The Soul of Our Homeland, 1: Amongst the Sirens
03 Dec 2024Meowers
( 03.12.3310 )
( EV Lacertae - Sol )
Today, I shot a Thargoid. Nothing really new, you may say, "you do this for a living". Partially, it's true, and I'll get to that later. So, this one was in Sol. On the orbit of Jupiter.
Today I shot a Thargoid, and then another one, and then some, like it was an ordinary day in a system that's about to be invaded. I was doing my job, my pilots were doing their job, and that's, in short, what I say in response if anybody asks me what I think of that. We're here to do our job, nothing more, nothing less. Clearing the skies, escorting the evac transports, observing the surroundings, or simply maintaining presence in case green shit hits the fan. And it's going to, soon. Very soon.
Maybe I grew used to it. Not the first time, not even the first year. Once you find your calm amongst the blaring sirens, there's no turning back.
So, don't get me wrong, it looks bad, as every mass evacuation honestly should. Humans should live in homes, grow and prosper, not wait in a line, clutching to their bags, hoping the next transport will get them someplace safe. Because their homes aren't so anymore. They shouldn't see us, at all. Not on a mission, at least, rearming and patching up next to their homes.
Still not a fan of crowds, nevertheless I've had my view from the cockpit, while the dock crews did their part. The carriers are one jump away in EV Lacertae, but we only sleep there, using local stations to resupply. And if you've seen one evac line, you've seen them all, except these are bigger, and there are thousands of them all across the system. People in grave danger leaving their homes, people of all ages, classes, ethnicities, confessions, Thargoids equalise all. Thargoids don't care.
If there was a single phrase I could've translated to those people, it's exactly that, "Thargoids don't care". And that's exactly what I saw: people in grave danger leaving their homes. If a view from my cockpit was a picture, that would've been its name. Of course it was nowhere near like that down there on the ground, where people still clutched to their bags and their beliefs. I swear I'm sure a few days ago most of those core dwellers thought Thargoid war is a funny GalNet show.
And now, everyone gets shoved into a transport. Those who support us, those who detest us, those just trying to survive, even the sicko alien fans and those who can't see the difference between xenophobic warmongers and, literally, defence forces. Even those who went down the road of recent trends, of blaming humankind for everything, as if that self-inflicted guilt and tragedy makes them somehow better people. Surely, trends never die, they only ebb and flow.
Since if you don't get shoved into a transport, there's a non-zero probability of you turning into a pool of green stinky sludge and I doubt that'd be a pleasant process.
I'll refrain from any heroic speeches, for the moment. All that surely feels like a battlefield in the making, and we even had some seriously damaged ships over the last few days, but... It's not the time yet. I'll wait for the ground crews to rearm me, I'll check on my wing and the others from my group, then I'll take off and make more of those buggers regret coming here. To the cradle of humankind. Which is about to turn into the belly of the beast, once again.
Humankind may be a bunch of arseholes who almost got wiped out by the nuclear war they themselves started, against each other. Humankind may be a bunch of arseholes fighting each other for pieces of space rock like there's not enough of those in the entire Galaxy for them to settle on. They may even keep bickering and going at each other's throats and wallets despite the alien threat looming over them. But, hey, humans are young. We are young. On a galactic scale, as a species, we're just kids bumping our heads into stuff. And in order to grow up, to grow wise, we should survive first.
So that's why I killed that Thargoid. Someone has to. And that's why I fight. Not to make a living, but to play my part in that survival.
The cradle of humankind is about to turn into the belly of the beast and you need people to get there and do things right. And here we are.
* * *
#2: Liminality >>>
#2: Liminality >>>
Author's note: as you may have probably figured out already, nothing of this was pre-written. For a little while, I'm getting back to commenting on the in-game events, depicting the (probably) last days of the Second Thargoid War from the perspective of my character, an Anti-Xeno Defence Force officer, in the fictional, more numerous and militarised version of the squadron.