To the crew of the Wicked Curveball, I offer an ultimatum. surrender now and submit to processing or we will be forced to engage. The latter course of action is in no one's interest, lest of all yours. I emphatically stress the strength of our armaments and the belligerent resolve of my inferiors. I repeat, surrender now and no one has to die. Captain Varnak out.*
The transmission's accompanying vid-feed showed Varnak to be a sharply dressed man with a flinty gaze. He wore a black pelerine, secured at his throat with a golden pin in the form of an eagle. His shoulders were protected by a pair of intricately filigreed spaulders, stylized to resemble the wings of a bird. The rest of his garb was a crisply understated grey-blue tunic finely tailored to his supple frame. Varnak's angular face was dark, excepting a web of vitiligo that branched from his left eye and spiralled outwards like the arms of the milky way. The futuristic bridge of his ship was all harsh light and cold lines, and behind the viewing deck upon which he stood could be seen the neatly uniformed bridge staff. Before signing off, Varnak snapped off a precise salute and turned to address his crew.
Aboard the Aquilla, Dresdon Varnak patiently awaited response from the Curveball. Despite his outwardly calm demeanour, inside he raged with alarming rabidity. Those traitorous, alien loving scum. He loathed people like the Curveball's captain, perpetrating the oppressive arm of the galactic federation, who were responsible for the annulment of humanity's manifest destiny as masters of the stars. The people of the sector, and indeed the wider community, needed better, deserved better. The kleptomania of the slugs and their debaucherous natures filled him with disgust. Meanwhile the heresy of those repugnant coprolites from Vrachos IV made his spine itch and toes curl: to suggest deities other than the great Solaris himself was an unforgiveable spiritual affront. What did ambulatory gravel know of the sanctity of true, unflinching faith? Worse still were those officious glowing-green plasma bogeys. Sol forsake those incorporeal Zoltan with their 'mineral protection acts' and 'enlightenment programmes.' Self-satisfied, disingenuous bastards the lot of them. And the mantis. His thoughts turned, as they increasingly did now that he had found purpose, to that fateful day fifty-two years ago. He saw once again the pleading horror in his cowering mother's eyes as her loving husband was sheared in two with a casual scything forelimb …
With a jerking motion, the alien had turned its empty gaze on him as he hid behind her. It stared unblinking then scurried forward, gathered her up in a barbed embrace and fled into the gathering smog of burning apartment buildings. Sturdy hands had seized the young Varnak by the shoulders as he howled and tried to run after her. As he was pulled kicking and screaming down a side alley, the smog parted for the merest instant. The mantis loomed atop a shattered edifice with his mother's dangling body suspended from its talons. Those cruel scimitars held in supplication to the mindless shedding of innocent blood for the sake of blood. Her severed neck had showered the vile insect in glistening crimson with wet, arterial sprays while it drank her lifeblood and cerebral juices from the chalice of her cranium. He had screamed and screamed and screamed and … Stop.
Varnak composed himself. That had been five long decades ago. He had children of his own now. They and their children, and their children's children, were entitled to a galaxy united under the fist of man; not one in which humanity languished amongst failed evolutionary refuse. He thumped his hand over his heart then raised his fist upwards. "Humanitas primum!" The bridge staff stood as one and echoed his sentiment, repeating it over and over until the bridge reverberated with pent up hate. Varnak wholeheartedly believed that only the total victory of the burgeoning human alliance could expunge the rot and decay at the galaxy's administrative heart. Humanity would ascend to the zenith of power where they rightly belonged. The subjugation of the lesser races beneath humanity's heel was the only acceptable outcome. He was determined that historians would look back upon the previous age with acute disgust, but mark the present as a glorious turning point in humanity's fortune.
"Do we respond, captain?"
Ambrose Hammersmith was silent for a moment. "This bastard Varnak means business. Send a long range transmission to Ophelian High Command requesting support. We hold out until then, ensuring that the station isn't destroyed in the crossfire. I don't know what this vessel's purpose is here, but we cannot excuse the hostility of an unregistered craft within our jurisdiction. All hands, strap in and make ready for evasive manoeuvres." The captain crossed to his chair, which was elevated behind senior helmsman Brecht, the Curveball's pilot, and winced slightly as the harness embraced him. Then he revised the holographic display of the immediate vicinity, noting that the only celestial body nearby was the barren rock planet around which the station circled. "Patch me through," he said. From the viewing screen of the Aquilla, he spoke. Face uncompromising, giving nothing away. *It is regrettable that your overtures press only surrender or hostility, Captain Varnak. May Sol preserve you.* Varnak's face assumed a rictus of confidence before the screen blinked out. So it began.
Suddenly, a series of alarms sounded through the Curveball and a cacophony of reports battered at Hammersmith's confidence. If he was concerned, though, he didn't show the merest shadow if it.
"Sir, there's too much signal interference. They must have next generation jammers."
"Swarm missiles launched."
"They're piggybacking the station to enact a sustained cyber-attack. Firewalls holding."
Hammersmith pinched the bridge of his nose. So, the Curveball couldn't count on reinforcements for the foreseeable skirmish. When he spoke it was calm, measured. "Disconnect all software access to the station's servers." The marines onboard would have to continue their operation blind. "Are the missiles smart?"
"Doesn't look that way, sir. But there is a chance they might overwhelm point defence."
"Focus shields to starboard to weed some out, and ready the PDS. Slocknog, any update on crew composition?"
From within the cocoon came a muffled reply. "Asss far asss I can tell, they are exclusssively humansss captain." So no rockmen or mantis aboard, two races renowned for their martial prowess. That was comforting.
Varnak watched on the display as the missiles flocked towards the Curveball. He noted the adjustments to her shield alignment, and watched the lights representing each projectile inch closer. Mere minutes later they began to blink out as they entered the Curveball's effective point defence system range. Varnak had to admit that the cannon had impressive tracking capabilities, which made of the prospect of capturing the ship all the more tantalising. As his role as captain of the most capable military ship the human alliance could field, High Command had entrusted this operation to him. He would not fail.
He turned to his mirthless pilot and commanded her to hold course. She gave a curt nod and her square face tightened in concentration as she perused the readouts on her monitor. The deck rumbled comfortingly along to the ship's beating heart which joined with the beating hearts of the crew. They were as one: cold alloys and warm flesh – united in single, eminent purpose.
Varnak corrected himself. They would not fail.
"Wake up, wake up!" The mysterious woman hissed from between gritted teeth. She turkey-slapped the insensible fool, slightly harder than was strictly necessary, as though she were the female lead in a romcom holo-vid and not an officer of the galactic federation aboard a dying station. His head lolled from left to right. Lips slightly parted, she thought she heard him murmur: "oh wowzer, you're pretty." His warm breath smelt pleasant and there were subtle undertones of peppermint. Ah, there in his jacket pocket was a half consumed packet of humbugs. She helped herself to one and slipped the wrapper back into the pack. Her hand was raised to slap him again, but he sat up groggily and grabbed her wrist. "What is this, a school playground?" She asked, mouth tugging upward slightly at the corners. "If you want to ask me out to the disco, just say so."
"Naw," he said. "Besides, those spiders would absolutely show me up on the dance floor." That earned him a quick chuckle. Then she helped him to his feet. "Alexandre. Beatrix Alexandre," she said, proffering a hand. He shook it. "Hartwell. Look, what in Solaris's name is going on? I came here expecting a pleasant little tour of non-classified, whimsical research and what do I get in return? Bloody giant spiders that's what!" He suddenly seemed to notice the insignia on Alexandre's lapel, and tried unsuccessfully to salute. "Uh … ma'am."
She flapped unhappily at him, like an angry pelican he thought. "Stop all that. Shh. Do you hear something?"
There was incessant scraping nose, and a vent grate fell quite suddenly to land where Hartwell had lain comatose moments before. The pair looked up and there, glinting hungrily in the dark, were eight pairs of ruby-red eyes.