<First Contact + 90 minutes>
“Aliens?” said Ben looking up at Diana as continued to work on the environmental control system of the Ark, he’d been at it for a few hours but the damn thing still wasn’t working right.
Diana nodded, “aliens attacked Earth! They detonated a selective biological pathogen in the upper atmosphere!”
Ben nodded and continued to work on the panel in front of him, ignoring the joke that she was making.
“Ben!” shouted Diana, startled Ben jerked up and hit his head on the panel behind him making his head ring.
“What!?” he growled turning to look at the small girl.
He paused, for the first time she looked like a child, her eyes welling up with tears that could not fall, a look of desperation prominent in them. She was normally a small adult what with her understanding of all the different ship systems and her unnatural ability to quickly pick up and understand almost anything. Ben would never admit it but she was almost as good as he was at picking out bugs in a ship system, give her a few more months and she would be.
Now though she looked like the child she was, unsure what was going on or what she should do.
Slowly Ben extricated himself from the panel, “Aliens attacked Earth?” he questioned.
Diana nodded, reaching down she pulled a tablet off of the wall and shoved it into Ben’s hands. Looking down at it Ben felt his throat constrict, a fleet wide alert for both Mars and Earth had been sounded, that was not something that would be faked for a joke.
“Holy hell!” said Ben as he quickly paged through the reports, and then paused on the one in the middle, it was the shortest, but the most devastating.
Information Level – Critical
Information Security – None
Information – A biological weapon of unknown origin and design has been detonated on the surface of Earth. 100% fatal, complete coverage of Earth in less than 30 minutes. Do not attempt landing. Do not respond to distress calls, contamination factor is unknown, assume all vectors. Do not attempt landing on Earth.
Casualties – 10.5 billion
Putting the report down Ben wasn’t sure what he was feeling, he didn’t have any family on Earth save for an asshole of a brother who was in jail, still the idea that every single human on Earth was dead and gone was difficult to grasp. It was a surreal nightmare to even contemplate.
“Where’s Megan?” asked Ben.
“She’s up with Janus in the observation bay,” said Diana.
Ben nodded, “thanks,” he slowly started to move through the ship, still not sure what to make of everything when he felt an impact on his back, and a pair of small arms wrapping around his neck.
Ben glanced back to look at Diana.
She gave him a pleading look, and he didn’t consider trying to shake her off. Slowly the two navigated through the Ark to the exit hatch. Kicking off from the hull Ben drifted towards the observation bay.
Drifting inside Ben found Janus and Megan along with most of the construction workers for the Ark all staring at the news as it was reported, the scrolling bulletin at the bottom reporting that all ships were retreating from Earth. The entire first fleet of Earth was gone, the second and third Earth fleets which had been conducting maneuvers near Venus and Jupiter were on route to Mars. The third and fourth Martian fleets whom had been at Venus and Neptune were doing the same. Within two days every ship in the entire solar system would be around Mars.
Still it had only been a single Alien ship, and all reports showed that the first fleet hadn’t even scratched her before being destroyed.
Sitting down next to Megan Ben took the bottle from her hand and quickly downed half of whatever it was.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Megan as he handed the bottle back.
“I have no idea.” Said Ben.
Janus seemed to wake up at that, she took a breath and pushed off from where she was sitting to drift into the center of the room, “We’re getting ready for the last stand.”
Megan wanted to argue, but it was true, everyone knew it. Every ship was falling back to Mars and away from Earth, they had already lost.
“What about the Ark?” asked Diana, her voice cutting through the somber mood of the room.
Janus slowly turned to look at her daughter, “The Ark won’t save everyone.”
Diana nodded, “No, but it will save enough.”
Janus looked down at the ship and then back at her daughter and then at the men she had employed to build the ship, “You guys want some overtime pay?” she asked.
A few of the men looked at one another, and then the largest man drifted forward, “I’m working under one condition,” he said.
“That is?” asked Janus.
“I want a bottle of that good Scotch you got, and a gun to shoot when we need to.” The muscled and rough looking man turned to the rest of the workers, “We’re sure as hell not going to be the ones flying off to save humanity, we’re all too ugly,” he said producing a few weak chuckles from the crowd.
He pointed at Diana, “We’re going to save her though, and then I’m gonna ride a nuke into the bastards who killed Earth, who’s gonna help me?” he asked.
All of men slowly moved forwards, “I’m gonna need a few more bottles of that scotch Janus,” said the man.
She shook her head chuckling, “You can have the whole case.”
<First Contact +1 day 17 hours 42 minutes>
Lincoln sat down at the conference table and looked across it at the politicians, despite everything that had happened they still looked presentable. Her own clothes were rumpled and her hair a mess, her brain running on a not so healthy combination of the Martian coffee and other stimulants.
“We understand that you have been manufacturing antimatter,” said the politician sitting in the middle of the table, Senator Daniels.
“Yes,” said Lincoln.
The Senator blinked, “You don’t deny it?” he asked.
Lincoln shook her head, “No I don’t. I told you I was manufacturing it with the help of your military.”
The man to the left of Daniels, Senator Hollows nodded, “Yes, and that is a subject that will have to be investigated at a later date, at the moment we want to know how much of it that you have,” he said.
Lincoln leaned back in her chair, “I have about 7 grams of antimatter.”
Senator Hollows nodded, “In exchange for that antimatter we won’t press charges against you for violation of the treaty.”
“Senator what do you intend to do with the antimatter?” asked Lincoln.
“We intend to weaponize it, fend off the invaders who destroyed Earth,” said Senator Daniels.
Lincoln nodded, “Alright let’s say you do, then what? There have to be a hell of a lot more ships than just the one.”
“We have not received any reports indicating as such,” said Senator Hollows.
Lincoln sighed, “Their ship can do FTL same as the Longboat IV, for all we know they have reinforcements waiting a few light days away or heck across the galaxy! Attacking them without investigating the full extent of their power is a good way to make sure the rest of humanity dies!”
Senator Daniels shook his head, “I was not aware that you we’re a military strategist Dr. Lincoln, in any case this is not a discussion, you hand over the antimatter and take the deal or we will take it anyway,” he said looking smug.
“It’s not military strategy, its common sense and in any case I am the one who called this meeting, I told you I had the antimatter, but we’re not going to waste it on a simple bomb,” said Lincoln.
“The Ark you have been constructing in conjunction with the head of the Martian crime syndicate Janus? You want to send five hundred people to another star system and leave the rest here to die?” said Hollows, “That seems like an even more stupid and cowardly idea than attacking!”
“So you would have your population throw themselves at an unknown enemy? The Terran defense fleet was destroyed in seconds, what makes you think you would fare any better?”
“Our military has more advanced ships than those of the Terran navy, we have been assured they will stand up to the weapons the aliens are utilizing.”
Lincoln stared at the two politicians for a moment, and then started to laugh. It was a strained laugh with no humor in it, bordering almost on insanity. She had thought they were only playing the politics of the situation, but they believed what they were saying.
Lincoln continued to laugh and reaching into her jacket extracted two small objects, a small tablet and a canister much like the one she had shown Captain Takuya several months ago. An intern sitting in the back of the room recording the proceedings seemed to be the only one who knew what it was and at the sight of it blanched at let out a small scream.
“Here is the antimatter, and an analysis of the alien weapons from the Yamato. They were firing plasma based weapons somewhere in the range of five terawatts output, the most we, Mars or Earth have produced for plasma based weapons is in the megawatt range! We have no defense against this type of weapon!” said Lincoln.
“Why the hell are you carrying that around!?” asked Senator Hollows as he halfway stood from his seat as if getting a few more feet away from the substance would make it safer.
Lincoln glanced down and tapped the canister knocking it onto its side, everyone else in the room winced, “Incentive, this is only about a quarter ounce of what we were able to produce. It’s as much as I’m willing to give you if you want to make a vain attempt to bomb the aliens.”
Picking up the canister Lincoln juggled it in her hands for a moment tossing it in between them before underhandedly throwing it across the table to the Senators.
Daniels’ eyes widened and he quickly reached out to grab it, the small thing slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor with an audible clink.
Scrambling from his seat Daniels retrieved the small canister and sat back up breathing hard.
“What the hell are you playing at?” he asked.
“I’m not playing Senator, and I have no intention of stopping my plans to launch the Ark. Your military command has been aware of my utilization of the old accelerator and the construction of the Ark at it’s highest levels since the inception of the plan. The Earth military was aware as well, and both militaries offered me aid.”
Lincoln stood up and offered the data pad to the Senators.
“I have no doubt they were looking for a way to weaponize the FTL technology, but they both recognized that Pandora’s box had been opened and I was fine letting them use me so long as I got to use them. They wanted a weapon or tactical advantage, I wanted to make sure humanity spread to the stars. Now those goals are the same, we both want humanity to survive and we don’t have the time to deal with you.”
Senator Willow picked up the pad, “what is this?” he asked.
“The signatures of the Martian military commanders who support me, they’re still not happy with how you retained control during the war, politicians don’t make very good strategists. I’ve also got the support of what is left of the Terran military. So you can fall in line with the plan I have outlined their or be ignored as we execute it,” said Lincoln.
Senator Willows stood up, “This is an act of war Doctor! Not only have you illegally produced antimatter, you have incited and planned a military coup on our planet! We have enough on you to have you hanged right here!” he said.
Lincoln let out another strained laugh, “You do that, and humanity will die right here. If you want to help I’ll be meeting with the Martian war council in an hour along with what is left of the Terran military,” said Lincoln.
She turned and began to walk out of the conference room.
“Arrest her!” said Senator Willow.
The two guards flanking the door glanced at one another and then at Lincoln, she glared at them for a moment, and they saw the determined insanity embedded within her gaze. The two of them remained still not moving as she swept out of the room.
<First Contact +1 day 19 hours 05 minutes>
Lincoln sat down at her second conference table for the day, this one looked more appropriate for the situation, people were constantly moving around the large room, multiple cups of Martian coffee were on every surface, data pads were everywhere and for some reason even a few slips of paper were on the large table.
The Generals of the Martian and what was left of the Terran military were sitting around the table or otherwise up on a display, a total of thirty Generals along with a few hundred other ranking individuals listening in to the conversation with the ability to talk when needed were around the table.
The General was sitting next to Lincoln, off to the side behind him were two military officers that looked familiar for some reason, a Martian and a Terran, Lincoln couldn’t place exactly where she had seen them before though and quickly dismissed it to look back down at her notes.
Ben was absently flipping the data pad around in his hand as he waited for the meeting to start and reaching over Megan put a hand over his stopping him before he ended up dropping it on his foot.
Captain Takuya was still on the Yamato docked to the Station far above, but he was watching the proceedings through a monitor ready to offer information when needed.
Janus, with Diana floating in front of her were both watching the meeting from the observation platform of the shipyard, where she had just received an influx of military aid.
Everyone was waiting to hear the plan that Dr. Lincoln had, all that she had released so far was that they would be able to save humanity, no details or plans, no designs or blueprints for a weapon to defeat the aliens had yet to be announced.
That alien ship was still in orbit of Earth, and the last distress calls had been from small transports and civilian ships as they attempted to run from it and make it to an accelerator rail, only a few had managed to escape though, most were still trapped in Earth orbit being hunted by the alien fighters.
“I think it’s about time,” said the General leaning over to Lincoln.
She nodded, “I know, but I’m not used to crowds.”
The General chuckled, “You’ve nothing to prove to anyone here.”
Lincoln nodded and taking small sip from the glass of water in front of her she stood.
The crowd around her immediately fell silent and turned to look at her.
Lincoln took a breath, “Earth is dead, Mars will be dead soon as well, and fighting a losing battle against an enemy like this will be impossible. We have to evacuate,” said Lincoln, with that she turned the center display on and a live image of the Ark appeared.
“I have been working with the Martian military to construct the Ark, A ship which utilizes the FTL technology I helped develop. The Terran military graciously allowed me to retrofit a frigate with a similar FTL drive and they have identified a system to which we should be able to evacuate too.”
The silence in the room intensified for a moment, a Terran general leaned forwards, “How many people could the Ark carry?”
“400 people on the Ark, but that’s not important. What is important is that the Ark has engines designed for the FTL jump,” she quickly brought up a page of mathematics, “We can take the entire fleet through an FTL jump,” said Lincoln.
“What?” asked the Terran general.
“What’s left of the Terran fleet and the Martian military fleets could jump with the Ark, her engines can hold open the rift for other ships to make an FTL jump with her, it will burn the engines out and consume all the antimatter we have, but it is possible.”
The Terran general looking nonplussed leaned back into his seat, “Uh, alright then,” he said.
She paused for a moment and looked out at the assembled crowd, “The only issue is speed. We would need to be moving quickly for every ship to make it through the rift.”
“How quickly?” asked the General from beside Lincoln.
“Roughly 100 kilometers per second,” said Lincoln, “At those speeds so long as all ships in the fleet are within 1.5 kilometers of the Ark they will pass through the subspace tear.”
“100 klicks per second!” said a Captain, “that’s insane!”
Lincoln nodded, “We’re going to have to accelerate without the rails too, all ships need to be within 1.5 kilometers of the Ark when we perform the jump, the rails would spread us out too far.”
Ben stood up, “That’ll burn out a lot of the engines on civilian ships doing that much acceleration,” he said.
“Yes, but they only need to make it through, once were’ in the Epsilon Eridani system we’ll worry about slowing the ships down,” said Lincoln.
A captain of one of the civilian transports that had escaped Earth, a woman with graying hair leaned forwards, “How do we know that the aliens won’t follow us to this new system, that we’re not wasting time evacuating when we should be fighting?” she asked.
“We don’t, but they won’t know where we are going. Information travels only at light speed, so retreating and rebuilding on Epsilon Eridani will give us at least ten years. If we stay here on Mars we will be defeated long before then,” said Lincoln.
The woman looked like she was going to argue for a moment but then nodded.
“So we’re just going to run away and let them have Earth and Mars?” asked the Terran general.
Lincoln twisted around to look at him, “by all reports Earth is lost, Mars will fall just as easily if not from whatever biological weapon they used to the plasma weaponry. We have no defense, it cut through all Terran armor like it was paper. If you are suggesting we leave them Earth intact, I’m sure there are more than a few biological weapons of our own we could use, or a good old fashioned nuclear bombardment.”
The General blanched, “you want to destroy the Earth?” he asked.
Lincoln grimaced, “I don’t want to no, but I would rather destroy it than leave it to someone else. Humanity is not dependent on a planet, we will remember the Earth, we will remember where we began, but our children will grow up among the stars, they will hear the tales of how we retreated, burning everything in our wake so that the invaders could not have it and so that we could not turn back in fear. They will remember that bravery and it will inspire them,” Lincoln paused and took a breath, “and when we burn the home world of the aliens we will return to our own and heal it returning to her as the victors.”
Lincoln punctuated her sentence by slamming her fist into the table, cracking the glass laminate.
She glanced down at it and sighed.
The general looked at her for a moment and chuckled, “A sentiment I’m sure many share Doctor.”
“So what should we announce to the people?” asked another captain.
“We’ve been streaming this conference live, I’ll let the military types get the exact details down while the Ark is launched, and I and the other eggheads iron out the science,” said Lincoln, “the people deserve the truth just as much as everyone, and there are not going to be enough ships. So like every other time in history we prioritize, those who want to stay and fight will have opportunity to do so,” said Lincoln.
<First Contact +2 days 01 hours 10 minutes>
The meeting continued for several hours as the details were planned out, what equipment would be taken from Mars, who would be on what ships, what ships would be left behind and stripped for parts, along with hundreds of other details.
Engineer after engineer, from military, company, private, and civilian ships had been approaching Ben and Megan asking them questions about the FTL jump and how to calibrate their ships for the jump.
The power down sequence was about all that the two engineers could give them, and for many it was hardly enough information.
The entire operation no matter how much planning they put into it was going to be sloppy.
Getting up Ben quickly walked out of the meeting room and put his hands to his eyes, reaching into his pocket he extracted another stimulant and grimacing popped into his mouth, the sickly sweet taste barely registered as he swallowed it.
“Those are unhealthy,” said Megan, she had slipped out behind him into the hall.
“You want one?” asked Ben reaching into his pocket.
“Yes,” Said Megan as she took it and popped it into her own mouth. The two hadn’t slept since the attack, they had been working on the Ark, and then they had been told to come to the meeting being one of only 4 engineers to have actually worked with the FTL drive and the backup guys on the Yamato were busy retrofitting whatever weapons they could to the ship, stripping her now useless armor in favor of more weapon mounts.
“We’re going to have to be on the Ark,” said Megan.
Ben frowned but nodded, “I know.”
“You don’t want to be on the Yamato?” she asked.
“Hell yes I want to be on the Yamato, but jumping the entire fleet with the Ark, on her first go in space burning out the engines? We both know it has to be us in the engine room if we don’t want to kill everyone,” said Ben.
Megan nodded in agreement, “Anyone else would blow themselves up.”
“We must sound like absolute assholes, no one else can do it!” said Ben he put his hands up for air quotes.
“We could let Diana do it, she knows more about those engines then either of us!” said Megan.
Ben considered this for a moment, “She can’t reach both sides of the engineering console at once, Humanity would be doomed because the engineer couldn’t reach the right button,” he said.
Megan chuckled a strained sound that quickly devolved into a sob, slowly she made her way to the wall and sat down against it. Tears began to fall from her eyes flowing down her cheeks in the unfamiliar one third gravity.
“Everyone’s dead,” she said.
Ben leaned into the wall next to her sitting down beside her.
“My parents, my little sister, they’re dead!” said Megan, “They lived through the war but now they’re dead!” she said the tears continuing to fall.
Ben wasn’t sure exactly what to say, his parents had been dead for several years, and his brother had been in prison, after the war he had continued serving on the Yamato and the crew had been his family, Megan a large part of that.
“You think it hurt?” asked Megan.
Ben hesitated looking down at the chief engineer for the most successful battleship in the Terran fleet, he wasn’t used to seeing her like this, she was strong, and worked constantly to ensure that no one saw her like an old fashioned woman in need of a knight in shining armor, but even the strongest people had their limits, and she like everyone else had lost everything.
“It was biological,” said Ben not finishing the sentence, the implication hanging.
Megan nodded, and tried not to think about it.
“We’re running away now, abandoning everything we fought for in the war and running away,” said Megan.
“We’re retreating so we can make some really big weapons and kick their teeth in, you saw the video reports, they shredded everything! We can’t fight that right now,” said Ben.
Megan nodded and sighed, leaning over she put her head on Ben’s shoulder, “Still feels wrong, but it makes sense,” said Megan.
Ben looked down at her concerned, “You’re not thinking of staying with the second Martian fleet are you?” asked Ben. The second fleet was supposedly going to remain around Mars and defend those who stayed, there were not enough ships for everyone to make the jump with the Ark. Those staying on Mars were for the most part the elderly and the volunteers. Thankfully the Martian public had understood the need to evacuate, there was relatively little panic in the populous like there would have been on Earth.
Ben supposed it had something to do with the Martian’s almost always being in a certain amount of danger, just a breached wall away from being blown out onto the surface of the cold and desolate world they inhabited.
Megan shook her head, “The Ark needs us, as much as I want to stay and fight or ride out on the Yamato.”
Sitting straight back up Megan looked over at Ben for a moment, and let her arm lash out hitting his shoulder knocking him to the side, “You tell anyone I cried!” she threatened.
Ben just smiled and raised his hands up in surrender.
<First Contact +2 days 18 hours 34 minutes>
“This is their main communication channel as best as I can tell. It’s been broadcasting from a bunker on the fourth planet, its emergency instructions from what I can translate,” said [Sam].
“No tachyon transmission hubs then?” asked [Charles].
“No sir, there will be a delay of several [minutes] between the communications,” said [Sam].
“Alright, we’re going to send them the message then, transmit the translation package and let’s start the burn towards the planet. Once we get a response we’ll tell them what they need to do,” said [Charles].
“Yes sir,” said [Sam] and turning she transmitted her translation package to the fourth planet, not knowing how much damage that act would cause.
<First Contact +2 days 18 hours 42 minutes>
The General stood up, “We’re committing the second Terran fleet, and the first and second Martian fleets to destroying the alien ship, if they are not successful it should be sufficient diversion. If that much fire power cannot down the alien ship then we will have no choice to evacuate, and committing further resources would be a waste.”
General Collin stood up at the other side of the table, “The fleet commanders have all volunteered, I actually had to assign the other fleets to the evacuation. For the first time in history we’re not going to be limiting the power of our attacks, or pulling the punches, to say that certain members of the military are excited would be an understatement,” said General Collin.
“General Collin has been recalled to active duty, and he will be leading the assault,” said the General addressing the other people in the room, which now included the rather disgruntled Martian Senators.
General Collin nodded, “I saw what they could do on Aldrin station. We’re going to have a fight on our hands.”
“Are we sure we want to commit forces to this?” asked Lincoln, “The first Terran fleet was eliminated in an instant.”
General Collin turned to the mathematician, “We are, not everyone is going to be able to evacuate, and we owe it to them to at least try,” he said.
Lincoln looked at the man for a moment but nodded in agreement, “We’re only going to be getting at most 8,000 people out,” she said sadly.
“That’s more than the number of people that left Africa 20,000 years ago,” Said the General, “I doubt it will take us as long to recover though.”
Lincoln nodded, “Hopefully.”
Leaning back in her seat Lincoln started going over her calculations for the Ark’s jump again. It had to be right or all of this was for nothing, to be fair half of the calculations were a guess, they had never thrown other objects through FTL with a ship before, and now they were doing it with half of the reaming Terran and Martian Armadas.
“I’m getting a weird data stream,” said a tech from one of the workstations around the perimeter of the room. He and a dozen other geeks had been coordinating data and communications as well as relaying tactical data as it streamed in.
“Define weird?” asked Lincoln.
“We just got a sudden data burst through the entire Martian communication network, the TCP packet is all screwy and the data inside of it is weird, text, audio samples, and a computer program.”
The General looked at the data the tech was showing for a moment and then turned to look at Lincoln, “Any idea what it is?” he asked.
“I’m a mathematician, what do you,” Lincoln paused looking at the data for another moment, “Primes, this message is full of primes.”
She thought about it for a moment, and then gasped, “General, it’s a translation program! It got flooded through the entire network and everything about it is just a little off, the aliens want to talk to us!” said Lincoln.
The General frowned, “they want to talk now? That means they want something.”
“They want the Yamato, our FTL technology.” Said Captain Takuya through the communication line that was still open to the room.
The General glanced up at him, “What makes you say that?” he asked.
“They had us dead to rights with their fighters and their mothership right after they destroyed the fleet, when we destroyed the Longboat IV they looked like they were going to attack but backed off. I assume they detected our FTL drive,” said Takuya.
Lincoln glanced over at the General and then back at Takuya, “It’s as good a theory as anything else at the moment, but if that is what they want it means we have the upper hand in negotiations.”
“In the fashion that we’ll throw ourselves off a cliff before giving the technology to them type of way,” said the General.
He sighed and turned to the room at large, “I want those Yamato engineers looking at the alien ship, and as many free linguists and computer scientists that we have available in here getting this translation thing working! If the damn aliens want to talk I want to be able to do the same if only to tell them to fuck off!” shouted the General at the room.
For a moment everyone was frozen processing what he had said, and then the room which had already been chaotic before the data burst began to move again in a frenzy of activity.
<First Contact +3 days 05 hours 16 minutes>
“We’re approaching the planet, any delay in communication at this point will be negligible,” said Sam.
“Have we gotten the acknowledgement package?” asked Charles.
“We did, which means we should be able to communicate with them,” said Sam.
Charles nodded and stood up, straightening his dress uniform he looked up at the screen.
“Open the channel.”
The main screen fuzzed and for a moment there was only static, but the image quickly coalesced, the two alien computer systems syncing with one another.
Charles blinked, the image was of a messy conference room, data pads and other objects were strewn about on every surface, and more people than what looked to be comfortable were inside of the room, all of them looked worn out, not surprising that they had just had the majority of their race exterminated.
In the center of his view was an old man, his skin wrinkled and worn, pockmarked and scarred, clearly the oldest and most senior man in the room. Were it not for the hair on his head and the paleness of his skin Charles would have sworn the man was a Dorvakian General, the look in his eyes was the same.
Sitting next to him was a much younger woman in a black jumpsuit, the odd hair on her head was sticking out in every direction and the glare she was giving him made Charles pause for a moment, unsure exactly what she was communicating.
The old man stood up and as the image cleared the translation program provided him what he already knew, superimposed over the man’s head was his rank, General.
The man spoke, and it took the program several seconds to translate, the text in standard appearing on the bottom of the screen.
“What do you want?” asked the General.
Charles was stunned for a moment, he had expected a member of the Class C species to be ranting about reparations and revenge, but the man and indeed the room around him were all radiating a cold fury, it was disconcerting.
“You possess technology crucial to the Empire, you will hand it over or we will destroy you like we did your home world,” said Charles. When negotiating with a Class B species threats were usually the best way to get results, so long as you demonstrated superiority. That was apparently the incorrect tactic to use when negotiating with a Class C species however.
The General stared at him for a moment, the woman next to him seemed to find the entire interaction humorous, a small giggle escaping her lips.
“You murder billions of our kind, you take [Dirt] from us and expect us to comply with anything you demand?” Asked the General his words appearing below him as he spoke.
Charles blinked, “You’re planet fell to only a single ship, you cannot possibly hope to fight us, if you do not give it to us we will destroy you and take it from the remnants of your civilization!” said Charles hoping that further reminders of what would happen if they did not comply would make them acquiesce.
When a class B species was brought into the Empire it rarely required force, but even when it did the application was always small and the results immediate.
It clicked in Charles’s head as he looked at the man, he could see his eyes darting back and forth reading the translation on his side, the General was responding like a man of the Empire would, he was responding in the same manner Charles would if he were in a similar situation, he would rather die than comply.
Charles felt a shiver go down his spine, this species, this species C1764 was not like the others. They would not comply, they would not surrender to hope for survival, they would not yield until their entire species was dead.
“You seem to be laboring under the impression that threats will be effective, we have no guarantee you will leave us alone if we give you what you want, we would not give you what you seek anyway, try to take it again and we will destroy you and all knowledge of it. You attack us and we make sure we take as many of you with us as possible and that you don’t get what you came for.” Said the General.
Charles stared at him for a moment, and sighed, “Very well General, we’re attacking in one day. I can give you that much time to prepare, but I will complete my mission,” said Charles.
The men stared at one another for a moment, and the General smiled, “I’ll make sure you don’t,” he said.
Charles punched his chair, closing the channel.
“Prepare all fighters, when they are ready we’re attacking.” Said Charles turning to his officers.
“You gave them a day sir?” asked Sam.
“If we give them any more time they might find a way to win.”