and the entire city is ash.”
She swallowed. She looked back to her phone, where John was shown riding past the cameraman on a hoverbike.
“I don’t want to die,” she told Peter.
“Almost nobody does,” Peter pointed out. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking like this around you.”
“No, it’s alright,” she said. “Do you think that he’d be sad? If I died?”
“John?” Peter asked.
“Yeah.”
“I have no idea how that kid thinks, Emily. But yeah, I think he’d be sad,” Peter told her. “He didn’t give anyone else one of those vests that he gave you.”
“Yeah,” she said, looking down at the strange device. She was still wearing it. She wondered how much it improved her odds of survival, if someone tried to hurt her. “I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
“Do you think we’ll win?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think will happen if we lose?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a terrible adult. You’re supposed to reassure me that everything is going to be alright,” she pointed out.
“You’re smart enough to know that if I tried that, I’d be full of shit,” he reminded her.
“Still, it would be nice to hear,” she argued.
He sighed dramatically. “Everything is going to be alright, Emily. The ESF will chase them off and John will kill anyone who comes within a hundred miles of you.”
She sighed. “You’re full of shit.”