Chaos In The Cosmos

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

At this point, I would take silence over the tortured screams echoing over the comms relay from the shattered remains of the Frontier Defense Fleet.

Now, we were all that remained: the I.S.A. Arbiter, a battered Hercules class battleship, powering past the shattered hulks of our former fleet.

They had been torn apart by the first salvo of missiles from the planet’s surface.

Chaos and death prevailed here, and all because of the Signal.

Powerful enough to be felt across the immensity of space and emanating from a planet the International Space Fleet had deemed unoccupied only a century ago, the Signal proved there was still an abundance of cosmic occurrences we could scarcely comprehend.

At its appearance, the Signal had been an unintelligible passive pulse. Then seven days ago, the Interstellar Space Alliance’s technology had started to fail across the system. Any diagnosis of the ruined systems revealed only residual traces of the now familiar Signal.

Standing at my station on the Arbiter’s bridge, my crew looked to me for answers. The Selena Killgraeve that won her captain's commission in the carnage of the Andromeda campaign wouldn’t be standing here gawking at the loss of her fleet escort.

“Seal the breached corridors. Deploy the engineers. I want that hangar bay operational!” I bellowed over the chaos.

"Commander, the planet has unleashed another salvo of missiles. They're closing fast,” Abrogzei croaked. The carnivorous amphibians known as the Karjak made for the best radar operators the Alliance had to offer, and Abrogzei was the finest I’d ever worked with. Abrogzei’s purple-green mass resting on a dais facing a veritable wall of monitors and displays.

My heart pounded as I watched the barrage of quarter mile long projectiles hurtling toward us in a dense cloud of death. The last salvo had crippled the fleet, leaving us alone to face the unknown foe.

"Focus the forward batteries. Transfer power from shields. We need to obliterate them before they reach us!" I shouted. If they wanted us dead, we would go kicking and screaming.

“Shields?" my chief engineer, Johnston, called back. "We'll be sitting ducks."

There was a time for questioning orders, and a time to obey. Seconds could be the difference in the heat of battle.

My hand drifted to my belt, inches from the laspistol resting in a holster there. I needed him to hear me loud and clear.

"The shields didn't help the fleet, Johnston. Whatever those missiles are, our shields are useless against them. Even the debris from the first assault was enough to breach our hull. I don't need dissent. I need a damage report, and I need all power to the forward batteries. Now!"

Johnston’s gaze followed my hand. If he had any other reservations, he didn’t voice them.

"Yes, captain. Diverting power to forward batteries."

The projectiles hurtled closer toward us. Crossing the bridge to our gunnery android, I rested my hand on the cold steel of his shoulder.

"Fire when ready, master gunner,” I said.

"Targeting patterns optimized. Opening fire," his emotionless voice answered.

Faster than any human could process the barrage of information scrolling across the wall of monitors before it, our gunnery android deployed the full weight of a Hercules class battleship with devastating precision.

Sustained laser fire scythed through space, shattering the alien missiles into hundreds of pieces. What started as a dense cluster of deadly missiles was reduced to a wall of debris.

A cheer went up on the bridge as the Arbiter's turrets blazed away.

"Excellent work, master gunner," I said to the android and then turned back to my chief engineer, one of the few human crew on the ship’s bridge. “Johnston, I need that sitrep.”

The Arbiter had been trailing the smaller escorts in an attempt to appear less intimidating. Not that the planet had cared, whatever was down there had opened fire as soon as we’d opened a communications channel. If the Arbiter hadn’t been screened by our escorts, we’d not have survived the initial onslaught.

"Captain, the starboard hangar is venting atmosphere. We had to seal it. We lost fifty crew in the breach. The lower deck also had several breaches. They appear to be targeting our propulsion, captain.”

I balled my hands into fists as I registered the depth of the deception. Ever the optimists, the Alliance had assumed that the Signal was an attempt at first contact. One that had inadvertently caused damaged to our technology.

Now the ruin of the Frontier fleet revealed the ambush for what it was. The Signal had got our attention, probed our technology, and learned its function. Now with pinpoint precision, the forces on the planet were tearing us apart. Not if I had anything to say about it.

I gripped the carbon-fiber rail, my knuckles turning white. "Ready the torpedoes, thermonuclear payload."

"And the target, captain?" My gunnery android asked, his voice emotionless, his optical sensors still focused on the HUD before him.

"The planet's surface," I replied, my voice every bit as cold and unyielding as his. “Firing pattern exterminatus."

"But we have no idea what's down there," Daniel Collins said, panicked. He’d been manning the communication relay. As the ship’s chief science officer, he doubtlessly had hoped this voyage of discovery would result in a new fledgling civilization to add to the Alliance.

"Pretty sure we do." I met his eyes. “The Signal and death. The galaxy doesn't need any more of either."

A scratching noise carried from the corridors beyond the bridge. Finally, the engineers were getting the repairs underway.

"You would wipe out an advanced civilization before we even have the chance to communicate with them?" Daniel asked.

His indefatigable appetite for exploration was entirely at odds with the harsh realities of the universe. Sooner or later, he was going to get us killed.

As I regarded the hostile planet before us, sooner seemed the more inevitable outcome.

“The Signal severed our communications with Earth and compromised the shipyard at Tarsolis Prime. Do you still think that was an accident?"

Only silence greeted my question as I bore down on Daniel.

“When we came to investigate, they fired on us,” I said. “We aren't the aggressors, Daniel, but we will answer them in kind."

"So, you get to play judge, jury, and executioner of an entire civilization?"

"Yes!” My heart pounded as I stared him down. “We are the Arbiter, Daniel. For those who would harm the Alliance, we are the tip of the spear.”

Tearing my eyes from his, I stared out the reinforced view panels of the bridge and beheld the wreckage of our fleet. “Or what is left of it, anyway. Whoever they are, whatever they are, they don’t wish to coexist with us, so we will relieve them of that burden.”

Daniel’s voice was quiet as he said, “Selena, don’t do this.”

I held up a hand to still his protests.

“Master Gunner,” I called, “how are those torpedoes coming?"

"Ready to fire, captain, on your order."

A lump caught in my throat. How would history remember this moment? Would I be the savior of the Alliance? Or would I be thought a coward for wiping out an entire civilization to save my crew?

I’d sworn an oath to protect the Alliance, and I would not forsake it now. Damn history and those who have the luxury of passing judgement from their armchairs. They weren’t here.

I swallowed. "Then fire!"

The android's fingers raced across the keypad. With terrible majesty the Arbiter’s forward torpedo ports, all twelve of them, opened and deployed the Arbiter’s most devastating armament.

A dozen thermonuclear torpedoes, each many times larger than the first shuttles humanity had taken to space, carrying enough fissile material to lay waste to the planet accelerated toward the planet. The firing pattern would extinguish all life on the alien world. Depending on the planet’s composition, it might even crack the mantle.

A girl could hope. One thing was certain: nothing could survive the radioactive firestorm that would sweep the globe.

As the torpedoes cleared the ship, Daniel whispered, "Genocide."

The torpedoes’ propulsion ignited, the bridge fell silent but for the scratching of the welding crews dragging their rigs about the ship.

"Captain Killgraeve?" Abrogzei said, breaking the silence.

I strode to the Karjak’s side, “What is it?”

“The debris, it’s still moving?” The baritone croak sent a chill down my spine.

“Of course it is,” I replied. “The missiles had their own momentum when they were destroyed. Scattering debris is to be expected.”

Abrogzei croaked as if trying to dislodge a cat that had been caught in his throat. “If it was complying with our expectations, I wouldn’t have bothered to mention it. The fragments appear to be accelerating.”

I studied the displays before him.

The monitors clearly showed the Arbiter’s missiles spreading out as they hurtled toward the planet under their own power. At the other side of the screen, the cloud of debris from the alien missiles was moving toward them. I watched until I was able to detect what the Karjak had already perceived.

The cloud was picking up speed. It defied everything I understood about the physics of drifting debris.

Unless, we hadn't destroyed the missiles at all, simply shattered them into hundreds of smaller projectiles that were still hurtling toward us.

"How is that possible?" I bellowed. “I need answers.”

"I don't know, captain," Johnston replied. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The shroud of shattered debris collided with our torpedoes and cut them to shreds, one after another. I stood and stared, utterly transfixed as missiles with enough matter to destroy an entire world were obliterated before they could reach their target.

The entire salvo was doomed.

And so were we.

“Gunner, blow the payloads,” I said, my voice hoarse.

The android’s hands flew over the keyboard, and he managed to detonate the last two missiles before they could be destroyed.

I tore my eyes away from the viewports. Even at this distance, watching the torpedoes detonate was like staring at the surface of the sun.

Instead, I stared at Abrogzei’s screens. The cataclysmic explosion carved a path out of the heart out of the cloud, incinerating a swath of it and propelling the balance of the alien missile shrapnel outward in every direction, driven by the force unleashed by our torpedos.

“There it is, captain, see?” Abrogzei pointed at the monitors “Whatever they are, they remain active.”

Instead of dissipating, each piece of the cloud that remained seemed to be reforming, correcting its course and bearing down on the Arbiter.

Still more of the missile shards gathered, soaring toward us seemingly under their own power.

Clearly their technology functioned different to our own.

If residue from their opening salvo had breached hangar bay, the swarm before us was more than sufficient to destroy the entire ship.

"Captain, what are your orders?" Johnston asked his voice wavering.

Taking in the shards’ acceleration, I knew there was no retreat. We could never charge the jump drive before they reached us.

"Navigation, set our course for the center of the gap our torpedoes created.”

"Captain?”

"You heard me. We need to thread that needle,” I said, pointing out our viewport at the dispersed shrapnel.

"Captain, that's insanity!” Johnston interjected.

"Look around, Johnston. If that salvo doesn't destroy us, it will certainly leave us sitting ducks for the next one. Their weapons are faster and more maneuverable than we are, and we can't jump. So, we either sit here and wait to die, or we do what we came here to do. Now, thread that needle!”

"Aye, aye, captain,” Johnston replied as he powered up the Arbiter’s engines.

"Master Gunner, they’re trying to reform. See if you can't expand that hole. We need something big enough to pass through. Bring down everything you can.”

"Order received, captain. Executing now," the android’s fingers danced across his firing interface with pinpoint precision.

The Arbiter’s forward batteries fired salvo after salvo at the oncoming swarm.

We were all that remained of the Frontier fleet, the gatekeepers of the Alliance, and we were going to make whatever waited on that planet rue the day they reached into the cosmos.

Something on that rock had the power to compromise our technology and cut us off from the rest of the Alliance. We needed to deal with it, before it gathered any more strength.

If the wreckage of the Frontier fleet was anything to go by, they cared little for any other intelligent life in the universe.

The alien missiles hurtled toward us as the battleship’s thrusters roared to life.

"Ready the transports and landers,” I called. “Empty the armoury into them and get all hands ready for planetfall.”

"Captain? You're abandoning the ship?” Abrogzei asked, craning his head toward me.

"Not if we have any other choice, but if they cripple us, then the Arbiter will become the Alliance’s retribution. If that happens, we’re not going to want to still be on it.”

No one spoke as the order carried through the room. I expected as much. We were the hunter; we were not accustomed to being the prey.

Whatever waited for us on that planet was soon to learn its first lesson on humanity.

And I, Selena Killgraeve, Captain of the Arbiter, would be their teacher, if it was the last thing I ever did.