Proximal Flame's Fiction

“Our options are limited, as far as we can see,” he began without preamble. “The first is simple – we head back into hyperspace and for home. We never wanted to be a part of this fight and we’ve given a lot – some more than others – just to stay alive. Many – most – of you are just cadets who signed up for a training cruise. Not to become embroiled in an interstellar war. There’s no shame in being tired, in just wanting to wash our hands of everything here. If that’s what you think, say so. No one here will hold it against you. “Our second option is to head into Tebrinnin and from there beyond the territory the Lefu control to the Concordat holdings. Covenant’s hyper systems should allow us to get through the alien-held systems in one piece. I won’t lie to you: it’s a risk and a big one, but there’s an enormous shitstorm coming down the pike and they while might be Concords, they’re also human and for that, they deserve some kind of warning. After that’s done, our priority will be going home. I just want to hear what you have to say before I make my decision.”

“Pirates,” Natalya commented, remembering the Endo Massacre from her history books, staring at the images from the true version of history grimly. Foraker nodded. “Pirates were the official cause, yes. Case Omega has learned some interesting things about the Mulkari. They consider their survival to be the highest priority, so much so that they actively seek out other intelligent species and exterminate them. We don’t know why; we know almost nothing about their society or culture. Is it a religious drive? Is it because they were nearly wiped out themselves? Some cultural imperative, like ants? BXA agents who know what Case Omega is have spent their entire careers in silence, trying to understand the ‘Lefu’, but all that we know for certain is that they kill.

Commodore Ryan Young had ordered the alien vessels boarded, but one self-destructed when it detected assault boats moving in and one was little more than a debris field. Of the two remaining, Young had picked the vessel most intact. A few of the alien crew had survived, most of them in isolated pockets. But they’d fought to the death all the same, refusing to be taken. Not that the Marines would have been merciful, not after the boarding teams had discovered what the tentacle-faced monsters had been doing. It was in one of those sealed sections that the Marine boarders had come across the survivors of Expedition 1992. What was left of them. It was a massive, multi-level medical section apparently designed for the express purpose of… ‘examining’ alien captives. There were hundreds of records of dissections performed upon the recovered bodies and far worse things done to those unlucky enough to be taken alive. They’d been stripped and sealed into pens with dozens of other survivors. That was where it had started.