Year 2516, September 19th. HFAX Shipyard 661 orbiting New Nevada.

Rick, HFAX Shipyard 661’s resident camera watching guard POV.

I rubbed my tired eyes and pretended to flick through the many channels that I was supposed to be watching. Pretending to work hard is the key to making it through these monotonous days. This job would have been shoveled off to a capable AI if it wasn't for that stupid Man-Machine Accord.

Why they felt that Humans needed to participate in watching surveillance footage actively…I’ll never know. On the other hand, it’s not like AI doesn’t know everything we are already doing.

However, my mind and eyes were drawn to the portable data pad that I expertly placed in the surveillance room. Thanks to having access to all those cameras, I could also find all the dead zones, and dead zones were the perfect places actually to have a little enjoyment.

But it also brought a certain level of pain.

The screen displayed the parade that was taking place on the surface. It showed all the people…having fun…enjoying corn dogs and soda, and everything else that I would instead be eating. Everyone was smiling and having a damn good time watching soldiers marching and military equipment getting paraded around. My friends and family would be down there…having fun… without me.

All because I lost the damn lotto.

“You are distracted. Focus on the task at hand,” the automatic voice rang out in my pod.

The irony of this does not escape me. At least fifty of us were watching the surveillance cameras, and while we were watching those, we were being watched by an AI watching us watch the cameras. So why are politicians like this? What is the damn point?

It’s not like AI can’t do this job. I mean, come on…we trust AI to guide spaceships with people on board. Hell, even the damn military has a ship that uses an AI to breach other ships!

This is truly the worst thing ever.

I continued to scan through the network when I noticed a ping on my message board. I eyed my pad until the message prompt opened, and I got a lovely photo of my little brother sent by Mom. He was adorable, and when my shift was over, I looked forward to spending the rest of the day with him. I may miss out on the parade but…it is what it is.

Hopefully, I don’t get caught. The device that lets me get pings and messages while on duty is super illegal, and I’ll have my nuts plastered to a wall for it. But everyone uses it, so it shouldn’t be a big deal…

Somebody knocked on my door, and I felt my heart sink. Please…Karma…don’t do this to me. I got up and slapped my hand against the scanner. The heavy metal door slid open with a hiss, and relief washed over me like a tropical wave.

“What’s up, Connor?” I asked my friend.

He shrugged. “Nothing. Command wants you out of the pod and in the main room. Your attentiveness score took a spike.”

I clicked my tongue. “Damn…that was quick,” I groaned.

Connor let out a hearty laugh and peered into the room behind me. He shook his head upon seeing my extra data pad displaying the parade. “Come on, man…if you are going to do it, you gotta do it right. Move through the channels at a more regular pace and all that jazz.”

“I know,” I told him.

“Well, go sit your butt into a chair for the next four hours before you get into actual trouble,” Connor said, patting me on the shoulder and walking into the pod.

“Yeah…”

I heeded my friend’s advice and didn’t bother making any stops at the Command Room. Why they called it a Command Room, I’ll never know. They aren’t really commanding anything…just…watching us watch things. Pretty sure the only time this place does anything is during emergencies, which rarely happens.

The AIs and maintenance crews do all the hard work in the dock, so shouldn’t they be over there with them? Isn’t making sure their precious capital ships are being appropriately maintained more important? Surely it’s more critical than ensuring a bunch of underpaid soldiers are watching cameras.

I…relax, Rick. Relax…no need to get worked up over this. One more year of service and then it’s all over.

The door to the Command Center was oversized in every possible metric and completely useless as far as I was concerned. If somebody had the skills to get here this hunk of metal wasn’t going to slow them down at all. I mean, we didn’t even have armed guards! The stupid door opened without so much as a hiss when it scanned my face. I was prepared to salute whichever self-important…oh…

I scanned the room quickly; of course, there wasn’t a single commissioned officer on deck. What a joke. But all the better for me.

Working in the Command Room was usually a pain as a CO was always breathing down your neck. The Rear Admiral never really showed up, so it was always one of his subordinates trying to brown-nose their way to success. But if there wasn’t one, then all the better. Perhaps everyone is growing lax…collecting their paychecks and going planetside to get trashed.

“Rick! Over here!” a familiar voice called out to me.

Ah…thank you. At least I get to work beside somebody that doesn’t make me want to jump out of the airlock.

“How’s it hanging, Valorie,” I asked her while sitting down.

“Ah, you know how it is. Rather be planetside than up here,” she said with a sigh.

“Ain’t that the truth…” I groaned.

She leaned over and gave me a playful smile. “Heard the AI caught you. Good work, idiot.”

I scoffed and returned her smile. “Uh-huh… remind me, how long have you been on main room duty again?”

Valorie gave me an irked look and began tapping away at her datapad. “Annoying…”

She can always dish it but never take it. Well…maybe this isn’t going to be such a nice day.

I looked over at her, and she had her face up to the monitor. She narrowed her eyes and looked over at me with a confused look. “Hey…doesn’t this look kinda funny?” she pointed out.

She was pointing to a video of me walking into the Command Room. I sat there for a good few seconds and tried to discern what she meant…but I couldn’t see anything. Then it clicked. “Are you pointing at me? Val, I’ve been here for two minutes… are—”

“No, no…I’m being serious,” she said while pointing at the screen with her finger. “Like…somebody is right behind you.”

I flicked around to look behind me, and of course…nobody was.

Valorie was laughing so hard she was snorting. “Little miss piggy,” I spat. “You are going to get me roped into this place forever at this rate. Can you just do your damn job?”

Valorie waved her hands defensively while continuing to laugh. “Oh…so sorry, Mister Serious. It was just a joke.”

Ah…but my earlier question wasn’t? Talk about annoying…

Everyone else was watching us from the corner of their eyes. I caught a few of them snickering at me, but I paid them no mind. In all honesty, I didn’t hate a single one of my co-workers. We got on each other’s bad sides from time to time, but nothing serious. It was moments like these that really helped curb the boredom and monotony this place can implant inside of you.

I flicked through more channels and mindlessly watched the docks. All of them had been emptied and combined into one ginormous dock to make room for the Dreadnought. “Have they decided what they are going to do with this thing? It’s sort of just taking up space,” I asked no one in particular.

“Pretty sure they agreed to strip the thing. It was supposed to be in the parade, but something was wrong with the low-orbit thrusters. Or some crap like that,” Val answered.

It took dozens of cameras to capture the true size of this black behemoth. The sleek armored edges. A rail gun big enough to level half a continent. I mean, for crying out loud, it wasn’t even fully docked in the station; it was so big.

How many hours, money, and lives did it take to build this thing? There was one for every fleet, and I’m not even sure how many fleets there were in total…thirty at least?

Imagine five or six of these parking outside your planet. Well,…nothing to worry about anymore, I guess. Now, this space monstrosity was going to be reduced to scrap. The end of an era…I suppose.

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“Warning. Warning. Multiple warp jumps detected. Warning—” The automated warning system continued to spew out the same message as people began to panic slightly.

The automated system only ever did this for unauthorized jumps. It could be anyone really. Hell, this wouldn’t be the first time a merchant ship jumped to the wrong port and set the AI off. But despite this, it still got people on edge.

It even got my heart beating a little faster.

The doors to the Command Center slid open, and in walked Rear Admiral Nether. He was a simple man and if anything, I was sort of glad he was our Commanding Officer. He was a laid-back kinda guy, riding out the end of his career on our shipyard. You always knew what kind of mood he would be in, which was a massive plus.

As long as you didn’t bother him, he rarely bothered you. It was a good balance…however…when it was time to get serious, Rear Admiral Nether was not afraid to put on his big boy pants. But he could have at least done a better job not tracking any toilet paper behind him.

The entire room stood at attention. “At ease, everyone. Status report Petty Officer Ortiz,” he asked.

I always hated how she got promoted to Petty Officer before me. She only saw one active-duty battle, which was the war's end. Barely even a skirmish…

“Sir, preliminary scans show one ship coming out of warp!” Val told him.

“Warrant Officer Finnegan, hail the ship once it exits warp,” Nether ordered.

Finnegan replied with a “Yes, sir,” and we all sat back down in our chairs. It was these crucial first few moments that got the blood pumping. Even though we knew it wasn’t a military vessel coming through warp as it was too small, you could never be sure.

I’ve heard plenty of stories of suicidal pirates who were on the run. They jump into a controlled system, scream that they have hostages over the comms. Sometimes, we blow them up, and sometimes we don’t. It sort of just depends…I guess.

Admiral Nether seems like the fire first. Ask questions later kinda officer.

We all watched the screens with bated breath. The atmosphere in the room was thick with sweat and the smell of roasted coffee for some reason. I licked my lips in anticipation as the tell-tale signs of a warp point began to show.

The vacuum of space bent and warped, almost like some kind of interdimensional monster was trying to rip a hole into reality. Then a ship showed up… a very underwhelming ship.

Oh, thank God it’s just a merchant ship.

“This is Warrant Officer Finnegan of Shipyard 661 of the Human Federation hailing unidentified merchant vessels. Why did you miss your warp jump?” Finnegan spoke into the microphone.

“As by law, we are required to make this offer of surrender. You are hereby requested to surrender.”

Huh?

The room was so silent you could probably hear everyone’s individual heartbeat. I’ve been doing this for seven years, and never once have I had a ship just exit warp and demand surrender. I mean…this might be a shipyard, but we have fighters and a full host of weapon systems. The entire station is also shielded, and we have a fleet of ships in orbit. It’s almost a fortress.

“Uh…Sir?” Finnegan questioned, confusion evident on his face.

“As by law, we are required to make this offer of surrender. You are hereby requested to surrender.”

Nether looked confused as he pondered the meaning behind that request. Perhaps he wasn’t wondering less about the meaning or more if he was going to blast this unfortunate ship to smithereens. “I’ll take over from here,” he told us.

“As by law, we are required to make this offer of surrender. You are hereby requested to surrender.”

An automated message?

Nether tapped the space in front of him, and the data pad only he could see had become active. He cleared his throat and was about to speak until he was interrupted. “Sir! That thing’s energy level is forty times over the legal limit for a ship that size!” one of the officers yelled.

Forty times? That’s…just not possible. What is it…a bomb?

“Sir, no life forms detected on pings!” someone else shouted.

Admiral Nethers gestured his hand wide. “Train all weapon systems on the target. I don’t even want scrap left after we are done,” Nethers ordered.

And just like that, we went from watching cameras to directing the station’s weapons. The AI had already done the aiming for us and all it took was a few button presses—

The lights flickered for a moment, and all the systems flashed. “Sir, we just got hit by an EMP! The station is still functional! All systems are at 85% and already going back up!” someone relayed.

“An EMP? We are shielded, and we have backup batteries just in case…anyone with half a brain would know that,” Nether grumbled.

I looked back to the screen showing the merchant vessel as it was being annihilated by a barrage of laser, kinetic, and missile fire. And just like that…the ship was all but gone. Only metal dust and small pieces of the vessel floated in the vacuum of space.

“Relay this incident to New Nevada and the surrounding ships immediately,” Nether commanded.

“Sir, our comms network is down.”

Nether didn’t even miss a beat as he looked at Val and me. “Use the Stormspike’s onboard communications relay instead. It was inside the shields, so it should be functioning.”

I set to work immediately and connected to the Stormspike’s systems. I just gotta put in the access code and—uh…”Hey, Val…can you connect?” I asked her.

“No!” she hissed under her breath.

I tried a few more routine passwords, but eventually, I just got an error telling me the system was failing to connect. “Sir, I am falling to connect to the Stormspike!” I shouted.

“Try again,” Nether demanded.

This mother fu—…no…just try again, Rick.

Once again, any attempts to connect with the Stormspike were failing. We had been cut off from the system directly, and it wasn’t a software problem it seems. “Sir, somebody has physically disconnected us from the Stormspike,” I told him.

Admiral Nether didn’t answer me back, and everyone in the room stopped typing for a moment as we looked at the screen. The fleet surrounding us moved into battle positions which was odd…our systems weren’t warning us…our systems.

Oh…the warp jump detector doesn’t work inside of shields…oh no.

Massive warp points began springing up everywhere. The giant abysses seemed to suck even the void of space into them. I’d never seen such massive warp points ever…let alone dozens of them.

Our fleet wasn’t shabby either. We had nearly seventy ships in orbit for the parade ranging from light cruisers to destroyers. Hell, we even had a carrier in orbit for our fighters. But what came out of those warp points was no fleet.

It was an entire armada. All were painted a bright yellow.

Dozens upon dozens of ships poured out from the warp points. All varied in shape, size, and construction…they were all from different races, but it seems Human ships made up the bulk of the forces. Once the smaller and medium-sized ships made it through, the big boys started appearing.

Six battleships…two carriers…and is that…an Elunari Mothership?

It’s an invasion force…the Coalition is really about to start a war! But… all the news and reports said it was implausible! That we outnumbered them twenty to one.

I gazed into the screens for what felt like an eternity. Our forces clashed with the enemies, but it was a losing battle. We were the ones outnumbered twenty to one. Everyone was yelling around me as the station shook, but all I could hear was the beating of my racing heart.

I felt utterly hopeless as I watched a portion of the armada break off from the coalition front and head straight towards New Nevada. I felt numb as I watched it engage with its massive cannons as our planetary and orbital guns remained dormant. My entire family and friends were down there…at the parade…they were aiming for the parade…all those people.

“Rick! We have to—”

Fwoosh.

Thud.

Something hot and wet splattered against my face, and I turned towards Val’s voice only to find her head separated from her body. It had landed directly on her station and was staring at me with wide eyes. I slowly craned my neck upwards, and towering over me was a monster of a man.

Their golden armor reflected the station’s light, and I felt oddly at peace for a moment. Then, my vision flipped upside down, and it only took me but a moment to realize I was flying through the air. Time had slowed to a crawl for me, and I hit the floor and began rolling. At this point, I also realized I was looking up at my body.

Oh.

—

Heimdall’s POV.

I resheathed my dagger and began walking back to my squad. I wish I could say I felt pity for that man, but I didn’t. Well…I didn’t really feel anything. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing more.

We wiped out the entire Command Center in a matter of seconds. We’d been waiting on this station for over a week, cramped up in storage containers for the moment to strike. It wasn’t the worst waiting game I’ve played, but man, I am getting too old for this crap.

“Something the matter?” Va’cot asked me.

Damn…she caught me shaking my limbs out again. I may have to get some cybernetics after all…but isn’t it normal for it to hurt sitting down in a box for so long?

I waved her concerns away. “Nothing, just getting old is all,” I told her. I commed over to Hephaestus and his team. “Reconnect the Stormspike to us. We gotta get going before a fleet shows up.”

Hephaestus laughed into the open mic. “Already on it!”

I turned to Artemis, who was tapping away at a console. “Those old passwords still work?”

“They sure do. Almost there…and…bam. Station shields are down, guns are offline, and the jammer is operational. What a joke,” she laughed.

“Thank the Man Macchine Accord for that one. Imagine having billions of passwords, and they can’t be maintained by an AI,” Apollo chimed in over the radio.

Yeah, but we can have entire prison systems run by an AI. Comical, if even a little sad.

I watched the enemy fleet become space dust on the now bloodied view screen. We were outnumbering them to the point it was just an absolute slaughter, and the forces protecting the planet were no match for our fleet. The forces on the ground were being reduced to ash by orbital bombardments while we prepped the dreadnought.

“Do you regret it? Killing your own kind?” Va’cot asked me.

“Regret it, huh…” I muttered.

Regret? What’s it like to regret something, I wonder.

“Not really. It’s just another war with a different enemy,” I told her.

Just another war.