formidable and menacing in my entire life.
I couldn’t even guess what they were up to, but after twenty minutes of stunned silence, we found out. They were killing off the population en masse.
A council member hailed us from the surface and asked why we were attacking them. We insisted it had nothing to do with us, but the council member didn’t buy it.
The four member council onboard the Conquistador with us watched in stunned silence in the command room. They looked at us like we had something to do with it, even though they must’ve known we didn’t. Then they fled for their shuttle as though we might stop them.
This was very bad news for us.
The captain sent word to the President about our situation and then we waited for instructions. A decision like defending an alien planet from our own soldiers was way above the captain’s pay grade.
But no matter what was decided, this was not going to end well.
Too Late
It took almost two God Damn hours to hear back from the President. By the time he told us to intervene on the Novans behalf, it was already too late.
As soon as the captain was done talking to the President, we got hailed from the Novan surface. The captain brought the hail up on the screen and when we saw a mangled, defiled A.C.E. unit staring back at us, we knew we were way too late to assist the Novans.
The mech said, “This is our planet now. Here, we can forget all about our past lives and create an existence that makes sense to us. If you attack us or come down here, we will destroy you all.”
Captain Wilkomen asked, “Will you allow the survivors to go into exile?”
“There are no survivors.”
The captain disgustedly severed the link and as soon as the mech’s face disappeared from the screen, he ordered, “Drop the biggest EMP we have. In fact, drop them all.” Then he ordered the other two warships to do the same.
We waited as the EMP’s dropped beneath the cloud cover. When we were not immediately attacked, we knew the EMP’s had done their job. The four thousand insane mechs had been taken off-line; in effect they’d been killed.
It had all happened so suddenly. It was anticlimactic.
Rick whispered to me, “That’s why it’s important to shield your components.”
I nodded even though I was barely listening to him.
We had just orbited a planet while its inhabitants had been rendered extinct. We were complicit in the mass extinction in that we had created the very things that caused it.
Then we actively killed off the next generation of inhabitants, the mechs, before they’d even named the planet.
The whole affair was idiotic, uncalled for and horrifying.
One of the ensigns started to cry and Peggy walked away in disgust.
We didn’t have much time to dwell on it though. We received word that the Boom ship with the weapons of global destruction had disappeared.
Save Earth
I’ve never before seen people take their battle stations so quickly. Peggy was ordered back to her body which was in orbit around Jupiter. Me and Rick were ordered back too, but then the captain realized the error of that order; we had no body’s to go back to.
He mulled it over for a second and finally said, “Take the dead cadets' bodies.”
Rick gasped so I guess taking over someone else’s body is not a good idea.
I’ve never seen someone refuse a direct order before so it surprised me when Rick did.
He said, “You know what’ll happen to whoever gets put inside the girl’s body. He’ll change on a fundamental level. The entire biology and therefore thought processes will change. I won’t risk losing my consciousness. It’s all I have left.”
The captain’s face went beet red and he yelled, “You are a dead man. Dead men do not refuse orders. In fact, you are literally property of the Conquistador, and as its captain I am banishing you from your suits.” He took a breath and then said more evenly, “If that Boom ship is headed towards Earth, we’ll lose our
I couldn’t even guess what they were up to, but after twenty minutes of stunned silence, we found out. They were killing off the population en masse.
A council member hailed us from the surface and asked why we were attacking them. We insisted it had nothing to do with us, but the council member didn’t buy it.
The four member council onboard the Conquistador with us watched in stunned silence in the command room. They looked at us like we had something to do with it, even though they must’ve known we didn’t. Then they fled for their shuttle as though we might stop them.
This was very bad news for us.
The captain sent word to the President about our situation and then we waited for instructions. A decision like defending an alien planet from our own soldiers was way above the captain’s pay grade.
But no matter what was decided, this was not going to end well.
Too Late
It took almost two God Damn hours to hear back from the President. By the time he told us to intervene on the Novans behalf, it was already too late.
As soon as the captain was done talking to the President, we got hailed from the Novan surface. The captain brought the hail up on the screen and when we saw a mangled, defiled A.C.E. unit staring back at us, we knew we were way too late to assist the Novans.
The mech said, “This is our planet now. Here, we can forget all about our past lives and create an existence that makes sense to us. If you attack us or come down here, we will destroy you all.”
Captain Wilkomen asked, “Will you allow the survivors to go into exile?”
“There are no survivors.”
The captain disgustedly severed the link and as soon as the mech’s face disappeared from the screen, he ordered, “Drop the biggest EMP we have. In fact, drop them all.” Then he ordered the other two warships to do the same.
We waited as the EMP’s dropped beneath the cloud cover. When we were not immediately attacked, we knew the EMP’s had done their job. The four thousand insane mechs had been taken off-line; in effect they’d been killed.
It had all happened so suddenly. It was anticlimactic.
Rick whispered to me, “That’s why it’s important to shield your components.”
I nodded even though I was barely listening to him.
We had just orbited a planet while its inhabitants had been rendered extinct. We were complicit in the mass extinction in that we had created the very things that caused it.
Then we actively killed off the next generation of inhabitants, the mechs, before they’d even named the planet.
The whole affair was idiotic, uncalled for and horrifying.
One of the ensigns started to cry and Peggy walked away in disgust.
We didn’t have much time to dwell on it though. We received word that the Boom ship with the weapons of global destruction had disappeared.
Save Earth
I’ve never before seen people take their battle stations so quickly. Peggy was ordered back to her body which was in orbit around Jupiter. Me and Rick were ordered back too, but then the captain realized the error of that order; we had no body’s to go back to.
He mulled it over for a second and finally said, “Take the dead cadets' bodies.”
Rick gasped so I guess taking over someone else’s body is not a good idea.
I’ve never seen someone refuse a direct order before so it surprised me when Rick did.
He said, “You know what’ll happen to whoever gets put inside the girl’s body. He’ll change on a fundamental level. The entire biology and therefore thought processes will change. I won’t risk losing my consciousness. It’s all I have left.”
The captain’s face went beet red and he yelled, “You are a dead man. Dead men do not refuse orders. In fact, you are literally property of the Conquistador, and as its captain I am banishing you from your suits.” He took a breath and then said more evenly, “If that Boom ship is headed towards Earth, we’ll lose our
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