The Wave
20 Sep 2024Carthold Mnalguz
Operation Witch Hunt had put out a call to pilots. Salvation was gearing up to fire the Proteus Wave, and I was all too eager to join the cause. Azimuth pilots were bringing Guardian Relics to HIP 22460, stirring up the hive. I had selected my Asp Explorer for the job since I had no carrier support, and the jump range would quickly bring me closer to the Pleiades. I loaded up on limpets and found my way there.I had only hoped to make the Federal Corvette drop the cargo that they were carrying towards Salvation’s megaship. After interdicting them in transit, we paused frozen in space facing each other. Finally, sending my hatch breaker limpet, our markers turned red. In a blaze of beam lasers, my shields were cut like butter by a hot knife. My Asp was rocked by rounds from a multicannon, so I turned tail and jumped away with haste, getting away with ten percent hull.
If only I had spent some time with the Dragons. Their expertise could have rubbed off on me, but I never had the need to engage in piracy before. And I couldn't bring myself to ask my sister for help. She had chosen anarchy and turned her back on the Federation.
So I decided to check the signal sources in the system to see how the Thargoids were reacting to all the chaos in HIP 22460. When I dropped in there were scouts, I had never seen scouts before in my travels. They were immediately hostile, unlike the larger interceptors. I was able to get a small sample before my shields broke, and jumped out of the system.
Scooping fuel from the host star of the nearby system, something caught my eye. A fleet carrier for GalNet News Digest was parked at a gas giant. As I had always been a better politician than pilot, I figured I'd go there and speak to them about Operation Wych Hunt and the grave mistake the superpowers were making in supporting Salvation. When I landed for repairs and went to their front desk, it was like a ghost town. The one secretary manning the office told me all of their reporters were in the field over at HIP 22460, and they probably wouldn't be back until the conflict has ended.
But their bar was open, so I decided to accept my failure for the day and knock back some spirits.
—--------------------
A few days later at my workstation, I was facilitating getting some much needed supplies to Kirks Inheritance by contracting haulers. Since the Earth Defense Fleet was almost in a constant state of expansion, the price and availability of goods at Vesalius Gateway would constantly fluctuate. This would leave trading in-system at a standstill, and require a few jumps for fair prices.
Suddenly Minister Kerr contacted me and told me, “It's happening.” I rushed to the media hub at LP Free headquarters, where a large crowd had formed by the main holo-screen. “To all humankind, this is Salvation…” I realized that the entire human occupied bubble was watching, if they could. “3… 2… 1…” a quick blue flash emanated from the screen when the Proteus Wave fired. “It worked, they're shutting down.” An eruption of cheers filled the room in celebration, people punched the air and hugged their loved ones.
But soon enough, comms from the bridge of Salvation's megaship became erratic. “Shut it down!” The last thing we saw from the feed was a blinding flash of a sickening green light, even greater than the one before. Then static.
The crowd went silent as the void.
No one can give a true value to the loss of human life that day in HIP 22460. And Salvation would not be there to answer for their deaths. No one could truly describe the horror of the Thargoid roar after the wave, though many at Aegis would try to decrypt it.
All I knew then was that all of humanity would have to deal with The Aftermath.