Polis Kyiv, August 12, 2049, 11:02 AM
Thick clouds enshroud the sky right in front of the eyes. It’s getting dark, like during a solar eclipse. The wind is getting stronger and stronger, and, several seconds later, roars like a hurricane. Lightning strikes merge into a single flame, saturating the heavens with peals of booming thunder.
A familiar by now from numerous videos online portal sphere flashes over Kyiv, only this time it is huge, at least ten kilometers in diameter. Appearing about a thousand meters high above the Trukhaniv Island, this phenomenon culminates in an explosion, which blazes over the entire city. The shock wave passes mainly throughout the island, damaging the numerous trees, but it also reaches the buildings on the other banks of the Dnieper.
The whole sky is boiling, the first drops begin to fall, and a full-blown downpour starts to rage on a few seconds later. An incredible object appears in the gloomy clouds about a kilometer high above the city, so huge and strange that it is simply impossible to believe this is happening.
A whole cluster of grim black-and-red neo-Gothic buildings comprises a giant flying fortress. A stretched oval about five hundred meters in length and at least two hundred in width serves as the foundation of the complex. Throughout the perimeter, large devices are generating glowing bright blue flame disks, each at regular intervals.
The lightning rages for only about a minute before it quickly dies down. After the sky calms down a little, and the Fortress freezes in the air, all kinds of drones begin to approach it from all directions – big ones, small ones, media companies’ and independent bloggers’ alike. But they don’t get close, because the flying citadel unleashes small black objects in response: a bit over one meter long, spindle-shaped and with small wings on the tail. There are so many of them that from down below they look like thick pillars of smoke flying in all directions.
The fact that those are combat drones becomes evident with the first flashes of gunfire – passing by, the “strangers” shoot all the flying equipment of reporters and bloggers. After that, these black birds take off toward the areas with open portals and concentrations of monsters.
…At least that’s what analysts are saying based on footage from the few cameras that survived.
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The International Space Station “Europa”, Thomas Gibson
The captain of the ‘ISS Europa-14’ expedition Thomas Gibson had been standing on the Section-1 deck for twenty minutes already, darkly looking out of the only “real” window on the station.
That’s how much time had passed since the transmission from the last “heavy.” The long three-hour wait was over: all members of the expedition had been successfully transported to three European sea-based launch sites.
The only person left aboard Europa was Thomas himself. The chain of command insisted on his departure, but he replied with:
“If this will be the end of space exploration for humans, I’ll have seen it with my own eyes! I’ll have been part of the last ISS expedition. I was there during the second ‘ISS Europa’ expedition. I’m the captain of Europa-14, and I’ll stay with her until the bitter end.”
“Captain! I’m detecting multiple spacecraft executing active maneuvers nearby.” The avatar of the main AI on the station showed up in AR. “The rate of engagement is rapidly increasing!”
“This is it.” Thomas folded his arms behind his back. “Beginning of the end.”
A series of tremors passed underfoot, as if the entire station was shuddering.
“Attention, direct control interference!” Two additional windows opened, showing information about an unauthorized control access, but the astronaut waved them off with a mental gesture.
“Stop it, Telephassa. We can’t do anything about it anyway. But we will do something else!”
On his command, a virtual camera’s light flashed on.
“My name is Thomas Gibson, and I’m the captain of humanity’s last independent mission in space. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I can promise you this: I’ll be broadcasting everything I can see from our planet’s orbit. Until the end!”
The videostream picture split in two, displaying the view from Europa’s main camera in one half and two windows with data in the other.
“We are now aboard the International Space Station ‘Europa,’ but it doesn’t belong to us anymore. You can see the two windows on the left, where Telephassa, the station’s main AI, is showing how the hijacking was carried out. I’ll leave the technical information on channel two, so you can get back to it at any time.”
The livestream blinked, the view from the main camera now took up most of the screen, and Thomas’ silhouette appeared in a rectangular frame in the bottom left corner.
“So, as we can see, the central ring, the rotation of which creates an artificial gravity of 0.2G, is about to be stopped. This is done only in one case – during the station’s active maneuvering, like when you change the orbit. The question of where and why they are going to turn Europa still remains. But before we search for answers…”
Another frame appeared on the broadcast’s screen, showing Earth and the main satellites in scale, with an equatorial plane view on the left and a view from the North Pole on the right.
“Let’s see what’s happening in the near-Earth space, shall we?” Thomas walked up to the window and turned his back to the camera, putting his arms behind his back.
“We are now observing the largest satellites’ active maneuvering. It seems to me like they are being gathered at the intersections of an invisible grid three hundred kilometers above Earth’s surface and with a grid spacing of about one hundred kilometers. That’s only preliminary and inaccurate data, but Telephassa is making calculations live. Thus, I’m reminding you about the second screen, where you can see any technical information on demand.”
At that moment, bright lights flashed at the intersections of the invisible grid, toward which the satellites were being pulled, vanishing from view.
“I think I know what they’re planning,” Thomas finally said, double-checking with the AI’s calculations. “They’re dismantling our technology. Everything we’ve launched into space. As you can see, only large spacecraft have been affected thus far, but I think they’ll now start pulling the rest of the objects not capable of active maneuvering. And considering that the ring’s rotation has been stopped, I assume that our station is doomed to the same fate. They’ll have to lower us by two hundred kilometers, but I don’t imagine it’ll be hard to do. Fortunately, thanks to our altitude, there’s some time to try to sort all of this out.”
Thomas received a message and smoothly moved to the station’s other side of the corridor.
“We don’t have ‘real’ windows here, so we’ll have to make do with the cameras. Pay attention to this sector.” The broadcast’s layout picture changed again: the astronaut moved to a small window on the bottom, and a processed videostream took up the whole screen.
“If my theory is correct, and the invaders are after resources – rare metals on orbit, primarily – they must be coming right here. That’s the largest asteroid concentrate processing orbital station, as well as the first and biggest active space plant. That said, if there were large amounts of iron, nickel, and titanium in space somewhere, it would be at that place. Actually, the plant is quite far from here, so I’m using one of the station’s telescopes. You can see it well, however.”
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At that moment, as if confirming his words, a swarm of big black drones flew into view.
“They are unmanned robotic specimens, judging by the maneuvering speed,” Thomas commented. “They must’ve come from one of the fortresses that showed up on orbit. Question is, how did they manage to get here so fast?”
Meanwhile, the drones literally imploded, quickly wrapping all the structures with thin luminous threads. A few seconds later, it became evident that electricity had been disabled at the orbital plant. The threads became brighter, and a dense film of a force field obfuscated the whole picture.
“Well, friends, apparently, that’s all we’re going to get. I hope everyone got evacuated from the plant; our new masters don’t seem to value human lives much.” Thomas slammed his fist into his palm in frustration. “In reality, we’ve been sold out without a fight. I’m actually not supposed to talk about this, but who can stop us at this point? Anyway, representatives of that blasted Protectorate, or the UNSA… yes, that’s what they’re calling themselves… So, they’d contacted our powers that be even before the first portal of those monsters opened. I wish I had more information, but I’ll tell you everything I know! I’m broadcasting not only on standard extranets but on the darknet too. So, there is a chance you’ll be able to watch it till the end.
For your information, I’m not just an astronaut, I’m also an experienced soldier, and I’m not buying that those UNSA are the good guys who showed up exclusively to help poor humans fight off otherworldly monsters. I don’t believe their single word!
Many of you are asking in the comments why I’ve decided to sacrifice myself and stayed behind on orbit. Because that’s my best chance to stick it to those sons of bitches! I have one of Earth’s most powerful AIs and a station packed with cutting-edge technology. We’re not just playing videoblogger here! Anything useful, readings, photos, and video in maximum definition and from all possible angles – everything is being broadcast on the darknet. I’m sure that space is a strategic frontier for the invaders, just like it is for us. If we figure out what kind of thing they’re building three hundred kilometers high, we could possibly gain a key to understanding how to fight them!”
At that moment, the Protectorate had already blocked the majority of the restreams on the main extranet networks, but it was still being broadcast on the darknet.
Unfortunately, Thomas Gibson hadn’t accounted for one important fact: that the UNSA wouldn’t take kindly to such provocations right under their nose. Five big black birds of prey streaked upward from the direction of Earth. They opened fire right on the move without regrouping. Short fire lines cut through the blackness of space, and a large ball of fire erupted at the central ring segment where Thomas was.
Meanwhile, elements of giant orbital structures began forming in different places three hundred kilometers above Earth…
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The Earth
You could see the same thing in every city on Earth: people were stopping dead in their tracks, freezing in surprise. Some blankly lifted their hands and peered at something only they could see, some fainted…
It’s worth noting that the majority of the planet’s population got lucky: despite technological advancements, common VR/AR lenses or glasses, wirelessly connected to the mediaphone, were still the much more popular alternative to implanting an expensive cortical grid and an intricate computer for it along the spine.
Why undergo major surgeries when simple handheld devices are perfectly compatible with augmented reality, and there are headsets and even deep-immersion VR capsules for virtual sex and gaming.
So, the majority of people, carrying only light devices on them, simply stopped, reading a sudden global message.
Only those with a cortical grid implant and the extensions for it installed – even if it was just an ocular augmentation and a light sub-brain – were dealt a bad hand.
Either way, anyone connected to at least one global extranet network suddenly saw unexpected messages right in front of them. The more serious the hardware they had, the more intrusive it was, even causing temporary sensory loss, including vision loss, or even short-term loss of consciousness.
The Protectorate – and it was the culprit behind the unexpected phenomenon – hadn’t just tampered with people’s neuro-implants. Victims of the sudden compulsory informing found themselves inundated with unclosable, view-blocking legislative documents about their legal rights, limitations, and, of course, responsibilities as future citizens of the UNSA. This kind of bureaucracy fell in especially large amounts on the heads of owners of advanced sub-brains.
# Force installing update for cortical grid implant… 100%
# Installing peripheral modules updates… 100%
# Priority 0. Installation… success.
# Priority 0. Rebooting…
Everything goes dark, the vision gets disabled, the interface disappears. For several utterly petrifying seconds, people have to wait in complete darkness, not hearing anything and not feeling their own body.
# Update installed.
Without pausing even for a second, system messages begin scrolling up right in the center of the vision as more and more of them appear.
# You are in the Avril Dominion zone of the UNSA Protectorate.
# The sector commander is General of the Fourth Army of Avril, Kriegsherzog Adalbert von Lamark.
# In accordance with the Terms of the Protectorate, all residents are guaranteed complete safety and protection from Shaiszu entities.
# Provision of basic necessities: accommodation, food, water are guaranteed.
# You will be provided with employment and the opportunity to serve for the benefit of the Protectorate!
# Work diligently! You have the opportunity to advance to a high Public Efficiency Class and even earn a Golden Ticket to the best worlds of UNSA.
# Detailed information will be available at information points after the special operation to clear the City of Shaiszu species is completed.
…
# Covenant 4.
## In accordance with the Decree on Protection and Ownership, the Polis and a 100-kilometer boundary around it are hereby declared the property of Kriegsherzog (full text, Covenant 4, expand).
# Attention! Covenant 4, Article 1:
## Individuals legally present within the territory of the City, including the 100-kilometer Safety Belt from the Defense Wall to the Outer Perimeter, are granted the Right of Protection.
## Attention! The UNSA Protectorate holds the exclusive right to provide Protection within the City's territory.
## In disputed situations, including rescue combat operations and evacuations, the priority of Full Rights of Protection is vested in residents holding citizenship of the Polis of Kyiv.
## Priorities for individuals with other citizenships:
### Corporate citizenship (expand)
### Polis citizenship (expand)
### State citizenship (expand)
…
# Attention! Covenant 4, Article 5:
# Info: For the purposes of establishing security and the complete eradication of all Shaiszu entities within this territory, a curfew will be imposed.
## During the curfew, all movement of citizens without an accompanying Protectorate officer is prohibited.
## The curfew is effective from 19:00 to 06:00 local time.
# Info: If you disagree with the decision of Covenant 4 on Territory Protection, you have the right to leave the Polis and the 100-kilometer Perimeter Zone before the curfew begins (excluding categories of citizens irrevocably transferred to the Protectorate as per bilateral agreements between the respective Corporations, Polises, States and the UNSA Protectorate).
# Info: Under the Trilateral Accord and the Agreement on the Division of Protection Zones, access to information from the TACTA and the Empire Chou factions is denied.
# Info: Any citizen refusing the Terms of the UNSA Protectorate and wishing to receive information packages from the aforementioned factions must inform about their decision within 30 minutes after receiving this message (expand, inform).
# Info: In order to receive an information package from the Empire Chou, one must undergo genetic testing (paid service, details).
# Info: Commencing curfew in 06:13:00…
# Info: 06.12.59… 58… 57… 56…
# Violation of legal requirements of the Protectorate, violation of the imposed curfew, any attempts to illegally leave the Protective Perimeter of Wall-1, Protective Perimeter of Wall-2, will be punished by the destruction of the violator.
…
# Attention! Covenant 7, Article 1:
## Artificial Intelligence Restriction (expand).
## All artificial intelligence systems of Level T3 and below are to be forcibly deactivated.
## All artificial intelligence systems of Level T4 and above will be brought under the direct control of the Protectorate (expand).
## Failure to comply, refusal to execute, or concealment of information regarding the presence of active artificial intelligence modules constitutes a crime against the Protectorate and is punishable by death.
# Thank you for choosing Safety and Prosperity with the UNSA Protectorate!