“Nikola 1.01, this is Evan… Evan Terrance, from the USNA Refuge. General Brooks has retired, and I’ve been chosen to take his place. Can we talk?” Evan sat in front of the microphone nervously. He was desperately worried that the General had alienated the… robots? Androids? He didn’t even know what to rightly call them, not now. He’d seen the satellite footage of the fight in the asteroid belt, and actually gone outside to see the bright line that extended out from the back of the moon. It was a whisker of light, barely visible before it faded away.

“Congratulations on your new role,” came Nikola’s cool, modulated voice. As always, she came across as slightly aloof and always in control. “How may I be of assistance?”

“If you are willing, we are ready to discuss a partnership with you.”

“I am willing. We will be there shortly.”

Evan let out a loud sigh of relief, not even realizing that he’d been holding his breath. Just this morning, one of the hydroponic water pumps had failed, forcing them to put in their last one. They had no margin for error on anything, and the shelter was not even twenty years old yet.

“I guess that’s what you get when you use the lowest bidder,” mumbled Evan to himself, before broadcasting back to Nikola. “Thank you, we look forward to showing you our home.”

One year. I arrived in the Faelle System one year after the invasion armada had arrived in mine. I had originally planned on launching my counter-invasion on the eve of my victory in the Solar System, but my forces were dramatically diminished during the fight. I lost four of my warships and nearly half of my assault drones, including my reserves.

So instead I focused on what had proven to work the first time around. I built. I took the time to clean up the damaged and destroyed ships in the asteroid belt, and I packed all the enemy survivors into a disarmed warship and sent them back to Faelle. I didn’t need to worry about feeding and housing prisoners when I had enough on my plate already.

I secured seventy three enemy ships in relatively good condition, and bombed out shells for another one hundred eleven. Of the working ships, two of them had Vaporizers onboard, which I turned over to Zia and her researchers to reverse engineer. There was very little left of the warship that had tried to do… well, something to Earth’s moon. We were able to recover enough to learn its name, Breaker, and that it belonged to yet another alien race we’d not spoken to yet. The name gave a pretty good clue as to what it was supposed to do.

I took the time to retrofit all of the enemy hulls. I didn’t have to worry about life support and living quarters, so was able to pack in three times as much weaponry, armor and munitions as the craft had originally used. Further, I was able to ramp up my own warship production, so I was able to add another two hundred of my own, all fully shielded against Vaporizers with the compressed titanium-gold alloy armor. I paused my seed ship construction as well, for I needed another form of giant ship. I had drones to transport.

Sakura, for her part, began three major projects. The first was to secure and assist the surviving humans. It took some time, but the fragmented remains of humanity allowed her to send in drones to take over the repairs and maintenance of the systems keeping them alive. Her bubbly positivity and open friendly demeanor did much to show our good intentions, and she was in discussions with them on the best way to rebuild a self-sustaining society.

Her second major project was related to the first. She began construction of orbital farms, complete with contragrav plating for artificial gravity. This was a massive endeavor, because for the first time, we had to build with human survival in mind. The hull walls had to withstand radiation and cold, the interior needed a constant temperature, and the palladium microalloy glass was specially engineered to only allow in the same frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum as Earth’s own atmosphere did.

I considered just enclosing the entire thing and using artificial grow lights when I drew up the blueprints, but Sakura convinced me that people who’d been trapped underground for over a decade would want real, natural light as much as possible, and would make orbital farming a much desired job. Her comment had thrown me, initially, because I’d intended on designing a farming drone, but she was right. Humanity needed some agency in their own future.

Her third project was in cleaning up the planet. There were countless cities and large towns, all with massive industrial facilities that had been left abandoned after the collapse of Earth. The toxic chemicals, petrochemicals, and byproducts left giant wastelands as pipes corroded and materials leaked. On top of that, there were huge amounts of particulates in the air and overabundance of elements that were detrimental to human health. She began cleaning up in Central America and southern China closest to human habitation, and her new Atmospheric Filtration Towers began to spring up swiftly.

So after nine months of construction, I was confident that Sakura had everything well in hand. It was time to end this war.

I arrived in the Faelle System at the back of the first wave of warships, and immediately into combat. I had installed a cortex node in several warships for convenience and just in case there was a distance limit to the quantum relay communications that I relied upon so heavily. But quantum physics was my friend. I was still integrated with all my threads of focus back in the Sol System. I instantly knew what had occurred over the last three months, as if I’d never left. In fact, I really hadn’t.

The Faelle had extensive defensive structures in place around the Mobius Gate, and they had clearly prepared for the arrival of an endless stream of drones. They began firing off thousands of small hyper-velocity rounds that would easily tear through my Wasp-2 and Scorpion-2 drones.

I had no doubt that the prisoners I released had given great detail about the final battle, even if I’d stripped the data feeds from the barely functional warship they had returned on. But they were not the only ones who could learn from the previous fight.

My front row of warships were heavily armored, much more so than the armored warships that the Orion Arm Trading Company’s armada had used. I also borrowed a trick from the Breaker warship that had used powerful contragrav fields to counter my hypervelocity weapons at the Earth’s moon. Unlike the Faelle, however, my understanding of gravity plating was far superior. We had learned countless ways to manipulate gravity, and had nine months to experiment. Projected in front of each of my own Breacher-class warships, a concave, powerful field of contragrav began reflecting those hypervelocity rounds back at the enemy fortifications. It was more of a loosely guided ricochet than a true reflection, but few rounds made it through.

It didn’t take long for the fortifications to switch to larger armaments, but the time it took for that change to happen was enough time for my Spine Ships to arrive. Five Spine Ships entered the system, and they were exactly as the name implied. They were two-kilometer long, thick spines attached to a powerful contragrav engine. Spurs stuck out from the spine in every direction, and docked to those spurs were drones. Each Spine Ship carried 100,000 Wasp-3 and Scorpion-3 assault drones. I had five.

The drones peeled off the Spine Ships and poured into the Faelle System just as the fortifications switched to the slower, heavier weapons intended to pound heavily armored warships out of existence. It was a mistake they’d never get the chance to regret.

My drones tore through the fortifications at maximum speed, throwing their organized defense into disarray. Closely following the drones were the rest of my warships, and these were armed with Vaporizers. It did not take long for the Faelle fortifications to burn up in nuclear fire and fury.

My final five craft arrived even as my armada cleaned up the last of the resistance at the Mobius Gate, and fell into formation with my drones and the rest of my armada. We swept on into the Faelle System, a flood of vengeful machines in search of our enemy.

The system was remarkably empty. It had no asteroid belts, and six planets. Only two of them were terrestrial, and one was so close to the Faelle star that even I couldn’t envision a convenient way of harvesting material from it. The last four planets were gas giants, with the largest being half the size of Jupiter, and the smallest the size of Neptune. I detected some orbital installations above the largest one, but no weaponry. I sent a contingent of drones to capture it.

It took three weeks to arrive at the Faelle homeworld. A pitiful defense force mustered two days away from the planet, a mere fraction of the strength of the Mobius Gate’s fortifications. I tore through the last of their ships without even slowing down.

For three days, I stayed in orbit, observing the world below me. There were endless trees on three large continents, ranging in all sizes and with the largest being half a kilometer in height. They seemed to be loosely grouped, with wide strips of barren land around each grouping. These were the Wealds, the tribal organizations of the Faelle. The Orion Arm Trading Company was evolved from the largest of these Wealds.

The panicked transmissions I picked up on over these three days was enlightening. Before long a clear picture emerged of who was in charge, and where. The Faelle had a Weald Court, which was their version of a planetary government. The Orion Arm Trading Company had dominated this Court for a very long time, and fingers were being pointed in all directions as their disaster loomed overhead.

Finally, I took ten of my strongest warships down out of orbit and hovered overtop the Weald Court. I put a thread of focus into a fully armored Mark-VI android, and landed with a contingent of Guardians just outside of the Court.

The World Court’s tree was nearly a kilometer in height, and wider than most Wealds on the planet. We were met at the cavernous entrance by rows of Faelle growtings in body armor and carrying long rifle-like weapons. My Guardians went into formation, but I did not open fire. It was a standoff, for the moment.

“Court Faithful, you are ordered to stand down and step aside!” shouted a growting commander from the other side. I don’t know if the commander was acting under legitimate orders or simply recognized the futility of resistance while I controlled the planets’ orbitals. Either way, it was irrelevant.

I walked forward, and my Guardians lined the hallways in an unbroken line of protection from the entrance all the way to an ornate door that stood open. Even as I approached, I could hear the yelling of Weald representatives.

“We must send word to our allies! Someone must have a fleet to destroy this monstrosity profaning our orbits!” came one voice.

“This mess wouldn’t have happened at all if the Orion Arm Trading Company followed Interstellar Law, and traded in good faith!” shouted another.

“The Orion Arm Trading Company has always acted in the best interests of the Faelle, a good and faithful Steward of the Trees. I didn’t hear you complaining when we brought back the riches of the stars,” retorted someone who was clearly in favor of the Company.

I reached the doorway, and walked through. A hush fell in the room as all eyes were on me. I knew that I was a strange sight to these aliens. My fully armored android form made it clear that I was built for war. Thick titanium-gold alloy armor plating with white ceramic accents covered my body, a white cloth surcoat trimmed with gold over the top of the armor and extending down in the front and back almost to the ankle. I wore no helmet on my head, for the armor was for show. If this android body was destroyed, it would cause me no harm at all.

The face of my android body was the most human-like of all I had created so far. I stayed with the white, colorless face and solid, glowing blue eyes. But I had built in an underlying musculature and bone structure that allowed a complete range of facial expressions, a working mouth that allowed me to simulate actual speaking, and thick, rope-like strands of artificial hair on my head that was metallic gold in color, to match my armor.

I strode through the Court, which was organized in circles. The center of the Court was empty, so I moved down until I stood in the absolute center of the Weald Court. I turned in a full circle, taking in each and every representative. The representatives sat at small desks with their Weald names on the front. That was convenient. I stopped turning when I spotted the Orion Arm Trading Company representative.

“I have come to your world to end the war that your people, your trading company started.” I practically spat the words ‘trading company’ to show my disgust. “You have nearly exterminated the species that created me, brought great destruction upon me and mine, and brought nothing but pain and suffering with your presence.”

I had thought the room hushed before, but now it was deathly silent.

“Your people once gave us a ‘gift’ from the stars. I have come today to return that ‘gift’, with all the malice you delivered it to us.” I locked eyes with the Orion Arm Trading Company representative. I raised my hand over my head and clenched my fist, signaling my fleet at the same time. My final five craft, the last ones to arrive just as we'd broken through the Faelle fortifications, began to move towards the planet.

Silence reigned in the room for long seconds before a distant whump could be heard. Seconds after that, the entire World Court shook as if an earthquake had struck. An earthquake, however, was far less deadly.

A representative in the back of the Court couldn’t take the tension any longer. “What… what did you do?!”

I smiled, still with my eyes locked on the Orion Arm representative. “You used five asteroids to destroy human civilization and bring devastation to a civilization that refused to buckle to your unreasonable demands. Alas, those asteroids could not be recovered. But I have many, many asteroids at my disposal, so I brought five of my own. I have returned them to you, and eliminated the Wealds that support the Orion Arm Trading Company. The Company is no more.”

The Orion Arm Trading Company representative’s countenance paled in such a way that I quickly recognized how universal shock is. After savoring the moment, I turned and looked at the rest of the Weald Court.

“‘When a friend’s branch dies, you must cut it away, lest the branch kill their tree,’” I quoted. “You brought malice to my world, so I have returned it to you. Be glad that I chose the mercy of the Faelle religion. Should we war against each other again, next time I will use Human religion instead. Trust me when I say that you do not want me to exercise ‘eye for an eye’.”

“So… that’s it?” said a Weald representative. “It’s over?”

“Almost,” I said, my smile unwavering. “I will retain control of your orbitals, and of this system. I filed the appropriate paperwork with the Observer Boat UNTRANSLATABLE to claim ownership of this System. I’m afraid that since you have no contragrav-capable spacecraft remaining to you, you are now ineligible to retain ownership. I’ve recorded your species as a ‘Subjugated Native Population.’ But I will be happy to trade with you, should you find something of value on your planet that I might find interest in. I wish you and your species all of the goodwill and fortune you wished upon ours.”

I turned and strode out of the Weald Court, leaving shocked silence behind me.