Lieutenant Porcht, the communications officer of the Ascension gasped in horror.

“Captain!” she exclaimed, “Intelligence from the surface indicates that the last series of targets we received were completely civilian in nature!

Captain Loqurir clenched his jaws in anger. He knew it. He knew that this would happen! He had hoped that he would be wrong, but he wasn’t.

“Estimated civilian casualties?” he asked trying to keep his voice even and professional.

“It is currently unclear, but it is easily in the tens of thousands, sir.”

Complete silence fell over the bridge as the entire crew looked at the captain.

After a few moments, the captain climbed down from the top of the command chair and scuttled over to the mic mounted in one of the arms.

“Connect me to the 1MC,” the captain said calmly.

“You are connected, Captain!” the lieutenant replied.

The captain’s squeaky but commanding voice echoed through the entire ship.

Crew of the Ascension, we received a series of targets from Federation Command and, having faith in the accuracy and legality of our orders, we engaged those targets. Unfortunately, our faith was… misplaced… The targets that we were assigned were completely civilian in nature. Under direct orders from Federation Command we opened fire upon thousands of unarmed Federation civilians...

While the full extent of the damage has not yet been determined, the number of civilians that we have killed is easily in the tens of thousands...

During times of war, orders can be falsified or a chain of command can become compromised or otherwise suspect. Article 87 of the Federation Naval Code states that should a commander of a vessel believe that his orders or his chain of command have become suspect, they can detach themselves and their ship and act solely under their own authority until such a time as confidence can be restored.

I am now invoking article 87. I will not allow our guns nor the guns of any other vessel in this system to be used to slaughter innocent Federation civilians! While I do believe that the orders did in fact come from our superiors, I deem them and the officers that issued them to be the very definition of “suspect”.

Any consequences for this will fall upon me and me alone. I pray that there will not be a confrontation with another Federation vessel but should that occur we will protect ourselves, and more importantly, we will protect the citizens of the Federation!

I understand if someone does not wish to fight our brothers and sisters. If anyone feels that they cannot stand with me and with this ship report to cargo bay six. You will not experience any reprisals for your decision.

The citizens of the Federation, regardless of species, are ours to protect! We shall not fail them!

That will be all.

He then turned back to his communications officer.

“Lieutenant, prepare to send a message to every ship, every government office, and on every public hyperspatial harmonic and gravitic frequency.”

“Yes, Captain!”

***

The Admiral of the Navy sat in his chair, clutching his legs miserably as the other flag officers in his office silently stared at him.

He fucked up.

He fucked up, bad.

It made so much sense at the time… The humans… They had to be massing another force…

They just had to be…

Why wouldn’t anyone understand? If that had been another human force we would have been done for!

But it wasn’t…

He had been wrong… but there hadn’t been time! If he had taken the time to fully investigate everything, they would have had time to strike!

And the capital would have been lost… If they had been fighters...

If they had been fighters, he would have been a hero… He would have saved the capital…

But they weren’t and he was a murderer… a mass murderer… and he just plunged the capital even deeper into chaos.

And it wasn’t just those fucking evil humans down there! They had somehow tricked representatives of a dozen different species into entering those strike zones…

As a result, what was originally just a human problem was now city-wide…

Federation wide…

The police abandoned the barricades and humans were fleeing throughout the entire city with many enclaves welcoming them (and their weapons) with open arms!

Terran AK’s, now in the hands of dozens of species, were everywhere and enclave after enclave had “rebelled” driving out the police and any Federation presence that might have been there, openly defying the city and the Federation itself!

It was a nightmare!

Oh by the Creators, he thought as he tried to keep himself from throwing-up, I was right… It WAS a trick… This was PLANNED!…

Jessica Morgan set this whole thing up!… All of it!…

All of it…

He had been played!…

Once again, the humans gamed them. Once again they…

They did the unthinkable… Tens of thousands of their own people!!!

He wanted to cry. They set up thousands of their own innocent civilians to be slaughtered…

And it worked!

Her “retaliation” was already in place! The targets, Vulxeen targets, were already selected! Unspeakable crimes already callously premeditated, just waiting...

She was just waiting for them to… No… for him to… Oh Creators! I think I’m going to be sick!…

“I..” he said in a quiet, utterly defeated voice, “As instructed by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, I am stepping down, resigning my commission, and remanding myself into custody… Admiral Vii...”

“Yes, sir?” she replied gravely.

“You have been named my replacement… I’m truly sorry, Vii…”

“Looking forward to it...” she said sadly.

“I hope… I hope you do better… These… humans… we thought we fought them before but…”

“Yeah,” Admiral Vii said quietly.

“They don’t… They don’t fight like we fight,” The disgraced admiral said with a quivering voice, “They don’t think like we think… Please… Please don’t let them win, Vii!… Please!… They can’t… They can’t...”

The tired old Vulxeen, unable to hold out any longer, broke down into tears.

More than one of the admirals in the room wanted to join him.

They didn’t know what the future held but one thing they all knew with every fiber of their being.

It was going to suck.

***

The former admiral, now just in his shirt-sleeves, walked towards the front door.

“Admiral!” the desk sergeant exclaimed as he lept to his feet.

“Not anymore,” the old Vulxeen said sadly as he continued to walk towards the exit. “Not anymore...”

“Sir, please wait a moment and I will get an APC.”

“No, Sergeant...” the Vulxeen replied. “It’s beautiful out… I… I think I will walk...”

“Sir?!?” the sergeant exclaimed in terror as the broken Vulxeen opened the door and walked away.

Outside, the old Vulxeen looked up at the clear blue sky above. He used to love the sky. When had he stopped noticing it?

It was beautiful…

Until he noticed the smoke rising up into it…

So much smoke…

Unable to stop himself, he looked over towards the ruins of Porkie Town…

So much smoke…

Sighing sadly he uttered a quiet prayer and slowly started walking towards the Federation Parliament building where he would turn himself in.

It wasn’t long before his prayer was answered with a distinctive…

POP

***

Bex System

Keren Station

Human Population: 312

Primary Occupation: Ship Repair and Refit, Trading

Primary Product: Misc

“Commander!” a frantic Bex exclaimed as they flailed at their station, “Four ships have entered the system! Oh Creators! They are human! One of them is huge!”

“Thank you, Sheen,” the commander replied, grooming the stiff fur of his face.

He curled his proboscis into a tight coil and clamped his winglets tightly against his back. So, the humans had come. He looked at the newcomers. There were three small general purpose ships and one huge freighter.

His slender tongue flicked out of the end of his proboscis thoughtfully.

“Oh Creators!” another Bex wailed, “What are we going to do?”

“Our jobs,” the commander replied calmly. “You, inform the SDF that we have visitors… and tell the Federation to keep their distance.”

“Commander?”

“I can only deal with one dangerous group of murderers at a time, Sheen.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Put me through to our visitors,” the commander said as he adjusted his robes.

“Greetings and welcome to Bex space,” the commander said to the screen.

A withered human face appeared.

An old one, the commander thought as his wings flicked. Probably one of the “OG” as they call them.

“Hello,” the human said with one of their disgusting fang laden smiles. It had metal teeth!

“You aren’t on the schedule of expected arrivals,” the commander said calmly. “Are you experiencing an emergency? Do you require assistance?”

“Nah. We’re good.”

“Then, how may the mighty Bex brighten your day?” the commander said with a little flick of his tongue.

“I am Captain Vasquez of the Forsaken Homestead Ship Voidhome. We are a non-combatant settlement ship and we have come for our people.”

“I am not sure if we have any of ‘your people’ here but we certainly won’t interfere with anyone who willingly wishes to board. We-”

The commander was cut short by the appearance of two Federation cruisers.

“Abyss, Horrx!” the commander yelled. “I told you wads to stay away!”

“This is Federation space!” a leathery creature in a captain’s uniform shouted as he appeared. “And we are here to apprehend these dangerous insurgents!”

“Bhplptblblbttth!” the commander blew a loud razzberry through his proboscis, extending it like a party noise maker. “Two cruisers against four human freighters. Normally a remark about you bravely charging into certain death against an overwhelming foe would be sarcastic but considering everything, Horrx, you are either impossibly brave or excruciatingly stupid.”

“Mind your place, Commander,” the Federation captain snapped.

“And you mind yours, Captain. This is a system matter and does not concern you. Now please be quiet. Grown-ups are talking.”

“Human vessels!” the captain shouted. “This is Captain Horrx of the Federation Star Ship Forbearance! You are hereby ordered to power down and prepare to be boarded.”

“Oh we are already prepared, chuckles,” the human smiled. “We are a non-combatant vessel but we will protect ourselves if we must.”

“For the record,” the commander said calmly, “This action is being undertaken by the Federation, not the Bex. We are NOT engaging a non-combatant homestead ship. The captain’s species and home system information is now being transmitted. Please direct whatever is worse than what you used on the Vulxeen there.”

“Thanks, flutters!” the human captain replied.

“Wait just a moment!” the Federation captain spluttered, his eyes bulging in alarm.

“Transmitting that information now,” the human said cheerfully as a hyperspace transmission was detected.

“This is Admiral Sparkle of the Bex SDF!” an angry voice announced as a dozen small patrol craft appeared between the Federation and the humans. “There WILL NOT be a space battle between the Federation and a non-combatant refugee vessel in BEX space! If these people want to take asylum seekers on board and IF there are humans here that wish to go then that’s exactly what is going to happen!”

“They aren’t ‘gathering refugees’! They are recruiting soldiers!” the Federation captain shouted. “And you will be aiding the enemy if you allow it!”

“We are comfortable with that,” the admiral replied. “Voidhome, you are free to operate in the Bex system. All SDF vessels, as long as the humans act without aggression, protect them from any attackers. Captain Horrx, the Federation is no longer welcome in Bex space. Please leave the system immediately.”

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!!!”

“You have three choices,” the admiral replied. “You can either leave, you can fight both the humans AND us, or you can just sit there and scream impotently into your transmitter while we and the humans conduct our affairs.”

The captain chose the third option.

***

“I just wanted to let you know that your creation performed marvelously!” Jessica Morgan said to an elderly olive-skinned man on one of her antique OLED screens.

“I wish I could say that I was happy about that,” the old man said sadly. “I was… insane… when I created that horror.”

“Yes, but insanity is exactly what the situation requires, doctor.” Jessica replied. “What was born of your anguish and madness will protect the lives of millions of innocents, doctor, just as what you now create will do.”

“Please spare me the flaccid justifications,” the old man said wearily. “I accept what I did and what I’ve become. You needn’t worry. My efforts will not be diminished by the horrors that my creations have wrought.”

“Splendid,” Jessica said with a cold gleam in her eye. “How is ‘the project’ coming along?”

“Quite well,” the old scientist replied. “While we were never able to find the actual research and design information in either our archives or on Terra it was ultimately unnecessary.”

“We never were able to find out more about ‘Project Pluto’?”

“No, ma’am,” the scientist replied. “However the concept is simple enough. The old YouTube videos were more than sufficient to get us started. An air-cooled nuclear reactor is easily within our capacities. In fact, I think you will find our version to be quite acceptable. It shall be much more horrific than the original, by several orders of magnitude.”

“That’s what I like to hear, doctor!”

“The first prototype should be ready for testing by the end of the week. We should be able to start production almost immediately thereafter.”

“Splendid!” Jessica enthused. “And that other little side project?”

The doctor smiled grimly and his image was replaced by a video of a thermonuclear detonation in space.

“As you can see, we achieved a very acceptable yield,” the doctor said as the explosion was replaced by data, “our device isn’t as compact or efficient as the Terrans but it quite satisfactory. We should be able to rival their devices eventually.”

“I don’t want to just copy the Terrans,” Jessica replied. “I want our own weapons and our own technology.”

“Well there are only so many ways to make a fusion explosion, ma’am.”

“And that’s why I want you directing your efforts elsewhere, doctor. Now that you have gotten the ball rolling, there are many who can fine tune nukes. I want you to focus on the SLAM and on further applications of The Elephant’s Foot.”

“Further applications?!?”

“I think there is a lot of potential for The Foot and similar devices. A nuke can flatten the countryside but The Foot can ruin it! That is what we want!”

“I beg you to reconsider, ma’am. That… thing is-”

“Pure unadulterated horror,” Jessica said completing his sentence. “The Federation has the delightful combination of both being timid and being unused to being afraid. Nuclear explosions will gut ships. Fear will gut the Federation!”

“But you said that we would only use it if-”

“I say a lot of things," Jessica smirked.

"Yes," the doctor winced, "of that I am painfully aware."

“I want bigger Feet. I want better Feet. And, most importantly, I want more of them, a lot more. I am particularly intrigued by the ones that project jets of the material. Do you think you can make them pierce Federation warship shields?”

“Goddamn you...”

“So, a yes then?”

“Yes. It shouldn’t be that much of a problem. In fact… Oh by the void...” the doctor said as he trailed off in horror.

“Well that sounds promising!”

***

Doctor Ayyangar sighed sadly as the holo-monitor went dark.

He reached for a bottle of Johnson’s Blue (“renatured to perfection”) and poured himself a “healthy” portion of the cyan liquid.

He coughed as he slammed it back. He was grateful that Johnson’s Spirits still made the classic, one “horror” to wash down another.

He pulled out a small holo-viewer and smiled sadly at the pretty young girl in traditional garb hovering in front of him.

“I am so sorry, Diya,” he said as he poured another shot.

“I am so very, very sorry.”