Ervamir 3- Low Orbit

Galactic Year 5635

378 Earth days post-induction

Captain Mirai

Someone had to fix this fucking mess.

The steady thrum of circulating air from the life support system was Mirai’s only companion as she hung her pink head in her hands. Trimmed claws found purchase in the loose skin of her scalp, digging in just hard enough to maintain focus without cutting herself open as she read through a seemingly endless stack of files, searching in vain for some glimmer of redemption, a sign that they were acting on the side of good here.

And actually, there were a few. They’d cured humanity’s pesky predilection towards cancerous cell multiplication, at least in the areas of the planet they had access to. Universal translation hardware was also starting to make its way into human hands. Or at least, the hands of those who were smart enough to realise that if the Imperium really wanted to kill or otherwise harm them, it could do so quickly, easily and without deception.

Not that she could blame the rest of them for their mistrust. It was damn well earned.

The other reports weren’t so easy to read. Very little of the news that had crossed her desk since she’d arrived in the system had been. She’d finally sucked up enough willpower to open the large file marked ‘Recent Engagements’ and was scrolling through depressing battlefield reports of overwhelming victories when a sharp rap of claws on steel sounded from her door.

“Who’s there?” she called, pointed ears flicking towards the source of the noise and catching the sound of a pair of boots springing to attention on the other side of the door. One of her junior personnel then, the old hands would never have bothered.

“Ensign Valiir reporting, ma’am! Message from the Admiralty!”

“Enter,” she said with a sigh. An intrusion into her private quarters this late in her work cycle was never a good thing, doubly so if the Admiralty was the cause.

She flicked a switch on her desk and the door slid open, revealing the earnest face of the ship’s youngest crewmember. Valiir’s ears folded down at Mirai’s flat expression, and she stepped into the room uncertainly, her long, thin tail coiling about herself. She had a sealed orange envelope clutched in her hands.

“Thank you Valiir. You can leave it on my desk.” Mirai said, feigning disinterest even as the colour of the missive set off alarm bells in her head.

The ensign fidgeted, “Yes ma’am.” She padded hesitantly over to the desk and placed it on top of the enormous stack of paperwork. Then she paused awkwardly, looking between the captain and the envelope. “It’s just…”

“Spit it out ensign.”

“Those are orders, right? I didn’t know they still handed out physical paper. Wouldn’t it have been easier to message you?”

Mirai stared at her evenly, and the young woman baulked, looking away. Her tail tightened around her torso, and her hands came up to wring it in a teenage habit that Mirai had shared with her, before fifteen years in deep space had killed off such insecurities.

Maybe she needed to beef up the initiation procedures for recruits. Most of her crew were lateral hires from various military arms, but sometimes they took on exceptional cases. Valiir was a technical genius, but she lacked the discipline of a trained soldier, even if she made up for it with enthusiasm.

“Is that all, ensign?” Mirai eventually asked, and the young woman nodded, swallowing hard.

“Yes ma’am. Sorry ma’am. For disturbing you,” the ensign stammered.

“You can go then. Tell Imrir I need to see her in half an hour. Oh, one other thing,” she stopped the younger woman as she went to leave. “You’ll report to security officer Rowla for additional training every evening in the final hour of your work cycle for the next two weeks. Starting tomorrow.”

“Yes ma’am,” Valiir slumped, the tips of her long ears reddening. Good, she recognised her errors. Unrefined, but not inept.

Once the ensign had left the room, Mirai locked the door again and stared at the envelope for a good minute.

This is going to suck, she thought, forcing herself at last to unsheathe a claw and slice beneath the seal to open the synth paper. She checked the square of blotter on the inside clasp of the envelope. White and steadily turning blue. Untampered with then. She moved on to the contents.

Fuck. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

This was not good.

To be fair, the orders she’d received weren’t far off what she’d expected, and probably weren’t as bad as they could have been, but they were still troubling because they meant action. Action that she was loathe to be involved in and just as reluctant to force her crew into.

She reread them again, just to be sure. Then, for a moment, she allowed herself a reprieve, her gaze sliding over to the viewing panel on the far wall. An emerald and sapphire planet was suspended there, bright against the indefinite inky blackness of space, its beauty marred only by the slow drift of a bulky grey structure that crept past her window- the indomitable ISF Stalks-Her-Prey, a Finko-class starship tasked with the defence of the induction fleet.

Induction fleet. She snorted in disgust. Those words would never mean the same thing to her that they had before. Induction was supposed to be a magical moment in the history of a fledgling world, a time when a species was granted the knowledge that would lift them into the light and onto the galactic stage.

This hadn’t been an induction; there was no enlightenment to be found on the surface of that world. Accident or not, Ervamir 3, or ‘Earth’ as the humans called it, was shaping up to be the most significant diplomatic and military disaster the Imperium had seen in thousands of years. A disaster so catastrophic that damage control, let alone repair, seemed impossible.

Someone had to try, of course. She just wished that it didn’t have to be her.

It wasn’t like she had a choice either. They weren’t dealing with a civilian client here; her orders were coming from the High Admiralty, so they couldn’t just up-sticks and leave, even if a part of her wanted to.

Okay, more than just a part of her. This wasn’t what they’d signed up for. She’d taken what had looked like a plum job on paper: to be warm bodies on the defensive line of an induction fleet that no pirate in their right mind would test, assist in the mobilisation of government assets throughout the operation and return home with a fat paycheque. Easy.

She’d even pulled strings to be included in the fleet as a contractor, going so far as to grease the paws of her few Admiralty contacts with gold and the promise of favours down the line. She’d been looking forward to arriving in orbit above a world filled with new opportunities and biological marvels. Private citizens who arrived early above such worlds were often the first in line for lucrative contracts and trading opportunities that would otherwise be fought over tooth and claw.

Ervamir had appeared to be quite the venture, too. Early scans and imagery had revealed a planet filled with incredible biodiversity and its system was rich with vast mineral deposits. One image of a small quadruped that the humans called a ‘sphynx cat’ had been immediately leaked to make the rounds on the intergalactic net due to its uncanny resemblance to her own species. This planet was incredible, and it had attracted the attention of the Imperium for all the right reasons.

And then we went and royally fucked it. She seethed with anger. Those poor primitives.

Things had started by the book, if not as smoothly as they could have. The humans had been whipped into a frenzy when the fleet arrived in orbit. Intercepted local transmissions from the surface had been awash with fearmongering. Sabres rattled in scabbards, and several high-profile leaders had roused their citizens into a panic-fuelled frenzy. War rhetoric and vows of independence were bandied about. Then, one of the smaller nations had fired a nuclear warhead. That kind of reaction wasn’t so far outside of the norm among more warlike species, and the Imperium had moved to respond in the usual fashion.

When things went sideways, induction doctrine was simple and explicit. First, a show of force was required to destroy the fighting spirit, and then an olive branch would offer the humans safety within the Imperium’s embrace. Once they’d grasped the gap in technological and military prowess, most species immediately fell in line. Almost all would become valued additions to the galactic fold within a generation.

The kespan fleet, following Imperial protocol, had targeted the human war-forms, and in doing so they’d made what may have been the gravest error in the history of the Imperium’s expansion.

Every known sapient species had war-forms. Beyond a certain stage in development, a recursive genetic flag would appear to separate those suited for combat from those not. War-forms were bulkier, faster to make decisions under pressure, and easily led. More importantly, they made up the majority of every civilised species’ military and were considered valid targets for a tactical strike.

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Nanomachines were quickly programmed to target individuals carrying the standard genetic markers. Crude and regrettable though the strategy was when compared to the elegance of space combat, it was undeniably effective against technologically inferior races who lacked the proper countermeasures. In every instance, their deployment had seen a cessation of hostilities with minimal civilian casualties. A few generations without soldiers would make any species bend the knee.

Biological analysis of captured human fighting units— all male, much to the distaste of the Admiralty— had been analysed and found to include high quantities of the combat drug adrenaline as well as testosterone in absurd amounts, both classic hormonal markers of war-forms.

The nanomachines, thus configured to target individuals with large amounts of each, were released into the atmosphere above the planet’s northern continents to a devastating effect. As the Admirals watched on from above, humanity’s fighting forces ground to a halt, troops keeling over where they stood, jets and helicopters tumbling from the sky as tiny machines with chainsaws for hands burrowed their way through synapses and brain matter to cut the strings of their pilots like puppets.

Conflict averted, the Admiralty waited patiently to receive humanity’s unconditional surrender. When it came, it was clear that something had gone horribly wrong. The first reports of civilians dropping dead in their hundreds of millions had been met with confusion, and the delay that came as a result only made things worse.

By the time the killswitch broadcast went out, the damage had been incomprehensible. Analysis in the following weeks put the casualty rate at well over 40 per cent of all humans. Those lucky few to remain were almost entirely contained in the southernmost continents, far from where the bots had been dispersed. The Imperium had damn near committed complete genocide of the human population.

And the news only got worse. As the dust settled, intercepted transmissions from the surface revealed the true depth of the horror they’d visited on the humans. Of that 40 per cent fatality rate, almost every one of the deceased had been male.

Thinking about it again was almost enough to bring up Mirai’s lunch. In something straight out of an adolescent girl’s heat dreams, they’d stumbled on a literal gold mine, a planet populated by an even distribution of males and females from a race that was quite handsome by even the most xenophobic of standards. Then, in the blink of an eye, they’d reduced the male population to a fraction of its size, bringing it more in line with the galactic average. Almost every man north of the equator had been killed, and if the bots had been left to their own devices for just a few more minutes, or if the additional planned drops had been executed, the species would have been at real risk of disappearing entirely.

There had even been a horrific span of time in the dust and confusion when it was believed the killswitch had gone out too late. Leaked documents from the science vessel ISF Curiosity that detailed communications from the chief biologist had leaked and been circulated amongst the fleet. Cold, scientific discussion about the potential necessity of harvesting genetic material from the still-cooling bodies of billions of males kept Mirai up at night months later.

In the hours following the news of their accidental atrocity, her first reaction had been to prepare the engines for jump and leave the system behind. Unfortunately for her crew and the other civilian contractors, though, their preparations to do just that had immediately been met with a missile lock from their own fleet. The terms of their contract had been outlined again plainly and pointedly.

Mobilisation of government assets. Admittedly, she doubted that the Admiralty would have allowed them to leave even if they hadn’t been under contract, but that second stipulation was what had sunk them. When she accepted the job, she’d assumed that meant shuttling personal guards around while introductions and negotiations took place. That wasn’t a job without risk— more than a few species had reacted unpredictably to induction in the past— but it wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary, and her crew were more than capable of keeping their heads down and coming home safely.

Instead, over the past year, mobilisation had meant making increasingly risky flights between the fleet and its ground operations, ferrying mobile infantry and heavy weaponry to the surface to facilitate the ‘peacekeeping operations’. While avoiding their simple surface-to-air weapons systems had been a straightforward task, the humans were getting better and more creative in their efforts to steal and destroy Imperial technology once it made planetfall. Just the other day, she’d received word that the Admiralty had lost two shuttles, their wreckage immediately scavenged from the ambush sites by humans who’d emerged from every crevice like the mites that attacked her skin each time she spent more than five minutes on the surface of that beautiful, cursed planet.

Fortunately for her crew, the Admiralty had been reluctant to put its civilian contractors on the frontlines in the immediate months after the incident. Liability aside, the optics were already bad enough.

Now though, even after cycling through relief crews and a boatload of fresh reinforcements provided by the nearest Imperial systems, low morale was catching up to them, and it looked like Mirai’s crew had finally drawn the short straw. They were being deployed.

The orders she had in her hand put them on the surface, with a strong likelihood of action, even in the green zone they were being stationed in. What’s more, she couldn’t even bring herself to believe they’d be fighting for the right side.

Over three billion sapient lives snuffed out in the blink of an eye. All because some primped-up bitch with a few medals couldn’t handle anything less than immediate results.

She sighed and forced herself to read through the directives again. The Admiralty needed ground troops to help secure a new base of operations on one of the southern continents. It wasn’t a nightmare assignment at least. The Imperial presence was necessary there because it was one of the few locations on the surface still populated by adult males, and that meant that the resistance movements were less vicious, but it also meant that it was one of the few areas with the remaining skeleton of a military force, as opposed to the scattered female resistance fighters in the north.

The humans had proved surprisingly adept at nonconventional ground warfare, and even though the northern areas of the planet were finally cooling off almost a full earth year after the accidental culling— she shivered— there was really no end in close sight. It wasn’t like the Imperium could just leave either; word was out, and the whole galaxy was aware of the situation. Abandoning Ervamir 3 now would only make them look like cubs storming off in a huff after breaking a toy. They couldn’t just leave the humans in the rubble.

The public’s reaction had been about as bad as could be imagined. Most of the folks back home hadn’t even believed the pre-induction rumours about the new species. 50% male, easy on the eyes and, from a cursory examination of their worldwide communication channels, their men were utterly debauched. They truly were like something out of a teenage girl’s fantasies. To have confirmation of that information followed up with news of their near-complete destruction at Imperial hands, as unforeseeable as it had been, had shaken centuries-old faith in the Imperium. Fringe entity-rights groups were seeing a massive surge in newfound support, and some of the younger member races were beginning to question recorded history.

The fact that it was a kespan fleet that had committed the error spelt even worse news for the Imperium. If it had been a younger, less influential race that had made such a mistake, they could have been kicked to the curb, but as one of the founding member races, kespans were synonymous with the word ‘Imperial’. Nearly half of the Admiralty were members of that most distinguished of races.

For the first time in hundreds of years, whispers of secession had begun on several planets within the Imperium’s boundaries. The core systems remained stable if discontent, but genuine dissent was rife on the outer reaches. Entire worlds had turned into tinderboxes overnight. All it would take was a spark.

And who could blame them? The Imperium’s expansion remained unfettered by competition, and many of those worlds had only come on board within the last two or three generations. Now, they’d been treated with front-row tickets to a near-complete genocide perpetrated by the same loving arms that had welcomed them into the fold only decades ago. The humans had been perfect.

And we slaughtered them.

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