272 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
272 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
###INCOMING TRANSMISSION###
|
||
source: r/hfy
|
||
author: u/h2j1977/
|
||
subject: Four hours, Seventeen minutes
|
||
note: The following message appears to be a record taken from a
|
||
history class conducted by teacher of unknown race. The record
|
||
indicate possibly reptilian humanoid species.
|
||
|
||
---BEGIN MESSAGE---
|
||
Four Hours, Seventeen Minutes
|
||
|
||
The invasion of Earth lasted only four hours and seventeen
|
||
minutes. It was the shortest campaign in the Kavoxian Hegemony’s
|
||
history, which is saying something, as we had conquered 31 other
|
||
civilized planets before them. We first detected the human
|
||
civilization twenty-five years ago through our deep space antenna
|
||
network that picked up their various broadcasts and entertainment
|
||
feeds. We focused our long-range sensors in that direction and
|
||
waited for more information.
|
||
|
||
Good afternoon class, my name is Telex Hoon, and I was the Minister
|
||
of Military Intelligence fifteen years ago when we sent the
|
||
invasion force to Earth. My team poured through thousands of
|
||
terabytes of data, trying to determine culture, mindset, military
|
||
capability, and anything that might be useful in the invasion
|
||
strategy. The first problem we encountered was filtering out the
|
||
facts from the fiction. Humans, as it turns out, are a particularly
|
||
imaginative and prolific species. We Kavox have our own
|
||
“entertainment” sector, that is responsible for creating
|
||
educational and instructional long and short form holovids, as well
|
||
as written manuals. However, we have been told that we are not a
|
||
particularly creative species. Perhaps it stems from our ancestors
|
||
being reptilian, or perhaps it simply stems from the fact that for
|
||
most of our existence, we have had to fight and claw our way
|
||
through life, and things like art and fiction are not particularly
|
||
vital to survival.
|
||
|
||
Anyway, I digress. We quickly found that much of the information
|
||
our antennas picked up was either fictional, trivial, or just plain
|
||
wrong. What we did manage to verify is that Earth was not a unified
|
||
world, instead ruled by many nations with vastly different agendas.
|
||
We also detected no signs of FTL travel. Lastly, despite what their
|
||
movies and sci-fi entertainment suggested, they did not have
|
||
advanced shielding technology or energy weapons. Armed with these
|
||
key indicators, we reported to the military tribunal that this
|
||
should be a simple invasion, as we were dealing with a pre-FTL
|
||
civilization.
|
||
|
||
Earth was ten years (Earth years, about 8.17 Kavox years) away via
|
||
FTL travel, so we began building up the invasion force. After ten
|
||
years, we had built one hundred and thirty ships specifically for
|
||
the Earth invasion. We placed twenty-three million Kavoxian
|
||
soldiers, pilots, and engineers into stasis, and transferred them
|
||
into 30 long range Quylar-class ships (named after a Kavoxian super
|
||
predator that carried her young in an armored belly pouch before we
|
||
hunted them to extinction). The armada had 30 Quylar class ships,
|
||
30 Bylun class hunter ships (the human equivalent is a battleship
|
||
if I recall), 40 Swygian class ships (destroyers and frigates in
|
||
human terms), 10 Podas class hospital ships, and 20 Aghon-Ka class
|
||
control ships. The Aghon-Ka ships, as most of you know, is how our
|
||
fleets can travel vast distances through space by creating an FTL
|
||
field large enough to pull multiple ships with it, all while
|
||
providing command and control functions to keep the whole fleet
|
||
data-linked as well as synchronizing combat maneuvers.
|
||
|
||
The day came for the fleet to depart Novamus, our homeworld. We
|
||
don’t celebrate the way humans do, with grand events, big flowery
|
||
speeches, or other meaningless displays. So, on the 33 day of Reol,
|
||
in the year 2357, after a thirteen-minute speech by our Supreme
|
||
Apex in which our invasion force was reminded of their duty to be
|
||
fearless, loyal, and victorious, the fleet quietly slipped out of
|
||
the solar system and jumped to FTL with no complications.
|
||
|
||
The next ten years were also mostly uneventful. Our ships are
|
||
incredibly reliable, with several redundancies built into all vital
|
||
systems, and are crewed by function-specific AI robots with
|
||
Kavoxian engineer overseers. Those engineers must always be
|
||
remembered for their sacrifice. They spent the prime third of their
|
||
life in deep space surrounded by the cold void, lifeless robots,
|
||
and the knowledge that they would never see Novamus and their
|
||
clutch mates again. You must understand that the engineers knew
|
||
that they would die on Earth as part of the occupation force,
|
||
because they wouldn’t live through a second ten-year trip exposed
|
||
to cosmic radiation. The average 30-year life span of a Kavoxian is
|
||
reduced by approximately a year for every two spent in FTL,
|
||
according to the Ministry of Health.
|
||
|
||
We arrived at the edge of the human controlled solar system and
|
||
staged at what they call the Oort cloud to mask our ships while our
|
||
troops were brought out of stasis and final battle plans were
|
||
written up. We detected a small colony on the 4th planet (Mars, so
|
||
named for some god in their ancient history), a nasty looking
|
||
series of weapon installations on their moon, and several dozen
|
||
defensive satellites surrounding the planet. The decision was made
|
||
to attack the faction with the largest and most advanced military
|
||
when their moon installation was on the far side of the planet. The
|
||
North American continent was to be our beachhead.
|
||
|
||
We did a synchronized micro-jump to within the orbit of their moon
|
||
(approximately 350,000 of their kilometers) and began attacking
|
||
their defensive satellites.
|
||
|
||
Hour one: We attacked and disabled the twelve satellites that
|
||
covered our initial attack vector with only minimal losses. Within
|
||
the first twenty minutes, we saw resistance build in the way of
|
||
small ships, barely large enough to carry two or three crewmembers.
|
||
They were firing ballistic weapons that were ineffective against
|
||
the armor of our larger ships but proved quite formidable against
|
||
our Swygian class destroyers and frigates. Their lack of unified
|
||
tactics, and the fact that there was such a massive amount of
|
||
variation in the ships made planning a counter to them quite
|
||
challenging. After a few minutes we were able to listen in to their
|
||
communications. To our shock, these were not their military force
|
||
that were attacking us, but civilians in their own personal
|
||
shuttles. This first failure in our intel gathering was
|
||
disappointing, but nothing we couldn’t overcome.
|
||
|
||
At about the thirty-minute mark, the first military vessels engaged
|
||
our fleet. These ships were far more formidable, but still no match
|
||
for our Quylar and Bylun class warships. These human vessels were
|
||
equivalent to our Swygian cruisers, and armed with ballistic
|
||
weapons, missiles, and even a couple high powered rail guns. We
|
||
focused our attacks on the rail gun equipped ships after one of
|
||
them ripped Thelp’s Respite (our lead Podas class hospital ship) in
|
||
half with a well-timed barrage.
|
||
|
||
At the end of the first hour, we had lost ten Swygian class
|
||
destroyers and the Thelp’s Respite. Another dozen Swygian cruisers
|
||
were damaged, but still in the fight. Two Quylar and 5 Bylun ships
|
||
had taken damage, losing some weapon placements and hull plating,
|
||
but were otherwise fully functional. The humans had lost over 300
|
||
of the shuttle class ships, 130 fighters and 30 destroyers. We were
|
||
taking a few more losses than anticipated, but within acceptable
|
||
parameters. The invasion was on schedule.
|
||
|
||
Hour two: At about two hours and twenty-eight minutes into the
|
||
invasion, our sensors detected a massive fleet of human battleship
|
||
class vessels that just materialized out of nowhere. The commanders
|
||
later reported watching in horror and shock as one after another
|
||
ship materialized into the dark void of space. At first, they
|
||
thought it was some sort of extremely advanced stealth technology.
|
||
But the truth was so much worse.
|
||
|
||
It turns out that humans are paradoxically both impatient and
|
||
extremely cautious. They had determined long ago that space travel
|
||
was too time consuming and dangerous, so they abandoned FTL
|
||
research. Instead they developed wormhole drives. This species of
|
||
hairless apes had done what no other species in the galaxy had even
|
||
dared to try: Bend the very fabric of space because they didn’t
|
||
have the patience to travel at FTL speeds. They developed wormhole
|
||
drives because long distance space travel is dangerous and comes
|
||
with serious health risks. Let me restate that. These humans
|
||
decided that getting into a ship and flying at FTL was too time
|
||
consuming and dangerous, so they instead developed technologies
|
||
that allow them to RIP A HOLE IN THE FABRIC OF SPACE so they can
|
||
travel anywhere nearly instantaneously.
|
||
|
||
It took twenty-two minutes from the arrival of the human fleet to
|
||
break our assault. Admiral Rejka sorrowfully ordered full retreat,
|
||
and gave the command to prepare to jump to FTL and regroup a weeks
|
||
travel away from the solar system. It took another ten minutes to
|
||
calculate the FTL jump and disseminate it through the Aghon-Ka
|
||
ships to the rest of the fleet. That became known as the longest
|
||
ten minutes of Kavoxian history. After receiving confirmation that
|
||
all ships had received and plotted the FTL course, Admiral Rejka
|
||
issued the command to retreat.
|
||
|
||
Hour three: Upon issuing the retreat command, everyone braced for
|
||
FTL, which nearly all of the invasion force (except for the voyage
|
||
engineers) had never experienced, because they were in stasis for
|
||
the initial journey. However, instead of the stretching lurch and
|
||
blinding light and sudden total darkness of FTL travel, every
|
||
monitor on every ship displayed the image of a human wearing an odd
|
||
white hat with a wide up swooped brim that dipped slightly in the
|
||
front and back. Then every speaker on every ship opened up:
|
||
|
||
“Welcome to Earth. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Admiral
|
||
Coleman of the United States Space Navy. It appears we’ve had a bit
|
||
of a rough first contact. It seems you’re in a rush to leave, but I
|
||
must insist that you stick around a while. Allow me to show you how
|
||
we Texans feel about trespassers.” With that the screens went
|
||
blank, the speakers were silent, and a rare feeling began to creep
|
||
into the minds of all but the most stalwart warriors: fear. These
|
||
humans had just broken through our security protocols, disabled our
|
||
FTL capability, and broadcast audio and visual to every device
|
||
capable of receiving the transmission across the entire fleet.
|
||
|
||
Admiral Rejka ordered all of the Bylun and Swygian class ships and
|
||
half of the Aghon-Ka ships to form a picket line to protect the
|
||
Quylar ships, the Podas hospital ships, and the other half of the
|
||
Aghon-Ka ships as they retreated at full impulse away from this
|
||
death trap of a solar system. As the Quylar ship group began to
|
||
make a break for it, the humans surprised us again. Wormhole
|
||
missiles. Missiles with warheads capable of creating wormholes that
|
||
would suck the affected ship into wormhole space and shunt them out
|
||
at a predetermined location. That location was inside the
|
||
chromosphere of the sun. It took 30 seconds for the entire picket
|
||
line to re-materialize and be vaporized by their sun.
|
||
|
||
At ten minutes into the third hour, Under Admiral Olgk surrendered
|
||
the remaining fleet. Admiral Coleman reappeared on all screens and
|
||
speakers. “I graciously accept your apology and surrender. I do
|
||
feel a might sad about what was done to the other half of your
|
||
fleet. As you’ll notice we didn’t destroy your troop carriers or
|
||
the other fleeing ships, these, uh, Ag-hon Kay class vessels? We
|
||
have rules of war here that don’t allow for killing those in
|
||
retreat. I wish I could say the same for y’all, but after reviewing
|
||
the first two hours of combat footage, that just isn’t so, now is
|
||
it?” Admiral Coleman looked away for a second, his face showing
|
||
several emotions – sadness, anger, and then back to this
|
||
affectation of polite charm. “I tell y’all what. We’ve just
|
||
finished decrypting the data those command ships were relaying. I
|
||
think we’ll pay a visit to your home world of Novamus. I’m sure
|
||
we’ll be able to clear up this whole mess in no time. Y’all just
|
||
sit tight and follow the instructions of the boarding parties that
|
||
will be coming by in the next few minutes, and we won’t need to
|
||
have any more of this unfortunate business today. Okay, ya’ll take
|
||
care and sit tight.”
|
||
|
||
With that, the monitors and speakers went quiet again. Under
|
||
Admiral Olgk could only watch in horror as seventy-five battleship
|
||
class ships dematerialized, knowing they would be at the home world
|
||
in moments.
|
||
|
||
Hour four: The human fleet materialized inside the atmosphere of
|
||
Novamus and immediately opened fire with rail guns and missiles.
|
||
|
||
Seven minutes later, every orbital defense platform, gun battery,
|
||
missile silo, and military installation on and protecting Thrux,
|
||
our main continent, was destroyed or disabled.
|
||
|
||
Seventeen minutes later the Supreme Apex issued an unconditional
|
||
surrender over every broadcast platform, flanked on either side by
|
||
humans in combat exosuits. The population was in shock. Kavoxians
|
||
don’t panic, as we don’t have the emotions wired into us that would
|
||
cause it. But I tell you this with all sincerity, our society
|
||
nearly fell apart in that very instant. Everything that we had ever
|
||
known was questioned. We had never lost a war or failed to conquer
|
||
a system. No invading force had ever made it into our solar system,
|
||
much less actually broken our atmosphere. But in only four hours
|
||
and seventeen minutes we had gone from being the conquerors to the
|
||
conquered.
|
||
|
||
Then, Admiral Coleman spoke to everyone on Novamus: “Greetings from
|
||
planet Earth. I wish I could say that under better circumstances,
|
||
but we play the cards we’re dealt. I apologize for the damage to
|
||
your infrastructure. We did our level best to avoid civilian
|
||
casualties, but unfortunately war is like painting a portrait with
|
||
a mop. We’re not here to conquer you, or to enslave your people to
|
||
serve our needs. We’ve long since moved past that phase of our
|
||
history, which, if I read this intel right, your kind have not yet.
|
||
But, no matter. We’ll help you get that sorted out in no time.
|
||
Personally, I’m excited to meet our other new neighbors and make
|
||
friends. Whether or not we can become friends is up to you. But I
|
||
do hope you make the right choice in that matter.”
|
||
|
||
Admiral Coleman then concluded: “I’ll be on my way, but we’ll be
|
||
back to check in soon. In the meantime, I think you may have
|
||
misplaced these. You can have them back on the condition that you
|
||
keep your toys in your yard from now on.” With that, the remaining
|
||
Kavoxian fleet materialized in atmosphere, above the capital
|
||
building, their shadows darkening the city. Just as quickly, the
|
||
human fleet vanished.
|
||
|
||
And that, students, is the story of the invasion of Earth. Today
|
||
marks the fifteenth anniversary of the conquest of Novamus. Your
|
||
homework is to write a 500-word essay on the impact of the humans
|
||
on the Hegemony. You may include cultural examples, political
|
||
examples, and the liberation of the 31 subjugated planets. Please
|
||
have it on my desk in one week. Dismissed.
|
||
---END MESSAGE---
|