The USS Nemo was in ruins in the Delphic Expanse. By coincidence, they came upon a small Illyrian ship that had the warp coil the Nemo needed to continue on its mission. Without a second thought, Mon prepared his men to board the ship and take the warp coil while having Imra put everyone to sleep. At this, Imra was morally outraged.
"You're no different than pirates that have attacked us in the past," Imra accused.
"We're a lot different," Mon said defensively.
"By stealing their warp coil and condemning them to death," Imra continued.
"I should have clarified. We're a lot different than the pirates we've encountered because we're even worse," Mon said.
"So, you don't give a shit if they're attacked and can't defend themselves?" Imra asked.
"Not likely. After I've gutted their ship, no one is going to want to attack a useless ship," Mon reasoned.
"But what if you're wrong?" Imra asked.
"So what?" Mon asked incredulously.
"We can't save humanity while giving up that which makes us...human-like," Imra said, confusing herself.
"But we can," Mon said obviously. "Look, I understand I'm happier about doing this than you are. We're not here to protect humanity or promote human rights. We're out here to kick ass. Also, I'm looking to get a gold star from Kara. Our relationship has been a little rocky recently."
"Once you rationalize this pattern of behavior, you'll keep doing it," Imra argued.
"Probably," Mon nodded.
"I can't let you justify this course of action," Imra told him off.
"I'm not even trying to," Mon rolled his eyes.
"I won't let you do it!" Imra shouted at him and then destroyed what was left of Mon's desk with her telekinetic powers.
"We've had our share of disagreements but that was wild," Mon said approvingly.
"I'm having a rough couple of days," Imra admitted.
"That time of the month?" Mon assumed.
"Don't...try to make me laugh," Imra said, about to go into an emotional fit. "If my mind is compromised, instead of making them fall asleep, I could kill them."
"I'm willing to take that risk," Mon said dismissively.
"I'm not," Imra stared him down.
"Fine, I'll lead the boarding party. You should go to what's left of sickbay and mediate or something," Mon suggested.
The Nemo fired on Illyrian ship and boarded it with Mon taking the lead. "Do your thing," Mon said to Projecta. Projecta nodded and then created horrific illusions that freaked the Illyrian out. The rest of the Vindicators were able to quickly overwhelm and disable the Illyrian with no bloodshed. Eltro made his way to the engine room and found the warp coil he needed. He tried to touch it only to find a forcefield around it. Brainiac 5 entered the engine room and began hacking the system. The forcefield went down allowing Eltro to remove it.
The Vindicators and Insane then took warp coil over to the Nemo. Mon then dropped some MRE snacks on the floor as compensation.
After the successful raiding of a defenseless ship, Mon addressed the entire surviving crew on their victory in the engine room. "Not gonna lie, we're pretty fucked up, but we are in one piece. Nemo is a top ship. She took more shit than anyone asked her to and then some and so have all of you. To you, humans, I salute you for your courage and perseverance. Honor is proportional to your strength to your accomplishments. And since all of you are as weak and flimsy as paper, it means a lot that you're still here fighting the good fight. And let me honor the eighteen crewmen we have lost along the way. Like you, they accepted the importance of this mission and accepted the risks. They volunteered to go into the expanse not knowing what we'd find. While some civilizations would assume they simply faced oblivion with the eternal termination of consciousness, I say to you that they live on in the Lord's garden in the company of virgin spirits. With no one to rely on but ourselves, we will succeed."
"Perhaps, it is fate that it is the fourth of July and once again, you'll be fighting for your freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution...but annihilation. You're fighting for your right to live, and to exist, and should you win today, this holiday will no longer be remembered as just an American holiday from thirteen hundred years ago but a global one in this present age. All of you, from all the countries of your world, will say with one voice that you will not go quietly into the night, you will not vanish without a fight, you're going to live on, you're going to survive. Today, all of you will celebrate Independence Day," Mon declared.
"Fuck, yeah!" the Nemo crewmen shouted enthusiastically.
"Get back to work," Mon smiled and left with his officers.
Mon, Imra, and Eltro had a meeting in Mon's quarters. "What's our status on weapons?" Mon asked.
"Weapons are back online, hull plating is at eighty percent," Imra reported.
"Good enough for me," Mon said pleased.
"We could wait for further repairs," Eltro suggested.
"We must continue our aggressive advance," Mon decided.
The Nemo finally came upon the Harvester homeworld and immediately activated its cloak. The world was an orange desert world with no vegetation. The Harvester civilization lived underground due to the heat of the surface. The planet was surrounded by a large fleet of motherships and carriers. Swarms of attack fighters orbited the planet like a cloud.
Mon eyed the planet from the viewing screen on the bridge. "Well, okay then," he said excitedly. "All Vindicators meet me in the cargo bay," he ordered via the intercom system. He then turned to Eltro. "Stick to the plan."
"Yes, captain," Eltro nodded.
Mon waited for all the Vindicators to meet up in the cargo bay away from the crew. "Myself, Imra, Barney, Nura, Projecta, and Thom are Alpha Team. Salu, Brin, Dirk, Gim are Bravo Team. Drake, I have something special planned for you," Mon said, splitting them up into three groups.
"In case anyone is squeamish about this mission...," Mon began and then eyed Imra for emphasis. "This is a race that has wiped out entire civilizations and consumed the resources of all the worlds in the Delphic Expanse. They are locusts and we're the exterminators."
"So, does anyone have reservations?" Mon asked staring at the group hard. "Anyone going to piss themselves in fear?" No one said anything. "Alright, let's do this."
The Nemo opened the shuttle bay allowing Drake to exit. The Nemo quickly cloaked behind him. Drake flew toward one of the Harvester motherships. They were shaped like large domes with two prongs from the belly. They were each the size of moons. A close inspection of their surface revealed battle scars and impact hits. Drake wasn't noticed due to his small size. He pointed his hand at a particular spot and fired an intense beam of plasma. The beam sliced through the crust of the ship exposing the eerie green interior.
The Nemo suddenly decloaked near the hole and then regained its cloak disappearing from view. Harvester attack fighters furiously looked for the Nemo and fired aimlessly with the hope of hitting it. Drake fired on these ships with several shots to get through their shields to destroy them. The attack fighters retaliated with energy shots of their own. Drake retreated away in another direction leading the attack fighters away from the Nemo.
Inside the mothership, the Vindicators suddenly teleported inside via Mon. "Brin, you got the scent?" Mon asked.
"Got it," he confirmed.
"Bravo team, go," Mon ordered.
Salu, Brin, Gim, and Dirk took off to hunt for the queen. Once they were gone, Mon turned to the Alpha team. "Give me layers." Nura created a forcefield around them and Projecta created an illusion that they were inside a super-structure. Imra focused her mind on keeping the Harvesters from using their telepathic attacks. With his defenses now solid, Mon turned to Thom.
"Begin," he ordered.
Thom placed his hands on a frame and increased its weight, doubling it every so often. Over time the mothership would start gaining weight exponentially. At the same time, Brainiac 5 hacked into the Harvester's mainframe.
"They're alerted to our presence," Brainiac 5 said obviously.
Working their way toward the interior of the ship, Bravo team made a ruckus. Gim would tear through Harvester soldiers as a giant. When he would get overwhelmed, Salu shrank him down to the microscopic level. Gim would then reappear elsewhere and tear things up again. During these intervals, Dirk would glow as bright as a star blinding the Harvesters and roasting any that were close to him. Brin continued to give directions to the queen.
With Alpha team, Mon stepped outside the forcefield and illusion and went Super Insane. He fired rapidly at the Harvester soldiers trying to rush him. Nuclear-sized explosions were present throughout the vast open interior of the ship. Millions of Harvesters were blasted away in seconds. It was within his power to destroy the entire ship, but Mon had other ideas. The attack fighters flew at Mon to engage him only to get blasted to pieces. Large pillar structures in X formations started to fall.
At the same time, the mothership kept increasing in weight to the point that it was equal to the planet. The mothership started falling into the planet's atmosphere. Alarmed by what was happening, carrier ships deployed around the stricken mothership and deployed their main weapon. In a coordinated effort, dozens of carrier ships fired intense green beams on the front of their own mothership to break it up. The beams created nuclear-sized explosions on the hull of the mothership. However, due to its vast size, it did minor damage overall.
Mon went back inside the protective bubble as the Harvesters tried to attack him with ringing telepathic attacks. "I stopped their attempt to self-destruct," Brainiac 5 reported.
"Good," Mon said pleased.
A new army of Harvesters swarmed their area slamming into the wall to get at them. With the illusion, they couldn't tell exactly where they were resulting in millions of Harvesters swiping at anything in a frenzy. Illusions of Mon appeared throughout the ship to confuse the Harvesters and lead them away. When the Harvester did get to the right area, Nura's forcefield held them back.
Bravo team continued their path toward the interior until they found the queen. She was inside her protective bio-suit and was giant size. Dirk immediately blinded the queen and Gim became giant size as well. Gim punched the queen and avoided her tentacles. Brin sliced into the queen's leg and withdrew. Dirk flew around firing at the queen and her Harvester defenders that were swarming to defend her. On the floor, Brin morphed into his wolf form but was quickly getting overwhelmed. Gim wrestled with the queen, getting slapped in the face repeatedly by her tentacles. Eventually, a few tentacles wrapped around his neck to choke him out.
Alpha team quickly discovered they had a problem. Their area was so heavy relative to the rest of the ship that it was about to tear off. "We need to be closer to the interior," Mon said to them.
The five came together and held hands. Mon then teleported them to the center of the ship. "Continue," Mon said to Thom. He nodded and placed his hands on the metal floor which immediately buckled due to its own weight.
In the center, the five of them received non-stop fire from the enemy. Nura put up her forcefield once more while Projecta hid them from view. Mon and Imra stepped out of the bubble. "I hope you appreciate how all of this death is affecting my mind," Imra said dryly.
"I do," Mon said sincerely.
Imra concentrated as she protected Mon from Harvester's telepathic attacks. Mon continued to fire beams that would normally level several city blocks. Outside, the carriers withdrew as they had spent their energy reserves on their super-laser. New carriers took their place and fired their super-laser with little result. Attack fighters fired non-stop at their mothership in a panicked frenzy. The mothership's front was now red hot as it started entering the atmosphere.
Bravo team was on the verge of being taken out when Salu suddenly burst out of the queen's head. The queen fell to the floor in a heap. Immediately, her Harvester defenders went dormant. "That's really gross," Salu said, completely covered in gore.
"You smell worse," Brin said as he morphed back to his humanoid form.
"Bravo team, move to my position," Mon ordered.
"I see him," Dirk said from the air.
"Don't take this the wrong way, kid, but I want to be on you," Salu said as she shrank down to nothing on Dirk's shoulder. Brin and Gim then took Dirk's hands as he flew up toward Alpha team.
Bravo team landed next to Alpha team with all the Harvester soldiers now dormant around them. "I think that's enough damage," Mon said to all of them.
"We have less than a minute before impact," Nura warned.
"I concur," Brainiac 5 nodded.
Nura opened a portal to the dream world. Shortly, thereafter the mothership crashed mostly intact into the planet. The impact of a moon-sized entity slamming into the planet caused the crust to rupture and shatter the planet. The Harvester civilization on the planet was immediately extinguished as the planet's mantle became exposed the surface became molten.
Inside the dream world, the Vindicators found themselves surrounded by white cones representing various dreams. "This one," Nura picked out. The Vindicators went through the cone and found themselves in the shuttle bay of the Nemo. There, Nura was fast asleep in a corner. She had used astral projection for the entire mission and used her real body as a dream anchor.
Mon then rushed to get to the bridge. From the viewscreen, he saw the planet destroyed. The orbiting Harvester ships were largely dormant with the queens on the surface dead. Each of the queens in the ships was connected to even higher-ranking queens on the surface in a neural network. Now, those queens were all fried.
"Collect Wildire," Mon ordered Dax.
"Opening shuttle bay," Dax said as he found Drake's radiation signature. "Got'em."
Mon then turned to Imra who was now on the bridge. "Prepare to go back to Earth," he ordered.
"What will you do?" Imra asked.
"Hunting," Mon smirked.
A large star-shaped Harvester ship uprooted from the doomed planet and got some distance. The ship was 5,000km in length and appeared to have a surviving queen on it. "We got ourselves a live one, captain," Ol reported.
"I see that," Mon said fascinated. "Take the bridge," he said to Imra and then teleported to the top surface of one of the motherships. He immediately went Super Insane and tensed up as he went Super Insane 2. He pointed at a cluster of Harvester ships around the destroyed planet and fired non-stop. The ki orbs hit the Harvester carriers destroying them completely in one shot. For the larger motherships, Mon gave them a concentrated beam of energy until they exploded. Finally, Mon took a knee and fired deep into the mothership he was currently on, making it explode underneath him.
At the same time, the star-shaped Harvester ship from the planet went to hyperspace escaping the massacre.
Mon entered the bridge of the Nemo and was given a hero's welcome. "Like a boss," he said impressed with himself.
"One mothership got away. We should presume it could be headed to Earth," Imra warned.
"Good point," Mon allowed. "Maximum warp back to Earth...and pick up those Illyrians. We shall...impress them into our service."
"The anomalies are going to slow us down," Dax pointed out.
"It can't be helped. We have to be confident Earth's defenses will hold," Mon said.
Author's Notes: I've pretty much slotted the rest of Season 6 so if any of you have thoughts or concerns about what should happen or need to happen in Season 7, feel free. After this 7 7-year gap is complete, there is an AOS Season 8 that will continue the story in another fic. One of the things AOS tries to dispel is the notion that "If we lose our humanity fighting to save humanity we've lost" and "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and other cliches. AOS is all about what if a brutal savage over-powering insane dictatorship is the answer, and I appreciate how many of you are here for the ride.