The Hard Way

[WP] The galaxy is a dark and lonely place. "First Strike Diplomacy" reigns out of fear. Few species survive even 300 years after developing interstellar travel. When humans entered the galaxy, we were the first species confident enough in war to ask someone "Are you sure you want to do this?"

*****

Faster than Light , or FTL travel proved to be as much a fantasy in space as planets teeming with life. For the first hundred systems the human race touched, going our best at "near-light-Speed travel," or nCT, we found solar systems empty, except for swirling, frozen gas giants, burning rocks, frozen rocks, and unknown trillions of little things that just get in the way.

But the first time a human ship discovered a solar system with more possibility for the human experience than living in a tube, we also saw traces of nCT at the edges of the system. We hadn't been there first. The U.E.S. (Union Explorer Ship) Cousteau, a peaceful scientific ship, was the one to make contact. The ship sent an unmanned drone ahead, slungshot around the largest gas giant and the systems star, to try to catch up. It has a pre-programmed, mathematically predicted communicated message. Any species should be able to decipher at least one of the communication messages made.

The drone had only three years independent range. The U.E.S. Cousteau, a ‘semi-manned’ ship, that is to say a ship with a formerly human pilot integrated into the computer and the rest of the crew in hibernation, remained on station soaking up sun rays and passively studying the planet below. There was flora and fauna. It had distributed at least three more drones as satellites to study the planet below, when first contact was made.

The surviving drone recorded the whole affair. A large grey object entered the solar system. The U.E.S. Cousteau hailed it with several messages. Before a single one of the messages was sent to completion, the grey object split into four. It attached motors on to loose asteroids, melted them into a single projectile, and sent them hurling toward the Cousteau at 80% the speed of light. The projectiles took 18 minutes to cross from the edge of the solar system to get there, but the ship only had about 3 and half to react. The third of four meteors ripped through the ship like a shotgun blast through a cardboard box.

Drone 26 immediately began to enter a trajectory to return home. The four objects returned to one and began to pursue. Drone 26 self destructed somewhere along the way, and Drone 12 took an alternate course home.

It was 30 years before word of this event reached the human species, colonizing their scattered, desolate rocks in their immediate vicinity. It wasn’t much, but it was ripe for a procedure that humans had no qualms in using: self-constructing drone camps. Drone 12 arrived at one of these camps on a rocky planet orbiting too near its sun for an atmosphere. The drones ceased mining the planet, and spread to the nearest human colonies. When word reached Earth, it was 32 years after the event, but 16 bases were already forming a drone armada.

A new ship was refit. The U.E.S. Zheng He was rechristened the U.E.D.S. (United Earth Defense Ship) Goliath, and word was sent to the drone colonies. The ship would be built along the way as drones from the other camps joined the fleet. They would bring materials to add to the Goliath, bit by bit.

800 marines were selected from various countries to serve as the ground or ship to ship force, though no proof of concept had ever been seen. Only a few tests had even achieved semi-passable results. Several designs for weapons were sent, which the drones could produce from the materials of lifeless planets. By the time the U.E.D.S. Goliath reached the first contact solar system, it was a fleet of 1 carrier, 4 corvettes constructed entirely out of drones, and over 40 independent drone ships which could split.It arrived like a sudden star glaring out of the darkness, their trails burning at max velocity, carving through space-time.

The planet below had been colonized by the other species. There were two ships in orbit, and dozens of satellites. It had been almost 70 years. One ship opened and began to absorb free materials to create a projectile. 8 drones intercepted it and disabled it with gigawatt lasers. In the next several minutes, there was a flurry of movement.

A dropship fell out of the carrier, the corvettes moved to engage the two ships, the 40 drones diverged to match every attempt of the existing ships to create new projectiles, and the carrier moved into close orbit over the planet. Lasers, invisible in the vacuum, streaked across the empty expanse. The orbiting tried to flee but were disabled. Suddenly, there was no movement.

The inhabitants found themselves face to face with a force that had utterly decimated them in under half an hour, despite, as they began to scan, them being technologically inferior to themselves.

Another message began to broadcast. They listed this time.

“This is the U.E.D.S. Goliath, first strike fleet of the Human race. We are prepared to defend ourselves. We are prepared to attack. We are prepared to destroy. We are also prepared to forgive the murder our companions as a mistake, in the name of a dream of peace.Which are you prepared for?”

It took them an hour to translate and return the message. An hour we later were told was the most nerve wracking and intense of their lives. "We had thought peace was not an option."

"Did you ever ask?"

*****

THE END.