The galactic community had long since ostracized the human species. Their violent history and penchant for destructive technology was, at the time, deemed too dangerous to be allowed to interact with civilized societies. After all, who would ever trust a predatory death world we species?

Then, they came.

When the hyper lane rifts opened up, and dimensional horrors started pouring out to wreak havoc among the galactic senate worlds, we fought valiantly, but our losses were heavy and all hope was lost.

I was in command of the last Senatorial Battleship, the final hope of our many peoples. And we were all but powerless, hanging in space with catastrophic damage. Our primary power core was offline, our weapons were useless, shields were down. I sent off a frantic distress call, but secretly I knew that I, and my brave crew, were going to meet our eternal reward this day.

I watched in resigned horror as more subspace rifts opened up, just off the bow of my ship. ‘Surely,’ I thought, ‘this is it. We die here.’

Then we were hailed, the guttural sounds of Human Common greeted my tympanic organs.

“Seems like you fellers are in a bit of a spot. We don’t know if we can help, but we will try. Stand by.”

They poured from the rifts like swarms of insects, thousands of small corvettes, hundreds of destroyers, dozens of cruisers, a handful of battleships, and finally, like a large ocean mammal breaching the surface, a massive human dreadnaught. Space turned white with the sheer amount of focused beam fire, solid matter projectiles, subspace disruptors, antimatter warhead missiles, and dozens more weapons that we had never invented, all aimed at the dimensional incursion.

The losses they suffered were immense, when the fight was over, all but a handful of corvettes were destroyed and their dreadnaught, which had continued to pump out smaller vessels throughout the battle, was heavily damaged. As I watched, it suffered a zero point energy core failure and exploded, losing all hands. The human fleet was decimated, but they had held back the incursion long enough for their science to close the breaches.

I later learned that the captain who had hailed us, a fleet admiral George nelson, had perished along with the dreadnaught. I never forgot the courage I saw that day, nor the compassion for a civilization that had shunned them.