Darkworld: Earth

2.38.

Captain Anders stood aboard the station that he had assigned as the ‘bridge’ of A Good Question , the Toormonda ship of which he was in command. He had a crew of five, aside from himself. Two of the crew were manning the built in weapons of the Toormonda. Neither of which were particularly deadly, but since the ship had weapons it was being included in the formation.

The two weapons, an EMP weapon that also fired an energy not well understood by the Earthlings called a Kirata beam and an ion cannon of low power – at least for space combat – were not considered a serious threat to most military forces. The arming of Toormonda ships was considered traditional more than anything else; no human would allow their children to ride a ship that couldn’t defend itself.

But everyone knew that Toormondas were filled with children, and since they posed no militaristic threat, they were never fired upon. If criminal activity was suspected aboard a Toormonda, they were disabled remotely and boarded, the criminals apprehended, and any children returned to their homes.

Eolai could have told the Earthlings as much, but he was both distracted, and curious to see what they would do.

A Good Question, aka AGQ for brevity and clarity, was also set to control a series of drones that contained weapons that were either developed on earth, given to Earth by the Yonohoans, or some combination of the two. Three drone operators rounded out the crew.

The AGQ was the most dangerous Toormonda in the galaxy thanks to those drones. With its gravitic drive, it was sleek and mobile, although not as much as a specialized space superiority fighter craft. It’s built in scientific devices, however, made it an important piece of the Earthling’s defense plans as it served as a mobile scanning platform.

The Earthlings had managed to convince the ship that it was owned by the Earth Space Force, a military organization, and the computer reluctantly agreed that it would respond only to military codes corresponding to the ESF.

Even with these factors, anyone in the universe who heard that the Earthlings considered a Toormonda to be a second-line defender of a homeworld would laugh until they ran low on oxygen or their species equivalent.

Captain Anders was proud of his post, and would endure the laughter with stoicism.

He watched the instruments as they measured the vectors through the hyperatomic plane. He broadcast the location and times of the exit locations of the two ships in real time to his associated forces. Mist appeared exactly where he predicted, and a second field of mist appeared a thousand miles away from the first. Again, exactly where the AGQ had predicted.

The Enterprise appeared suddenly. He sent the Winnebago class spacecraft a flightpath to bring it behind the line of defenders moving at its maximum sub-light velocity.

The unknown but suspected pirate ship appeared seconds later. It did not move, floating in space menacingly as it activated its scanners and examined the entire Sol-system in detail.

Captain Anders began to hail the ship, informing it that it was in Earth controlled space, demanding that it declare its identity and intentions.

The ship continued it’s scan.

~~~~~

The Captain of the Rosantean enforcement vessel grinned to himself as the scans came back. He had questioned his orders when he had been assigned to a quiet trinary system in the middle of nowhere. There had been no end date on the assignment. He had been afraid that he and his crew would be stuck in stasis until someone did an inventory of the fleet’s status and found that his vessel was still on assignment thirty years from now.

Captain Yoko, a human proud of his Sortorian bloodline and the dark skin that went with it, had been dealing with morale issues when the pleasure craft had arrived in system. His own craft, which per protocol had been in stealth, had went to high-alert, and their mission brief had decrypted itself.

Then he had understood.

This was not some punishment assignment. It was an opportunity to serve the empire.

The Yonohoans had found and were in the process of taming a Darkworld. This pleasure craft, its registered name meaningless to Yoko in any of the languages he spoke, was crafted by the Yonohoans but unregistered to any government database that his ship had access to. If it were a Yonohoan craft, then their systems would inform him of their relationship despite the fact that he was far outside the regular patrols of his empire.

Which meant that it was a gift to a government not associated with the Rosantean Empire.

Which implied a Darkworld.

Which implied an opportunity to unmask the location of Earth and cow it into submission.

But he would have to be careful. Appearances mattered, and it would weaken the empire’s image if it were caught bullying an emerging Darkworld. When he finally arrived at the pleasure-craft’s destination after following it at the glacial speed that the ship’s engines were limited to by design, he immediately scanned the system.

And his jaw fell down in slack at what he saw.

Ships of known Yonohoan make and ships of completely unknown manufacture. He ignored the attempts of the primitives to communicate with him as he doubled down on the scans, looking for any signs of a Yonohoan military vessel.

When he found none, he grinned.

“Broadcast back to these savages that they are suspected of piracy against the Rosantean Empire. Their dead drop system has been located and their base will be destroyed. They have sixty minutes to abandon ship before we fire upon them. Assure them that any who comply will be rescued and returned to the empire in stasis to face trial for their crimes.”

He smiled.

The earthlings had a term for what his orders had instructed him to do if he found Earth. Fabrication of Casus Belli.

~~~~~~~

The message was received and translated instantly by the Toormonda’s computer systems.

“We do not submit and we will not surrender,” Captain Anders broadcast to his battle group. “Unknown ship, you have five minutes to leave this solar system which belongs to the people of Earth. I am Captain Anders of the Earth Space Force, and you are in violation of our sovereign territory committing acts of aggression. If you do not power down your weapons, engage your drives and leave this space, you will be fired upon with all the might of the ESF,” Anders said, his heart pumping with adrenaline as he maintained his iron control over himself.

The ship continued to broadcast its demands and threats.

~~~~~~~

The Darkworlder ships squawked back to Yoko in an indecipherable language. It might have been decipherable if the Yonohoans had updated the Rosantean empire with the codex that they must have created to communicate with these primitives, but the fact that Yoko had no idea what they were saying only added to the credibility of his mission.

One hour, and then he would devastate their military forces. As well as all of the other vehicles that were strewn about the star system.

Except, of course, for the Toormondas. He frowned at the telemetry. Why were there Toormondas within the battle formation?

Before he could figure out the strange configuration, he began taking fire.

He grinned and ordered his crew to return fire. He was confident that his ship could handle anything that the Darkworlders put out.

~~~~~~

The Enterprise literally flew itself. There was no need for human intervention aside from giving general directions on where to go. It was designed to be an accessible and pleasant space faring experience without requiring any technical skills. Like a Toormonda, it had a shelf life of two hundred years before the safety recommendations suggested retirement. Unlike the Toormonda, there were Winnebagos that remained in service to the families that owned them that were millennia old.

The Yonohoah took the safety of their children very seriously, but anybody could risk their lives in an ancient Winnebago if they chose to do so.

The Enterprise was brand new, however. In perfect condition, aside from some minor graffiti on its hull and a few signs of the fact that it had been used by a couple on their honeymoon.

It possessed a single life capsule, and Kirk and Lisa were currently huddled inside it. It was meant to fit a family of four, placing them in stasis immediately after launch to keep them safe indefinitely until rescue arrived.

The ship rushed to safety as the fight broke out behind them.

“ Enterprise , are you equipped with weapons?” Kirk asked.

“I am manufactured by the Yonohoans,” Enterprise answered.

“Why are you asking about weapons? Ship, shields to maximum!” Lisa shouted.

“My debris shields are already functioning at maximum capacity,” the ship informed her.

“What does the thing about Yonohoans matter?” Kirk questioned.

“All interstellar vessels designed and built by the Yonohoans are equipped with anti-piracy weaponry. My kirata beam and particle cannon are low wield, but they are typically enough to deter boarders,” The ship explained.

“I understand,” Kirk said.

“What are you talking about? Kirk, don’t be--”

“I love you Lisa,” he said. He slammed the eject button and dashed out of the life capsule before the airlock closed.

“Kirk? Kirk!” Lisa shouted. “Kir-” the stasis field kicked in and the lifepod was ejected, it’s beacon activating automatically as it launched itself out of the combat area.

“I want to help. This is my planet and my family lives there,” Kirk said. “Tell the ESF that they can count on me.”

“Entering self defense mode. Requesting interlock with ESF forces,” The enterprise answered.

“If these bastards don’t kill me,” Kirk said to himself, “then Lisa just might.”

~~~~~~

The first shot was not a warning shot. It was not even a single shot, but a barrage by all of the aligned ESF craft upon the target. Kirata beams, impulse weapons, particle cannons, missiles and good old-fashioned bullets screamed through space at the target.

The Rosantean craft had countermeasures for all of them. It did not even bother to dodge.

Seconds after the initial salvo, the enforcement vessel returned fire. High-energy plasma beams ripped through space.

The Yonohoans had not skimped on the shields of the few attack craft that they had given the Earthlings, but the weapons tore through the ablative shielding. Dozens died in the return fire, the first casualties of the Rosantean-Earth war.

Kirk Desmond aboard the Winnebago-class Enterprise was not a member of the ESF, but a private citizen who was in the right place at the wrong time to become a martyr. The plasma beam from the enforcement vessel ripped through his ship’s debris shield. With temperatures that exceeded the core of a star, the plasma melted through its hull and vaporized its interior.

Including the body of Kirk Desmond.

The black box of the ship, containing the core of the Enterprise’s AI, survived to testify of the valor of Kirk’s last moments.

~~~~~~~

The battle lasted for twenty minutes. Captain Anders cursed as he watched the might of the Earth’s military flail against the enemy like an ant might flail against a god.

Nothing was working.

“Contact Eolai,” Anders said.

Eolai’s image appeared in a hologram nearby.

“Hello Captain--”

“Can you push them back?” Anders demanded.

“Yes.”

“Please do so. We cannot win.”

“I cannot start a war between the Rosantean Empire and the Yonohoah, Anders. I am sorry. I will protect Earth should the vessel turn its attention here, but your space assets are--”

“Dammit they’re slaughtering us!”

“I apologize. The malevolent universe has seen fit to give me lessons in helplessness and humility lately. Fight and die well, Captain Anders, and know that I bear witness to your sacrifice.”

Eolai’s image cut out and Anders cursed again.

The drones were destroyed. The native weapons of the Toormonda were ineffective. The only hope of survival seemed to be that the enemy ship was not firing upon any of the Toormondas.

Anders felt helpless as the fleet was turned to scrap around him.

~~~~~

Yoko watched with malicious glee as the primitives fleet was destroyed around him. He was using only the ship’s light weapons, not even unpacking the moon dusters or planet cracking armaments.

“We were lured into an ambush,” He said, practicing the explanation he would give the investigative panel. “We had no idea that this system belonged to a Darkworld. We attempted to communicate but before our translation matrix could make sense of their language they opened fire. We were only defending--”

A sudden impact jarred him from his rehearsal, knocking him flat on his ass. He winced at his bruised tailbone. The rest of the crew scrambled back to their stations.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“Subspace munition,” the damage control officer informed him. “Bypassed our shields and slammed directly into our secondary power source. We’re at sixty percent power.”

Yoko frowned and reevaluated the situation. He had accomplished what he’d been sent to do. If the enemy had weapons that were actually effective against his ship, then his mission was in jeopardy for the simple fact that he needed to survive to give testimony about the ‘unprovoked’ attack.

“Take us out of here,” he said.

“But we’re winning!” one of the weapons technicians objected.

“We’ve already caused enough havoc,” Yoko explained. “Take us out of here.”

The ship lurched slightly as it engaged its fastest FTL drive, launching it out of the star system in a blink.

Yoko smiled. He contacted his superiors and began to issue his report.

The subspace munition, “Doctor Strangelove,” abruptly ticked down to zero and the nuclear weapon detonated.

The resulting explosion caused a bulge in the hyperatomic plain that quickly rippled through the universe at a thousand times the speed of light. For a million light years, the drums of war were felt with such resonance that spacecraft were knocked out of FTL.

The Rosanteans just smiled. The captain’s death only improved their position. They’d already received the data dump from his computer. They had everything they needed. With silent maliciousness, they began editing the information that had been transmitted, feeding it into their propaganda machine.

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