Jessica Morgan sighed in exasperation as she paced back and forth.

The Fed’s Zaran expeditionary force had been in the system for almost half an hour.

Half an hour...

And here, in Raylesh?

Nothing! Absolutely nothing! They were supposed to get here first!

“Fucking Feds!” she cursed. They were threatening the whole operation because they couldn’t stick to a simple flight plan!

“Ma’am?” Terrence asked as he walked in with a tray of sushi.

“Where are the Feds?” she demanded. “They were supposed to be here over an hour ago!”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t say, ma’am,” Terrence replied with the slightest of smirks. “They never RSVP’d.”

“Rude!” Jessica chuckled as she collected her lunch. She popped a piece of nigiri into her mouth, taking care to savor it. Such luxuries would be very rare very soon, even for her.

After she swallowed the precious mouthful she decided to try reaching the Prime Minister again. The shooting hadn’t started yet. There was still an outside chance that maybe, just maybe, she could negotiate something, anything. It wouldn’t take much to stop today and everything that would follow.

A lot of people were about to die, a lot of people. In the Zaran system alone a force of seventy-five thousand Federation soldiers have just entered the system not to mention the fleet of naval vessels accompanying them. At last count over a dozen cruisers and even the fucking Formidable had just flown right into her clutches.

The size of the group en-route to her was at least four times as large…

She frowned and pushed the sushi aside. She had lost her appetite. What the fuck was wrong with her? A century ago she would be physically “excited” at the thought of what was about to happen. Now?

Now? She was just nauseous. She shouldn’t have thought about the numbers again. Jesus, that was a lot of people, mostly just kids, young soldiers who hadn’t done a damn thing to-

Get ahold of yourself, Jessica, she thought. You’re the “Devil of Sol” for fuck’s sake!

She took a deep breath and lowered herself into her command chair. She called the Prime Minister’s private number.

Moments later the Prime Minister’s face appeared on her screen.

“Come crawling to beg for mercy?” he sneered.

“Voxxie,” Jessica said earnestly. “Let’s talk.”

“I’m not certain that we have anything to discuss.”

“We don’t have to do this, Voxxie,” Jessica urgently. “Let’s work something out while we still can.”

“We don’t deal with common terrorists, Jessica.”

“Goddammit! Could you just drop the whole terrorist bit? It’s just us here. I don’t want to do this, Voxxie. I don’t! We can stop this! I’m not asking for much. I just need-”

“If you want to talk then turn yourself in and have your thugs stand down,” the prime minister replied calmly. “Once you are in custody and order is restored, then I will be prepared to open a dialogue with the humans, not before.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jessica replied. “Not without something to give them. The humans need-”

“The humans need to remember that they are a part of the Federation and that they need to respect it’s authority and the rule of law!”

“You don’t fucking get it!” Jessica snapped. “A lot of people are about to die and you are talking about respecting ‘authority’ and the ‘rule of law’? The humans lost both of those when you fuckers put the knife in. That ship has sailed! They aren’t going to settle down unless they have the ability to manage themselves and manage this disaster without interference. That’s it. That’s all they need. Give us that and we can stop this madness before it starts!”

“The madness is already going to be stopped!” the prime minister replied. “Overwhelming force has been dispatched to Raylesh, Zaran, and all other human enclaves. Order will be restored. If you are so afraid of your people dying then tell them to lay down their arms and submit!”

“I’m not afraid my my people dying. They already are!” Jessica replied. “I am not afraid of you but I am afraid,” Jessica said quietly, “I’m afraid of us. I’m afraid of me. I’m terrified of what we are going to do today. I remember what we once were and it scares the shit out of me, Voxxie. I-”

Jessica fell silent as her monitors indicated the arrival of the Raylesh Expeditionary Force. Holy fuck, there were a lot of ships.

“Fuck,” she said as she took a deep breath. “We’re out of time. We have this one final chance to stop everything. We have this one last chance to actually be leaders and stop a war that doesn’t have to happen. Please, Voxxie, work with me! We can do this without bloodshed, without death! We-”

“You can’t escape your fate with your frantic maneuverings!” the prime minister replied smugly. “Your uprising will be crushed, today! You humans will be taught your place! And you, old friend, will spend the rest of your days in-”

The prime minister fell silent as Jessica started to laugh a manic, ugly laugh and tears started to roll down her cheeks.

“You stupid fucker,” she sobbed, “We could have stopped this! We could have stopped everything!!!”

She lunged towards the screen, her face twisted with anguished rage.

“Fine… Reap the whirlwind, motherfucker!” she yelled as she laughed and wept. ”Fucking REAP IT!”

She terminated the call.

She slumped into her chair and closed her eyes as she let out a ragged gasping sigh.

She didn’t have time for this.

There was no time.

There was no hope…

She had a job to do, one she knew very, very well.

She opened her eyes and smiled grimly as she established a hyperspatial relay link and triggered the release of a prepared statement that would soon be echoing across the entire known galaxy.

She then reached for her lunch. It turned out that she was a bit peckish after all and letting a plate of sushi-grade fish go to waste was one sin she could prevent.

***

The colonel stared at the displays in amazement.

In almost any other circumstance this would be hilarious. Hundreds of ships had all taken off in perfect unison and were flying about in hundreds of different directions with no regard for established flight paths or public safety.

It was chaos, beautiful glorious chaos. Zaran Spaceflight Control was completely overwhelmed. Even their automatic citation generator was swamped. It couldn’t issue fines fast enough.

Of course, every single ship had its command override and automatic navigation equipment disabled. They discovered that days ago when all this oddness started.

“Colonel,” the female Kreneel officer chirped. “Admiral Moporan is hailing you.”

An image of a heavily decorated Sam appeared on the screen.

“Colonel!” the admiral barked. “What is going on down there?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out for days, Admiral,” the colonel replied in a tired voice.

“Well, make them stop!” the admiral barked. “Issue recall commands.”

“Oh Creators!” the colonel snarked. “Recall commands! Why didn’t I think of that! Hey, guys! Just issue recall commands!”

As the Zaran command center broke out into chuckles the admiral’s expression darkened.

“Colonel, you are in dire risk of insubordination!”

“Of course we have issued recall commands, Admiral,” the colonel replied in annoyance. “Every single one of those vessels has all of their mandated control interfaces removed.”

“And you haven’t disabled them?”

“With what? Besides they have been keeping in the gravity well. We hit them with a pulse and they will fall into the planet, usually over a populated area. We can’t knock them offline without significant civilian casualties and they know it. And before you ask the system defense force absolutely refuses to touch this one. They say it’s our problem. In fact, I haven’t been able to reach them at all since the ships lifted off.”

“I’ll have their jobs!” the admiral barked. “Yours too if you don’t resolve this! We can’t commence deployment of our forces until the landing areas are secure!”

“Again resolve it with what?” the colonel snapped. “There are hundreds of… wait...” the colonel trailed off as it hit him.

That’s what they are doing! the colonel realized. By procedure, the Federation will not deploy landers in a non-combat situation if space superiority is not established and they know it!

“Admiral,” the colonel said in a very serious voice. “That’s exactly what they want. They are keeping you from landing those troops! Admiral! You need to get those troops down here immediately! They-”

“Our landers could be vulnerable to those vessels,” the admiral replied as if he was talking to a child.

“Then get the troops out of here until we resolve this!”

“Retreat?!?” the admiral snapped. “Nonsense! We will not turn tail over some rabble!”

“Sir, please reconsider,” the colonel said in alarm. “Don’t you see? The humans have just legally forfeited every single one of those vessels for the expressed purpose of causing this delay. If they are willing to pay that much to buy a few minutes we are fools if we just sit around waiting to find out why.”

“I have no time for your inefficiency or cowardice, colonel,” the admiral sneered. “Just play policeman down there until I have need of you.”

The communication was terminated. You could hear a pin drop as everyone turned to look at the colonel in shock.

“Have all troops go to battle-ready!” the colonel shouted seemingly unphased by the insult. “Get our armored units fired up and ready to go, now!”

“Yes, Sir!”

The colonel pulled up planetary maps and stared at them intently. He had a thousand troops scattered across the planet. He started recalling any deployed units, pulling everyone back to his strongholds.

“Colonel,” one of his officers said as they squinted their eyes in a smirk. “The admiral has just issued a system-wide transmission ordering all civilian shipping to land. He says that all ships still active within one hour will be classified as combatants.”

“Idiot!” the colonel said lightly slamming his face into his desk.

“Sir, with all due respect, he is within his rights,” the female Kreneel replied. “According to the articles of-”

“Not that part,” the colonel snapped. “An hour?!? Why not give them a week? He’s playing right into their hands! Get him on the line!”

“They say he has no time to waste on you, sir,” the kreneel replied with a wince.

“Then, as the humans say,” the colonel said after a few seconds. “we’re fucked. Anyone who isn’t armed draw a weapon immediately! Get me system defense now!”

“They still aren’t responding, sir.”

The colonel took a deep breath.

“Well, being a cog was nice while it lasted,” he muttered. “I am authorizing an immediate strike. Seize the system defense headquarters now. Combat is authorized. Don’t go in gun’s blazing but if they resist, take them down.”

“Sir?!?!?”

“That’s an order. Take out Zaran’s System Defense Command, now. Either this is all a big misunderstanding and we’ll have a good laugh about it during my ‘retirement party’ or I’m right. Please don’t let me be right...”

“Yes, sir.”

***

“And that was the Minstrels with ‘Gumdrops on my Pillow’,” ‘Lissa Kay said happily, “I know they are just a planetary name right now but just you watch, guys,” she said with a big smile. “They are going places!”

She beamed at the camera. Things had been going surprisingly well the past hour. In fact, they were going better than just ‘well’.

Their ratings were through the roof! She got “meme’d” early in the show and it went viral! A picture of her, face in her hands, with the title “Pour that girl a Johnson’s!”, the catchphrase of Johnson’s Spirits, an infamously famous cheap liquor (Legally they can only call it a “spirit”-- Even vodka refuses to claim them!), was the pic of the day! Unfortunately, a clip of her “bleeping” on camera was also right up there. The sound was censored but it was pretty darn clear what she was saying. Normally she would be in trouble over that but with all the buzz it generated, the network was delighted!

The second appearance of that Black Angels bitch also made the planetary news! It turns out that the little cheer squad psychopath was none other than Gwen Shay, the great-granddaughter of the Gwendolyn Shay, bitch-queen of the Angels herself!

She had even just completed a dual-cast interview/collab with Zaran Prime Information! ZPI was the system’s news network!

Through all of this madness she had actually managed to get her message out there and people were responding! The lines were being flooded by good people who just wanted a little normalcy, a little cheering up… a little sunshine! She couldn’t cure the plague. She couldn’t stop the “invasion”, as it was now being called.

She couldn’t do a damn thing.

But…

She could run a cheerful little radio show and at least make the day a tiny bit less sucky. That she could do. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something…

It was something that a lot of people really needed right now!

For the first time in days she actually was feeling like her old self again! She was even starting to feel just a little bit of genuine optimism. Maybe things wouldn’t be so-

Suddenly the monitors switched away from her smiling face and intentionally vacuous patter.

Her blood froze in her veins as an entirely too familiar ancient visage appeared, the Devil herself.

Jessica spoke.

Fellow humans, we face a crisis. A biological weapon, crafted by an ancient enemy, has been released into our population. It is virulent, incurable, and one hundred percent fatal.

Not only were we attacked but we were also betrayed. The Federation, our home for over one hundred years decided to not only fail to render the assistance that any citizen of the Federation has every right to expect but to actively hamper response to this crisis and to prevent any real research concerning its treatment or even a vaccine. They said that this bio-attack was a good thing. They said that we becoming extinct was a ‘plus’. They laughed at our plight, our sick, our dying...

They laughed!

They actively took steps to encourage the spread of this plague and took steps to keep us from being effectively able to seek shelter or isolate ourselves. They willfully withheld essential medical equipment and supplies, supplies that they have in abundance, so that the plague could not be stopped.

And they laughed.

Why? Why would they do this? They do this because it is the perfect ugly end to an ugly strategy they have undertaken since the debacle that was the Republic War. Ever since that idiotic attack they have sought to paint us as the primary cause, the main instigator of that war. That is simply not the case. It never was. Yes, some human INDIVIDUALS including, to my ever lasting shame, at least one member of my family were supporters of that attack. However, we humans have NEVER had enough power to be able to influence the Federation to the extent necessary to start a war on our own. If we had that power, then we certainly would have the power to prevent the desperate plight that we now face.

Not even I have the power needed to command the Federation’s military. I really wish I did for if I could I would simply tell them to leave in peace.

The Federation chose to attack the Republic on its own, for its own reasons. We were simply a useful tool that could be used to justify that war and a convenient scapegoat for when that war failed. We are, after all, humans the same as the Terrans. It was easy to artfully redirect no small portion of the anger and pain that rightfully belonged to the Federation towards us.

By burying us many hope to bury the whole war and allow it to fade from history as we do. Others fear the Republic and hope that with us gone they will be appeased. Still others, such as the Vulxeen, seized upon this disaster as a way to seek revenge, to settle an old score. All of these groups also have another huge motivation. Simple greed. Review of the financial dealings of more than one individual behind the attempted murder of our entire people clearly show them already preparing to capitalize on the disaster. We know who you are. We are coming.

Make no mistake. We know the true source of the pathogen. Patricia Hu is to blame for its creation and its release. She is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands. The Federation’s intentional mismanagement of the response and active inhibition of our ability to manage ourselves during this nightmare is, however, responsible for the deaths of millions. The true threat to our survival is clear.

The Federation had not the brilliance to create the pathogen. They had not the brutal resolve necessary to release it. Unfortunately for us, cowardly opportunism is something the Federation has in abundance and they gleefully seized upon this horror to further their own hate-filled, greedy ambitions.

Even so, I endeavored until the final moments to negotiate a peace that did not entail our capitulation, that did not require their hand upon our throat, that offered some assurance of our survival. I failed.

As of this moment we are at war.

We, however, cannot speak for every human in the Federation. We do not own humanity. I do, however, speak for many and our voice shall be heard starting today.

Our voices do not call for war. They do not call out for vengeance, and perhaps it would be better for the Federation if they did. We call out, to all humanity, urging them to do the one single thing we humans do best...

Survive. We shall not go extinct! We will survive! No matter who attacks or forsakes us we will survive and we will eliminate anyone or anything that seeks to prevent that.

We call ourselves the Forsaken.

A disturbing banner emblazoned with the eight-rayed star of chaos and studded with eyes appeared behind her.

Today, the Forsaken wages war. Today we strike the first blow against the Federation. We do this not to revel in carnage or seek revenge. Those are luxuries that survival does not allow. We do this to stop an invasion bent upon continuing the policy of extinction and to liberate fellow Forsaken that are trapped on Raylesh, Zaran, and other human enclaves. Once we break the stranglehold the Federation has on these areas we shall also distribute essential supplies such as scanners and other medical equipment to unaffiliated human populations. That is our mission this blood-soaked day.

We did not want war. We did not want blood. We did not want death but if they must come then they will come at our hands, on our terms, delivered to our foes.

At the end of this day the Federation will wail and cry and moan and attempt, in their pathetic cowardly way, to paint us as the aggressors, as the monsters, but don’t be fooled. We were created by them. We were set upon by them. They chose their foe, and they chose this battle.

We merely refused to die. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this might cause the gentle souls of the Federation.

The feed suddenly was cut and ‘Lissa’s pale, horrified face appeared on the screen.

She blinked in confusion, completely at a loss.

“Will someone please pour me that Johnson’s already!” she yelled at the camera before pressing play on the next block of videos.

A loud “boom” shook the building shortly followed by dozens of others.

“What was that?!?” she yelled as she threw open the door to the studio and peeked out into the hall.

“Spaceship just hit the gas!” someone yelled. “Sonic boom smashed the glass out front!”

“They are all rolling out!” someone else yelled as they were staring at their phone. “All over the planet… All of them...”

“So...” Gel said sadly, “It’s happening, then...”

“They can’t expect to face the invasion fleet, right?” someone asked in a frightened voice. “They aren’t going to fight them, are they?”

“What are we going to do?...”

“Our jobs!” Gel replied in a loud, clear voice. “We keep the people informed! We get the truth out, the real truth! People! Get to your desks! Man the feeds! Find out what the hell is going on!”

He turned to ‘Lissa.

“And you,” he said with a crazed smile.

“Fiddle?” ‘Lissa asked.

“No, I’m turning you loose!” Gel grinned. “Do whatever the fuck you want. Be ‘Lissa!”

“I can do that!” ‘Lissa replied with a grin.

***

Author's note: You might observe some "inconsistencies" between Jessica Morgan's declaration of war and what you might have previously read or what you might notice in the future...

I really didn't want to have to be the one to tell you this but...

Sometimes a public figure will say something that is... um... less than one hundred percent true...

I hope this doesn't shake your faith in humanity.