Unipsi, lovely entity
chapter 59c: rescue
Hundreds of light years away Alba Corvi suddenly woke up barely an hour before dawn. The communicator that was almost glued to her side was emitting a chilling screeching sound. It was an alarm. She immediately jumped out of the bed and opened the box. She used the emergency connector in her drawer to be welcomed by just one line of text.
--Connection severed. End point of transmission lost--
one line that immediately brought tears and shattered her hearts. The realization immediately settled in. Those hard to build faster than light communicators never lost their connection. They theorized that even the small space rifts around them like the Karlach’s rift or the Kopora’s rift would not impact drastically on the device. The only way to lost connection was to destroy the device or kill the connected user. Considering that there could always be a first NDU lost in battle, the more probable answer was that Idra had been killed.
Even if barely able to control her emotions Corvi connected to her superior, Vanni Spini.
“Corvi, what the emergency?”
With the little self control left Corvi managed to say just enough.
“Our Angel has fallen”
“I’m on my way. Don’t touch the box”
Spini didn’t surrender to his pain. Idra would have never wanted so. It was time to be resolute and so he did. He connected himself to the military network and immediately sent the highest level of alarm. In half an hour the military personal was already informed. In 1 hour the planet was on high alert. 6 more hours and all others planet had received the grave news and were preparing for battle. They all believed that whatever had killed Idra must had been some catastrophic abomination. An abomination that maybe they could still stop in time before it grows too strong. In 24 hours the news was public and while the civilian wailed their living angel, scientist and soldiers were called to arms. They were sending a first group of heroes with the faster fleet they could assemble. They were already prepared to die. Die for their people, for their homes. They that the duty to report back to what was going to be the main fleet and if possible gain some time. They had no idea that Idra faced no impossible enemy. She died for love, if not for it she would have been alive and kicking asses. To reach Xeroling-1 they had to pass into Lean’s territory. Taking a detour would waste time. Nixie went with them. Maybe she could convince the Leans that they were not there to kill them.
Mira Dragva had just arrived at her new traffic control station. Following the “universal” call for money, she decided to accept a 6 month job on Leanira’s space port. It was just the third week of said job when a dot appeared on her sensor. It was outside any official route, so she called her superior.
“Sir Jair, would you mind assisting me for a bit?” asked Mira. Her superior was a rare male Lean that had a significant interest in spaceships and logistic.
“of course, how could I help the new arrival?” replied the man happily.
“the sensors of my sectors spotted something…”
“is it an asteroid that is going to collide with the planet or some structures?”
“I don’t think so. I think it is coming from outside our system, but it’s not on any route.”
“what does the sensors say?”
“not much, that’s why it’s strange. Doesn’t reflect like a rock, nor like a metal object. But it’s fast.”
“predicted route?”
“in 4 hours it will start to use Leanira’s pull as slingshot. It should not fall into the atmosphere”
The man was visibly confused as well.
“you did good to alert me. This doesn’t feel right”
while staring at the screen a second dot popped up close by to the first one.
“that’s even more concerning let’s…”
A third dot, a forth and so on. They kept coming with barely seconds of delay. They soon became tens of tens and lastly hundreds. In the span of 3 minutes 668 of what was now clearly spaceships appeared. All unmarked, all unknown and all almost at range to rain hell on their capital planet.
Jair pressed the emergency button to send the alarm down to the planet while the station started to shift to combat mode.
The alarms that had remained silent since the Droxi war went off in all cities. 668 ships were no mere fleet. They, the greatest military power around, had almost 1150 spaceships combined on all 4 planets on Leanira there was a bit more than half of them. Large spacecraft capable of faster than light travel were extremely costly and even the wealthiest of nations had trouble making them. Surely their ships were bigger, but size doesn’t matter much in space. What matters is the fire power. While people run to refuges Liin Csuicha took the lead of the military and immediately started to prepare to defend her planet when a message broadcasted everywhere in the system reached them.
“I’m Nixie 112 from the Esterian Technological Union. Commander of the 4th fleet of the ETU. I demand hearing with Liin Serafia Csuicha. We come in peace. Our fleet is only passing by, but we must talk. This is an emergency. Leans at reach you must convey this message. Obey my orders!”
The message kept repeating in loop while the fleet advanced. Their communication had some delay but soon Csuicha was able to reply to Nixie.
“Liin Csuicha speaking. I demand immediate explanation or we will shot down your fleet”
“Liin Cscuiha a pleasure to see you. Time is not on our side. We are marching on Xeroling-1. Your aid would not be forgotten”
“what the fuck is happening? What aid? Explain better”
“I guess yours had fallen too. Our angel has fallen, Csuicha. Her last coordinates pointed to Xeroling-1. Whatever is waiting for us must be stopped. No matter the cost. Our main army is on the way. They will set defences here in your sector and we expect you and your people to assist us. My fleet will go first and fight. I hope you could spare some of your troops as well. Even few hours could save billions.”
“are you sure of your words?”
“This is no matter of believing. Do you think we would move an army just for show? Prepare the fastest vessels you have. Their sacrifice may save your kind. You have 8 hours to let them join our trajectory. We will assimilate them in our formation and jump. May the…”
“WAIT! What do you mean by sacrifice?”
“I understand that we must be causing a huge commotion. But isn’t it obvious? If something managed to kill our angel. Than we don’t have much of a chance. We are ready to die, for our people. For our families, our friends. For our kind and for our honour we must fight. We don’t plan to live long enough to return. Some lives for the survival of our species. A sacrifice that lots of us are ready to make. May the Founder guide us!”
Echoes of the same chant yelled with all their mights took over the communication. That was the unity that Idra always claimed was natural to her people. Indeed it was. ETU’s Esterians are usually driven by a strong sense of community and duty. They view themselves like a massive pack of creatures that support each other. They don’t go by the concept of weak alone and strong in mass. They believe in strong alone and stronger in company. Those were just few of the teachings of their Founder. He was a man of unparalleled wisdom and pressing intelligence. To modern Esterians the Founder is not a god nor a divine being. He is the base of their believes and an example for all of them. He is their guide and their strength. If he alone pulled humanity out of their end, they could do the same as his descendents. Even in the darkest times the Founder words pushed the Esterians to be stronger, fiercer, braver.
Further communication with the Esterians didn’t give Csuicha any additional information to make a decision on. They were in the dark exactly like her. She trusted herself and Nixie so she ordered the fasted ship around to be be armed and be ready as fast as possible. The civilians stared at the sky both in awe and fear. They could see with their naked eyes the hundreds of small shiny dots passing around their planet, slingshotting toward their new destination. At every seconds the planet defences were pointed at the fleet. The tension was nerve wracking. A sudden route change could always happen, yet it never did. The Esterians followed their plan at the second. In fact they were so intransigent on their schedule and plans that only 11 out of 12 Lean’s ships made it in time to connect to the Esterians carrier before departing. Seeing your troops left behind as if they were not even worth 5 more minutes of wait was depressing and a low hit on Csuicha’s self-esteem. But at least after those 8 hours of panic and fear they could breath.
Light years away and about a week and half after the fleet reached Xeroling-1 ready for a massive fight that never happened. All that was coming from the planet was an SOS signal from the L.F. Sheridan. No alien spacecrafts, no fleets, no army or interdimensional monsters. Just the silence of space. With absurd caution the fleet moved closer to the SOS coordinates. The first images started to arrived on the fleet and those were shocking. The zone around the wreckage was a death zone. Everything was destroyed and long marks cut deep into the terrain like a monster tentacles retreating into their cave. Nature had withered unnaturally in a circular zone. The first thing that Nixie noticed was the absence of the NDU. No marking nor traces of any fight with it, it just disappeared.
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Slowly the Esterian fleet sent out few organic squads and several fully artificial squads. The Leans seeing their vessel massacred wanted to follow but only few were allowed. Among them Mira Dragva who volunteer to go. She had a debt to repay to Scilla. Scilla was a brave soldier and saved many lives during her service, among them she also saved Mira.
On the ground the Leans were pushed on the rear of their formations. First the artificial soldiers, then the Esterians and forgotten behind the Leans. The field officer was a man called Ettore Guerra. As much as a male figure surprised the Leans initially, it became obvious that their species was the exception. Almost all the Esterians soldiers on ground were male.
As they were about to enter the rear of the Sheridan, where the reactor was located, Ettore spoke to all the troops.
“Keep your eyes open at the even the slightest movement. Ready to engage.”
“yes sir” replied the soldiers.
“Squads Cora passive scans all clear. Proceed toward the reactor. That’s the highest heat source”
“on the move.”
The soldiers split in several small squads of about 6 people each. They also made the 12 Leans split in 2 squads. They split and went inside from different openings. They moved methodically checking each corner and waiting for the others squads to appear at each intersection. In the darkness of the creepy corridors they kept seeing broken but empty power suits, mangled clothes with no bodies. Those dreadful sights were usually combined with huge splashed of blood, deep scratches and cuts in the metal panels around. Then out of nowhere a soldiers spoke. His voice was not the usual cold calm of an Esterian. It was agitated.
“Contact! Ahead. A316. 150.”
“Stand by. Request ping” said Guerra.
“High energy pinging authorised. Flash that bastard!” said Nixie.
There was no strange sound like a sonar, but visual interference impacted the Lean’s suits that were no built to withstand it. It was a series of electromagnetic waves.
“Contact confirmed! A315, 153.”
“Humanoid. No physical match.”
“Cora 4 fire at will. Kill that thing” ordered Nixie.
“4, we are coming in.” said Guerra while all the squads rushed toward the gunshots. The atmosphere was heating up. Was there really an enemy? Were they about to clash? Would they survive?
“ceasefire. Lost visual!”
“ping incoming!”
a new interference more brutal than the other followed by low extremely loud sounds.
“contact confirmed. A316, 2… 235! it’s moving super fast!!” said an operator.
“Coras keep your heads down. All ships kinetic weapons on target, fire at will!”
“INCOMING!” yelled someone in the network. Instants later the ground was shaking at each massive bullet that pierced right into the wreckage and soon into the ground. The Esterians went all in and delivered thousands of shots.
“projectile reaction!”
“we hit organic matter!”
“focus. Make a constant line of bullets.”
More metallic rods impacted the ground until nothing was left other that a flaming crater.
“scanning…”
“hostile lifeform lost. New contact located. 23 people around the reactor. Those are probably Leans.”
“squads did you hear the boss. Let’s get moving.”
As careful as possible they reached the reactor zone. Thanks to it that part of the ships still had power and the first thing they noticed was the absurd amount of light. In such blinding room the 23 Leans that survived the Whispers’ destruction were gathered amassed on each other. As they notice their rescue party, the saner among them screamed.
“RUN THE SHADOWS WILL EAT YOU! RUN TO THE LIGHT!”
“calm down. We are the rescue team. The enemy as been killed…” started Guerra to be interrupted.
“LIES! LIES! SHADOWS NEVER DIES” said a different Lean. They were clearly insane.
Mira spotted Morea among the survivors.
“Morea, it’s me. Mira. Do you remember me? What happened? Are there more survivors?”
But as she walked closer Morea started screaming. From her position Mira was casting a small shadow.
“SHADOW! SHADOW!” screamed pointing a flash light in Mira’s face.
Even Lean to Lean conversation didn’t help. The survivors were irreparably compromised. Insanity had took over them. Whatever they have seen changed them. It made them afraid of their own shadows and made the Esterians furious. They didn’t care about them. They were rescuing them just because they needed informations. They needed to know where Idra was, what had happened. But it was to no use. They never said anything coherent. Even the Sheridan’s computers were mostly useless to find Idra however they revealed the disturbing truth. They had been indeed attached by a monster made of darkness. Like a kraken it broke through the mountain and grabbed onto the ship destroying it.
They immediately realised that whatever they had killed couldn’t be that monster, if it was even a monster to being with. So they went for the safest option. They took the Sharidan’s parts and moved them away from the planet. However even if there were traces anywhere, the shadow monster was nowhere to be found. So with no other options the Esterians decided to use their nuclear arsenal. All of it. The amount of nuclear payload inside those “small” vessel was astronomical. By the end of the nuclear bombardment Xeroling-1 was unrecognizable. The nukes burned, fused and destroyed everything on the surface. Radiation and dust spread around all the planet transforming a perfectly suitable for live celestial body into a living nightmare. All that was left was an irradiated wasteland that covered half the planet. Yet they were not over. The unknown treat was a perfect excuse to test a new toy what was on it’s way.
As the “rescue” team returned to Leanira the main Esterian fleet popped on the other side of the system. That was the real deal. The ETU main fleet counted 4234 ships of them 2934 were battleships. Even scarier however was the vessel that they were protecting. A 31km long massive spacecraft. Unknown to them it was the one and only existing ship with an antimatter ray inside. The ETU didn’t call it with the full technical name, just “il Disgregatore (the disruptor)” and for a good reason. The ship was built around a 29 km long tube with a ball almost at one end. The “ball” had an 8 km diameter. That basic structure was a confinement system for an artificial antimatter super compact star. Thanks to the gravron materials it was possible to maintain a stable star of antimatter inside of normal matter object without mutual annihilation. At the press of a button they could release a ray of said matter and literally annihilate what they shoot at. They had planned to literally erase out of existence the enemy. The images of the massive fleet shock Csuicha and soon will shock the rest of the nations. The ETU main fleet not only could erase the Leans federation, but it could also go to war alone against all other existing nations and still outnumber them. They were no easy prey and they were not joking when Nixie said that nobody posed a treat to the ETU. They ain’t afraid of war. Their were born by war and through it they evolved to become Esterians.
The 4th fleet return along side the pieces of the Sheridan immediately worried Csuicha who was waiting for them to land. As several vessels landed Csuicha didn’t expect to face totally different people. Nixie, her guards, her soldiers, the medical team. All those who looked organic also looked defeated and sad. There were also a lot more mechanical soldiers in a ratio 1 organic to 16 inorganic. Nixie approached Csuicha while behind her the fleet was placing down what remained of the Sheridan. Following her, several soldiers carried out 23 large pods.
“What happened? How is the situation?” asked Csuicha immediately.
Almost the ships have returned but who knows what happened and what are those pods.
“we have everything under control. Our fleet will still pass through your territory now and on it’s way back. Fear not, we ain’t here to destroy your civilization…”
She is not looking up at me. She doesn’t feel as bold and arrogant as usual. Is she sad?.
“your teams will tell you all the details, but those pods you see contains your scavengers. Everybody else didn’t make it. Those who survive are just husks of their former selves. Maybe you will be able to assist them.”
“wait is Scilla there?”
“their commander?”
“yes…”
“look for yourself”
The pods arrived beside them. Of course no Scilla.
“no. this can’t be…”
“it can, and it’s. This is reality. Scavenging is a dangerous game. You have lost your soldiers. My kind lost their angel...”
“what now? Did you kill whatever did this? What do we do?.”
“we are unsure. But we will study and make sure that Xeroling-1 will cease to exit. About now, we do nothing. We go on our way. You have done your part. I did mine.” Nixie’s tone was gradually becoming graver and graver.
“so we just part away? We could cooperate…”
“Liin Csuicha I appreciate your attempts. I know what I should do. I know what my people should do. But frankly. I don’t have the strength to, nor do they. I just want to go home. Go home and cry the death of my friend… no. the death of my best friend and the best friend I could ever had. Farewell Liin Serafia Csuicha. May the Founder guide you.”
Nixie turned and so did her soldiers leaving the pods behind. Those were not a strange advanced piece of tech. Just chambers to keep people asleep.
“wait? What about the possibility to make a stable connection? About the Leans that lives in your territory? What…”
“I don’t know.”
With those words Nixie left and along her all the Esterians. Csuicha immediately questioned the troops that went with the Esterians and they filled her in. the destruction, the shadow monster and the unknown thing that they killed. But in the end it was just a failed scavenge. They were fortunate that someone came back even if insane.
The following weeks were filled with sadness and for some despair. The Lean’s mourned their losses. Csuicha went personally to bring the bad news at Lis’s house. They were friend after all. As predictable it didn’t went well. As Wiola opened the door and saw the folded flag she started crying loudly. Liwa came immediately to her side and started screaming and berating Serafia. She unfortunately had promised that Scilla’s position was not really that dangerous. At worst she would have been injured, not death without traces.
Light years away the images of the ETU fleets reached every nation head and civilian shocking them to the core. The demand for war among the Pridians vanished. The animosity of the Xoraxtas was soon swiped under the rug in fear of the brutal superpower. They all feared their future meeting that was in less than 3 weeks, but the Esterians never came back. No more space encounters, no more illegal activity on others planets. As their presence became more significant in the sector they also erased it. People feared them, more than ever. The thought that some day they could return and that those massive fleets could be aimed at them fuelled a new military rush but also more fear. What if building a fleet would enrage them? What if they never ended their nations because they were too weak for them to even feel accomplishment by ending their lives? All question that were left hanging without answers a paranoia spread rapidly.