“Holy shit,” Chase muttered under his breath. Someone had just attacked one of their colonies, probably their most insignificant, why?

What the hell, what could this mean?

“Red Alert!” he yelled. Klaxons began sounding throughout the ship, and lights flashed. He could hear his orders being reported on internal comms.

“Confirmed missile strike at Willard Colony,” said Winter.

“Life signs?” Chase asked. Logically he knew no one could have survived what they had just seen but for the moment he had to hope there was at least the possibility. Had someone intentionally targeted Willard? Or blind luck to hit the only settlement in that area?

Winter worked her control panel, her hands moving like a pianist at the top of their game. Chase took a deep breath and calmed his nerves. He had trained for similar scenarios, but finding himself here and now was entirely different.

“I’m not detecting anyone within 20 km, of the strike zone,” said Winter.

“Willard Colony had a population of five thousand,” said Moreno, all emotion drained from her voice.

Chase knew that they had to determine where the attack had come from. Those missiles must have come from somewhere.

“Any other ships in range?” Chase demanded. He was using the small interactive panel on the arm of the captain’s chair to monitor the local system but was not detecting anything. That made no sense, where had the missiles come from?

“We’re the only ship in the system.” Those missiles had to come from somewhere. A horrible thought occurred to him. He looked over to Winter.

“Weapons, I want a tally of our missiles. Confirm that we didn’t fire.”

“You think that could have come from us?” asked Moreno with a look of shock.

“On it.” Winter messaged the weapons control room.

“No, There’s no one else here. If there’s been a missile strike, how else to explain it? We need to cover all the bases here,” said Chase.

“Have our shuttle on the ground get out to Willard Colony and help anyone they can. On top of that, see if they can find out what happened,” Chase told Moreno, now at Comms who nodded and relayed the orders.

“Shuttle One, this is Nelson…”

“It’s confirmed. All missiles are accounted for. We did not fire,” Winter reported.

Chase felt his muscles relax for a moment. That was something at least. But if not them, and they were the only ones here, where had they come from?

“Who did then? We need answers,” Chase said.

And then on the forward viewport, the night sky lit up like the apocalypse.

“More missiles inbound!” Winter yelled.

“Where are they coming from?” demanded Chase. “Can we get a weapons lock?”

“Not possible at this time.” replied Winter, “I’ve been tracking their flight paths and they appear to be coming from outside the system.”

The missiles fired down on the planet, many of them focusing on the capital, Port Montgomery, but they hit in distinguishable bursts. Bright yellow and red flashes began to appear all across the surface of Hemera as multiple settlements were struck from above.

They continued to come.

Captain Wessex quietly stepped over to the commend seat and gently spoke.

“You’ve done a very good job, Chase, but I’m taking over,” the Captain said, not unkindly. Chase nodded and stood up from the centre chair.

“Comms,” the Captain ordered, “Let’s bring that shuttle up. Cancel their previous objective. Once they’re on onboard initiate evasive manoeuvres. Get us as clear as you can from this weapons fire.”

“Aye Captain,” Moreno replied.

The main screen showed the planet falling away as the ship pulled out to a higher orbit. An overview of the readout indicated how close the shuttle was to docking. Even from here Chase could see smoke billowing up into the atmosphere from the various impact sites.

“Weapons,” Wessex turned to Winter. “Try to take out as many of those as you can.”

“Yes, but they’re small and there’s not much to lock onto,” replied Winter.

“I understand. Do what you can,” he replied calmly. Chase had to admire the old man. There were officers half his age that would not be able to hold their nerve in this situation.

Everyone on the bridge was quick and professional. Chase was proud of the crew he’d overseen for the last few years. They were keeping their heads under remarkable pressure. He moved over to the science station. It was unmanned usually; occasionally, they would need to run samples, but there were far better-equipped vessels and not something that the Nelson was often expected to do.

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The sensor readout confirmed that Winter had been right. There were no other ships in the system.

Chase re-ran the short and long-range scanners. He watched as the readouts displayed only a rotating circle as the scans were carried out and suddenly the readings started showing on his screen, the make up of the planet, the life signs. The computer did a good job of filtering what he needed to see from what was unexpected,

The planet was lucky if it got one ship to visit a month and for most months, that ship was the Nelson.

Why would anyone be shooting an undefended farming community? The frustration was palpable.

“Comms,” said the captain, “transmit a distress call, priority one.” Moreno got to work sending out the signal as instructed. “Confirm that the nearest comms relay picks up,” he added.

The nearest comms relay was two light-years away. It would multiply the signal and get it back to naval headquarters in hours, not days. Chase saw Moreno working her console. They stared, waiting for the confirmation light to come on their screen. Usually, this was instantaneous. That was not a good sign. Two light years was far enough out that it couldn’t have simply been caught in the crossfire.

“Sir, I can’t get confirmation that the relay has picked it up.”

If that was the case, then it could be three or four days before naval headquarters knew that there was a problem at all. It would be about the same before they could get another ship out here.

“Thoughts Mr Chase?” the captain asked,

Chase knew his training, It was to protect those in need but sometimes that meant a different course of action.

“Sir, while we need to prioritize saving civilian lives, we’re on our own out here and Command needs to be made aware. Something could take us out at any moment.”

“Something like one of these missiles?” concurred the captain. “Where’s the shuttle?”

“Docking now.” Chase checked the readout on the foreword viewport. Wessex nodded.

“Move us out to the far side of the nearest moon and use the ship’s countermeasures against as many of these missiles as you can. We’ll withdraw as soon as they are aboard.”

“Very good, sir,” replied Winter.

Wessex then switched the comm unit on the side of his chair.

“Medical bay, this is Captain. Prep an emergency shuttle to assist the wounded on the planet’s surface. Make sure all provisions are taken. I’m afraid you could be on the surface for quite some time. I’m talking weeks, not days.”

“Acknowledged,” came the reply from the head of the medical staff.

The main viewer was now filled with a large astral body. It was not dissimilar to Earth’s moon, pockmarked with nothing but craters. There had been talk of building a lunar station to assist the colony with comings and goings. It made a lot more sense to have an orbital spaceport and would require far less construction costs were it on a lunar body.

The ship’s compressed energy weapons fired indiscriminately. Several missiles exploded in mid-flight. Winter allowed herself a moment to congratulate herself but didn’t let it get away from her. There was still a lot getting through.

“That’s some good shooting, Winter!” the Captain congratulated her. “We need to make sure the fleet knows about this. Don’t worry. we’ll be back and we’ll make a difference,” he said with a forced smile. It did the job.

Chase breathed a sigh of relief. They may have survived this one, but whatever happened, there would certainly be more to follow.

The medical shuttle disembarked and could be seen passing in front of the viewport making it’s way down towards Hemera.

“And very nicely done, Mr. Chase,” the captain assured him. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you are the Nelson’s next commanding officer after today. I wasn’t going to announce it until we had completed the run, but this was to be my final mission.

Chase looked at him with surprise.

“I had no idea,” he said.

“Why do you think I’ve been pushing you so hard these last few months?” replied Wessex. “I doubt they’ll let me retire until we find out what all this is.” The Captain noticed they were still not moving.

Something must have gone horribly wrong.

“Sit Rep?” Demanded Wessex.