Phaethon system: Phaethon

Phaethon was a small colony on the edges of Terran space, the world was similar to earth with vast rolling green plains and endless blue skies. Phaethon as well as her sister planets Concord and Orpheus orbited a yellow sun surrounded by an asteroid belt. the planets orbit housed a deep space exploration station, affectionately known as Columbus.

Above Phaethon, Columbus pinged what appeared to be an errant asteroid on its long ranged radar that seemed to be on a collision vector towards Orpheus and logged it for redirection. The powerful X ray and thermal telescopes aboard the station swept the system constantly for such objects and used its single fifty millimeter mass driver to redirect them away from the vulnerable colonies on the planets surface.

Phaethon system: Columbus station ST George G Wallace might have been new to his job, having only graduated a month ago but as he stared at the holodisplay in front of him he knew what he was seeing was not supposed to be possible.

"Sir... uhh remember that asteroid from earlier...?"

"What about it Wallace?" The captain asked, scratching his head.

"it's accelerating." the tech replied.

"What did you just say?"

"The asteroid designated... uh 9893526 well it's accelerated from twenty five to thirty percent of the current limit in the last two minutes."

"Run a diagnostic and check again." The captain ordered

"Yes captain." Wallace replied nodding, tapping the screen in front of himself as the search program ran its course before pinging system with the stations active radar array again. "can confirm, asteroid 9893526 is accelerating, it appears to be on a loose collision course with Phaethon, probability of a hit looks like around forty percent and rising,"

"Warm up the mass driver for redirection." The captain ordered as he looked at the data crawling across his subordinate's screen.

"its not a big one, really its probably a smuggler doing some silent running. we'll put a shot across their bow and give them the order to stand to, if they don't respond, we'll just assume its an asteroid and knock em off course with the next shot."

"Aye aye Sir." Wallace said nodding. "Patterson, you're on driver shift right?" he asked looking at a tall, thin man with gaunt cheeks, their skeletal figure nodded.

"yup, I'm on the driver tonight, I'll get the driver charging up now. Should be ready in about five minutes, the loader's been kind of sticky recently." the gaunt man replied with a curt nod.

As the driver charged the captain looked into the blackness of space on his viewscreen and sighed, his money was on the little asteroid being an inexperienced smugglers craft, it had the general vague shape like that of a ship, and it wasn't tumbling end over end like the asteroids in nature did.

The captain hated smugglers almost as much as he hated asteroids, they made so many things oh so complicated.

"Driver charged captain" Patterson reported, looking at the readout in front of himself, drawing up a targeting solution now, a miss by a mile sounds like close enough to get the message across right?"

"Don't take any chances Mike, but if you think you can make the shot, make the shot. Serves the idiots aboard right, if there are any anyways..."

"Hear you loud and clear sir, firing line is clear, round should impact Helios in approximately sixteen minutes, firing now." the single gun on the station swiveled as it tracked its target, and then the station shivered softly as it fired, putting a 125mm shell downrange. The shell screamed silently through space as it traveled, streaking past the asteroid by less than a mile.

"Power surge detected in the asteroid sir" Wallace reported from his screen as the asteroid, now designated as a ship, rapidly accelerated.

"thought so, open a communic-" the captain's words died in his throat as the ship tore a hole in reality and vanished as it fled into demispace. "well, never mind then..."

"looks like they had a nice drive sir, whatever that tricked out thing was... lots of power plants on that thing, definitely nonstandard." Wallace said looking up from his station. "that's a smugglers ship for certain, or at least someone decided to trick their ship out..."

"keep an eye out for it Wallace, those are rookies, they're too stupid to give up." The captain grumbled to himself. "they'll be back, and when they are, we'll be ready. Patterson..."

"I'll keep the driver ready Captain, its not like it costs us much anyway." The ghoulish man said with a thin smile. "Aim for the engines next time?"

The captain nodded, "and then we'll put in a call to sector security to come and arrest the idiots." The two nodded to the captain, who then smiled at his crewmen, "Now, Coffee anyone?" he asked with a smile, "I could really do with a good cup of Joe right now.

Three hours later, the sensors aboard the Columbus lit up like a beacon as dozens of breaches in the fabric of reality opened.

"Captain, with all due respect what the fuck is going on?" Wallace asked, the color draining slowly from his face as he started counting the new contacts on his screen, "we have ten, eleven, twel- at least fifteen and contacts and climbing!"

"Maybe its a pirate raid?" Patterson suggested quietly, "Could those be raiders?"

"Wrong design philosophy, and those sure as hell don't look like pirates..." The captain replied slowly as he stroked his chin thoughtfully, "patch us through to-"

"Energy surge!" Wallace reported "the leading contacts seem to be powering... something... up... oh god... oh my god..." Wallace's voice died in his throat as he watched his screen in horror.

"What is it Wallace?" Patterson asked as he ran towards the Sensory tech's station. "George, you better not be..." He stared uncomprehendingly at the screen in front of himself. At the display that showed him a scene out of a nightmare.

On the screen in front of them, Concord burned. It's citizens, seeking shelter in the single settlement on the world, found nothing waiting for them there but death as plasma impacted into the concrete and steel buildings on the surface with terrible force, detonating, and then releasing its horrific payload. Spreading out like a tidal wave, the plasma washed outwards from the impact point, swamping over people, buildings, and vehicles alike with all caught in its wash vaporized or melted into a molten puddle. Men, women, children, dogs, cars, trucks, and the small complement of armored vehicles that the police maintained all were washed away in a tidal wave of hellish plasma into an ocean of agonized screams.

Ten minutes after contact, the population of Concord stopped screaming, not because it wanted to, but because it was for all intents and purposes dead. The fleet continued onwards. They hadn't even needed to stop to cleanse Concord of human life. Next in line came Orpheus, who's population met the same fate, purged in hellish flame, begging Columbus for help, for someone, anyone to save them. No one came. No one could come. Columbus had no inbuilt thrusters, its only weapon was a 5 inch gauss cannon designed to redirect asteroids.

Columbus alone wasn't enough to stop them, it wouldn't even slow them down, the crew aboard the Columbus knew this. They were a research station, not a battlestation, they knew their best chance was to run, to activate their escape pods and flee to the surface of the planet, to hide among the newborn colonies mountains and hope that they would survive.

The three in the bridge looked at each other. They didn't have a choice. "Patterson, on the gun, Wallace, find him his targets, I'll man communications and try to stall for time." the Captain ordered looking to his crewmen, "lets drag some of these mother fuckers with us to hell." He pressed a button, activating the emergency distress done, and sent it screaming into demispace twoards the closest settlement. It woulden't be enough to save them, but maybe, just maybe they would arrive in time to avoid the fate of those worlds that came before... although Hearth was hours away... still Phaethon was a far more developed world than her sisters, perhaps they would try to take her infastructure intact. It was the only hope that the captain had left.

Phaethon system: Ruk Command Cruiser Jiva

The Battlemaster looked at the map in front of himself with pleasure, so far the scout's reports had been accurate to the letter. There was nothing here that could challenge his fleet... this was looking to be an easy conquest. Then all it would take would be calling in the colony ships and his first jump of the expedition would be a complete success.

"Voidmaster... what kind of idiot species do you think we're dealing with?" The Battlemaster asked idly as he looked at his subordinate, "they don't even have any anti-orbital defenses on their worlds, even their home planet only has a small defense station, could they be pacifists?"

The Voidmaster shook their armored head and clacked his mandibles together, "perhaps you may find out Battlemaster, they are hailing us on the communications beacon."

"Very well Voidmaster, let us hear what they have to say." The Battlemaster replied, "its not like that station could really harm us could it?" The Battlemaster loved this part, of the foe realizing when they were outmatched, when he could force them to surrender, when he looked into their eyes and saw deep down that they had known he won. He savored it.

"Not us perhaps Battlemaster," The Voidmaster replied, "But some of the smaller ships... maybe." They shrugged and then activated the screen, filling it with what the Battlemaster found to most likely be one of the ugliest beings they had ever seen. The screen displayed a creature that was squishy looking, its flesh was somewhat pink, no carapace or protective exoskeleton, no horns adorned its head, instead there appeared to be a patch of hair or fur there. No talons or claws on its fingers...

"These creatures must have evolved on some sort of paradise...." The Battlemaster Snickered to the voidmaster. "they don't even have any natural weapons... no armor..."

Equally ugly was their language, it was guttural, and rough, seeming almost crude to the Ruk's ear. The translator didn't take too long to figure out what he was saying and relay it to the Battlemaster.

"Why... why have you come here, what do you want from us?" The thing on the screen asked, "what have we done do you? what have we done to deserve this? What do you need to make it stop? we have metals we can trade! we have food, technology-"

The interruption of the Battlemaster's laugh was more like the hiss of a cockroach, "You have one chance, creature, one chance. Surrender to the Ruk Imperium, you will be our slaves at best, or perhaps our larder, but we might spare-"

Phaethon system: Columbus station

"You. Your kind should be honored to join us, we will lift you out of the stone age dump you appear to be in and-"

The captain looked at his crewmembers, Wallace gave him a thumbs up. "On Behalf of the people of the Phaethon system, I think I can safely say, burn in hell you son of a bitch." he snarled, eyes burning with a molten rage, "if you want this planet so fucking badly, you're just going to have to come and god damn take it."

The station shuddered as the overloaded anti-asteroid cannon fired.

Ruk Command Cruiser: Jiva

The battlemaster blinked in suprise as one of his corvettes was broken down her keel, fragments sent spinning off into space. That was unexpected. "All hands, battle stations" The voidmaster ordered. "It appears that those scouts of yours were wrong battlemaster, it appears that they do have weapons that can harm us after all."