Carmen peered out from behind a pair of spindly legs at the back of the bridge as the large alien spun playfully in his chair a few times, sliding his feet along the floor as his rows of medals glinted in the off-blue light of the ships command deck. The atmosphere around her was one of expectant calm; quiet conversations and the gentle humming of the infinitely intricate machines that beeped and whirred around her the only real sounds in the stillness. Even so she was still shaking a little.
A green light flashed twice on the control panel in front of him and the creature stopped spinning. "Ah!" He exclaimed, swinging his feet up onto the desk in front of him and leaning back into the faux leather cushioning of the luxuriant chair as he prodded at a button with the toe of his boot and tapped his ear with one hand.
"Hello Hub, are you there?" he asked nonchalantly to the empty air in front of him.
"When are we ever not Commodore?" came a slightly artificial and strangely androgynous voice in reply. Carmen jumped as blue particles came together to form a face made of light in the air in front of the alien.
"Hrmph” he grunted in reply, taking his feet off the desk and leaning forward to inspect something nestled under one of his fingernails. “We've arrived on our targeting vector within the boundaries of Rundern space, would you kindly re-route and then pass through control of the nearest Norse class weapon system for me?"
"Of course Commodore.” the floating face replied “Norse class will require Republic centre authentication, please hold." There was a brief pause as the alien continued to study his fingers. "It appears that Thor is currently voluntarily becalmed in the Alenchian system currently. I shall set him en-route to your position now, ETA 5 minutes."
"Thor, indeed? Now that's exciting” he looked up and raised his eyebrows in surprise “we've not had a go with him in a long old while, you don’t think that’s a little… over the top?” He frowned over at the crew bustling about beneath him.
“The next nearest Norse Class vessel is the Odin platform, ETA seven and a half hours” the floating face said. The alien scratched his chin in thought before leaning back into his chair.
“Ok Hub, pass control of Thor through." the giant flicked whatever had been under his nail away and rubbed his hands together, sitting up straight.
"Was there anything else we can do for you Commodore?" The invisible voice asked.
"Nothing I can think of, thank you Hub, talk soon"
"Always a pleasure commander"
The giant spun round emphatically to face the crew on the bridge, clapping his hands and rubbing them together in anticipation.
"Right then people,” He shouted, clapping to get the crew’s attention “Thor is on his way so let's get everything all nice and cosy for him.” He stood and begun barking orders down to the lower levels of the command centre ”Prepare the HIVE control inputs for Norse class interaction, sub category Thor and move the fleet into position ready to receive him. Take up formation outside of scanner range from the target planet and have the drone carriers prepare for containment and prevention. I want engineering to prepare field dampeners, don’t wan this place being ripped apart just yet do we?"
Carmen was quivering slightly in the corner as she watched the room come alive with activity and an atmosphere of excitement settle over the now bustling crew. Her eyes darted from one frantic alien to another as they worked, an excited thrum of activity taking over the space around her. The person whose legs she’d been hiding behind put a feathered hand on her small shoulder and cleared his throat with a hacking cough.
"Hmrph. Well then my dear this is to be a very interesting day for you.” His voice crackled in his throat and his eyes were watery. “I don't know whether to apologise for your being here or to try and convey how lucky you are." She looked up under hooded eyes at the bird-like animal that was talking to her as he stroked the under side of his large flat beak and glanced around at the crew. "Yes indeed yes indeed. It really isn’t every day that one gets to witness something such as this, thankfully. He shook his head again “an unbridled retaliation strike, never thought I’d have to see another of these" he said, looking back down to her puzzled face. "For their crimes against your race dear, and I’m afraid they are crimes that require paying rather a high price indeed" his face was grave as he spoke, a slight grimace on his avian features as he looked out from where they stood again, back to the crew of giants.
Carmen was confused as the small earpiece she was wearing translated what was being said in real-time. She had gathered that this creature's name was Eraint, and he was from some far off world that she had never heard of. She’d never heard of any of the places that they’d mentioned and in fact she barely understood much of what anyone was saying, translator or not. She looked about her and flinched as one of the giants walked past them, the ground didn't shake as he stepped but it certainly felt like it was trying to.
She turned to her companion and shyly gestured to the giant overlooking the central console, "who is that?" she quietly asked her slightly wizened chaperone, trying to ensure that she wasn’t overheard by the other aliens. "Is he a god?" she whispered even quieter.
Before that day the only sentient life she had seen had been her own race. She would later discover that this was due to the fact that they had not yet achieved a point where first contact was deemed necessary by those in the galactic Republic, the body of people who governed the space her planet had inhabited… once inhabited at least.
Since then though she had seen a whole plethora of different races, bustling and skittering and all working as one on board the massive ship, the bridge of which she was on now. None of those races, however impressive or frightening they had appeared to be, had struck her as much as these enormous aliens on the bridge. It had been them that who had landed on her planet in their vast exo-suits, ripping their way through the gang of Rundern raiders who had killed her brood as though they were nothing more than dead leaves before a storm. They had plucked her from where she’d been hiding from the raging atmospheric fires and taken her back to the small dropship. She’d woken up aboard this much larger vessel and it had all been a blur from there.
The aliens themselves dwarfed many of the other strange and wonderful creatures she had seen since then and they seemed to command a great deal of authority over those around them that went beyond just their physicality. This coupled with the awesome showing they had made as her saviours on her doomed planet meant that divine power was seemingly the only explanation.
"A god?" responded Eraint, with a surprised snort, "my dear no, although I'm sure he wouldn't mind you saying so, he is a Human. Not a God, just a Commodore."
She stared at him blinking her eyes in confusion. The birdlike creature appeared slightly flustered, how to explain to an overwhelmed, primitive child about the nature of aliens and galactic politics in a way that wasn't going to overload her with too much information, or simply go right over her head? He sighed and shrugged, this was beyond his mandate anyway.
"I tell you what, when we get planet side I will provide you with a data upload so that you can learn all this properly, once you get your neural trace of course. However, as a brief description, Humans are one of the four dominant species in our Republic and if you want my humble opinion were there a few more of them they would be the only dominant species." He smiled at her as though they were sharing a secret that Carmen was in fact completely oblivious to.
"Oh I'm sure if you talked to someone else and they'd give you all manner of reasons why I'm wrong and why in fact it's the Hanna or the Oans, blah blah blah. But it's quite simple really, what sets Humans above the others is this simple fact: where other races see barriers, they merely see hurdles. An impossible task to them is not something that should be ignored and bypassed or left alone, but rather it is something to be met face on, battered down and torn through until impossible is made possible. That's why you see them here, in control of this fleet of ships, that they built, in space that they led us to take.
"And what are the ships for?" she asked, not feeling any less confused about anything, but not wanting to aggravate the only person keeping her company by asking stupid questions.
"Well these are warships. Admittedly these ones in particular are nothing special, only a minor policing fleet when you compare it to the Admiralty fleets that patrol the outer borders of the Republic. But they are more than enough to deal with the bunch of pirates. Republic forces are spearpointed by Human operated fleets such as this one. A facetious man would argue that this is because of their natural aggression, but I would argue that it is far more to do with their technological and organisational prowess, not least to mention that their Hub system runs the entire network that the Republic fleets operate from. Since the Humans joined us our borders have grown fivefold, we owe a lot to them." he was talking with a type of reverence, and Carmen thought that this only proved their divine standing, despite Eraint's previous statement.
"So they are Gods!" she persisted
"Well no..." He paused, trying to piece together a suitable way to explain to this small insect like child. "Well they are not gods in a divine sense child, although they may seem it to you at the moment. They are merely a very advanced race. Arguably Humanity has never truly lost. At anything really, even when it appears they’ve got the weaker hand they always come up trumps in the long run, not that they’ve been on the scene for much of a long run mind you. Their ingenuity and their passion have led to them being the most technologically advanced race that our galaxy has seen for a very long time, and they did so so quickly that it's been hard for other races to keep up, we often find ourselves being dragged along with them. There are of course a number of factors, their home planet is bizarrely hostile, making them a naturally aggressive, hardy and physically daunting race, whilst their astonishing capacity for creativity coupled with an often stubborn tenacity ensures that they will not accept that there is no way to achieve something." He scratched at his chin, thinking how best to go on.
They create and they build to overcome any problem, and even if there is no problem with a current system they will update, integrate with other’s tech or simply invent better, more efficient methods, rather than make do with what already works. This applies to every walk of their life, be it new ways of feeding a populace, ever faster ways of travel, a more refined way of mining, a faster method of terraforming or even a better way of waging war, every single Human is pushing to improve, innovate and stand out with every action they perform. They build and craft their way out of every situation, even hypothetical ones they prepare for well in advance. So in short..."
"In short, little one," The Giant Commodore turned from the central console to look down at her, making her quail in surprise.
"We are not Gods, but in their absence we have built our own." he turned to the rest of the room, gripping the console in front of him and shouted; "Everybody brace!"
A sudden explosion of noise and vibration tore through the bridge, Carmen grabbed at her ears, trying in vain to keep back the deafening sound of antimatter rending and reality warping as it split through the artificial atmosphere on the bridge. The room glowed blue from ionisation, alarms rang as radiation warnings went off, the entire deck shook and rolled and the blackness they could see through the viewing window became distorted, as suddenly the impossible materialised into real-space in front of their ship. What she saw was beyond comprehension. A sound like the end of the universe boomed through the fabric of the ship as the aftershock of the Thor's arrival shook reality, before instantly stilling it again. She was too frightened to even make a sound.
The enormous spacecraft stood motionless through the viewing glass, grey and blue and vast, and suddenly, terrifyingly silent as it appeared to drift by the viewing panels. Larger than all the other ships in the fleet together multiplied again by ten at least, it felt as though a continent had just materialised in front of them. From a side on angle it appeared almost flat, but from above it was much wider, made up of two symmetrical bladed beams, with a central channel running down the middle from one end almost the entire length of the ship, leaving a short bridge at the very back where an enormous conical object was sat. This was made from some sort of glistening metal different to that of the rest of the ship. It was perfectly smooth, reflecting the light of the red sun at the centre of the system and contrasting the infinite blackness of the space around.
It was an impossible thing, and Carmen cowered back in utter terror, hiding her eyes from the silent grey monster that now hung before her.
"Don't be afraid little one." whispered Eraint next to her, trying to calm her with a soothing tone as he himself looked on in awe. "He's surprisingly simple technology actually, developed back in the Human’s first information age. Although the scale has increased somewhat since then.” he made a clacking sound with his beak that may have been a chuckle “He uses extreme levels of magnetism running down each side of that channel in the middle there to fling the projectile that you can see at the base. The projectile itself can have its density increased or decreased so that it is the correct level for the target. The magnetic forces are so high that there is can be no crew on board otherwise they tend to die in bizarre and unpleasant ways. The whole system is operated from here in the Commodore's capital ship."
"But what is it used for?" she asked, wondering why anyone would need to build something so enormous. Eraint appeared to grimace again and shuffled uncomfortably.
"I'm afraid my dear that today you are about to bear witness first hand as to why the Republic has enjoyed an extraordinarily long period of peace in its borders and honestly why I believe it is Humanity that is set to be the dominant power in the galaxy.” He drew himself up and straightened his coat, taking Carmen’s hand and guiding her out towards the command desk” I think I do regret that this is to be included in your first experience of the Republic, but I suppose it will give you a better understanding than what words on a page, or spoken by an old bird could ever give you. Commadore, any words for the little one?" The huge alien turned once more and looked down at her, a slightly sad look in his eyes
"I'm afraid Eraint is right little one. This is a... complicated day.” He frowned at her “You see the ship before you? He is Thor, so named after one of our Gods from a time long ago by your standards, and his sole purpose in our armada is to be a shock and awe tool. We could do what we are about to do with far more simple methods, but Thor is a message. A warning to the rest of this pitiful band of hegemonised raiders that saw fit to assault a world under our protection." He stood then, bringing himself to his full height towering above her as he looked out over the eyes of his expectant crew.
"Isn't that right people?" he asked, his voice booming out over the bridge. "Today we show this little girl what it means to stand against the Republic! Today we show her our remorse for the loss of her family, her race, her home-world! Today we send a message to the pirate planets that are growing too bold outside of our influence and today, we give this girl the revenge she deserves!" he turned back to Carmen and she almost shrunk into the floor under a gaze so powerful, so suddenly furious that every fibre of her body was screaming at her to run from him. "You see my dear, these animals came to your world, took your planet from you and slaughtered your family, when they had no right! So we will come to their world and we will rip it all from them!" He turned back to the console and barked commands to the Human engineers below him, "Give me targeting. I want an ETA on our arrival in Rundern space. Begin to charge the rails and move Dreadnoughts Alpha and Charlie into defence over Thor's point."
The augmented crystalline viewing screen at the front of the bridge was showing a small planet, various numbers and figures showed its total population, the race of inhabitants, the central urban areas and more relevant information that Carmen couldn’t make sense of. The distance to the planet lessened and now she could see the full length of Thor, stretching out as it silently glided beneath them like the incoming tides of the seas back on her homeworld. The Commodore was shouting out more orders and she saw a number of bulky, cumbersome looking ships fly up above them. A Human on one of the consoles on a lower deck looked up at the Commodore who nodded to her. She input a sequence of instructions and thousands upon thousands of craft spewed from the bellies of the bloated ships above, like a swarm of insects they flowed as a wave towards the planet ahead.
"Those are drone ships" Eraint muttered to her, seeing the direction her eyes were pointing. "Their purpose is to ensure that no-one can put up a fight, nor escape the planet. Only those that the Humans allow to survive will do so” he glanced up at the towering figure standing in the middle of them “and seeing the Commodore today, I doubt that will be a large number." She watched as the viewing window relayed in the zoomed image of the planet. Tiny flashes of light could be seen as the drone swarm approached their target, overwhelming the small defence force that had been attempting to slow them as though it was not there before firing outwards to create small specks of light in the outer orbits of the planet. Her stomach turned as she realised they were engulfing and disintegrating ships that were seemingly attempting to flee, the drones moving like a noxious cloud as they sped through space. Carmen felt sick as she watched flash after flash, the swarm coming ever closer to the main planet.
Each of those ships was full of refugees, people fleeing from the wrath of the Republic and although she knew that these creatures had killed her family, massacred or enslaved her race, scorched her planets surface and set fire to its atmosphere, she found she still felt sorry for them. She looked up at the Human commander and shuddered. His face betrayed little emotion that she could decipher, save for a grim look of purpose, along with a hint of something that she could not pick out. She looked around the bridge at the other Humans, they all had the same look. It was an excited anger, burning deep behind each set of eyes, not like the fury that the commander had expressed a second ago, this was something else. Something quieter, never vocalised and never betrayed, bubbling beneath the surface. This was something primal, unexplainable, and she felt fear wash over her once more.
Suddenly there was a burst of explosions from up ahead as the drone swarm reached the planet, entering a low orbit at high speeds and eradicating any systems around the planet as they swept clear its circumference.
Eraint was explaining how their planetary defence systems had been disabled during the approach thanks to a massive cyber attack conducted from one of the other ships in the small fleet, which overloaded all of their computing technology. Carmen was nodding but not listening and he tailed off as a hush fell over the bridge and the planet fell still. No more flashes of dying ships came from the drone storm orbiting the small planet. No further commands were being barked out and no-one was looking at anything now other than the Commodore.
He rose from his seat and looked around "Any person who does not wish to take part in what we are about to do may now leave the bridge, and no one will think the worse of them." He said these words softly, looking around the bridge and was met with cold eyes and steel hard faces staring back at him. Nobody moved. He nodded.
A silence fell over the bridge and the entire personnel, the atmosphere was empty and dead, each persons face a mask of impassivity where once they had stood so energetic and defiant. Carmen turned to Eraint, not understanding why this seemingly mighty and angry group of people now stood so humble, but he put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head in the smallest of motions. After what felt like an age, but in truth was only a few seconds, one of the crew members from the lower bridge took a step forward and raised his head. "Permission to fire sir." It was not said as a question but rather as though he was in fact giving an order to the Commodore and Carmen looked again in confusion up at Eraint, who merely held a finger to his beak and shook his head again. The whole crew snapped their heads up and looked to the giant in their centre.
"Thank you Lieutenant Connoly" The commander replied. The crew all jumped back to their seats, the commander took his place at the helm and began to shout his orders again. "Bring the rails to maximum firing power, increase density of the projectile to 700%," and suddenly the bridge was a hub of activity again, as though the bizarre silence had never even happened. The Commander turned to Eraint and Carmen, "you two had better strap down," he said, "things are about to get really weird in here." Eraint grabbed Carmen's hand and pulled her to a corner of the bridge before she had a chance to ask any questions. There were a number of benches with all manner of strapping into which he roughly placed her and affixed as many of the restraints as he could without damaging her fragile body.
"Sorry my dear, but this will have to do. The magnetic fields..." but he was cut off, the whole bridge groaned and slowly leaned to one side, sliding through space towards Thor and Eraint scrabbled to get into a sitting position of his own.
"Full stabilisation! Bloody hell I forgot the pull he can have." The Commodore strained at his seat as he was visibly being pulled up out of it by the metal in his uniform, caused by unseen forces coming from the nearest of Thor's enormous rails. "Helmsman get us further from him or we'll be torn apart!"
"The distance is safe sir!" Barked a surly looking female Human at the front of the bridge. She checked a readout again "It's gonna be uncomfortable, but it should be safe!"
"Uncomfortable is an understatement. You OK back there you two?" he turned his head to look at Eraint, who meekly put his forward limb up as a signal to the commander, his strapping straining to keep him in place. Carmen couldn't even nod. "Power status!" the now slightly red faced Human barked to a computer terminal.
"Thirty seconds until fully charged Commodore" came an artificial voice that seemed almost comically calm compared to the chaos occurring on the bridge.
"Pull back the drones," he yelled as the bridge gave another groan, and Carmen saw the cloud of small ships orbiting the planet dissipate suddenly, scattering out like the head of a dandelion, seemingly fleeing as far as was possible from their original prey. The nearest rail on the giant weapon was glistening, and a howling sound was echoing through the ship as the magnetic distortion threatened to buckle the hull.
"On my mark then" he took one more look at the displays in front of him,
"Fire"
The word hung in the air for a second and then came a release. The ship lurched back in recoil, flinging crew members and various desktop objects to the floor despite heavy dampening from the ship's atmospheric controls. The Thor had released it's payload with a blinding flash as magnetic fields collapsed and the full rage of Humanity was released upon this doomed world.
It wasn't the noise of the Thor's arrival that had scared her the most that day, nor was it the huge, powerful alien race she had come into contact with for the first time. It wasn't the being pulled one way and flung the other, nor the myriad of different deaths she had witnessed as the drones had engulfed the planet. She felt pure dread that day and it came not from the occurrence of something, but rather the absence of it. She looked out of the viewing panel then and saw a spheroid of perfectly formed metal, as large as any comet or asteroid, flung through space at terrifying speeds, with staggering force.
And it made no sound.
The death of billions upon billions of creatures rushed towards them then and there in front of her eyes, caused by those she was standing with, and there was not even a cry. Not a whimper of pain nor a plea for mercy. There was no whoosh or deafening roar as the projectile bore down on its target. There was pure and utter silence as the massive payload from the Human's dark grey God hurtled through space and hit the planet in a blinding flash of light and flame. She expected to hear a sound that should have been befitting of the end of a world, preparing herself for perhaps an ear splitting explosion or a gut wrenching shock wave, but instead there was nothing but silence. She watched as the atmosphere ignited in a blinding flash and Thor's hammer hit home.
She turned away then, not wanting to see any more of the destruction laid out before her, and instead looked up at the Commodore. His gaze was fixed on the screen in front of him, a hardened mask of impassive force staring forwards as great jets of molten rock spewed from where the hammer had collided with the world's crust. Glancing around she could see every one of the Human crew members faces shared that same mask, faces of molten rage and shining sorrow fixed on the dying world. She looked down at her feet and began to cry. She did not know why exactly but she felt the emotion surge up through her small body as she shuddered and shook from the weight of it. "Remember this day." The Commodore's words came out softly in the silence "today is not a good day. Today a people paid the ultimate sacrifice for their own stupidity. Today we are no more angels than them we have ended. May we be forgiven"
A few crew members muttered in appreciation, but most kept their gaze fixed on the dying planet above them, the reflected light of the molten core being expelled into space flickering over their faces and Carmen saw then, behind their eyes, behind the anger and the pity and all the other hardened emotions there still hung something inexplicable. And she buried her face in her hands.
