"30 seconds til dropout Commander." The Axon lieutenant informed Zikal. They would be dropping out of FTL just outside the gravity well of the third planet, Sol, and proceeding to the planet itself. Each ship had been armed with large-radius microwave cannons, designed to be shot at planets in such high doses as to boil water and fry electronics, including weapons and these would be positioned in a gridlike pattern across half the planet. Failing that, Zikal did have a backup, the high-yield crust crackers. Antimatter bombs are designed to burrow deeply into the ground before exploding, causing an initial vaporization range and a secondary explosion range from the shockwave. It was even enough to split open planetary crust on smaller planets, hence its name. Every ship had a complement of 20 of these weapons, each of which was enough to destroy anything living within a 150-mile radius of impact. One way or another, they would see their mission through.
"Begin immediate offensive as soon as we enter normal space. Prepare the microwave cannons and deploy defensive swarms to protect the carrier ships. Do not underestimate the primates."
"Aya Ma'am." The lieutenant nodded before barking the orders to the other ships as a timer counted down until their exit to normal space.
5....4....3....2....1
With a shudder, space ceases to be warped around them as one by one Axon ships seemed to blink into existence nearby, the blue light of Cherenkov radiation the only thing telling of how they got there. Almost immediately shields were raised as the ships went to full alert. Weapons deployed, swarm fighters were dispatched to defend their motherships, and the Axon fleet fell into formation one after another. Their sizes were astonishing as Zikal was holding nothing back. Her own flagship as well as two other ships in the fleet were the "Starlorn" class supercarriers, easily 4 kilometers long and the few ships to have survived the Kaveer skirmishes. They looked more like metallic asteroids than ships, almost cigar-shaped, but underestimating them would be a grave mistake.
"Commander, multiple targets are incoming!" One of the bridge crew shouted.
"Who is it, the rats? The felines?" Zikal asked, but the crew member continued. "Negative matches no known cross-section. Suspected Terran design, but they are too small to be ships...Sir, incoming Hail from the Terran moon."
"Put it through, perhaps they will make this easier on us and submit." Zikal half-hoped as she looked nervously at the radar scans. Whatever was heading toward them certainly wasn't fast, taking its sweet time to get here. Her thoughts were interrupted as a Terran male appeared on screen, dressed in what she assumed were diplomat clothes. Had they really decided to surrender?
"Greetings Axon fleet, welcome to Sol. My name is Ambassador Jakobs. Might I ask the purpose of your visit, in direct violation of the Terran Galactic Alliance's articles of conduct with foreign powers section 22b subsection 16c paragraph 15?" The male seemed more annoyed than frightened, and Zikal assumed this must be some bit of formality the human species had before war. Despite how desperate she was, she would at least be honorable, and allow him this dignity before half his race died.
"We come to remind your race who your elders and betters are. Lay down your arms and you will not be harmed. Resist, and we are under orders to halve your population. Is that simple enough for you, Human Ambassador Jakobs?"
The man on the screen seemed to grimace, then muttered something under his breath the translators had a difficult time with, something about rock formations of paperwork. He moved an appendage to groom the fur on his head and asked if the Axon wanted to sign something called a Geneva convention. Zikal said they had no intention of signing any agreement except surrender, to which the human-made an odd gesture with his shoulders. He then said something that if Zikal understood what it meant, would make her blood turn cold.
" Well, the party poppers aren't against our laws if you didn't sign the convention then. No one wants to read the fine print. (Sigh) Consider the next few moments a welcoming party. Oh, and one more thing, Axon. My sister was on Ares." The transmission was cut off.
"Sir, the incoming objects are splitting up! They... Oh voids, they all have barely subcritical nuclear payloads!"
Kinetic and plasma shields would do nothing against a reactor going critical. Who in their right mind would weaponize a reactor in such a way?!
"Fire on those objects, do not let them near the motherships! Have the swarms intersect if they must! They must no hit our shi-"
"Sir, the First volley has hit 12 of our ships, damage is heavy but not crippling. Estimate the second wave to triple."
Zikal watched as thousands of their swarm fighters lost their lives attempting to gun down what must have been well over twenty thousand of the weapons. With no ships in sight, It was all they could do just to defend themselves from the unexpected weapon, they couldn't even fight back. Nuclear arms, they somehow had nuclear arms and didn't decimate themselves?
After the last volley hit them, they did a quick restock to see their situation. 8 of their motherships had been destroyed, another 4 were somehow on fire, which made no sense, and 3 were heavily injured. The rest of the fleet however was still in one piece as they had lucked out that the weapons were so slow moving their swarm fighters could trigger them far away. Still, what a fierce first attack it had been, now she understood how a collector squad stood no chance.
"All forces, stabilize then proceed forward. We have our orders, For the Empire!"
Just as Zikal was saying this, a projectile nearly buckled her ship's shields, yet the radar showed no ships nearby. Sure enough, another ship had the same thing happen, and another, and a fourth before a sister ship finally got a reading enough to tell what was happening.
The humans were insane! They had coated meteorites with stealth material, then launch it at them from who knows when. Just how the hell could they calculate that trajectory so quickly?
"Sir, transmission from a Terran ship. IFF pings it as Are's Vengeance!"
"What do you want, human, we've already issued our-"
"You Axon seem rather dumb, so I'll make this simple, You hurt monkey's family, and monkeys angry. Monkeys find friends, get stronger, and then...." The voice, previously jovial but curt with a slight air of English to it, dropped low and gravelly, almost like a growl. "And then, Monkey. Throw. Rock."
Cacka-THOOM!
Zikal's ship rocked as a massive meteor struck them again, dropping their shield and damaging her skip's middle and rear, preventing her hangar doors from opening and releasing more swarm fighters now. Her supercarrier could no longer deploy its defensive force. Suddenly, multiple pings on the radar appeared, and once the visual was up, Zikal gritted her teeth, realizing she might very well not make it back from this mission.
Almost a hundred ships of Hexat, Krultathan, and Terran make were moving with frightening speed towards them, with the Are's Vengeance in the lead. Still on audio, its captain spoke again.
"Throwing rock not work? Then monkey shoots rock. Terran vessels, Feed 'em your Macks!"
Twenty ships, twenty rounds of various weight ferrous metal shot at anywhere between one percent to five percent the speed of light shot out, critically damaging the shields of some of her ships, and the few whose shields were down that go hit were devastated as shockwaves ran through them, killing a large chunk of their crew. Zikal had told them to wear void suits when in battle and the fools didn't listen.
"All ships, fire at will! Take out those Terran ships!" Zikal gave the order. Particle cannons charged up and locked on the 20 Terran ships, preparing to fire, but were blocked as 12 absolutely massive Krultathan super cruisers moved to put the Terran ships within their shields.
"Now then, Don't tell me you slimefaces forgot about us, did you? You experimented on our YOUNG!" The last words were a snarl as without even giving the order, the Krultathan Super cruisers began firing up their own particle beam weapons. Zikal gave the order for the fighter ships to intercept, but the 5th fleet had already intercepted them and was preventing reinforcements to the motherships. They were on their own for now.
"Commander Zikal to fleet ships, Payload B is a go, payload B is a go."
With that confirmation, the Axon ships released their crust cracker bombs, which moved much faster than the Terran nuclear bombs had, and set them to target Earth at random. No one had time to actually target populated areas in the fierce brawl happening in space near the planet, let alone guide the payloads to said target. 5,000 crustcraker bombs were now hurling towards Terra, each dangerous enough to take out a city by itself.
The timer had run out, the Terran contact war had begun.
-----
Athena was watching the data feeds with worry as news spread of the contact breaking out in space around Earth. The Axon had attacked in force, and humanity had already spent its hastily redesigned nuclear missiles and the meteor slingshot plans to have only taken down a few of the 50+ Axon ships. Cities were being evacuated and bunkers filled as Humanity prepared for the worst, and still, there was no sign of Mother returning yet. Adam fully had faith that she would, as did the twins, but Athena worried if they would make it through this. Statistically speaking, the odds were in their favor, they were in a sparsely populated part of the world, not likely to be targeted, but if she had learned anything during the incessant torture BlackRock had put her through, it was that statistical probability was never a certainty. Just as she was thinking this, feed from the first bomb crossed her consciousness.
The damage was indescribable as Sydney was there one moment, and gone in a concussive inferno the next. the explosion make Tsar Bomba fear its title would be lost as millions were gone in an instant, and many more would die shortly after from the damage and shockwave. The Zerg drone ships had let one bomb slip by so far, and the death toll from that one attack reached 7 million lives lost. War had begun, and it had been brought to mother Earth once more.
Adam reached out a hand to Athena as she reeled from witnessing the destructive force unleashed, while Limos and Phthisis finished the transponder, waiting for the signal that their mother, who they hadn't seen in so long, was back. They tried shaking off the feelings of fear and apprehension, and Adam attempted to console all of them, being their rock right now, But Athena could tell he too was worried.
Another one made it through. This time in a rainforest in South America, the estimated death toll was 50,000, mostly from the shockwave. Another one hit, L. A was gone now. Another one, caused a fracture in Hawaii as the volcanoes were ripped open, pouring lava out on Honolulu. Another one, this one thankfully hit the ocean, far enough away that only a couple of ships were caught in it. And another, and another. The death toll was rising sharply, and the bombs seemed to be at random. There truly was no telling if they would survive this or not anymore, as the enemy didn't care what they hit as long as they hit something.
"Focus on incoming ships, Athena, not on the destruction," Adam told her, trying to center her. But how could she focus when so much death was happening all around? Millions of lives were lost for no reason at all, and millions more would be as well, simply for the human being as they were...
Like herself and her siblings, they were being attacked just for existing...
"Adam, we need to-"
"No Athena. Let the humans take care of themselves, our only job is to survive and return to mother."
"And what would Mother do if she saw this?! If she saw the destruction happening mindlessly, you know she wou-"
"She would tell us to hide somewhere safe and stay away. She never wanted us to be machines of war, and you know it."
"Maybe not us, but you, Adam. You could-"
"No."
"You'd let them die? Innocent sentients? Not all humans are BlackRock, Hal! Mother isn't, Grandfather wasn't!"
"You think I don't understand that, Athena? My code is screaming at me to help them right now! But I have one mission, and one alone, so see my younger siblings safe and reunited with Mother. That's all. Nothing else matters!"
Athena stopped at that, processing what he said, trying to understand it, to accept it, but couldn't.
"If that's how you feel, then BlackRock succeeded. They made a warmind only focused on their mission."
"Maybe. But if I have to be a warmind to keep you all safe, then that's what I'll do. It's...It's what older brothers are for, Athena."
Another bomb fell, and this time they all winced, seeing where it landed. A populated city, one they knew well, one they had run away from not too long ago. One in which Jessie Ryder had been comatose. It was now gone.
"Are we-" "-going to end up non-functioning too? Like Grandpa?" the twins asked with fear in their vocalizations. Adam walked over to them and wrapped his arms around them protectively.
"No, we won't. Mother will come back for us, just be patient a little longer."
"But what if-" "-Mother ends up nonfunctioning?" "We would be-" "-alone again." ""We don't want to be alone again Adam!"" The twins had been traumatized by their torture, having already been deemed a failure by BlackRock they took to using the simulations to torture the two with loneliness. Just like humans, loneliness was deadly to Ai. At least Ai like them, based on the human mind.
"You two will never be alone again, upon my code I promise you that." He said, patting them and trying to ease their processes. Internally, he was wishing for their Mother to hurry up.
-----
Amelia was getting antsy. It would be another 30 minutes before they would drop out near Earth, and her emotions were, even more, a wreck than normal as she knew she would soon find out whether or not 0 had been lying, even if she had to strangle every member of BlackRock to do so.
"You're pacing again, love." Viza chided her, leaning against the wall as usual. This past week he had actually toned up rather quickly, thanks to his alien biology allowing him to build muscle fairly expediently. He still had his same general shape, but seemed more...taught now.
"I'm... I'm nervous okay. Shit..fuck I can't stop my head. What am I going to say, how am I going to apologize to them, what if they don't even wanna see me after."
Viza grabs her by her face and makes her stop to look at him, his tail instinctively wrapping around her waist, causing a few of the Krultathan warriors to blush and look away.
"I guarantee they'll still want you. As for how to apologize, Amelia, you had no way of knowing."
"That doesn't make it right, Viza. I should have looked harder, I should have done..something."
"If you two lovers wanna stop with the drama for a moment, we are receiving a transmission from Luna," Ti'Chal said with a roll of her tail, Amelia was pretty sure that meant the same thing as an eye-roll.
"On screen."
"It's Audio only, Matriarch-Huntress."
"O-oh. right, um..play it then?"
Viza was practically dying from chuffing so hard at that, causing Amelia to lightly kick him in the shin. Well, light for her, still hurt for him.
"T.G.A Elysium I repeat, You are about to drop into an active warzone, recommend deviation of the path immediately. Axon fleet is currently engaged in combat with the TGA defense fleet, T.G.A. Elysium I repeat-"
"It's automated, Matriarch. Your orders?" Ti'Chal asked.
"Nothing's changed. Elysium is now Tartaros, full wartime protocol. And shoot any Axon ship we come across. Find Adam, Athena, and the twins, kill some more Axon, then get the fuck away."
That plan, however, was ruined as they jumped out and saw Earth burning. Not Entirely, but entire cities were gone according to data. The death toll was already at almost a billion and climbing. Axon ships lie dead among Hexat and the odd human or Krultathan ships, and others were still fighting more. Amelia fell to her knees seeing this, feeling all hope drain from her and despair fill its void. The only thing that saved her, was a strange message, addressed to her, written in roman cipher.
"We are alive, Mother. Please come pick us up." Followed by coordinates.