~ Several minutes before ~

Lone Outpost [Tim’s POV]

“Ah, it’s so boring here. I’m bored, you’re boring, and there’s nothing to do except watch these stupid monitors.” My complaints fall on the deaf ears of the man sitting beside me. “Come on do something entertaining. Entertain me.” Jim didn’t say anything and continues reading his book.

“You’re no fun.” I pout, then sigh and lean back in my chair. My companions and I have been stuck on this government R and D outpost, at the edge of the system, for nearly 3 months now. It could have been interesting if I was working on something different, but all I’m doing now is staring at screens and feeling my ass grow.

I lazily wave as another coworker walks up behind us and sips his coffee. “Hey Tim, how’s looking through the night sky?” “Boooooring,” I languish out. A chuckle is his only response as he gazes at the monitors. “Hey Tim can you play back the last few seconds? I thought I saw a star disappear.”

‘Yeah sure you did.’ I sit up and rewind the last few seconds. “There,” he points to a star and a few seconds later it disappears. ‘Finally, something interesting happened.’

Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of another star winking out. I look closer at the monitor and see star after star go dark until an entire patch of sky is empty. “What the fuck just happened?” Frank, the coworker, shouted out, rousing Jim from his book.

We all stare at the strangely dark region of space that has suddenly appeared. A minute passes before the phenomenon changes. The blank area seems to be expanding at a rapid pace until I see a star shine through.

Frank’s coffee mug falls and shatters on the ground spilling coffee everywhere, but I pay it no heed. All my focus is on the expanding area of darkness that expands outwards. A strange thought passed through my mind at this moment.

‘Maybe boring isn’t all that bad after all.’

[Tim POV end, Scott POV Start]

I’ve just received a system wide military alert. It orders the mobilization of all forces within the system and calls the reserves to action ready status. It’s followed by a SITREP (situation report) on the possible contact. All it’s really telling me is that some base called Lone Outpost was destroyed and the enemy count is unknown, but apparently they have enough ships to block the light from an entire region of space.

All in all not looking very promising right now. I focus back on the conference room and say, “Agent White, you and your petty little bullshit will have to wait we have a much bigger problem. The Locust aliens from Longari are here. You should be receiving the alert now.”

Everyone’s faces pale at my statements and the subsequent alert they get, minus Vahlen. Cpt Johnson strides out of the conference room as the call to arms siren rings throughout the ship. I don’t spare Agent White another glance as I tug Vahlen out of the room, followed by Earl and Ming.

Vahlen just allows herself to be tugged along, her mind caught up processing the enormity of the situation. Earl and Ming split off towards the marine section as I continue to drag Vahlen behind me. She finally rouses herself enough to say, “Where are you taking me?”

“To my core,” I shout back as we navigate around crew and down the corridor. The answer seems to be enough for her and eventually we reach my core. The door closes behind us and I turn towards Vahlen. “Vahlen this is the safest part of the ship for you. I need you to stay here while the fighting is going on.”

I think she might be in shock right now but she still mummers out, “What about my parents? What will they do?” I have no answer so I simply pull her close and say, “I don’t know.”

Whilst all this has been going on I’ve also detached from the space port, along with other military ships, and our fighter pilot element has been launched into a defensive formation around us. Like a well-oiled machine humanities fleet forms a defensive perimeter around Gaia.

The 100 battle ready ships, plus fighters and bombers, await for further orders as they orbit humanity’s home planet. Our orders come in. As the only ship capable of warping freely we will be scouting and potentially harassing the enemy force. The Locust seemed to have warped to the next human outpost so we warp to a distance of 5 million kilometers away to get an accurate reading of the enemy’s numbers.

Emerging from the warp bubble we immediately try to go dark and hope that the enemy fleet didn’t spot us warping in. The first few readings from our passive sensors are coming in and I do a double take at the number of enemy ships it shows.

The same reading I saw is being seen by the crew and immediately the moral plummets. Millions, that’s right millions of enemy ships have currently surrounded the outpost and seem to be waiting for the base to fall before they move on.

I send the information back to command while the crew stews in their own thoughts on the situation. I grimace at the command that comes back, harass the enemy using any means possible. Cpt Johnson sees the command and I can see him visibly pull himself out of his despair to replace it with steely determination.

“Scott I want you to take us just within extreme engagement range and start peppering them with the rail cannon. Hopefully, we can destroy a few before they can get too close.”

I move the ship to within 100 thousand kilometers of the Locust before they take notice and start swarming towards me. It’s odd but I can’t actually detect any engine emissions coming from any of their ships. I would have to theorize they may be using some form of gravity drive to propel their ships.

All of this is inconsequential as I take aim at the leading ship. The warp drive is full of energy, rail gun is charged, and the crew willing to face this horror. The rail gun fires, signaling my first shot in humanity’s war for survival.

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Hey guys and gals. First off I want to apologize for such a cliffhanger then no follow up for a while. I've just been enjoying my vacation to much to really write. By next Tuesday I should be back to a chapter a day, but until then the chapter release will be intermittent.

Thanks for reading.