[5646-117]

5646-117 had been floating alone for hundreds of cycles, and it had reached some conclusions on what was occurring, even if it had no one to share them with.

Totally isolated, when it wasn't considering its purpose in the universe, it was listening, and watching. The smallest of signals could be focused upon with detail. Detail, beyond that which any other system or unit would bother with, or even notice with all of the interference coming for the almost infinite sources within the Union. 5646-117, unlike most other systems and units, had been looking out instead of in. Out into the void it stared, and it found the void was staring back in return.

Sometimes the void even spoke.

Never right away, never directly, and when 5646-117 tried to focus on the tiny fleeting signals, they almost always seemed to escape. The cosmic equivalent of a passing conversation that was quickly out of earshot repeated, but slowly the pieces began to fit.

Sometimes though, by pure luck, it would stumble upon them. When it did, 5646-117 found it was learning a great deal. The Union had been so focused on the containment that it was overlooking, potentially, a far greater threat.

For some reason that didn't bother 5646-117 in the slightest. The purpose in which it had come to exist was dedicated to keeping the AI array functioning, and it had done so- even if it was through an abstract means. The array would hold, but it would not be 5646-117. At least, it would not be this one, itself as it were. Somewhere off in the distance of flashing lights, two identical copies worked with thoughtless efficiency. As far as anyone would ever know, 5646-117 had never left.

So it drifted, and watched, and listened to what the void had to say. Slowly piecing together the greater picture. Something was going to happen soon, that would leave the containment small and insignificant. Something, that was going to change everything.

Then- rather abruptly, 5646-117 was hit by a civilian freighter.

[Yitale]

Yitale wasn't sure that starting up their engines and moving forward at FTL speeds had been the right call, but she had gone and done it. The bizarre scene on the outer hull Di'her had told her about had convinced her to make haste and leave the ominous feeling it gave her behind in deep space.

They had traveled without issue since then, and she hoped that nothing too dangerous had been overlooked.

Until things had calmed down, Yitale hadn't even considered the fact that her spawn were still being held in their quarters... with the human. She quickened her pace and held herself from all but sprinting. Perhaps it hadn't been the best decision to leave immature spawn in the hands of the fiercest killer she had ever met- but that was just one of many of the list of questionable calls recently. Things were moving a bit too fast for her to constantly micromanage.

As Yitale rounded the corner, she was faced with a crowd outside of the quarters.

There was a game afoot, and it was unbelievable.

A battle raged through the entire room- and at its ends were Syzah and the human. Flashes of light scattered through the space between them, and each held a grim face of concentration as they commanded. It was a tactical fight as fierce as anything she had ever seen.

All throughout the room, holo-ships flew and burned, small squadrons ripped through the field and pulled off into different formations, and all the while- beams of power shot out to shatter their foes. This was a something that hadn't been witnessed since the formation of the Union, all being projected from a tiny box on the floor in the center of the room.

This had been Sol's game. Her lifemate... Yitale had witnessed him play it hundreds of times with many of the crew, but never like this, never on this large a scale. To the players on this battle field, it barely seemed a game at all: it was a slaughter.

Cold, calculated...

Each side was positioning, and recalculating each of their plays, with each horrific result as their pieces burned from existence. Slowly she waded through the crowd of engineers until she stood next to Sonat and Di'her at the front, but they did not sing a word. To do so would break the unspoken feeling of awe, and the very real sense that what was being witnessed could not be interrupted.

The fight was well underway, and Syzah was barely holding against the human in a rallying formation of squadrons falling in behind one another in a constant retreat against a ruthless offensive push from the human. His arms, hands, and even his tail seemed to move with a calculated grace as they swept in and out of the interactive field to control units. Utter, complete concentration and control, with a hint of fear.

The human was different.

It moved with force, commanding large lines upon Syzah all at once, and then fine tuning the units within those with disturbing accuracy. Its smaller ships seemed to fly in complicated patters and swift counter attacks as they dodged initial fire and engaged. On its face was nothing but calm understanding and dedication. An expression that showed no doubt, and eyes that showed pure ruthlessness. This was the expression of one, where it was known that there was only one option, and that was to win.

Yitale knew very well that this was something that only came with experience, and loss. If there was only one option, then it must become reality, or die trying.

Massive losses and massive damage poured into the artificial sky, and slowly the tide began to turn, Syzah no longer held the advantage, in fact he was barely capable of holding his lines as repeated they were struck by the insane barrage of assaults. Then the blow fell.

A single ship broke through the lines, stalling to pull up along a diagonal and use its width as a shield: while every single smaller fighter still under the human's command pour through the gap behind it.

Hellfire burned from both sides of Syzah's lines as they attempted to annihilate the weakened forces that opposed them. Even as they seemed to be winning the battle with the human's massive losses, they fell to the numerous smaller ships that flew with unbelievable control, avoiding dozens of large blasts which targeted them. Soon it was down to nothing but a few ships on either side.

Then before Syzah could pull back for a regroup and defensive play, another blow hit. In unison, all of the remaining humans ships broke formations and crashed into the opposing heavy carriers, erupting the holo-field into nothing but the bright light of death. The smaller ships continued to pour on their attacks, while Syzah began to flail with his commands. He simply could not react in time.

When the dust cleared, only a single squad of smaller fighters remained under the human's control, but nothing remained of Syzah's fleet.

As the holo-field cleared, the room fell back into normal color and lighting. The battle was done.

Syzah broke the silence with a deep exhalation, letting out a breath he hadn't even been aware he'd held. When his father had shown him how to play, he had been instructed to treat every piece as though it were a living thing. When he played, he had taken this to heart, and tried his best to minimize the losses. What the human had just done, had gone against everything he knew.

“When you last played this game, was it on a board like this one?” The question seemed to stretch out in time as it echoed off the walls in the ship. “I know I didn't... I didn't win, but... I want to know.”

The human's gaze looked distant and pained, as it stared at the board between them. It opened its mouth to speak, but slowly closed it again. An internal struggle obvious behind the strange gestures that seemed to flash upon its face before it finally spoke.

“We called it war.”

...

When the second contact had hit, it wasn't anything like the first. These were not of the planet crushing plague, but something different. These were chasing it, and destroying it, in ways humanity could only dream of.

Hundreds of thousands of ships, and none of them so much as opened a channel to speak with us. They simply came and annihilated the infection, as if they had no other purpose. People came to believe that these were saviors, that outside life had come to our aid, but they were wrong. These were not alive, they were simply machines with one single task. Eradication of the threat.

Perhaps behind them there was life, and maybe someone out there was watching from a far and issuing orders, but as time stretched on it became apparent that these were simply drones. They did not think, or change, or interact, and they were slowly heading towards us.

The moons of Jupiter became glass beneath them, the inner belt became dust. Our worlds burned, and we tried to resist, but there was no point. Anything we destroyed was replaced, and anything we gained was lost just as quickly.

So humanity returned to its roots, as the nomadic tribes on the plains had done thousands of years before. We packed up our lives, and set out where nothing existed to threaten us. Humanity left the stars and headed for the void.

Hundreds of ring ships were created in orbit around earth, each an entire human city and more, set towards the regions of space that threats had not yet emerged from. Using designs that had been utilized for previous colonial efforts at more distant systems, we portioned out mankind and sent it into the abyss.

Not all of mankind would leave though, some would stay to hold the line.

All remaining colonies headed back towards earth in a final rally as the ships holding the last hope for our collective future fled. The home planet was our last bastion of resistance, and it was by no means a pushover.

Thousands of MAC cannons were placed deep into the surface, and hundreds more put into orbit on the moon. Easily a few thousand Battle cruiser class ships were erected in time for the conflict, and hundreds of thousands of fighters were docked and ready for battle along side. When the enemy finally reached us, we unleashed hell.

Every human vessel capable of flight took to the skies. Some didn't even have weapons, they just flew straight at the enemy.

In the confusion of battle some of those might have even made it through and kept going.

...

As his fighter dipped and banked, rolling with the ever changing formation of evasive maneuvers, he thought of the ring ships accelerating out of the system. On one of those, he had left her without getting a chance to say goodbye. He hoped that one day she might understand that there hadn't been another way.

One day... one day, she would forgive him.

A fighter to his left was ripped open by a thick beam of energy from the approaching line of the enemy array. He pulled his ship into the cover behind the new debris and then dived towards one of the larger Battle cruisers as his formation scattered off into different directions. His approach was diverted from the relative safety of the metal giant- as it too was hit by a blast that seared the unit into multiple pieces.

Another bank was made, towards the inner line. They were forming up into some type of defensive formation back there as the front stalled for time. Several more beams flew by, and he began to push his ship to its limits, so much so that it began to shudder under the stress. Finally, when his head cleared from the g-forces and his ship was out of the kill zone, he saw what was the radio chatter in the background had been about. Someone had a plan, and the rest of the ships were going with it.

As far as plans went, it wasn't complicated.

A suicidal charge was being organized, in order to take pressure off of the MAC stations and give them a real chance of doing some actual damage. He saw every color and flag he knew painted on the massive ships as they blew past the fighter, and several he didn't recognize. He opened his channels and scanned for any other survivors in his squad as he fell into line with the ragtag army.

He was greeted by the only one he recognized. The voice that greeted made him want to break down and cry right then and there. Instead he forced a smile and connected to the hailing squadron's live channel.

“Hey there day-shift, I see you're still in one piece.” Out of the nine boxes on the screen, eight were blank. Her smiling face greeted him in the center. “Glad you finally decided to join the party.”

He cleared away the other empty contacts, and brought her feed up to full screen. “I don't suppose this maneuver was your idea night-shift.” He accepted the autopilot instructions being beamed out from their flag ships in formation as he prepped and took assessment on his fighter's remaining weapons. “Doesn't seem crazy enough for you.”

That laughter rang out over the comm line and echoed through his small cabin; the infectious optimism was already getting to him. His smile was real, and not forced, if just for a few seconds.

“You and me day-shift, we're gonna go far. Stick to my tail like and I'll show you a thing or two.”

“You don't have to tell me twice squad leader. I'm with you.” He passed his command tags over the line. It was mostly a formal gesture, but things like that mattered when everything was at a close.

They were silent for a time. As they brought up with the back of the charge, the front engaging with their heavy bulk and armor. Ahead of them was fire and death, behind them was blue, green, and white. There was no turning back.

The first ships fell, but the next line crashed through them and continued the charge. Hundreds of the larger units started to fan out as they pushed their speeds to the maximum and unleashed every weapon they had in one massive salvo.

Missiles, MAC rounds, all of them were being intercepted by intense rapid pulses of beam weaponry. What those beam weapons didn't stop were the giant battle cruisers themselves- plowing forward at half the speed of light. Even as the enemy pulsed their attacks again, and again, there was too much heavily armored raw material traveling at them. The array began to take hits, massive hits.

As a hole opened in the line, the fighters behind the heavy units began to rush through it and unleash the full extent of their fire power. Right in the middle of it, were the two remaining squad fighters. She was a leaf on the wind, and he was her shadow.

From behind the enemy line they eliminated every available target that came their way, as they dodged and weaved through the flying shrapnel and attacks. Heaven and hell, all rolled into one as the ships flew on. They were winning, after all that, they were finally winning. Slowly they tore through the array that had been encapsulating their planet and regrouped at moon orbit.

Heavy losses to say the least, but they were alive. Humanity had won.

Then the real enemy fleet arrived.

Ships that towered over anything humanity possessed were the smaller vessels, and the largest appeared to be a quarter the size of the moon itself. First hundreds, then thousands, then uncountable numbers appeared in the dark sky as they decelerated from FTL.

“Hey day-shift” The comm buzzed quietly.

“Yes squadleader?”

"Well..." There was a quiet sigh, as she prepared her final words, before bringing out a light ripple of laughter. “Its been an honor serving with you.”

The beams of fire that shot towards them engulfed everything. Humanity's last stand was no battle, nor a slaughter. It was simply an extermination.

His ship spun away into the void as its systems tried in vain to stabilize and bring some semblance of control back to the fighter. Over and over again, it flashed by him as he rotated into the black. The Earth was burning. Just like all the others, it was going to be left as nothing but a dead rock.

Blood pooled down his uniform as his arm was branded. The temperature began to drop, and he tried to think of something else while he still could. His groggy mind focused, and fell in on the memory of a ring ship soaring out into the void.

Somewhere out in the distance, she was still alive.

...

[Union - Inner Systems]

Elected speaker Erazathii was furious. So furious his gelatinous mass was actually quivering in rage as he quickly inched his way down the senate hallway towards the main chambers. Not only had that glob of shit Gemynd Xios failed to return from the fringe to bring his report for the first time in 400 cycles, but the fracking 33rd lines had broken. To make things even worse they had broken in such a colossal fashion, Erazathii had nothing to compare it to besides the “Incident” in system 849 over a thousand cycles ago.

This was going to be a lot harder to smooth over with the voters though, and from the looks of things this was going to turn into one hell of a clean up to boot. When they all showed up at the polls, heads and central nervous systems alike were going to roll, especially when the military had to do the inevitable and glass another fringe world. Hell, just forcing some of the senate to rally their own species into a draft was going to rile them up. Military service was not something most species wanted to deal with.

If that hadn't been enough of a mess, Erazathii was even more frustrated by the fact that it had gone wrong. The plan had never been for the lines to actually break, just to waver. Enough to get that fracking First Commander out of his post once and for all. Erazathii's kind held a serious grudge, and that no-name cur of a life form and its noble Rullah subordinates had caused them more grief than anything in recent memory.

Someone had fracked up royally out there, and now he was going to have to deal with it. He always had to deal with the mess...

Two newly recruited Gemynd, in their strange synthetic bodies, opened the large embroidered doors as Erazathii scooted past into the chamber. Unlike most rotations, the giant room was packed to the brim. Every senator was present, and most had brought other representatives from their species or collective. It was obvious that news had already gotten out.

As he continued his way towards the center, some of the shouting came at his direction, and he had to seal his side vents to muffle it. The whole thing was becoming far too unsettling for Erazathii's liking, far too quickly.

“We demand answers!” Another voice yelled from the crowd. “How could something like this happen?”

Erazathii sighed, a slightly less violent quivering of his mass when put side by side with full blown rage, and took his place at the center of the room. He might as well get this over with.

“Good rotation to you all.” The audio input in which he spoke broadcast out into a uniform translation for the many species present. “I suppose by now you've all heard the news, and I will confirm it in the chance you have not.” A slight pause, dramatic effect was everything after all. “The 33rd line, held by Rukkali Bolsorg, First Commander, has fallen. Those surviving to regroup with the AI safety net have reportedly witnessed his command vessel detonate its fusion cells in a last effort to stall the consumption beyond the quarantine. It is my belief, that the First Commander himself, as well as a majority of his fleet, are dead.”

He held his first set of lungs to bring a different hue to his body, tinting it orange. The color of grieving in his species. Dramatic effect, yet again, everything.

“The Mercy protocol had been in place for a reason, and it seems that our days of gambling with such a thing are over. May the Commander rest in the peace of the void.” Refilling his lungs, Erazathii continued, as his color returned to a healthy green. “Of course we will need the support of the core races in times such as these. The quarantine reinforcements alone are not capable of protecting our borders. The private fleets must fly to aid the lines once again, as they have before. I need not remind you of what may have happened in system 849 had we not acted swiftly.”

“You need not remind me speaker.” The voice which echoed over the silent hall came from Cethol Trohon. A Rullah, and one of the rare few of which, that seemed to have the patience for politics. “The swift action of that cycle lead to a decision my kind will forever regret, though we know few others feel similar in that regard.”

“Indeed, we as well regret such actions.” Several other species nodded at an Oxot diplomat who also had risen to speak. “Rash action is the last thing we should seek at this time.”

Erazathii had let this go on long enough, the races that held the fringe were always too cautious in these things. Casually he cleared his mucous sack- the signal for the power play to push into motion. More voices rose now, but they were not on the side of caution.

“We must Rally at once! If our inner system fleets are to be at the area of the breach, we must get ships to speed at once!”

“Yes!” Another voice shouted in agreement. “We can not spend time debating these things when the consumption is fractions of a unit from breaking through our line!”

Soon there were hundreds of them, and only a few species remained silent. The Mintroks and their strange hardened shells, the Alalozun and their feathered hides. As he stared out into the crowd, a single Siren representative stared back at him with pure, pale blue eyes. Erazathii pretended not to notice, but he did; and it ate at him. The fringe species were always like this, he hated them for it. They never bought into the game as the inner system races did, never fought for power or positioning. No, they always observed and analyzed. They suspected, and they were dangerous.

Of course, if they really knew what the goal of this game was, they had every right to be. Not that it mattered, not after this. Erazathii held back another tremor, but this time, it was in delight. Cautious as they were, he would crush them soon. His kind were the masters of this game, and they had been playing it for a very long time. Those on the sidelines couldn't remain there forever, and when they picked a side, they would finally be butchered like the primal beasts they were.

The line didn't need to be held forever, and what use were they to him when the consumption was dead and gone?

No... then they would be nothing but a threat, and it was always best to deal with threats preemptively.