When the 'warning shot' passed cleanly by the Defender, Captain Amari decided, still, not to pull in close. They hadn't been expecting a boarding operation; and as such had neglected to carry along Vasquez and his goo-proof marines; but apparently, that wasn't strictly necesary.

Derek pulled up a diagram on the main screen. "This thing is big, and extremely high-energy... and if its internal atmosphere is anything like the civilian ships, dangerous to move. However... we have a full terraforming package. Most of you aren't familiar with the Earthforge ships this thing is based on, but down on deck two we have a system for deploying massive foil mirrors; mostly intended to refract sunlight and creating a nice, warm area on an icy world. With enough raw materials we could keep a city warm indefinitely by mounting a few rockets to keep it mobile... and with what we already have, we could easily completely wrap this thing up. Deploy some grav emitters and a few of the torches, and we could drag this thing all the way back to Charlie to examine it safely. Even better, while we'll need to keep it close while we make it into hyperspace... once we're there, the torch can push it the rest of the way; we can even salvage the components from the relay we were going to leave here and let it have its own bubble, completely unable to reach us... until we get there."

Captain Amari studied the plans. She hadn't even looked at the tools down on deck 2; had even considered dumping the lot of them before going on this mission; but the 13 was built as a workhorse platform, able to move massive amounts of rock on its own, and even more by using the torches. This... seemed workable.

"This looks like a great concept. And having one of these things back at Charlie.... if its weapon is disabled... would be a great way to really study these things up close and personal. But dragging one of these things into hyperspace.... If these things have any sort of FTL comms, and clearly they have at least our own level of intelligence... that'd be all the data they need to figure out how things work. I appreciate the idea. And we should use that method to get any pieces we can confirm as inert. But.... Weps. Charge the hypercannon. We're going to clean out this system, and they might get that weapon back online any time now."

"Yes, ma'am..... Charged up. Ready to fire on your order."

"Hit it."

***

It wasn't intended as an anti-ship weapon; the hypercannon on the 13 would've been a dramatically effective orbital bombardment tool, but its real purpose was to create a wider, shorter beam; that would deliver maximum kinetic energy to target. Instead of focused precision to take out a distant enemy ship... this was a short-ranged sledgehammer built to knock an asteroid out of orbit.

While the earlier shots from the now-slagged Mimics had bored enormous holes in the Defender's hulls and sent shockwaves through them that broke the ships apart; the 13's main gun essentially splattered the Defender; reducing it into a loose cloud of gas with a few small bits of debris scattered inside. If the ship had any surviving crew after the earlier incident, it certainly wouldn't now.

Moving on a steady trajectory, the 13 shifted its orbit; heading for the nearest Carrier. So long as they kept their distance, the enemy point defense would never be able to hurt them at hypercannon range. With the Defenders gone... everything else was just mopping up.

Derek couldn't help but imagine what the crew of a human ship would feel, watching an impossibly fast alien ship roving the system, destroying everything in sight one ship at a time, meticulously murdering everyone from beyond any chance of fighting back. And the plan from Peterson was what... exterminate the entire species?

If the Mags had responded with anything other than instant hostility.... but no. As sad as it might be, it had to be done.

***

The 13's steady cruise back to the Charlie system, hauling along sacks filled with broken enemy starship components, was slower than its trip out; but not by much. While Hyperspace might not have a speed limit, they still needed to accelerate up to speed, and then deccelerate back down; and while possible, travelling more than about a lightyear every 20 hours started to cause... problems.

By the time she arrived, she was greeted by an intimidating sight. Sixty smooth, black, Carriers appeared on sensors.... all attached to Anvil station. A conference was called up of the senior officers once again; with the former captain of the Minotaur now gracing the Typhon, a newly-built destroyer with some interesting adjustments.

***

Commodore Peterson looked out over the gathered officers. He almost instinctively adjusted his uniform... before remembering he hadn't worn one in over a century at this point. "Alright, people. When we started this project, we brought in some people from the old weapons division back in Sol.. and while we've been mass-producing these Mimics, they've been coming up with ways of handling the less dangerous systems... and came accross an amusing reference. Apparently, the Survivor wanted to do exactly what we're doing now to the Enemy."

A diagram appeared over the conference table. While Anvil Station held larger facilities, he'd chosen to use the 13 for this meeting again once it returned. The diagrom showed the other spiral arms of the galaxy, including the current one; and the far distant region containing Sol; and the somewhat more distant than that one, containing the Enemy.

"The whole thing was discarded because we had no way to make a ship that could sneak past the Enemy.. but he had a team trying to figure out how to bypass their fleet and take out their whole empire... one star at a time. He called it Operation Impending Doom. But here, thanks to our much greater speed, and the Mimics... we can actually accomplish this goal against the Mags."

The screen shifted. A new display emerged, showing a massive ring of thousands of interconnected hexagonal solar panels, including one cluster the size of Jupiter which had a veritable swarm of craft either docked to it or moving around it.

Derek sat up abruptly. This was an almost-live display; probably just a few hours old; from one of the systems he'd left the relays in. He watched closely as steadily more data emerged; showing orange dots for the millions of swarming civilian craft; and red dots for the thousands of Defenders.

"Jesus. How the hell do you take out something like that..."

"Surprisingly easily." Peterson zoomed in on the star. "Everything here is gathered around the ecliptic. Their standard procedure seems to be to convert everything in the system to their own stations and ships if it has useful materials... ending up in either just a big mass of stations, a solid ring, or, from one system we've hypothesized but not confirmed, a complete dyson sphere closer to the sun than mercury was back at Sol. If we come in from above or below, while this inner ring of ships could intercept us... we -might- be able to reach hypercannon range before they did. And with the mimics?"

He showed two projected lines. One of a ship emerging right at the edge of where a hyperdrive could emerge in a star system, as close to the star as possible; and the Defenders turning on it immediately. The other, showed them failing to turn on it until the same range at which the Defender in the Beta system had responded to the mimics. One just barely reached range. The other... had enough time to fire and plenty of time to spare; hours, even.

"Now, one thing to be clear... this actually assumes the Mags try to keep us from hitting the sun, and begin pursuit the moment the ship enters the system rather than just trying to intercept at usual agression range. If they keep acting the way they have been... we can reach hypercannon range of the star with almost complete certainty. In fact, if we were to drop one ship above the star, let it go, and then drop the other below... so far, even if its only one threat, every single Defender moves on it. We could lure them out of position, back off into hyperspace... and then hit the star unopposed."

"As such, we've continued production of additional Mimics, but also saved some of the hull material to make, simply, more mini-nova weapons. While we'll probably be cleaning up smaller support bases for a while, I plan to complete buildup in one year and fifteen days... to launch Operation Impending Doom 2. A touch silly, perhaps. But by the time its done, we'll be able to start focusing on colonizing and building new homes, rather than fighting."

Nods around the table. While a few might be hesitant about the plan, or the idea of essentially exterminating an alien species we had yet to talk to; none objected enough to actually speak.

"Lets go ahead and break for now. Feel free to relax for a while. We'll maintain a patrol just in case, and I'm sending the Alecto out to deploy more relays.. but we're not going to launch this operation until we're ready to hit every single enemy system at once."

***

She'd died aboard one of these ships. Twice. Kelsey couldn't help but stare at the entryway at the front of the Mimic; she'd literally have to climb down the same bopening that fired the hypercannon to get inside. She'd seen far more of these Mimics than she'd ever want to.. but now she was considered the primary engineering expert on them just because she'd fixed the problems with the first one.

And, of course, been dragged along on them to her death... twice. She'd spent more time aboard one than any other... living... person. In theory.

The inside was a mostly hollowed-out compartment. Familiar. They'd actually brought in long containers of the blue goop, that terrible alien slop that threatened to tear people apart... and had it laying near the outer hull. Apparently in case some distinct radiation it gave off would alert the Defenders for its lack.

This was it. Where the current her was going to die. The mission hadn't been launched yet. She had months. A year. And if she overclocked herself, that could be a subjective century. She could do so much. Learn more than she ever did in her actual, organic life that had been cut short before she reached thirty.

But no matter what she learned, this body was going to die right here, on this ship, in an alien star system. Either when a hypercannon misfired... or when their shots pushed enough mass out of the sun's core to cause the mini-supernova they were going for.

There were a few other crew from the Shanghai that had been awakened. People she knew, that she could talk to. But despite all the years of hate, she wanted to go back to talk to Derek again. He hadn't died again after getting this robot body. Did he still feel like he was the same person? Clearly she did, or she wouldn't hate him anymore. Did she still hate him? Not really.

It was strange, knowing with complete certainty the day and hour of her death. She could avoid it. But if she did, she'd 'die' anyway. She'd heard of others having such feelings. They'd been shut down, restored to the database... and someone else got the body. They'd be 'woken back up' once everything was settled.

Which really just meant killed. And that another copy might come back. Maybe.