I was just a young ensign fresh out of the Commonwealth Naval Academy when the Hegemony first made themselves known to us in 2314. Like many others, I remember being both excited and a little scared when the news started filtering down to the lower ranks about how truly massive the Hegemony was, stretching across thousands of light years and with dozens of species in their membership. My father, Robert Hendricks, was a senior diplomat for the Commonwealth government at this time and was one of the first government officials to be involved in the exchange initiatives.
We corresponded regularly since both of our duties meant we had little chance to see each other except for when I was on leave. At first, the optimism was evident in my dad’s letters and vid messages, as he expounded on the medical advancements and other technologies they were offering, though he did express surprise at the near parity we had with them in most areas.
He seemed bothered by this fact, considering that they were a 2,000-year-old space-faring civilization while we have only been an interstellar species for 250 years. I got the distinct impression from his writings that Hegemony officials were also disturbed by our level of advancement, though he never outright said it.
As time went on, the optimistic nature of his correspondence regarding working with the Hegemony officials started taking on a more resentful nature. He was not particularly fond of the Khotak officials he worked with, calling them “arrogant asshole cats” in private and joking about spiking their food supply with catnip to make them more friendly.
In a rare occurrence of good fortune, in 2316, we were both home for Christmas. As mom was finishing up the last preparations for Christmas dinner, we were in his study, sharing a drink and catching up. When I asked him how things were going at work, he confided in me that things were not going so well and that he felt like he was perpetually waiting for the hammer to drop.
“Joseph, I don’t think they have our best interest in mind.” He told me. “They have stopped any pretense of treating us as equals, and their demands grow more absurd every day. They have been aggressively demanding that we provide them with all the technical details of our weapons and shield technology, and the comments on our breeding habits are becoming more extreme as time goes on.”
I just stood there listening to him and thought of the scuttlebutt passing around the crews about the increasingly unfriendly behavior by the Hegemony vessels towards our Navy ships.
“I think they are afraid of us.” He continued, “We almost match them in total population, and our martial abilities far outclass their own, since we have much more experience waging wars, and our military technology reflects that.” He poured another drink for the both of us, handing me one. “They seem particularly incensed by our use of AIs, though when we press them to provide a reason for their issues with us using them, they refuse to answer.”
He sighed and took another sip of his drink. “Be careful out there, son. I have a feeling that things are rapidly spiraling out of control and that the Hegemony might try to seize one of our ships to get their hands on our technology.” He stood there quietly and smiled wanly at me. "Enough of this nonsense!” He said as he hugged me, “Let’s go eat some of that turkey your mother made and tell me about the new heavy cruiser you are serving on. I hear she is a beauty.”
That was the last time I saw my father. I had to leave early the next morning to report back to my ship, and dad was still sleeping off his night of excess. I kissed my mother goodbye and left with Tupperware’s stuffed with leftovers. To this day, I still regret not waking my father up to say goodbye to him. That was the last time I saw mom and dad alive.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Six weeks later, a Hegemony cruiser squadron of eight ships violated Commonwealth space and ambushed one of our convoys in the Gliese 65 system. They tried to seize one of the destroyers guarding the convoy, who issued a distress call and started fighting back since her FTL drive was crippled in the initial ambush. The accompanying destroyer and what remained of the rest of the convoy initiated an emergency FTL jump and exited the battlespace.
The CSN Badger fled on sub-light engines towards the asteroid belt and, in a series of hit-and-run strikes and the laying of mine traps, fought the Hegemony squadron to a standstill. The Badger tallied two kills and disabled two more, leading them on an ever more convoluted chase through the belt. Out of weapons and severely damaged, the Captain of the Badger ordered the crew to abandon ship and get to the life pods.
That done, he initiated the fusion core overload process, flew the ship out of its hiding spot behind a small planetoid, and started issuing messages of surrender, leading his ship and the Hegemony warships away from the life pods. The captain waited until two Hegemony cruisers came along his ship in an attempt to board the Badger before he overloaded the core, destroying all three ships.
In a fit of rage, the remaining Hegemony vessels issued orders for all Hegemony personnel to evacuate the integration habitat that the Commonwealth had built to accommodate Hegemony and Human government officials and their families. When they arrived at the habitat, they onloaded the Hegemony personnel, jammed all communication frequencies, and destroyed any human ships and evacuation shuttles that tried to flee. They then proceeded to fire on the habitat, destroying it and killing over 360,000 humans when it was all done.
Mom and Dad were on that station.
Before the remaining Hegemony cruisers jumped away, a message was broadcast from the ships informing us of the dissolution of formal relations, and they broadcasted a stellar map outlining the exclusion zone. The message stated that any human ships breaching the zone would constitute an act of war and would be met with the full might of the Hegemony Fleet. They plainly stated that engaging in war with them would only end with the eradication of all of humanity.
My ship and dozens of others responding to the distress call from the Badger jumped into the system an hour after the Hegemony Squadron had left. There were no survivors to be found, except for the Badger crew in their life pods hiding in the asteroid belt.
The aftermath of what became known as the Gliese massacre almost caused the collapse of the Commonwealth government. Billions cried out for revenge. “Remember the Badger!” became a rallying cry for those who wanted war, and footage of the massacre spread throughout the Commonwealth despite all attempts by the government to suppress it.
Even the Navy was affected by this, the “Badger Mutiny” being the most serious example. Almost three-quarters of the fleet mutinied and headed towards Sol to overthrow the government and install a military dictatorship that would then declare war on the Hegemony.
It wasn’t until the War Department, in desperation to end the mutiny, released classified intelligence from our stealth scouts showing Hegemony Fleet depots with thousands of mothballed warships just waiting to be reactivated that the rebelling ships finally stood down. With only five hundred warships, the Navy had no hope of fighting and winning a conflict with the Hegemony.
With this realization, the government, the navy, and the War Department went into overdrive and launched a massive shipbuilding program to prepare for the coming war. Shipyards sprang into existence as they were constructed with breakneck speed. The looming threat of a Hegemony invasion and the potential eradication of our species brought an end to the usual bureaucratic inefficiencies that plagued our government and the military-industrial complex.
Before the massacre, there were twenty warships coming online every year; now there are almost five hundred. Carriers, dreadnaughts, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and troopships are built at breakneck speed. Thousands of air and space fighters are built every year, and there has been no shortage of recruits to man these ships and fighters, even years after the massacre.
The ranks of the Army swelled from fifty million to almost half a billion. Entire solar systems, asteroid belts, and Oort clouds have been strip-mined to feed the massive war machine. For the first time, it feels like all of humanity is striving towards a single purpose, with but one thought in our minds.
Revenge.
Private journal of Joseph Hendricks