Silence, the sound of which could be louder than anything else, especially when you were on edge. The only thing audible on the bridge was the humming of the electronics and the flicking of the red alert lighting. Everyone was waiting on a command, my command.

“Do not fire yet.” I told Luna who was tensely waiting for the same order. “I want them to show hostile intent first.” The ship was still staring at us, it hadn’t moved for a while.

“Copy that, Commander.” Luna nodded.

“But why haven’t they moved…” Lieutenant Zu commented from the side.

“I’m not sure.” I looked at the clock. We’d been having a staring contest for five minutes now. “McAllister, can you clear our baffles real quick? Try to keep the ship in view.”

McAllister didn’t reply, she was just focussing on her controls and quickly started to move the ship.

“Ship detected at 160 degrees! Same plane!” Zu suddenly called out.

“Sneaky fuckers were trying to get on our six. They were probably hiding behind a planet.

“Both ships are firing projectiles at us, Ma’am!” Luna called out. At the same time an alert started ringing.

“Turn the inertia dampeners to max and set thrusters to full! Is our missile defense up?”

“Armed and ready, Commander.”

I looked at the screen that showed the projectiles as red blips on the map. Our ship quickly moved out of their path and it didn’t look like they were guided.

“Luna, give them hell. Ten torpedoes on the guy that tried to sneak up on us. Turn the main battery to fire upon it as well.”

Luna started tapping on her screen and soon we heard the ten dull pops from around us. Followed by blue lights flying on screen towards the big red target.

“Main battery trained on target.”

“Fire!”

Luna pressed her screen again and four louder bangs followed. These repeated every ten seconds.

“Get the camera focussed on the target, I want to see what kind of damage this does.”

“Ten seconds to torpedo impact.” Luna counted out while the camera popped up on the main screen. Shells from our main battery were already hitting the ship and were sending chunks flying all over. “Five seconds. Four, three, two, one.” A blue light saturated the camera for a second as all ten torpedoes hit the target almost simultaneously. Those warheads were definitely nothing to sneeze at. When the light started fading the devastation our torpedoes caused was clear. We’d completely obliterated the front half of the ship and it slowly started to drift off its axle.

“Looks like we took out their command center, Commander.” Zu commented.

“Keep an eye on it just in case.”

“Second target has fired again, ma’am.” The first ship we’d seen had also approached us a bit further but these ships clearly weren’t built for speed. “These ones are homing.”

Whatever they had fired at us did appear to follow our course. The fact that the first ones didn’t probably means they were underestimating us. Apparently they hadn’t thought we’d have countermeasures either as the moment those projectiles came into range they were completely shredded by our systems. A combination of bullets, missiles and lasers, specifically designed to take out smaller targets. Catering to your every defensive need. The Federation had learned how to develop weapons systems in the war and it showed.

The second ship didn’t stand much of a chance at all. Once the torpedoes hit it, it suffered the exact same fate as the first ship.

“McAllister, another Crazy Ivan if you would.”

Our pilot obliged so we could scan our surroundings. Nothing new had popped up.

“Phew.” Luna sighed, her hands trembled for a second. “That was really really stressful.”

“Don’t let your guard down yet.” I commented to my XO. "There might still be more hiding. I want to do a quick sweep of the entire system before we commit a ground team to the planet surface.”

It took us an hour to completely search through the system and we didn't find any other ship that could spring an attack on us. What did pique our interest was that the ships we had just destroyed, slowly started to turn white, very much like the colour of the chalk we’d encountered on Felix Invenire. This bolstered my suspicion that we were dealing with the spacebugs. Apart from that, the ships we encountered seemed to be made from an organic material on the outside that surrounded a metal interior. That was pretty strange but further analysis could wait until we had checked on the distress signal coming from the planet.

I put the ship back on yellow alert as we slowly made our way into planetary orbit.

“Would you mind taking the bridge again, XO? I’m going to join the ground team on this one, according to the protocols one of us needs to go to represent the United Federation.”

“Really? But what if more of those ships arrive? Won’t it be dangerous? What if something happens to you?” Luna clearly tried to stop me from going.

“If any more of those ships arrive I’m certain you can keep the ship safe.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “As for the ground operation, of course it’s risky, but I am taking most of our marine detachment with us and we are all very well trained, so it’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone into combat.” I gave her a wink as well.

Luna sighed in resignation, clearly not completely convinced.

“Look, the moment something happens or if the situation turns sour, I will pull everyone out immediately. I promise.”

“Alright, Commander.” She nodded. “But please, be very careful. We still don’t really know what we are dealing with.”

“I will.” I started walking off the bridge but turned around halfway to the door. “And if it gets dicey we have the ship to help us with some fire support as well, don’t forget that.” Though, due to the blast radius of our weaponry that would be our last-minute resort.

Luna nodded and gave me a salute.

I saluted her back and made my way to the armory.

When I arrived I put on my gear and took a second to select the best weapons loadout for this mission. I chose to go with the P-900R like I did last time, just in case the enemy closed the range. For my secondary I did decide to take a meatier pistol with me this time, the DE-5000CG. It fired full metal slugs at the target by using electromagnetic coils to speed the slugs up to ridiculous speeds. This did result in a pretty high recoil but that should be fine as I had had plenty of training using these kinds of weapons before. I also loaded my utility belt full with grenades and magazines as we’d probably need them.

After that I joined the other marines in the shuttle launch bay. Everyone had already divided themselves into their smaller units. As it’d be a bit too hard for me to command 100 marines all by myself. Every group had their designated heavy gunner with them, mine would be Gunnery Sergeant Taylor.

“Landing site coordinates are set, Commander. Heavy resistance is to be expected.” Ellie informed me through the intercom in my helmet. “Translation system is already uploaded and ready.”

“Thanks Ellie.” I commented and made my way to stand on the loading pad for one of the shuttles so I could speak to everyone present. “Alright, Marines.”

Everyone turned towards me.

“This will be your first real combat experience in this mission. Everyone knows what enemy we will be facing but I have to warn you. Do not underestimate the enemy’s abilities by how they look. During the space battle we were just in, the enemy clearly showed signs of intelligent use of combat tactics. So do not assume we are faced by an easy-to-beat opponent.” I tapped on the glove of my armor. “Ellie, if you would show us the map of the landing zone.”

Ellie made use of the holographic projectors in the shuttle area to show us a big map of the environment we would be landing in. It had red blips streaming in towards a concrete structure which housed way fewer blue blips.

“We will be landing in the middle of this, make sure you watch your fire and overlap your zones of control. I want a secondary line to be set up behind so any gaps that might form in the chaos of combat can be closed easily. Last but not least, remember, shoot to the top right of their faces.”

A sergeant from one of the other platoons raised their hand. “Commander, do those blue guys know we are coming to help them?”

“Ellie.”

“I have tried to hail them multiple times but it seems like their radio system does not accept incoming transmissions.” Ellie explained.

“Uhm… what do we do if we get shot by them?”

“We will try to make it very clear that we are there to help them.” I said. “That’s my team's job. We will be taking the lead to establish contact with them. Therefore we will be landing closer to the compound than the other shuttles.” I pointed at our landing position on the map.

“And if they are hostile?”

“Then we will pull out.” I replied. “Any more questions?”

Noone raised their hand.

“Alright, let’s do this, Marines!”

“For the Federation!” They all cried out simultaneously and started filing into their shuttles.

“Let’s kick some bugg’s ass, Commander” Gunny lifted his machine gun up with his left arm and offered me his right.

“Hell yeah.” I shook his hand and together we got into the shuttle followed by the rest of our squad.