Chapter 7
Hard Contact
Sol System
Earth
United Nations Headquarters
Admiral Jon Grissom
Today was the day, they would throw off the yolk of the squabbling nations of Earth and become the masters of their destiny. What they were attempting was essentially a military coup on the civilian government, but the UN Security Council were more concerned with gaining power and leverage over each other and it had gotten so bad now that it was beginning to affect the System's Alliance in an unacceptable way now.
The countries were jockeying and fighting over the rights for colonisation of planets that they found and as usual the Americans and Chinese were at each other's throats over it and threatening war.
Humanity needed to be united to face what the universe had to offer but this was an unsustainable mess, so he and HIGHCOM decided that they were left with no choice but to get rid of the Security Council. There were plans in place to create a parliament where Earth and the colonies stood on equal footing as right now only those on Earth had a say and it was creating discontent among the colonies that they were being neglected in favour of developing Earth essentially using the colonies as a release valve for the overpopulation which was now evening out because of how many colonies were founded now.
Right now, HIGHCOM, and the various high-level members of the Systems Alliance knew what was about to happen, Fleet Admiral Carlos was the head of their plan and SAI were the brokers since they had been infiltrating the various governments on Earth to create the right circumstances without risking civil war, that was the most dangerous and disastrous result but with SAI AIs doing the calculations the odds were low but not nonexistent.
"Admiral Grissom it's time." General Abdullah said, he was one of their ring leaders the man in charge of the Systems Alliance Army and as such had complete control of all the ground militaries of the colonies, each colony had their own General but Abdullah was the Primus Inter Pares and he was wholeheartedly supported their plan.
The only member of HIGHCOM who did not know and was kept in the dark was Sarah Mcdowell who was the General of the Air Force, she was in charge of the Aerospace forces which meant the Air Forces of the colonies as well as the various colonial defences like the surface to air batteries and of course the most important defences the ODPs. She was loyal to the EU a defector from the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom she was appointed as a compromise between the Commonwealth and the European Federation but her loyalty to the Systems Alliance was in doubt and as such she was kept out of the plan and was expected to be neutralised and replaced as soon as the coup took place.
SAI had moved their agents in place and now all Jon had to do was put the proposal forward before the Security Council and everything would fall into place.
"Let's go then." He told the general who nodded in confirmation.
They walked through the building at a quick pace, they passed many office workers as well as various security teams for the various representatives of the countries of Earth. The door to chambers was already open and two guards stood on either door at the ready and nodded when he passed and entered the room.
The room was circular and had rows of chairs most of which were filled with ambassadors from the various countries of Earth there was a podium in the centre and a special seating area for the leaders of the UN, President Joeseph Carlton of the United North American States, President Zhao Yazhu of the People's Republic of China, President Carlotta Vienne of the European Federation and finally Prime Minister Charles Wilson of the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom.
Jon wanted to snarl at them, they sat above everyone else in the room as if they were Kings sat upon thrones and everyone else was peasants to be ruled over, even then their unity was very fractious and each of them would turn on the other if they could get away with it.
"Admiral Grissom welcome, so what is this proposal you have come forthwith." Presiden Joseph said condescendingly.
"The Systems Alliance has been having problems recently and much of it can be traced back to this very council." He began his speech, he had to kill around 15 minutes while everything went into place so he had to speak and ramble.
He already hated speaking publicly and now he had to speak before politicians who he also hated so this was as close to hell as possible for him.
So Jon rambled and rambled about how well the Systems Alliance was doing and how it was being restricted by the Security Councils inner conflicts and that Earth while the capital was no longer alone as the colonies wanted a say in policy.
That got scoffs from the members of the council.
"They are still our citizens." One muttered.
"Have they forgotten their home already?" Another said.
"Everything is in place Admiral, deliver the killing blow." A voice from his earpiece said.
"Ladies and Gentleman of the Security Council I propose the creation of a Parliament for the Systems Alliance be created so that all voices from Earth and her Colonies will be heard and everyone can have a say in the future of Humanity." He finished with the only rehearsed lines of the speech.
"Ridiculous." President Zhao dismissed them out of hand.
"Agreed, the Systems Alliance is our creation and does not need a parliament." President Carlotta agreed with him.
"I agree with the Admiral." A voice cut through the grumbling.
Heads turned to Prime Minister Wilson who was nodding his head as was the North American President. "He does make a good point."
"What are you two stupid." President Carlotta was aghast in horror.
"An equal government would be better." The Prime Minister of Japan said from the stands.
"India supports the idea of an equal parliament." The Indian Prime Minister said standing up.
"You!" President Zhao said also standing up.
"Gentleman surely we can keep this civil." Prime Minister Wilson said in a calming choice.
Just as planned the battle lines were drawn and now the many leaders of nations were arguing over the proposal that was presented to them, now it would be SAIs turn they would bribe and cajole those against while strengthening those for and of course they would ensure that the proposal passed and that the Systems Alliance Parliament would be formed within the year, the two greatest threats were the Americans and the Chinese but that was where he would come in and threaten them with annihilation by the Systems Alliance Navy even those stubborn men would break when they realised they were alone.
'I hope I did the right thing.' Jon thought as he left the room letting them argue while General Abdullah played the peacemaker and presented himself as the neutral party.
Jon left the building within around 15 minutes of entering and left it a far more chaotic place, very few men can claim to have walked into a building and completely upturned the political order of an entire world and now Jon was one of them.
"Well done Admiral leave the rest to us." A passerby said as he left the building. Jon pulled the earpiece and dropped it onto the floor and stepped on it crushing the tiny device to pieces.
There was much work to do now.
Newly Discovered System:
Theta-Aridani System
SSV Once Burned
Rear-Admiral Carol Aiken
Carol looked over the ships in her fleet as they spread out over the newly designated Theta-Aridani, they had just opened a new primary Phase-Gate and she had decided to cover more ground by splitting the fleet in half, one half had entered into a system with a secondary Phase-Gate and was charting the various systems one by one, so far they had discovered a good source of Iridium and even a large deposit of Element Zero, so far it had been a successful mission and Carol hoped to find at least one garden world.
So far the 3rd Expeditionary Fleet had been the most far-flung and while they discovered a lot for humanity it was mostly boring and they hadn't found anything as exciting as the ARGO but it was good work nonetheless.
The system she was currently in was mostly barren, there was a red sun and 8 planets along with a huge asteroid belt between the 5th and 6th planets it was far larger than Sols and probably the biggest ever recorded.
"Rear-Admiral we have detected a strange signal on the closest planet to the sun it seems to be some sort of soundwave." Her Coms Officer announced, he turned in his chair to face her.
"We'll go in and take a closer look then." She decided and gave the nod.
Right now she had around 30 ships present the other half were scouting around, she still had a dreadnought along with a carrier and paired with a good compliment of heavy-cruisers and frigates, she was confident that she could take anything on with this kind of firepower.
It was a quick journey and every sensor was offering the same result, a repeated soundwave every 15 seconds and nothing else.
"I just don't get it, there's nothing here but that damn sound." Her Comms-Officer was getting confused and annoyed now.
"I'm not picking anything up either." Someone else muttered looking at their blank results.
"Hang on what's that blip." One of the crew pointed out to the other.
"Looks like a dead zone nothing strange." Another said.
"But don't you think it's strange that a dead zone shows up at all." She pointed out to her colleague.
"You're just.." He began but was interrupted by the alarm that went off ring loudly.
"Multiple Contacts!" Was shouted by a lot of people as their screens lit up.
"What the hell," Carol said in shock, contacts were appearing from nowhere and were on a collision course with her small fleet.
"Red Alert all hands prepare for combat." She announced and prepared herself for what was to come. Official Alliance policy
was to attempt peaceful contact with aliens however in this situation Carol knew that these aliens had no peaceful intentions they were on an intercept course.
"Julius prepare all rocket pods and deploy the drones." She ordered the AI of the Once Burned who was modelled after a Roman legionnaire.
"Executing commands." He replied right away.
"Tell the other ships defensive positions and be prepared to retreat." She gave her final orders before contact.
"Ships are teeming with life signs and oh god it's made out of organic material." A report was so strange that she almost didn't believe it but then she got a visual of the ships.
They were red and fleshy there were 100 ships of various sizes all of them were smaller than her carrier and dreadnought but they were moving far quicker than the Human ship and seemed to be propelled with Element Zero due to the blue glow that was surrounding them.
"Organic ships what the fuck are these." Her XO said in shock.
"All Ships fire on my mark," Carol ordered to her halved fleet.
And so they waited for a few tense minutes as the mysterious ships got closer and moved into range.
"Detecting energy build up." One technician said.
"They are gonna fire soon." Another muttered.
She knew that however, she was confident in the fact that these organic ships did not have the kind of range that her ships did and they would enter her range long before she entered theirs.
"Ships entering optimal firing range now." Her XO announced.
"On my Mark." Carol raised her arm and prepared herself to make the first hostile actions against an alien race.
"Mark!" She announced and dropped her arm.
All her ships that had them unleashed slugs from their Mass Accelerated Cannons and Carol watched as they streaked across the void of space and impacted against the enemy ships.
"25 enemy ships destroyed, 5 damaged the rest unharmed." Her XO reported.
'A good volley.' She thought, 'A quarter of the enemy ships destroyed.'
"Deploy fighters and prepare for a counterattack." She commanded.
"Fighters out Rear-Admiral," Julius announced.
"Enemy ships returning fire!" Carol watched as the ships seemed to glow bright before unleashing a blast from the front of their ships the projectiles were strange they were white like bone and she guessed they were covered in an Element Zero field since each of them had a blue glow around them.
"The Verdun has been hit, punched right through the armour." The Comms Officer reported.
"Oh god, they're reporting enemies on board the ship." She continued.
"Those projectiles contain enemy combatants, relaying to all other ships." She finished sounding very horrified.
"Fuck." Carol muttered but did not let the shock and horror show on her face, she was commanding a battle and could not afford such a thing.
"Fighters performing well, enemy ships are damaged." Another one was reported.
"The Verdun is scuttling itself they can't defeat the borders." The Comms Officer said sadly.
Carol watched as the Verdun began to shake violently before exploding, no doubt the crew detonated their fusion power core to stop the enemy from taking the ship.
"Verdun lost with all hands." The XO said quietly.
"Focus on evasion, we need to avoid those projectiles at all costs." She ordered.
The battle was in full swing now and she was losing ships just as fast as she was destroying theirs, it was still going well especially considering the sheer difference in ship numbers.
"Look at the Teutoburg." One of her shocked officers pointed out.
The Alien ships kept advancing even after they kept losing ships, and now they were in knife-fight range. What had horrified the officer was that the Teutoburg looked like it was being eaten by the enemy ship which once it came into physical contact warped and attached itself to the frigate and now looked to be eating the ship whole, it was both fascinating and horrifying to look at like a stomach with a mouth.
"Concentrate fire," Carol commanded and her Carrier shifted and unloaded missile after missile on the monster ship which looked to be bigger than before.
The missiles flew through space and hit the monster lighting it up as its flesh was burned and boiled away, but it kept on eating, soon enough they could not even see the Teutoberg.
"Jesus Christ." One of her crew said watching as the living mass of flesh pivoted in space and began to head for another ship.
"Full retreat now, we are falling back to defensive line Alpha at the Epsilon-Aridani Phase Gate." She gave the order she had never wanted to give, humanities first space battle and it would end in a full retreat.
"Our fighters are staying to buy us time." Her XO said grimly.
"We will not let their willing sacrifice be in vain," Carol said. "Continue firing missiles, load the nukes in the tubes I want the INDRA missiles firing into the biggest clusters of those things."
"More contacts from the side!" The Sensor-Officer called out.
"We're surrounded." He finished desperately trying to keep his cool.
"We need to get out of here, new orders make a hole with the INDRA we need to report this to HIGHCOM no matter the cost." Carol shifted her plans in an instant.
This was now a running battle to warn the Alliance about this threat and the nearest Comm Buoy was in the Theta-Aridani System, Carol noticed that the number of ships bearing down on her fleet was now numbering in the hundreds more than double what they engaged originally.
"This was a trap and we fell right into it." She said shocked.
"Launch the INDRAs now." The order was given and now for the first time since World War 2 humanity would deploy nuclear weapons against an enemy.
"The Marcellus is the fastest ship we have, give the order to Captain Singh if he sees a gap he is to take it no matter what." She said and watched as nuclear fire filled the void of space.
"Relayed Rear-Admiral." The reply coincided with the Marcellus shooting forward the moment the nukes had faded and a huge hole was made in the enemy ships encirclement which was getting smaller and smaller.
"We've lost the Catalan, Andronikos and the Snowdon is being overwhelmed by the enemy ships." Her XO reported maintaining his professional attitude despite the circumstances.
Two of her Cruisers destroyed and the dreadnought well on its way to joining them was painting a very bad picture.
"The Marcellus has broken the encirclement it's on course for the Phase-Gate two cruiser-size ships in pursuit."
"Stop them at all costs." Carol would not let this chance slip away, "Take us forward and use the burn drive."
The Once Burned roared to life and its autocannons were firing at full capacity at anything and everything came near while the missile pods were working overtime and destroying as many flesh ships as possible though it seemed for everyone they destroyed two more would appear.
"Julius uploads yourself to the Marcellus once we get in range and take all the data you can," Carol told the AI who so far had been silent and concentrating on maintaining the ship.
"Rear-Admiral that is.." He began to protest.
"I won't hear it, we need this information to get to HIGHCOM and you're the only one who can." She cut him off ruthlessly.
He remained silent for a few moments which was a lifetime for an AI who could think at the speed of light, "Very well Rear-Admiral I shall comply." He finally answered.
There was a harsh rumble through the ship and Carol nearly fell to the floor. "Multiple hits, the crew are reporting monsters emerging from the bones and eating people" Carol wished she never heard that.
"Get the Marines to set up defensive chokepoints we are taking out those ships, Julius prepares the Element Zero core for overload." She said regaining her balance both mentally and physically.
"Understood Rear-Admiral, thank you," Julius said then he winked out, no doubt he was beamed across to the Marcellus.
"An AI thanking a human that's new." She muttered to herself.
"Rear-Admiral the monsters are pressing hard."
"I know just tell the Marines to hold are those ships in range for our INDRA?" She asked
"Entering range in 20 seconds." Her XO said.
"Fire the moment we have a lock and then we'll have to do what is needed." She said.
Everyone remained silent after that and worked as if there wasn't a space battle going on around them or that their ship was being invaded by actual aliens.
"In range firing." Her weapons specialist announced and everyone on the bridge watched the missiles fly through space and hit the enemy ships in great balls of fire.
"Ships hit, good effect enemy ships destroyed or disabled." He said with satisfaction.
"Aliens breaching defensive lines, making their way here." Someone else reported.
"Prepare for overload." She gave the final order.
"May God forgive me." She said to herself.
The door was being pounded on by the Aliens and after a few moments something pierced right through the metal bulkhead, and then more stinger like things began to stab through and Carol could hear the snarling and growling of beasts which was strange since she never thought that there could be such an animalistic species capable of space flight.
"Core is ready Rear-Admiral." That was all she needed to hear.
Carol looked at her console and the report of the Element Zero Core was reaching a critical state, the safety protocols had been overwritten and now there was a single command available to her, one that would send the core into meltdown, she took a breath and pushed it.
"Glory to Mankind." Her XO said which was a strange thing to say for last words, but she supposed people needed such beliefs to face death so easily.
The Aliens were nearly through now but it did not matter, the core went into meltdown and exploded Carol shut her eyes and took a deep breath and then once the explosion reached the bridge she was consumed and the world disappeared.
AN:
Hello people hope you enjoyed this chapter.
I have to inform people that I am not receiving alerts for reviews so I haven't actually been reading any because I didn't know they were there but I have started reading them now so I will be taking what is being said on board going forward.