The enemy ship turned and started to accelerate, trying to reopen the distance. It snapped out an x-ray laser shot as it maneuvered, again striking the Archetype, the beam splashing against its shield while boiling another gouge into its armor. Metal and composite flared into nothing as the strike slid past, its lethal path dissipating into the black.
“The hell you do,” Dash muttered, ramping the distortion cannon up to full power and firing it three times. Sudden gravity slammed the Archetype and enemy together, just as Dash intended. The power-sword—an incandescent smear of pure vengeance—ripped into the alien craft, cut for nearly twenty meters, and exited in a glowing arc. Behind the blade was an open wound deep in the heart of the enemy craft.
Dash whooped—and fell silent as the cut began to knit itself closed.
“What?” Dash said, staring at the damage. The edges were reaching for each other in fits and starts, silvery filaments spanning the gap at an alarming rate.
“Dash, let’s disengage and head back to the Gate,” Leira said. “Gotta get free before these bastards—"
“No! We’re not giving up the initiative.”
“Dash, we can’t—”
A new voice cut in. “Hey, guys. Can we be of any help?”
It was Benzel. The Retribution had just emerged from the Black Gate, followed by the rest of the QRF.
“Yeah, you can.” Dash smiled broadly. “See these three ships? We need them to be glowing dust. Care to assist?”
“Wanton destruction?” Benzel replied, giving a hearty laugh. “It’s our specialty.”
The battle was both easier, and far more difficult, than Dash had expected. The enemy—whoever they were—hadn’t been especially tough. The Cygnus Realm task force had been more than a match for them. The trouble was, they wouldn’t stay dead. As Dash had foreseen, only when they’d been reduced to scattered wreckage did the enemy ships finally cease fighting. One had tried to deploy a lifeboat of some sort, but as soon as Dash zoomed after it, it vanished in a flash of radiation, scuttling itself into scattered atoms.
“Okay, that was weird,” Leira said. “It was like trying to stomp on bugs that just wouldn’t die.”
Dash watched the tumbling bits of wreckage carefully, alert for any hint they may start trying to reassemble themselves. It seemed, though, that beyond a certain threshold level of critical damage, their ability to self-repair was no longer functional.
“Yet another reason not to live on planets?” Dash asked her. “Even if there are trout?”
“Alleged trout, and real mosquitoes, you primitive,” Leira said.
“Dash, there is more wreckage, back along the trajectory that these three ships traveled to get here,” Sentinel said.
She zoomed in on the distant debris as she spoke. Dash noticed at once that this detritus was different. Instead of the strange, somewhat organic, but also somewhat crystalline stuff that made up the remains of their foes, these bits and pieces were more conventionally metallic.
“Okay, so, looks like a whole different type of ship. Different factions? Would make sense. Where there’s one race, there might be ten. Hardly anyone gets along.”
“I get along with everyone,” Benzel said.
“As long as they have things you want to, ah, liberate,” Dash replied.
“True, but I’m still friendly. These would appear to be the opposite of friendly, in every way.”
“No argument here,” Dash admitted.
“Tybalt says that the second debris cloud, based on its inertia, seems to be moving more or less directly away from a star about two light-years away,” Leira said. “I’m assuming you’ll want to look it over, dear?”
“You know me so well. But we’ll do it your way.”
“My way? You mean with some degree of caution?” Leira asked.
“Exactly. This isn’t our block, and even in the mechs, we’re not safe. Not after what I just saw. We go slow.”
“Especially since we don’t really understand the kind of trouble we found, boss,” Benzel said.
Dash took a moment to breathe. That’s exactly what they’d done for most of the Life War—defend against Golden attacks, while desperately trying to build up their forces to finally take the war back to them. Now that the Cygnus Realm was at the peak of its power, the idea of letting whoever these murderous bastards were maintain the initiative made him want to gnash his teeth. They’d already lost almost 300 people to an unprovoked sneak attack.
“Slow it is, eyes open. Benzel, configure a probe. We’ll send that—”
“Uh, don’t think we’ll have to, Dash. I think someone’s sent a probe to us.”
Dash saw the threat indicator light up as Benzel spoke. There was a single object inbound, about a hundred thousand klicks out. Its flight profile had the characteristics of something that had translated in the normal way, passing through unSpace rather than traveling in some cryptic, faster-than-light way.
“Dash, the object is broadcasting a message,” Sentinel said.
“Okay, let’s see what we can make of it.”
Dash had expected a wholly alien script or language, something whose comms characteristics might not even match their own. What he hadn’t expected was a woman, clearly human, in a silvery uniform.
“Unidentified vessels,” she said. “You are approaching the territorial space of the Rimworld League. State your purpose here—and, more to point, state your relationship with the Deepers. You have thirty seconds.”
Dash stared, processed, and then made his decision. The evidence was clear, if stunning. Fifteen thousand or more light-years from home and they’d not only run into humans, but humans whose language they could readily understand without the AIs having to attempt to translate—a potentially laborious process if there were no common roots to work from.
Benzel cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, this is unexpected.”
3
Dash told Sentinel to open a comm channel so he could reply.
“Before we answer your questions, how about you answer one of mine? As in, what are your intentions here, exactly?” Dash asked.
The woman’s eyebrows lifted. “Wait—you speak my language?”
“Maybe you speak mine. I’m going to assume we’re more than distant cousins at this point, but even families argue. That’s why we’re both pointing weapons, right?” Dash asked, his tone neutral.
She stared for a moment. “Okay, so you’re not one of them. And you look human. Doesn’t mean you’re a friend, not out here. So let me ask you the same question—what exactly are your intentions?”
“Let’s start with a name,” Dash said. “Mine’s Dash. I’m Commander of the Cygnus Realm. As you can see, my second is with me, as well as a small assault fleet. I only mention this because I’m being mannerly, and in the spirit of, ah, new beginnings, I admit to being a bit outside my home territory. That means we’re talking, for now, even though we just fought a squadron of self-healing ships that didn’t have the decency to stay dead.”