The Contempt of Stars

32nd August, 4028

Circinus Galaxy

I could feel them looking at me. I knew the battle would start soon, we’re almost in range of their advance scouts. The moment they spotted my strike team, hidden though we were in the shadow of a gas giant, would be my last time of peace for a long while.

Forty-seven light years, the distance we travelled, what previously would have been impossible—now achievable through advanced stasis. Leaving our forward operating base in the Andromeda galaxy, my strike team consists of eight shuttles with ten souls aboard each. That was our battalion. Using all the next-gen tech available, they could only construct eighty stasis pods. Eighty souls, against an advancing armada of unknown number, fun, right?

We said farewell to our brothers-in-arms as we embarked on our suicide mission. Friends and family, long since forgotten, and our comrades are the only thing we have left. We trained together, failed together, hardened our resolve together, and even died together; for every time one of our elite number was felled in battle, the team as a whole felt the impact together.

I miss you, Gemma.

The Thraxin empire, oh, what horrors you had in store for us. So much more terrible than any nightmare our earthly, dystopian portrayal of what “aliens” might be. UFO’s and cow-abductions? If only. The alien species, the Thraxin, that we first contacted in the Galactic Group (Local) year 4016, had far more devious plans in store for us. The Thraxin weren’t an oxygen-breathing species. No, they breathed pure radiation. Well “breathe” might not be the right word, I don’t recall what the scientists called it, so “nuclear photosynthesis” seems a good a fucking term as any for now. But I digress, we only know this because of Accretion Field Charlie, the theatre of war we first tried to stop them at.

35th August

Even now I struggle to understand the physics, the math, whatever the fuck the techno-heads call it. This “Accretion Field” boggles my mind. When I first heard from Naval Command’s scientists that our target was, “a black hole generator, designed to gather mass in an appropriate location,” and our mission was to, “stop the formation of a star, which the Thraxin’s were constructing to provide a suitable levels of radiation for a nearby planet they planned to settle.” I thought it was a joke. You couldn’t “make” a star, right? How foolish I was.

Not only had the Thraxin’s been slowly expanding their reach throughout the entire galaxy via man-made stars, but they don’t even seem that picky about which celestial body to rest their creepy-ass slime-covered tentacles on. Ice-covered dwarf planet? Inhabited. 200deg Celsius magma covered titan? “Oh, the balmy weather is great for my nucleo-fucking-peptide-whatever gills,” creepy fucks, the whole lot of em. And now they’re moving towards the Andromeda galaxy, and then it’s just a hop, skip and a jump into the Milky Way.

Battered and bruised, from tits to toes. The other nine members of my team and I had a skirmish that lasted nearly two days. We were lucky to all make it out. Losing two of our shuttles in the fight with their scout team was an acceptable loss. If not a palatable one. I feel the pain everywhere. Their damned sonic attacks penetrate through the twelve inches of reinforced titanium alloy our shuttles are built from.

“Sonic attack, what’s the worst that could happen?” you say. A few burst eardrums?

Think again, shit stick.

You ever had sound waves pointed out of a death cannon at you, so intense, so powerful, they vibrate the flesh on your skin, turning your whole body into a nice, little, flesh-covered microwave? No? I thought not.

Good ol’ lead, as it turns out, isn’t very effective in space. If only this had been some sci-fi movie from Earth Prime. Hollywood delusions about lasers, and light sticks, ooohhh, aaahhh, wouldn’t that have been nice. Too bad this isn’t a fairy tale.

2nd September

The last of our noise cancellation generators ruptured. It was the only thing protecting us from the acoustic onslaught that had been hammering down on us. Since we entered Accretion Field Delta, there has been a non-stop sonic delight, playing on your favorite radio station twenty-four seven. Being pelted from all sides, we maneuvered our ships as best we could, trying to get close enough to the gravity engine to target it with our nukes.

No joy.

Our first nuke missed the target, and now that we didn’t have noise cancellation, things don’t look good. Our generators’ noise cancellation weren’t of the “eliminate the background noise so you can focus on your jog” kind. They were the “if we don’t shoot back the inverse frequency those sonic cannons are throwing at us, you’ll be cooked alive from the inside” kind.

As we change our vector to an elliptical arc and circle back around to face our target, I have a few hours to dictate this log. Hopefully, the transcription will get back to Naval Command one day. I want to return my thoughts on this cursed mission to the idiots in charge, even if I don’t make it.

3rd September

More than twenty thousand, I repeat that more than twenty thousand enemy ships are on radar. They’re closing fast, trying to jump the ship now.

Ship has been target locked by an unknown spacecraft, suggest commencing—

Goddamnit, Russel! Shut that computer up, I can see the fucking ships!

…static.

Engine’s at one third power, shield down.

Boom, boom, boom.

Detected sonic attack on: …Right engine.

They stole Gemma from me, they stole any chance I had at going back to earth.

Russel! We’re detonating.

…End of transmission, file corrupt.

IR-766, the small robot in charge of cataloging the recovered materials from the civilization once known as humans, beeped and trilled as it tossed the meaningless recording into the incinerator.