KS Desiccator; Ser Ricaud’s Cabin
En route to Galactic Core
Coreward Unknown Territory ("Wild Space")
MAR 18 2795/2794.077; 2032 Hours (CST)

“We’ve just passed the coordinate line’s terminus, Ser Ricaud. Desiccator is at full stop per your orders."

Vell Ricaud looked across the dining table at Melissa Banks, giving her a timid smile. The voice on the intercom was an interruption, but not unexpected. "Well, looks like I’ve completed my end of the bargain," he said.

Melissa gave him her best dreamy gaze. "And just what bargain might that be? You’ve been quite become quite the secretive type since Blair started sending you those communiqués of his."

"Commodore Blair and Special Ops have the Kindred running a very special errand."

"Errand?" Melissa chuckled. "You’re the Confederation’s errand boy now are you?"

Vell grimaced. "Something like that, but I couldn’t turn them down. Not with what’s at stake."

She nodded grimly, understanding. "The Steltek... they’re not going to give up easily, are they?"

Vell was quiet for a moment, biding his own grim thoughts. "I received word earlier today. They hit McAuliffe, Perry, and Hades." He wondered in spite of himself whether or not Hassan survived the attack.

"Hit? What, you mean they captured them? Well, how long could it possibly be until Confed retaliates with everyt—"

"The Steltek didn’t capture them. They destroyed them."

"Destroyed? Just Perry Naval Base, you mean. That’s just a station an—"

"Melissa, they took out the planets. McAuliffe and Hades are vaporized. Eradicated. Annihilated." He paused before explaining, "It was their Marauders—several of them. They joined together and released some kind of superlaser—instant planet killers."

"Let’s... let’s not talk about this anymore."

"Okay." Vell folded his hands. "You, uh, said you had a surprise for me...?" He hesitated to ask, as he was unsure if the surprise she had mentioned might have been the other, usual surprise she’d given him when he rejoined her on the Desiccator.

"I did, didn’t I?" Melissa gave him a timid smile. "Well, I’m not going to bullshit you. I’m just going to out and say it." She took a deep breath and made her announcement, "I’m pregnant."

Vell did a double take. "Whuh-what?" he burst. "A-are you sure?"

"Yup."

"A-are you sure I’m... I’m the father?"

"Vell!" Melissa’s patient gaze quickly became a glower. "What the hell kind of person do you think I am?"

Vell rubbed his hands over his face. "I’m sorry. It’s just that..." Vell suddenly smiled. "Oh well what the hell, right? It’s not like we can’t afford it. We’ll get married, buy some planet off the Vidur Se—"

Melissa took his hand. "Let’s just take this one step at a time, okay?"

Sighing, he smiled in response. "Absolutely."

The intercom pinged, the usual precursor to one of his officers interrupting him. "Ser Ricaud," the same officer as before spoke, "unidentified capital ship at two parsecs and closing. Its on an intercept course to our exact coordinates. Ser... I think you had better get up here."

Vell shuddered. "On my way."

"That unidentified ship... it’s an alien ship, isn’t it?"

Vell said nothing.

"Vell, you still haven’t told me why we’re in the Coreward Unknown Territory. Is this why?"

"I’ll... explain on the way up."

As they started down the corridor to the bridge, Vell noticed Melissa looking somber, staring at the deck tiles as she went. "What’s wrong, Melissa?"

"I was just thinking about what you said before... what’s stopping the Steltek from getting to Earth?"

Planet Earth
The Sol System, Terra Quadrant, Sol Sector
2322 Hours (CST)

It was all over.

They were beat. The ancient Steltek race had cut and blazed their way through human space with the utmost of ease. Terror and death, blood and destruction followed wherever they struck. Not that the Confederation’s soldiers hadn’t fought back valiantly. They did, with every gram of courage they could muster up to face the certain death that would lash out at them if they engaged the Steltek. Yet they never backed down, never once wavered in defending their world. But it was hopeless. The merciless Steltek slaughter continued unabated, and now they were poised for the final killing stroke.

QUEBEC, CANADA

Under the peaceful rustle of the St. Lawrence River, two young brothers almost didn’t hear their mother holler at them from the house to come inside for dinner.

Jeremy grimaced, disgustedly throwing his fishing pole aside on the rockery. His brother, Todd, did the same.

As they trudged into their cabin-like home, shaking off their soaked rubber boots and leaving them on the porch, they quickly realized it was not dinner their mother had hollered at them to come inside for, but something far more important.

"Jeremy... Todd... come here, boys." Their mother’s voice was no longer harsh, no longer reprimandingly commanding. It was calm, reserved, as she beckoned them to the Tri-D projector in the living room where their father was, though there was still something odd about it. "Come, sit."

Before the two boys’ wide eyes, a great space battle was playing out on the Tri-D over a planet. As they quickly realized, the planet in question was Earth.

"... is a TNC special report with breaking news," the anchor, doing his best to not sound panicked but succeeding only so far, spoke in a voice over. "SatNET has confirmed the arrival—"

Gathering all around Earth was warships of every size and class. Transport ships carrying the wounded, the dying, all of the refugees of the fallen worlds now flooded the area, trying to escape. Despair was written all over the faces of every human. It wasn’t just their lives ending. They were facing the extinction of their entire race, and there was no chance for them to survive. Oh, they might outrun it for a little while. But in the end, they would all succumb.

They weren’t going to roll over and die, though, that was for sure. They were all tired, filthy, and afraid. But they were also grim and determined, as much so as only a people on the brink of oblivion can be.

There was a flare in space, mysterious energies seemingly reaching out and tearing the void wide and free.

GISBORNE, NEW ZEALAND

A happy-enough looking young couple sunbathed on the beach, oblivious to all the hundreds of others—other couples doing the same, teens playing volleyball, children erecting their sandcastles, some playing in the waves that lapped against the shore.

Anna rolled on her side, bearing a smile only her boyfriend could read.

"What?" Ryan finally asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable under her stare. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I love you, Ryan," she said, plainly, as if that was the most matter-of-fact thing to say in the world.

Ryan was about to speak, about to say something stupid and cute, but then stopped himself. The two shared a long glance before he replied in the same sentiment, "I love you, too."

Their moment was interrupted by the sudden kaleidoscope of colors in the clear blue sky above. All on the beach stopped what they were doing, peering up at the unnatural spectacle that was unfolding above them.

"What on earth..."

"I... I don’t know, baby." Ryan held his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he, too, squinted at the colorful phenomena in the sky. "I don’t know..."

"Here they come."

"Oh god..."

Similar phrases were echoed over the comm systems of every ship. Suddenly, that single vortex in space was joined by dozens more. From each one, a massive Steltek ship surged through. Without any pause or delay, waves of Steltek drones immediately commenced forth, attacking fiercely. The Confederation’s fighters met them directly, and the savage battle began. The Steltek swarmed over the humans, who fought back with a frenzied desperation.

All across the plane of the battle, the same story was unfolding. Human fighters were blasted apart at a horrifying pace, and now, even civilian craft and privateers were joining in, trying to hold the Steltek off as long as it took for the evacuation transports to leave Earth and reach the jump point, many of which being shot down before even clearing the lower atmosphere, picked off by the innumerable horde of drones.

ZANJIANG, CHINA

But a single speck in the acreage of great rice fields that comprised her family’s plantation, crouched down about the marsh-like soil of the well-irrigated fields, Yen Chien diligently did as she had always done, her untiring working spirit unfazed by the humid heat. It was like any other day of the season, yet somehow, unexplainably... it wasn’t.

Unsure of why she did, she stood up, a hand bracing her aching back. Raising her straw hat only slightly, she looked up just in time to see the hurtling wreckage of a civilian transport veering down, a trail of flame behind it like a meteor as it impacted four kilometers away.

Her facial features unflinching, Yen gazed upward at the crisscrossing of fire in the sky, more civilian spacecraft blasting off being shot down like flies by the dark unknowns.

Yen watched, her mind no longer on her work, shedding a tear in the bitter thought that she had not yet lived her life. She had not yet seen the world, not yet traveled off-world, not yet found her husband, and had not yet started the family she had longed for since she was a little girl.

Alone in the rice fields of her family, Yen could only stand and watch.

Capital ships from in-system battle groups, both from the in-sector First and Fourteenth Fleets, rotated, turning their forward batteries head on towards the large Steltek Marauders, and plunged toward them at top speed with no hesitation, their engines glowing white. One of them, a destroyer, was smacked aside by an incredible green bolt. It fell out of formation, its hull shattered on impact. One of its guns still continued to fire at the enemy even as it dropped sideways into the atmosphere, perhaps as a death twitch.

A group of militia fighters tried to get closer to one of the Marauders, slipping sideways through a gap in the wall of drones. But just as it seemed that they would make it through, the gap swung shut, and they were caught between, destroyed in an instant under an insane barrage of green fire.

Squadron after squadron exploded in agony, and soon the Confederation’s capital ships had no cover left. Soulless drones homed in on them, splashing energy barrages across their hulls. Scars from the impacts burned red. Soon they, too, were reduced to space junk, floating cinders in the cool solar wind. The Steltek broke through their ranks.

"Mayday, mayday, this is Space Marshal Albrecht aboard the TCS Zenith! All militia and available figh—"

The infamous Space Marshal’s broadcasted words fell on deaf ears even before they became dead ears. The Vesuvius-class vessel went out with a whimper under a swarm of drones.

Earth’s own defense grids were now coming on-line. The Steltek approached, massed together, and combined their firepower against the stationary weapon platforms. Many drones were wiped out, and damage was done to the Steltek ships, but it was nowhere near enough to even slow them down. Even at this point, transports were still rocketing out and away from Earth, desperate to get away. For more of them than not, it was too late.

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

Throughout the megalopolis of New York’s sprawling cityscape, already hectic air traffic lanes turned frenzied with the crashing and burning of nearly every escaping civilian vessel that came careening down through them, taking aircars with them as they plummeted to certain doom.

On the streets below, a different scene was playing out.

Men and women stopped their cars, landed their aircars, and walked into the open streets. People simply walked out of their places of work—teenagers, businessmen, gangbangers, police—all of them dropping whatever it was they were doing to join the gathering mob in gazing up at the continuing airborne struggle above the Big Apple.

A haggard-looking homeless man continued his one-man crusade, the cardboard sign he held high only strengthening the mounting fear and tension of the populace. Etched in what looked like blood, the handwriting erratic, the grim sign read in still-unmistakable lettering: "The End is Near."

Another Steltek ship now appeared, even many times larger than the rest, V-shaped and hundreds of miles across—the size of an entire world. It cast its mighty shadow over the Earth, dipping the cradle of humanity into darkness. The other Steltek ships cleared away from its line of fire, and then waited.

Waited...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

From all across the dusty cityscape, men and women stepped out of their homes to get a glimpse of the horrible, darkness-bringing thing that completely eclipsed the sun, its black mass stretching from horizon to horizon, throwing the entire world into night.

Looking away from the Tri-D news, Kerena saw her only daughter, Sharun, starting to walk out the door of their home as well. Firmly, yet gingerly, she pulled Sharun away just short of it. "[S-Sharun, my only daughter... please...]"

"[What, Mother? I want to see.]"

"[No you don’t, Sharun.]"

Sharun, too young to understand what was going on and too young to understand what her mother knew awaited, wasn’t convinced. "[But I do, Mother. I just want to s—]"

"[N-no you don’t, Sharun. Please... come to me...]" As she walked to her mother, a puzzled look on the young girl’s face, Kerena embraced her, holding her tightly, tears rolling down her cheeks.

In the center of the massive ship, a glow began to grow more and more intense, pulsating with energy as it charged up. To those still standing on Earth, it appeared three times more massive than the sun, and five times as bright. It held that charge to all of the helpless spectators’ suspense, and suddenly all of that energy narrowed and focused, discharged in a single shaft of light through the eastern North American continent straight toward the center of the planet. It churned its way straight into the core, and then that single shaft split apart into several separate columns, slicing the Earth open like an orange, bathing it all in an awesome, all-consuming flame.

Then it stopped, and watched.

The Earth held still for a moment, tiny explosions blossoming from the center, and then it all caved in and crumbled into a million fragments that exploded outward. Escaping convoys of ships carrying terrified refugees were devastated as they struggled to reach space, pummeled by the ensuing eruption of Earth’s shattered mass. In only a matter of moments, Luna, Orion, and Sol Station’s fate was sealed as well.

All around, people who had turned to the viewports to watch were in tears. And yet the Steltek planet-killer hung motionless over the dismal wreck, seemingly unaware of the grief it had wrought. It simply hung there, like a statue, like some psychotic murderer with cold, unblinking, almost sleepy eyes, staring down at its victim.

The green horde didn’t stop there, but instead it immediately surged towards the last remaining ships still in the Sol System. They never broke off pursuit, showing no pity on these surviving transports, killing left and right until the last one had jumped out.

The heat of the battle was over, and now all that was left were the cold and dark remains of the fallen, their steeds having been shot out from underneath them, debris floating everywhere.

It had always been thought of as something that could happen. Doomsday, Armageddon... it had been called by many names. But no one had fully realized just how terrifying it would be until this day. The confusion, fear, and desperation that had completely dismantled the lives of several billion peoples.

It was the end of the world.