Chapter 2: Alien ships?
The screen flickers and turns on the news. “Breaking news: Alien Ships?.” is on the red rectangle and a reporter is talking. “Many satellites detected large masses near the moon at approximately 9:15 GMT. Upon closer expectation, the alien ships or fleet appears to stay geo-synchronized with the moon and are facing us. There are three confirmed ships in a triangle formation but it seems there are smaller ships around them. Now, over to Miguel.” The screen switches to another screen with a picture of the moon and a closer picture of the ships on a wall next to a person named Miguel.
The man on the screen waves and then turns to the photos. He wears a black suit with a small nametag on it. “Hello, I’m continuing. I’m from Nasa and I’m the head scientist. It’ll be around one or two days until we get more information about these alien ships. But, we can say that these ships aren’t doing anything. The lead ship or the bigger one is in the shape of a hammer while the other two ships are triangular. Also, when those ships arrived with a large wave of space distortion that flowed over us even though it was tiny.”
‘Wait, What? Those look like my ships. That looks exactly like my ships and I left them there in the same position. I better check on my computer. Plus, I need to get a station down. Usually, the protocol is to blow a hole into the planet or moon and then start a base to mine and make ships and resources to send back. I can probably blow a hole in the moon and start a base there while making a base in the asteroid belt so I can mine all those goodies.’
I tune back into the screen and watch. “This could be a space-faring species and all of those ships are approximated to be over 500 meters. There could be three reasons for them to be here. One is resources, second our planet, third is they want to colonize or talk to us.” ‘Yeah, I’ve got to get my PC. I run and turn it on. You know what? It would be better to build a spaceport that isn't on the moon but in space and then I could make it orbit Earth or whatever that planet is called. And then make a mining station near the real Ceres so I can mine resources. Also, this is crazy. Like even the ships there prove it. Well, since I’m skeptical I might as well start building them and bring an almost finished station over here. And bring some of my major fleets over and just build up more stuff.’
Sitting down I open the live news and the game up. The game shows a loading symbol under the title and then goes back to what I was doing before Future Warfare got turned off. It shows all my ships in the formation I left it in staying still. ‘Okay, I’ll allocate all of my cargo ships to starting a mining station near Ceres and then send 2 of my 3 Facil Mark 6 LDFs over there to help protect.’ I select the ships I need and a blue circle appears surrounding them. Then I click a position near the asteroid belt. Before I pick yes I move my cursor the “Build Mining Station.” button and click it. After that, the ships gravity propellers start moving and they disappear.
A moment after that the camera moves again and shows the “UP.” side of the ships. Nearby asteroids are orbiting the sun and the ships are firing thrusters to keep them in one place. The two cargo ships open their bowels and blow out the construction drone and resources that were there while the Facils circle them with their hydrogen thrusters in a display of blue and red as they wait until the ions kick in. ‘Okay, not that I’ve got some of the tasks being completed, I need to get a space station in orbit so I can dock ships.’
‘Let’s see. If I build a station here that would take days and I need to communicate fast. Plus stations have their own gravity drives to move so I don’t need to build one.’ I open the galaxy map and click the system that everybody starts from. ‘Hmm, there are no completed stations but there’s a military/research one that’s 90% complete with only the drive and some paint needed. You know what? There’s a major fleet right there that I can use to move it. Since there are no disadvantages to jumping when connected I could just use that!’
I click the fleet nearby and bring it right next to the station. The large fleet composed of 1 Dido Mark 6 VHB (Very-Heavy-Battleship) which looks like a flying rectangle with a large trapezoid bow and many gravity guns attached with lots of smaller ships in its hanger bay. The ship was an enormous 3000 meters long with it being around 750 meters wide and 500 meters tall.
7 Cast Mark 6 Bs (Battleship) look like the Dido but smaller and two large Star Wars like Tie fighter wings on the side. These kinds of ships were 1000 meters long and 500 by 500 meters wide and high. And 5 new Bulwark Mark 7s with 21 Facils and a bunch of other assault ships. ‘In all total, this fleet is around 150 ships.’
The Dido was going to carry the station. Which looks like two thick pancake shapes with a plus sign in the middle strutting out and acting like huge docking bays. On the “Pancakes.” were large structures for holding resources and FTLC. ‘Yeah, I better get this over there so I can protect that system. After that, let's think about this.’ I click the lock button. The Dido which is about the same size as one of the pancakes docks on one of the struts and I see arms as big as Facil’s grab it and pull the Dido closer. In the background I hear a chime and then “Docked.” and then make them jump to Sol. They all disappear and I appear in the Sol system with all of the ships underneath me. ‘Wow, I have so many ships that I didn’t even notice.’
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‘Soo, let’s think… Why are my ships from Future Warfare real!? Heck, a single assault ship will blow the heads off of the scientists that work so hard to find out stuff. And all of the ships at Vorgos (The name of the planet in Future Warfare.) amount to around 1000 Cast sized ships above mark 5. Wait, let’s think before we do anything else. How do I communicate with them? Or well us? I remember that the flying thick pancake had tons of FTLC and other things in it and that’s what I really call my stations. If I were Nasa or somebody else I would be S****** my pants at even that scout fleet! A light fleet will completely render them unconscious.’
‘And what or who would want us to control their entire nation. Well, faction. I’ll think about that later. First I gotta or they have to communicate with us. The screen in front of me showed the station near where we first jumped. On the “Down.” side it had large dishes and antennas sticking out each about three football fields in length. Hmm, isn't there a tab for that stuff. There are three trapezoids stitched to the side of the screen each with a word for it. Each tab has a couple of sub-tabs and then it gets down to business. I think the station does have some communications for older tech. And by that, I mean radio or Wi-Fi. But, I need two-way. Not one-way stuff since that can’t send anything.’
‘Soo, I have to get that thing in-orbit but luckily there is an orbit function in this game. You can’t have a space game without orbits otherwise that is a very bad game. And I would have to find an area so I can get communications. And more luckily you can switch on a bubble that shows where you can get stuff once you’ve scanned whatever you’re scanning. Okay then, which one will I choose? NASA or CNSA, both of them would be the most capable in space travel and they have the best of things and resources to do stuff. Wait, I have an idea. What if we don’t have to go into a geosynchronous orbit and just be a very large satellite for forward operations so I could talk to us. Or them.’
‘Before that happens, I need to send some ships over to the asteroid belt and help them construct a tinier version of this space station. And then I think a bit about all the things that are happening.’
(Now, I’ll stop with the interface thing, and all that clicking so I give you what is going on.)
The ships start to turn towards a tiny gray ring in the background that is only taking up around 3 pixels in diameter. The propellers start spinning with blue light coming from within the ship. These propellers take power from the fusion reactors inside while the gravity plates that help make an Earth-like gravity stop Inertia from killing the people inside the ship. A large chunk of the fleet ships back end shines brighter than the star to the left with a blue intensity that rivals the hottest stars. ‘Hah, that’s the concept of all of my weapons. If a single bullet from an AK-47 goes light-speed and hits something then it’s gone. That single bullet going light-speed is equivalent to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.’
‘And all of my missiles and gravity gun bullets range from a car to three houses stitched together and all of them may go at LS or even faster. And I can imagine what kind of damage these things can do. But, sadly there is a treaty in the game that the players made since those are too powerful and may cause factions to be gone in one little bullet or missile. This limited the speed to 0.25 LS at tops so it didn’t destroy anything totally. The aliens are not included but I did use it for them because their ships could be recycled and reused so there is no need to obliterate them.’
‘That’s why I still use coilguns and railguns even though they are outdated. Most of the gravity propelled guns are rated at 3 LS and tear through even the most heavily armored ships and are very good at orbital bombardment.’ Now the chunk of the fleet’s gravity drives are all starting to slow down the spinning and the blue plasma-like electricity is gone. All of the ships are under me and I see that they are now near the other ships that were sent here before the news. ‘Huh, these guys or “Aliens.” work really fast. Before I arrived with these ships they were only just beginning to unload all the cargo and mining equipment.’ The structure was taking form. Many little heavily refined metal rods are sticking out making the base of the station.
‘Now that I’m here I’ll let them do their work and go back to the rest of the fleet. Sooo, how would I send messages to them? There’s a message thing in the game where you can record audio or video and send it to people as long as you are in a certain area and they don’t block you. Yeah, let’s put it into a geosynchronous orbit so that way I can dock and they can launch stuff to the station easier.’ The Dido attached to it starts to jump to the place I wanted it to be. The entire fleet turns with the station and Dido to Earth. The fleet turns into a blue haze and it disappears revealing that the ships are gone. But, as soon as the haze disintegrates my view changes to the planet right beside me.
I change to the system view and select the Bulwark sitting there doing nothing. ‘Yeah, that’s bad. Wasted protection and resources is a very bad thing. Plus, my faction is one know to be the best recycler and reuser. Heck, I repurpose old Casts and even some alien battleships as ammunition or I melt them down to make newer ships. Sometimes I upgrade them and repair them so I can send them to my friends or help with anything they can do. Anyways, why don’t I put it near the new station to guard it.’ The ship jumps over there and I go back to the minor fleet.
The Dido fires its hydrogen thrusters a bit to get the station into an orbit while I look at Earth. The blue marble is just sitting there around the size of an apple on my monitor slowly turning. Earth shows its clouds just above the surface and the many small hurricanes sweeping across the ocean. I look under all the clouds and zoom in. For a millisecond it shows a small satellite covered with gold foil and two Rectangular solar panels jutting out. After that, I look below the clouds and see Earth. A shape resembling North America is under and I see a bit of what I could call Africa.
I zoom back out and look at the altimeter. It says 35,845 KM HIGH and the screen shows the orbit trajectory of the station. But to me, it just stays in place. The Dido detaches from the huge arms and cables running along with them. The arms close in making the very large hanger on the arm airtight. Small thrusters push the Dido to a safe area so it won’t collide with the station. “Ding.” A filled in circle with a 1 on it appear on the communications tab.