Ivan Kal - Out of the Ashes

Vit’r’an gripped the railings that surrounded him and squeezed until he could hear the metal cracking. “I will end you human!” Vit’r’an bit out, trying to calm himself down.

The human looked at him thoughtfully, and then said loudly in a near fluent Ra’a’zani. “No Dakar Vit’r’an. The only one that will die this day, is you.” With that the channel closed.

Vit’r’an slowly unclasped his hands from the railings he looked to his crew who were silent. Taking a big loud breath through his nostrils, Vit’r’an calmed. He realized that the human was antagonizing him on purpose. He pulled back and reflected on the facts. The ships were human. They came from outside the system, using technology that allowed them to enter it inside the hyperspace barrier. They knew about him, about the Ra’a’zani, their language, what they have done on Earth, and since two of their ships were on their way to the belt, they knew about their mining operations. That meant that they were in contact with the people on Earth. Logically, this all also meant that there were humans living in other systems. When he discovered Earth, and when they arrived everything about Earth suggested that it was the human home world. And even with the evidence that there were humans outside of Earth, Vit’r’an still believed that Earth was the place of their origin. Too much history was there for it to not be their home world. Which would mean a colony. The humans had a presence in space before the Ra’a’zani arrived. But had abandoned their installations in the belt. They had a few satellites in orbit, but most of them were old. The level of that technology did not show him anything that might suggest a race that could colonize other star systems. Obviously there was something that Vit’r’an had missed, but he had no time to figure out what.

Based on the facts, he knew that humans had at least one colony that was in contact with Earth. But why not come sooner? Vit’r’an wondered. Perhaps they didn’t have the ships? He was sure that their ships couldn’t stand up to his. He needed to capture one of their ships, and find out where these humans came from. But also get the technology that allowed them to travel inside the hyperspace barrier.

Vit’r’an looked up as one of his Taskmasters spoke, “Dakar, the human ships are accelerating.”

Vit’r’an looked at his terminal, “Let us meet them. We need to capture one of their ships.”

With that, his crew went to work, they designated the earth ships numbers from 1 to 10, and Vit’r’an started planning on how exactly to capture a human ship.

As soon as the communication channel between the Monarch and the Ra’a’zani ship closed, Johanna leaned back in her chair. She was breathing heavily, her hands shivering. She had tried to keep it together, to make the Ra’a’zani think she wasn’t afraid of him. But she was. This battle would decide the fate of her home world. And she was terrified that she would fail. She knew that she was being stupid, her ship outnumbered her foes ten to one.

Johanna took a deep breath, and looked at her c-board. On it, she saw the scans of the Ra’a’zani ship. It was a bit bigger than her battleships, but almost half smaller than the Monarch. The hull had no weapons visible, but she knew that they were retracted into the hull. The rest was unknown, their scans were not good enough to give her any more information. She reached over to the holographic interface of the c-board with her hand, she highlighted the fleet and ordered them forward.

Almost immediately her fleet started accelerating. She watched as the Ra’a’zani ship did the same, it started accelerating straight for her fleet. I guess that I managed to goad him into attacking us. Johanna said. She couldn’t imagine attacking a force that was ten times bigger than hers. Reaching to the side she toggled a comm channel. With the Ra’a’zani ship now fully committed, the rebellion on Earth could finally begin. She sent the signal.

A signal came through a comm channel on the Olympus explorer ship Star Gazer. Immediately Jacob stood upright in his chair. He had waited for this moment for so long. Immediately he turned to Tamara on the comms.

“Contact Earth, operation “Freedom” is a go.” Jacob said. Tamara nodded and immediately started sending the message to Earth using the Olympus FTL comms. They had given an FTL comm to every Resistance leader on Earth. All of them would get the message at the same time.

“Message sent!” Tamara said.

“Send the go signal to our people.” Jacob said, the people they had in wait at the mining sites were ready to start the attack. “Mathias, get us underway.” Jacob added. For the first time in more than sixty years the OES Star Gazer turned on its drives. The ship pointed itself towards its target and started on its way.

Anissa Novak sat in her chair on the CIC of the Lord. She was in the Pacific Ocean about 1000 kilometers from Hawaii island group. She looked to her subordinate on the FTL comms, and waited for the signal from Jacob to come. They knew that the Olympus ships had arrived in system, and had moved towards Earth. They had also learned that the Dakar Vit’r’an has boarded his ship in orbit. Now they only waited for the signal from Jacob that the Ra’a’zani ship was engaged with the Olympus fleet, and the attack would begin. Anissa’s sub was close to the surface, waiting to unleash fire upon the unsuspecting Ra’a’zani bases. Eldritch had arranged for power losses in several bases, and sabotage of defense systems in the bases where he managed to get someone close to the relevant systems. For a few bases they couldn’t be sure that their sabotage would work, so they had teams of people close, in Concordis military transports waiting to assault the bases that manage to survive. Some of the bases were too far away from the Lord for it to attack them, so they would be taken out by the Colorado in the Mediterranean. But the Earth was too big for just two subs, no matter how advanced and powerful their missiles are. Other bases that were outside of both of their reach would be destroyed from the inside, by Eldritch’s bombers. Or if they couldn’t get anyone in, by a physical assault on the base by their people.

“We got a message from Star Gazer!” Her subordinate exclaimed, “Operation “Freedom” is a go! I repeat operation “Freedom” Is a go!” She yelled out.

Anissa took a deep breath, “Begin the firing sequence.”

The Coalition submarine Colorado, was just off the shore of Italy. Its main target was the Ra’a’zani headquarters for Earth. The Colorado had a lot smaller amount of missiles, as it was much smaller than the Lord. It would fire missiles towards four bases, all in the Europe and the Middle East. But most of its load would go to the Ra’a’zani headquarters. Then, they received the signal. The message from the Star Gazer went out to every Resistance command center across the planet at the same time. Within minutes, all the attacks began, almost simultaneously. The commanding officer of the Colorado immediately issued the order for the firing sequence.

Eldritch received the message from the Star Gazer, and immediately his own teams sent out a worldwide message using their own FTL comms. Within seconds all of his people knew that the attacks were about to begin. The sabotage teams executed their assignments immediately, they were all ready, waiting only for the go signal from Eldritch. His teams triggered bombs, some destroying the power generators of the bases, others sabotaging their defense systems. Some even blowing up entire bases. The time had come, the fight for Earth had begun.