In space, the void is all-consuming. No sound, no life that simple lifeforms could ever hear. Bound to the limitations of their birth worlds.

Yet, for the few species that could freely traverse the harshness of space naturally, they would have been shocked into silence.

The looming body of ships moved with purpose. Their formations were impeccable and their designs consistent.

They gently entered the solar system of their birth.

They had waited. They had rebuilt. Now was the time to reclaim their birthright.

Either by threat or by genocide.

—

“Force analysis is in,” Nicole said as she flicked the data onto the big screen. The massive mass of data began to play on the much larger holographic display.

Ship composition. Size. Shape. Power output. Visible weapons. Theoretical crew sizes. Hyper analytical data.

Supreme Judge Hardel frowned as he studied the data.

1.2 million ships. Theoretical military size of 50 million soldiers. Yet there were only one thousand and fifteen organic signatures.

Hardel closed his eyes and leaned back. His mind went into overdrive as his fluidic thought process revved up. His chair tilted as he went into a cognitive trance.

Three centuries they had been gone. Those days of Rapture had been the worst in recorded history. Even the alien invasion of Rikta had eventually been deemed annoying by historians.

Sure the Rikta race had killed hundreds of millions.

It was nothing compared to Rapture’s hundreds of billions.

The Rikta had come for the relatively undefended natural resources. The Rapture had the ‘Elite’ of humanity simply grab and flee with anything they could get their grubby hands on.

The only saving grace of humanity was that often times, the brightest minds were not considered elites.

The elites themselves took in their followers, their believers, as much resources as they could hold, and then left for beyond the system.

With a gaping power vacuum, widespread famine, disease, and war. There was nothing but ragtag military and countries left behind. Which headed by desperate people well over their heads, were all eventually united as the population dwindled.

Those that resisted were simply killed. Those that were intelligent were negotiated, then united into the new governing body, The UN. The difference was that in ten short years, it held the sum of the earth’s military power.

The UN rebuilt. Turns out that even with scarce resources, but far more amiable minds and no roadblocks from the old caste, progress found few oppositions.

Earth had survived. Rebuilt. Advanced.

“Nicole,” Hardel whispered into the air. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he had found his answer.

“Sir!” the ever-attentive aid he had snapped to attention.

“I agree to the proposed actions,” Hardel said with a heavy sigh.

Being a Supreme Judge of Earth meant that he needed input into global events.

Military incursion by foreign powers was indefinitely a global event.

—

The broadcast was blasted on all frequencies. The message was the same.

Aliens surrender. Earthling has returned to reclaim their homeworld. The survivors were to celebrate as they were about to be freed!

Nice messages. Unfortunately they were about 299 years too late.

“Ladies, Gentlemen,” a worn and gravelly voice greeted as the audio began to loop once more.

The assembled officers stared at the man. Admiral Hol of the navy.

The round table was a throwback to the legend of King Arthur. The assembled holographic projected people were of the various high ranking officers that commanded the sum of Earth’s finest.

In the center was a 3D projection of the message itself. A flat plain that weaved and bobbed as the rather snooty message played out.

Intel had registered it as a derivative of 20th century English. But obviously their cultures had deviated.

“As of 0200 today, we have received the final vote by the Supreme Judges, and the final vote from the Continental Delegates,” Admiral Hol said as the relevant data popped up, replacing the annoying message.

The one thousand and one votes were tallied. Overwhelming in favor of military actions by 92% with an 8% abstain.

“Very well, then our course is clear. Our military is ready, and we await your final approvals, Generals, Admirals,” Hol said to his fellow command staff.

This was the sum of their military might.

The sum of Earth’s power.

The final tally was simple. Each general and admiral got one vote. In the event of a tie, then the final earth decision would be considered and the earth could never be an even number.

The command voted in favor of war. 100%

Admiral Hol nodded. He was pleased to see action to defend the homeworld, but he was less than eager to send his boys and girls out to die in the emptiness of space.

The people winked out one by one, until only he remained.

He stared at it, the data showcasing their votes. He stared at his green vote, the hardest.

—

Captain Sulia stared out into the display of the world beyond her fortified hulls.

Before her was the ‘Liberation Fleet’ and it had stopped its advance at Jupiter. The Jovian planet was playing host to the massive fleet currently parked in the edges of its gravitational field.

The Earth’s United Fleet stared back as they were currently orbiting the Martian planet. With barely a quarter-million ships, they were outnumbered nearly 5 to 1.

So far the battle had been all verbal. From what she had been able to see, and it was all publicly available, was something that shocked her to her core.

It was literally a man wearing 17th-18th century fashion. Wig. Long dress. Pomps and frills… and that was just the men.

One Sir Jonathan D. Trumpette, a Baron of the Confederacy of Earth.

Which took nearly a day to confidently translate as the linguists on both sides scrambled to decipher what the hell each person was saying.

From the intercepted broadcast, modern earth sounded like uncultured peasants, and we thought he sounded like a peacock was by raped a word generator.

The first week was full of pomp as Baron Trumpette tooted his own horn. Turns out that negotiations needed two dozen people to orate the man’s highlights and his promises to a peaceful resolution.

The helpful subtitles showed that the man expected Earth to simply capitulate and accept his heralding for the twelve kings. Whoever they were.

Admiral Hol had asked who the kings were, and Baron Trumpette staggered back into his golden chair.

The result was another four-hour session for oration of how the various kings lead, pacified and are the virtue of the new world. An oration that the good Baron left barely halfway through and never returned.

Baron Trumpette’s history was as his namesake suggested. He got a king crowned, and his family was rewarded for championing the king’s family to the top.

By the time the negotiations had fully started, 2 weeks had passed. Since the Baron only worked from 10:10 am to noon, then 2 pm until 4:13 pm.

Where once the United Earth Forces prayed that the assembled quarter-million fleet could hold up long enough to gather the other forces, turned out to be unnecessary as by the time the talks broke down, the rest of the Earth forces had already been waiting in the fringes of the solar system for over a week.

In a hissy fit of the oddest insults ever recorded, Baron Trumpette committed his forces to an all-out assault on mars.

—

Lieutenant Flaga clenched his teeth as his fighter was grazed by the carrier’s anti-air weaponry. The laser weaponry was simple but effective as it sapped his shields.

The world was vibrant as laser fire was traded, heavy weapons were freely unloaded, and hundreds of thousands of small fighters zoomed to and fro.

What was supposed to be a quick fight had dragged out into its 150th hour of combat.

While confederate forces were weaker in terms of well… Everything… they did build durable heavy ships.

They were dense.

The damned boats seemed to be onion-like layers of nothing but armor and it took time to critically damage one. Which would have been impressive if they had any other forms of defense.

Flaga continued to do heavy runs, his fighter’s heavy laser left trails of melted metal, and more importantly, broken defenses.

The boarding frigates were super effective at disabling the capital ships.

All he had to do was to ensure that there was as little AA left by the time command decided to send out a boarding party.

His world lit up once more as an enemy fighter craft lined up behind him. The odd ovular ship didn’t seem all that sensible as the thing was essentially a rocket with a forward gun but considering that he had seen enough of his allies blown up that he was at least attentive.

“Requesting aid! This is the 33rd bombing squadron. We are under heavy fire. Any available fighters, please help!”

Flaga stared at the comm on his HUD and the extra data immediately filled into his view. As well as more blue lasers hammering at his shields.

Welp, he had his fun.

Flaga forced his superior fighter into aileron roll, twisting his ship like a corkscrew before he dipped into a proper barrel roll while decelerating. His maneuver allowed him to ignore several bursts of enemy fire as he repositioned his ship.

Like clockwork, the oval confederate ship zoomed past and now his fighter could now fire into the thing’s backside.

Lining up his shots, he let loose with his available cannons and his denser, green-colored energy seemed to sink into the enemy’s armor.

There was no reaction, and Flaga fired off another round. Then as the second round seemed to do the same, the enemy simply puffed up like a blowfish. Angry red lines detailed its quick expansion and then it was followed by a silent boom.

Ensuring his fighter’s safety, Flaga quickly turned and angled himself away from the explosion and its debris. His focus cleared for the moment, he saw the position of the squadron.

Turning his ship around, Flaga pushed his engines max cruising to link up with the bombing squad. Already there was a pitched battle as over a hundred earth fighters were already in various formations.

By the time he linked up, the center was reinforced by other bombers as well.

With a grin, Flaga allowed his computer system to synchronize with the rest of this impromptu fleet.

The battlefield seemed to quiet down as the confederate forces back up and did the same.

The two forces were barely out of range but stood their grounds.

Within minutes’ new orders were being transmitted to the rest of the fleet. The orders were simple. Clear a path for bombers, then solders.

Lieutenant Flaga wiped at his brow, and nervously rechecked his systems. This could be the final run for him, and many of his fellow pilots.

It took less then half an hour before someone moved forward enough. The first laser shot was confederate blue, and the earth’s multicolored retort had both armies begin the engagement.

If he was properly paying attention, he would have also noticed that with their big push, all of the earth’s bigger ships followed suit.

Flaga grits his teeth and returned fire as he began to cruise towards his fighter’s top speed. All he had to do was escort enough bombers to clear the way for the boarding ships.

Once this confederate’s capital ship was taken, then the battle would end.

—

Sergeant Rockmore sneered as his squad made its way down the overly wide and ornate hallways. This ship was impressive, if overly pretentious.

There were no real defense bulkheads. No real ambush locations.

The ship’s defenders were a combination of human captains and robot drones. Which would have been amazing if they were using anything more advanced then heavy caliber guns.

The earth’s power suit was more than enough to withstand those so far. Though the occasional heavy missile from a bazooka was enough to knock a man out if they were unlucky.

Several engineers were currently using thermite to eat through the last bulkhead leading to the oval bridge. Rockmore stared at the dozens of soldiers easing at the edges of the room.

For nearly three days now, they had been sieging this ship. The boarding marines were able to capture the engine room and promptly shut everything down.

Then the rest of the armed forces came in and the mop-up began.

Which didn’t work as well as hoped? While these idiots were crap at ambushes, this damned ship was designed to be a layered onion. Every few rooms were heavily reinforced choke points.

This meant that they had to take time to break through the barricade, chase a few soldiers, and find another bunker-like barrier.

It was funny if one watched it from afar, but it was damned annoying when the various generals and admirals were waiting on their own ships waiting for the important news.

“Sir, we're almost through!” the lead engineer said as everyone made way. Small bulkheads were moved and deployed in the middle of the room.

Holographic projector discs were set up to present some novel targets. They would give his enemies a target while no one was actually there. Deployed sentry guns would fire off weak laser shots, while also launching in gas canisters of knock out gas.

A hole opened up and immediately heavy machine gun fire spat out and onto the super steel bulkheads. The holographic targets reacted and when to hit, did a fairly realistic death, before they reset by showing someone else climbing up.

—

The gunfight lasted for nearly 10 minutes before it petered out, and Rockmore nodded at his heavy infantry.

Standing at 2.5 meters (8,2 feet), and weighing over 600 kilos (1322 pounds), they rushed into the room and immediately deployed their shields.

More gunfire began, but the follow up of more heavy infantry and regular powered armored soldiers quickly paved way for Rockmore himself.

He walked into the room, the faces of nearly a hundred haggard, scarred, and, screaming humans greeted him.

A small number of screaming humans stopped him. It was a shock that prevented him from giving orders.

To be fair, he had not seen anyone ever charge a power suited heavy infantry with bayonets. A dozen men that charged had enough momentum to either chip or break their blades on the super titanium shields.

Shaking his head, the sergeant remembered his mission and why he risked the life of his men. There, and asleep, on the throne sat Trumpette. He had definitely seen better days, but there he was.

Rockmore raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

As one, the regular powered infantry raised their grenade launchers and released a salvo of knock out gas.

With the gas directly around them, the few defenders still awake passed out.

With a shit-eating grin, Sergeant Rockmore radioed his captain and presented the good news.

—

Admiral Hol stared at the data mass before him. The sum of Trumpette’s computer data was scrolling across nearly a hundred windows.

The assembled military council was also staring into the huge flux of data.

A small note said that the heavily encrypted files were, luckily, bypassed by Trumpette’s habit of leaving his password right on his white desk.

The data showed everything from ship design, weapon blueprints, and the coordinates of where the old cowards had fled to.

Gliese 710. Which was right on the nose of what the scientific community had assumed so long ago.

With their horrific space engines of old, they had almost no chance of getting anywhere quickly. Though they did consider it a relatively timely fashion

—

Gliese 710, or Soland, was lucky enough to have one hospitable planet, and several pluto type planetoids. The colony there then grew and prospered.

Sort of.

One they sorted out their first, and bloody election to see which nation was best to lead the new earth body.

The problem was that the system was rich in resources. Metals were abundant and thus they could construct their large fleet with resources to spare.

Hol leaned back as he pulled out a small report from the mass.

Trumpette was currently being interrogated, but he had little information to offer outside of what was available on his computer.

Did this mean that he was lying? Most likely.

Or were they asking the wrong questions? Also likely.

He did say something interesting though.

He was the first of the four. The weakest, and thus was regulated to scouting. A report had been sent back, and they would avenge him.

Admiral Hol closed his eyes as he let go of the note and it zoomed back to the mass.

Their losses were not light. 48% of the fleet was destroyed, or considered irreparable. 44% simply damaged. 8% was ‘fine’.

They would be in trouble, but there was hope. There was a real tech treasure in the data mass, the tech that could help them. They didn’t retain all of the old data, but there was a lot of new stuff here.

Hopefully, they could harvest that and improve themselves.

They had over 30 years to set up the next defense. Train up a new wave of soldiers, new tech, and gear.

What they lacked in raw resources, they made up within other aspects. They had a much larger population and less ‘war’ traditions that restricted their soldiers from using archaic weapons.

It was funny that their ships were powerful, but their soldiers were under-equipped.

Next time though…

Admiral Hol frowned.

Next time they probably wouldn’t be as lucky. Earth would be far more prepared.