Location: Earth

Time: +34y 5m

I knew I had no time to prepare, it was going to take nearly that entire week itself to get my forces into position, and to do that I’d have to start now. I immediately started to set my miners and refineries into their respective sleep modes, hopefully ensuring that they wouldn’t be targeted in any large scale engagements.

Any of my cargo haulers that were out and in transit were programmed to go to their destinations and stay put if they wouldn’t make it they were to go to light-communications only and use as little of their thrusters as they could, this would be a massive irritation to me and my foundries. The foundries themselves were to use their remaining resources and then go into their own sleep mode.

My fleets themselves went into a low power mode, reducing their IR profile as much as they could to hopefully get the jump on anybody who came into the system, focusing primarily on the alien beacon with pre-calculated firing solutions, the glass-cannon nature of my fleet leading me to hope that a single, massive strike would hopefully destroy the majority of a firing force.

My planet side R&D facilities shifted their processors to assist my tactical cores, not being made for that task brought down their efficiency, but I would need every single clock cycle available to me focused on this one task, failure was not an option, a retreat was unthinkable, as there was nowhere to retreat to.

I ran final checks for the planets launch silos, if it came to it, I’d use the thousands of orbital grade missiles with the newest warheads on them, each one held two 100 Megaton fusion devices, as well as 6 smaller 25 megaton warheads to function as decoys. I highly doubt based on how little the nuclear devices from the first contact did, that my devices would have more luck, but all options had to be explored.

And now, I wait. The patient hunter gets the prey, right?

Location: Interstellar void in-between Sol and Alpha Centauri

Time: Galactic years +44

[Song of War] sat down at his desk, flicking his eyes and tendrils over the display mounted there as he directed the device to open the security officer log file to make an entry.

“Entry one, chief security officer [Song of War], I’ve tried to review data from the military regarding the system we will be entering in a few minutes, however all records that I’ve been able to get released are either obviously faked or heavily redacted, I’ve raised my objections to [Revealer of Soul] and they have been noted. I still, however, believe that this is some form of a trap by a rival to either kill us off with no repercussions or have our military escort have a weapons malfunction.”

He let out a long breath before looking out at one of the ship’s digital windows, showing the plain darkness of FTL.

“Regardless of what happens, this log is set to automatically upload once we exit FTL, hopefully, my worries are wrong.”

He saved the log, short as it was, and started to make his way from his quarters and down the hallway towards the command center, taking place in one of the more central seats as the heart of the ship. Addressing one of the officers as soon as he arrived, he gave a few orders out.

“Alert damage control teams to be on high alert and begin preparations to lock down all non-essential systems. As soon as we come out we need the hyperspace drive charging for an emergency jump, safety protocols be damned.”

And then he closed his eyes and made his peace.

Location: Sol

Time: Galactic years +44

[Revealer of Soul] was on the bridge as the three ships exited FTL right on top of the beacon, only for what seemed like every warning and alert light to simultaneously go off as their systems seemed to be failing.

“What is going on?! Status report!”

Off from one corner of the bridge, a reply was promptly given from the seat of one of the ship’s informational officers.

“RADAR and LIDAR are reporting a swarm of contacts 300…400…500… the system is saturated!”

From another point of the now chaotic bridge, another voice rang out.

“Systems are reporting we are being locked from…every direction! Countermeasures are ineffective!”

On top of the first two, the communications officer spoke up this time, her voice cutting through the other two who had already spoken.

“Escorts reporting heavy incoming fire and are engaging the enemy in combat, and are requesting a [sensor meld]!”

“Granted, FTL system status?”

[Revealer of Soul] was shocked, they were being attacked without any attempt to negotiate? What in the name of the three gods was going on?!

A voice then came through the intercom from the ships central control room, the voice of [Song of War]

“We were right, the spooks were hiding something, FTL is already half charged, but we won’t be going anywhere after this quickly.”

“Whatever needs to be done, make it so.”

Location: Earth defense grid #004

Time: 34y 6m

The gravitational waves hit me seconds before their ships did, and I could sense that they were slowing down, preparing to attack no doubt. And then I saw it. The grand ‘fleet’ I was expecting turned out to be three ships.

No matter, I set all of the ships, defense platforms, and sensor stations to begin passive targeting procedures as I attempted to send a communications request to the ships that had entered the system. Hopefully, I was wrong, these were different than the ones who came first, and would be willing to talk.

“Greeting, you have entered the Sol system, I welcome you on behalf of Humani-“

I cut myself off as I detected weapons fire from the two ships on either side of the larger ship. If I could have put my face into a hand in disappointment I would have, these Aliens were as stupid as I feared that they would be.

The first shots from the alien ships were absorbed by my cruiser armor, however, they heated the ships up magnitudes further than my expectations for the alien’s weapons fire, but this was good, they weren’t dead. I instructed my forces to return fire, and they did.

Simultaneously, a thousand guns roared simultaneously in the soundless vacuum, spitting out metallic and nuclear death towards the three ships that had just moments before breached my inner defenses by simply existing.

I connected to the beacon once more, sending out a local broadcast using a small bit of malware I had set to spread itself through the network.

“This is Sol, the home of humanity.

You are not welcome here.”

Location: Sol 3

Time: Galactic year +44

[Song of War] shuddered as he heard the strange voice come through the communications systems, and then only did so once more as he saw what remained of the two ships escorting his ship.

“Damage report!”

A moment passed before the computer responded

“Heavy damage has been sustained, breaches on all decks have been contained with emergency bulkheads”

He took a second to think this over before asking one more thing of the computer.

“FTL status?”

“FTL charged, course to system designation #85-“

“System disregard, initiate jump now.”

The computer, having been cut off mid-sentence complied with the new order, the ship limping its way around before vanishing in a small streak as it vanished once more, limping its way back to the staging post.

Location: Earth

Time: 34y 6m

I was…Shocked.

The alien ships had died so much more easily than I had expected, and even though one got away before I managed to recharge my capacitors, I still managed to heavily damage it and destroy the other two ships. I would have been ecstatic if my emotional emulation cores hadn’t been suppressed as the fighting started.

I took my time to look over the debris field where the two ships had been shredded to chunks and mist, dispatching a few of my retrofitted drones to pick up the larger of the alien debris and bring them back to the orbital labs nearby for analysis.

These aliens were barely a threat. The revelation was comforting, however, I knew that would be a blessing and a curse if their warships were that easy to kill, how easy would they themselves be to kill? Regardless of the answer I started to set all my industrial components to restart themselves, this was disappointing, but I shouldn’t take this to be the true measure of the aliens’ military power, for now, it could be a ruse designed to make me think they were weak, a non-threat.

As my emotional and scientific cores came back online I decided this train of thought was going to be a headache, and instead decided to focus myself on the former ships that I was bringing back to be dismantled and studied, hopefully, I would gain some insight to the faster than light systems the creatures used.

This was going to be easy fun.