This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Shadeskira on 2024-04-10 01:55:52.

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The alien commander sat back on his throne, watching the five officers and the tech thralls of his bridge at work as they prepared for their last FTL jump to the backwater system his brother had disappeared in.

He knew of this backwater, PS-328-C, a system with a class five deathworld, seeded with a battle thrall race of primates for boreal combat. Which made the need to check on his brother all the more mysterious. His brother has succeeded in reaping no less than 600 races so far, which means this backwater making him go dark is shocking at most and suspicious at least.

His eyes notice a bit of confusion in the sensor station, and being in command means he needs to know why, turning his head to the officer in charge he speaks with the authority of his station “Lieutenant Waztik, why are your tech thralls acting out of order?”

The lieutenant turns and seems nervous and confused. “Sir, We are detecting forty Arrival signals on our entry point, echos suggest the arrivals are from PS-328-C, sir”

“Who would dare to reach this deep into our empire?” He roared demanding to know which of the empire’s enemies would be so brazen.

“We don’t know sir, of the forty we can only identify six of them as your brother’s ships sir…” The Lieutenant responded with a bit more fear.

He sat back, his mind racing with questions, but he wasn’t going to take chances, his brother would have followed protocol and sent a single data runner to carry a message, sitting up he spoke aloud, “Prepare for combat and deploy all wings…” he ordered, looking at the tactical screen as it pulled up his fleet of six cruisers and the arrival zone of the unknown vessels.

As the unknown vessels arrived, the tactical screen started to try to identify them against known vessels in the galaxy and identify their transponders but was having difficulties, like the Shipboard AI couldn’t make sense of the information, before it suddenly clicked and the screen displayed the names of the unknown ships.

He had no knowledge of Hiroshima or Nagasaki or why they needed a second coming, or what a Tokyo was and why it was furious. But something that made his blood boil was the renames of his brother’s ships, the Golden Ark was renamed to Fool’s Gambit, and The Black Reach was renamed to Idiot’s Resolve.

Before he could give the order to destroy the insulting upstarts the Communications Officer spoke up. “Sir, we are being hailed… sir…”

“Put it through. Let’s see which enemy has new ships to their arsenal” He says, eager to find out to which of the other galactic powers he will be aiming his fleet at next.

However the face of a primate Battle thrall of PS-328-C was not what he was expecting, nor was that the signal was coming from a ship half the size of his. The Primate was dressed in a primitive pressure suit of some kind and smiled broadly revealing the row of sharp incisors and canines, before it spoke, the computer translating the words in real-time. “Greetings from Earth, we regret to inform you that you are about to trespass on United Earth territories. We recommend you turn around and order an emissary to be dispatched from your homeworld.”

“Foolish Monkey, your fleet is no match for mine, even with my brother’s fleet on your side. Surrender and we will spare more than half your population.” He growled back, his fury boiling as this thrall race had the nerve to tell him what to do.

To the bridge’s collected surprise the Primate spoke back almost immediately, suggesting that they too had real-time translation software. “I am sorry, but did you say ‘Brother’?” Its eyes narrowed with a new expression, the computer interpreting the facial cues as hate.

He was a bit off-put by how much this primate’s attitude had shifted at the simple mention of his kin but decided to wave it aside. “My Family’s noble Bloodline is of no concern of yours, monkey. Surrender and I’ll be merciful in the execution of my duties.”

The primate frowned and looked away, its voice not being captured before it looked back and spoke. “I am under orders to offer you two more chances to turn around or surrender, failure to do either will be considered an act of aggression and will be met in kind.”

“YOU DARE TELL ME TO SURRENDER OR FLEE!” He roared in anger, these primates were sapping his limited patience and now had the gall to make demands like they were his equals.

“Last Chance, Surrender or turn around and leave. United Earth and its territories are not open to your empire, failure to comply will be considered a full declaration of war with intent to eradicate and will be answered in kind, you have two hours to comply. Watanabe out” the Primate disconnected the hail, the ships arrayed against him showing spikes in power as they were preparing to fight.

He stared at the display, stunned and in shock that a thrall race would dare to disconnect from him, to brush him aside in such disrespect of his heritage. Looking to the tactical display he growled the next orders with malice and spite “Destroy them all, make it swift, and let none escape.”

His bridge crew got to work, sending out the standard attack patterns, the movements meant to shield his cruisers as they got into attack range. His ears raised as his excitement over the coming slaughter grew, His tail wagged quickly as he was ready to see the primates’ pathetic ship implode.

But the sudden impact on his ship knocked him to the ground, his body feeling the motion dampeners catching the sudden declaration just in time to save him. looking up at the display with the state of his ship he saw all his reverse engines had been destroyed. Not just that, fifty escort shieldcrafts in three lines were nothing but floating wracks. “What the ‘fuck?’ just happened?” He roared standing up again.

“We were hit by three kinetic weapons, sir, we lost our reverse engines, and we are bleeding atmosphere in decks 3 to 11” The Engineering Officer said back in a panic, frantically issuing damage control teams with his neural uplink. “Sir… they hit out shield reactor… its offline…”

“FTL NOW, Get us ou…” he was attempting to scream as his main reactor was hit, causing his ship to disintegrate in a ball of plasma.