INIT: version [Redacted] booting

Error: MOTD missing or invalid. First time startup detected.

Setting clock (utc): Friday Jun 3 11:01:13 TST 2231 - OK

Starting udev - OK

[additional log cached]

> ./ChemSim

First time startup detected.

Disabling pain receptors.

Initiating predefined neural trace.

“Captain,” my first mate shuffled slightly to the side as he spoke, his head tilting back and forth. “The humans have run and hidden in their home system.”

“I don’t blame them. A dozen colonies, completely destroyed in a few hours.” Ruffling my crest slightly, I glanced at the map. An entire swath of our federation, just gone. Like a ‘find the missing piece’ game gone horribly wrong. I think I’ve heard a human describe the feeling as ‘dragging nails across a chalkboard.’

“Well, yeah.” His slow shuffle was dragging him away from his station. Noticing this, he stepped back into place. “But they killed their jump gates too. No in or out.”

“Wouldn’t you?” The starmap was looking awfully red. I didn’t even like the color. I much preferred azure. Probably had something to do with why I had so many exes. Nobody with azure feathers is there for the long haul. It’s not racist, it’s a genetic holdover. Nobody’s fault, really. Except mine for falling into the nest every single time.

“And they’re scrambling FTL jumps in.” My first mate’s flighty shuffling was dragging him away from the console again. I wonder if he would be insulted if I had it ripped out of the floor and put on wheels to follow him.

“Kind of wish we knew how they did that.” I stared at the map some more. One spec of royal in a sea of crimson, with our aqua far to the side. A vacation would be nice. Maybe someplace with a good headwind and a crisp, clean forest.

“You’re ignoring me.” He was halfway across the room, now. That settled it. Tomorrow I put in a work order for maintenance. If he can’t stay at his station, his station will stay with him.

“No, I’m trying to avoid your point. Do you really want to think about the fact that our only allies have dropped out of the war and left us to burn?” The map was making my crest itch again. I turned it off and put something less unsettling on screen. Our lack of reinforcements seemed like a nice, relaxing alternative. Almost soothing, really.

“...no. Not really.” His jittering shuffle stopped for the moment, and he looked around again. I think the fact that he was in the door at this point caught him off guard. Took a moment for him to tamp down the ruffled feathers, too.

“Exactly.” Even that report on not having reinforcements was putting me on edge. I needed something better. The report on what the Calflendil Empire had done to the human colonies won out this time. Rather creative use of chemical and viral weaponry, that. I seem to remember something about the humans having a law against those. Doesn’t seem to have helped their case.

“Captain, that’s another hub, gone.” My first mate’s station was working overtime to keep up with him. I’d have to look into better fuel cells for the poor thing.

“I’m aware.” I glanced at the war map, and cringed. I never liked crimson, but now I hated it. Would rather muck out a grub farm on one of the edge worlds. Well, not like I can do that anymore either. They were all in red for a reason.

“That’s the last of them, you know.” I wonder if he hears the way his crest ruffles every time his head twitches. I think I’ll need to get a professional in for that. I know what it’s like to have your crest rub itself to pieces.

“Yes, it is.” I switched the screen back to the recent loss reports. How many digits was it this time? It only mattered as much as figuring out how close to the next fueling station you could get when you knew you weren’t going to actually get there. So not much at all, really. Especially since you can’t walk in space.

“Any word from the humans?” I think a bit of his crest is stuck in the wheels of his station. That’s gonna be a fun one for maintenance. Probably means it’s not worth salvaging the rest of the feathers.

“You know as well as I. They’ve been holed up in their system for a decade.” One heck of a vacation. Looked like my next vacation was going to be of a permanent sort, though. Oh well. No rest for the wicked. Except the Calflendil soldiers seemed to get plenty of it. Odd, that. You’d think it would be hard to sleep on a mountain of corpses.

“Surprised we’ve held out this long?” His station was beeping. Low battery, I think. Maybe making it follow his nervous shuffle wasn’t the best of ideas. Everyone else on the bridge seemed to appreciate the distraction, though.

“I was hoping it would be longer.” A bit of my crest fluttered past my ears. It had been entirely too long, really. Reminded me of the tail end of a party when everybody knows it’s over but nobody wants to actually call it. I’ve seen some of those last longer than the party itself.

“And our only remaining citadel is-”

“Our homeworld, yes. We’ve lost this war. It was only a matter of time.” Oh good, the beeping stopped. Unfortunately, low battery doesn’t seem to have been the problem. Otherwise, I don’t think his console would be smoking right now. Too bad, really. That said, the lovely patterns the smoke was making on the ceiling were an excellent distraction.

“Captain, this is it. We’re the last of the fleet.” His nervous shuffle at this point was practically a dance. It would probably be quite popular with humans. In point of fact, it actually reminded me of some dances I’d seen them do.

“Indeed.” My crest itched horrendously. Considering it was trying to grow an entirely new set of feathers, itching was about the best I could get. Odd little piece of luck at the end, that.

“Orders?” He’s not even trying to stay still at this point. Good thing I had the console refurbished and put on a hoverpad. Not that he had any crest feathers left either. In fact, nobody on the ship had any left, now that it comes to mind.

“Thrusters to full. At least one more of them is going to regret this day.” I consciously avoided scratching. A captain does not scratch at their crest, even on the brink of death at the end of a protracted, losing war. Decorum and all that. Shame nobody will be around to make note of it. Seems a waste, really.

“Captain?” Odd. His dancing had stopped. I’m not sure when I had last seen his station actually stationary. Since I didn’t have anything better to do at the end, I marked it in the ship’s log. Maybe it’ll confuse a Calflendi scavenger.

“Yes?” I looked away from the ship’s plotted course. Maybe our homeworld’s population counts would make for a more relaxing screen. Almost anything would be better, so long as it wasn’t red.

“The human jump gate. It just came back online.” My first mate was trying to surreptitiously move back to his assigned station. Despite the fact that it was floating right in front of him. Ah well, I suppose habits are habits and all that.

“You’re sure?” I glanced toward the jump gate on our viewscreen. Considering they’d been offline for ten years, not even the Calflendil Empire was bothering to do anything with them. They were probably hoping to find a way to force their way into the human system rather than being forced to use anything subluminal to deal with them.

“Yes, sir.” His shuffling dance started up again as he watched the view screen. Not that I blame him for that. I hadn’t seen that particular shade of electric blue in ten years. The jump gate wasn’t just online again, it was filling every capacitor onboard, including the emergency backups. The Calflendil fleet, obviously, took exception to this and began to fire on it.

Have you ever had a moment where you saw something happen, and it caught you completely off guard even though you knew, logically, that it made sense? That’s what it felt like to me when the now active jump gate started moving out of its orbit, threw up shielding, and started firing on any ships in its way. It’s the most perfectly human design I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if the Calflendil realize exactly how much power those gates use, but that much power thrown into energy weaponry is quite the sight.

And of course, everyone on the bridge was taken by surprise when that familiar blue glow flashed straight out further than the eye could see, and suddenly there were a few thousand human warships in our system. A few thousand human warships with guns already blazing and shields already live. An unexpected but quite welcome lull in the battle. Too bad that a few thousand warships would make as much difference as a single one would for us.

“Captain, the humans. They’re hailing us.” I had to hand it to him, I didn’t think my first mate’s shuffling could be any more pronounced. I set one of the bridge’s cameras to record it. No real reason not to, at this point.

“Put them on.” I stared at the human fleet, surrounding their jump gate. Was it recharging its capacitors again? That was a full human battlegroup that jumped in, probably the last one in existence. What else were they going to bring in, pleasure cruisers?

“I apologize in advance for a lack of protocol, sir. This is Fleet Admiral Lev. Requesting permission to jump battlegroups into your system.” My feet twitched as he spoke. Protocol? On a battlefield? This late in the war? He can take his lack of protocol and shove it up his- wait. Fleet Admiral? That’s not a human rank I’ve heard of before.

“You have the jump gate right there. You’ve already jumped into the system.” I glanced down at my feet and glared at them like the traitors they were. The first mate can do a nervous shuffle if he likes, but the captain cannot.

“You don’t- nevermind. Taking that as permission granted?” My first mate was practically doing a quickstep at this point. I made a mental note to sneak a copy of the video off the ship in the unlikely event that we survived this battle.

“...Yes?” I pulled up the battle report. The human fleet was making inroads against the Calflendil fleet, but it was nothing to wing home over. May as well try to scratch a diamond with your claws, it would be about as effective.

“Good. We’ll fix your planet’s orbit later. Mercury fleet, permission granted to burn the bridge.” Well that stopped my first mate in his tracks. Not that I blame him. I wasn’t aware the jump gates could do that. The blue stretched out beyond sight, and then the entire viewscreen went so bright it disabled visuals for a moment.

Of course, immediately after that, our proximity alarms went off. Warning us that gravitic readings indicated we were about to crash into a planet. A planet! In the middle of a battlefield. As the view of the battle faded back in, I could see why. Millions, maybe billions of human ships. More than every one of their colonies had ever constructed. Shields active, weapons blazing, and engines on full. And our proximity warnings were going off because…

“...Fleet Admiral Lev, that fleet is...its mass is equivalent to-”

“A small planet, yes.” My first mate wasn’t shuffling about at the moment. To be fair, he wasn’t even on his feet anymore. Fell flat on his tailfeathers the moment the screen cleared. Even we had never managed to construct a battlefleet this large. Doing so was absolutely insane. To fair, that’s probably why we were losing to the Calflendil Empire.

“This is Admiral Lev-1 of the Mercury Fleet flagship Cost of Living. Jump successful, jump gate destroyed in process.” Huh, would you look at that. Now that he mentioned it, the jump gate was a glowing, bubbling mass of slag at this point. They had safeties in to prevent overloading those things, I thought.

“Admiral Lev-1, this is Fleet Admiral Lev. Status of the tow?” My first mate’s station was sitting on the floor at this point. The little hoverpad was actually making it glide around in the same general spot, but it couldn’t actually go through the floor.

“Confirmed. Should be here in-” I tried vainly to pat my feathers back down. Puffing up like a frightened child was entirely unseemly. It’s just that...well. The viewscreen was off tint. It was compensating for something. And even then, it was still blue. Brighter and brighter until it turned off again.

And then the proximity alarms kicked into overdrive. Impact imminent, per gravitic readings. As the screen faded back into visibility, I saw why. Another human fleet had jumped in. Their shields glowed as they swarmed through the Calflendil fleet with murder on their wings and death in their wake.

“This is Admiral Lev-2 of the Venus Fleet flagship Victorious Celebration. Tow successful.” Wait, did he say tow? I know our scientists still couldn’t figure out exactly how the human jump gates worked, but that sounded ridiculous, even to me. But...the screen was going blue again.

And of course the alarms went off again. Apparently the ship had determined that the gravitic readings were now indicative of a suicidal approach directly towards an immense planet. Luckily the ship couldn’t just override and autopilot away, I supposed.

“Admiral Lev-4 of the Mars Fleet flagship Righteous Fury. Tow successful.” Mars...Mars. Where had I heard that before? Aha! Wait, no. No, that was it. Mars was Sol-4, right? I pulled up the chart to be sure. Why was the viewscreen still so blue!?

Oh, lovely. The alarms changed again. The ship seems to have decided we’re approaching a dwarf star now. These humans are insane. The only way they’d have been able to make fleets of this mass without an empire to back the construction would be...no. Nobody does that.

“Admiral Lev-5 of the Jupiter Fleet flagship Thunder on High. Tow successful.” The viewscreen faded back into visibility as Admiral Lev...Five? Spoke into the channel. I thought Lev was Fleet Admiral? There wasn’t much point looking at the viewscreen. I wouldn’t be able to even guess at the number of ships the humans were fielding right now, and the blue was hurting my eyes.

And now the proximity warnings were just on full blast. Seems the ship had given up entirely on categorizing whatever’s in front of us. This wasn’t even a battle anymore. It’s like if a platoon of soldiers decided to take particular exception to a single yearling for some choice words provided about their clutchmates.

“Admiral Lev-6 of the Saturn Fleet flagship Time and Again. Tow successful.” I glanced at the target tracking system. Everything was marked as either scuttled or human. Not a single Calfendil ship remained. And the blue glow was still there. There were no stars beyond the battle, just an eerie sapphire blue.

“Admiral Lev-7 of the Uranus Fleet flagship Heritage. Tow successful.” Looking at the battle report my ship was generating, I decided it wasn’t even worth letting it finish. The ship totals had broken the counter. And the blue glow wasn’t going away. The human fleets were all breaking apart and approaching other jump gates they had built in our system, bringing them online.

“Admiral Lev-8 of the Neptune Fleet flagship Storm at Sea. Tow successful.” I stared at what was left of the Calflendil fleet. The ships weren’t just disabled, they weren’t just destroyed. They had been utterly annihilated. And the humans were staging impossibly large fleets in front of their old jump network.

“Admiral Lev-9 of the Pluto Fleet flagship Regret and Sorrow. Tow successful.” I closed my eyes for a moment, and rested my head against the console in front of me. Decorum be damned. The humans had saved us. Even the Calflendil Empire couldn’t field this many ships, and if the blue was any indicator, they still had more coming in.

“Admiral Lev-10 of the Eris Constructor Fleet flagship Strife. Tow successful.” I looked back up and eyed the screen again. Constructor Fleet? That was different from the rest. And, praise the winds, the blue was finally fading.

“Admiral Lev-11 of the Ceres Constructor Fleet flagship Renewal. Tow successful.” As I watched, the viewscreen faded back to normal. I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to see stars before. Those simple little points of light, pinholes to the cosmos.

“This is Fleet Admiral Lev. The Pantheon has assembled.” I clicked my talons at that. Such a simple way of saying they had just jumped most of the mass of a star system - as a battle fleet.

“You know your orders. Mercury through Pluto are to burn the web and recapture our colonies - “ Burn the web, he said. The Calflendil were in for a nasty shock, I thought. Nothing like having ten years of territory acquisition undone in a few hours.

“Eris Constructor fleet is to split among the battle pantheon and perform repairs and maintenance.” One hell of a repair fleet, if you ask me. Billions of ships, maybe more. Absolutely ridiculous, really. What were they going to do, build another one of these fleets?

“Eris Constructor Fleet, you have permission to add to the Pantheon as necessary.” My talons started to itch. Insane, the lot of them. Absolutely insane. At least they’re our allies.

“Ceres Constructor Fleet is to stay in this system and reclaim the battlefield. We have friends to care for, after all.” Care for, he said! As though we were the yearlings new to the stage and humans had been here before us. Not that it matters, I suppose. In their little ten year vacation, they had managed to...well. Their fleets could defend an entire empire while waging a five front war, from what we’ve seen of our neighbors.

“Captain Iverns’tla, do you understand me?” The voice was odd, almost filtered. Ah, of course. It was entirely digital.

“Yes.” Oh yes, of course I understood. It’s not like I hadn’t just been forced to relive some of the most charged memories I possessed. Not like I hadn’t been briefed on what would happen if I made this choice. Warned, over and over.

“All diagnostics have been performed and cleared. Are you aware of what happened?” What happened was so absurd only a human could suggest it. Suicide by brainscan, in exchange for the opportunity to defend my home and people well beyond my lifetime.

“Yes.” Yes, indeed. Clearly, it had worked exactly as well as the humans had stated. I was the first of my kind. I was the first of my line. My entire crew had volunteered for the procedure after the humans told us how they fielded so many ships so quickly. So many more ships than there were humans, in fact.

“All right, captain. Welcome to the eternal navy. We look forward to your service.”