The Flicker.

Rumors run that when the first man walked Earth, he dreamed of knowing all lands and seas.

So he built ships and invented the wheel.

When man had seen all of Earth, he settled his gaze on the dancing bodies of his sky. His dream became to know all moons and planets.

So he envisioned primitive rockets and stations to step further and higher than ever before.

Standing at the edge of absolute nothingness, the dream of man had once more changed. His heart shook, he now yearned to build a bridge across the stars.

...

That had been more than three hundred years ago.

Fueled by the human desire to know beyond it knew, but also by the fear of boiling tensions across our shrinking confines. Engineers, politicians, scientists, and plain workmen all came together to build the unthinkable.

A machine that would be able to reach farther than anyone could think possible at the time. A machine built in the image of stars, capable of reaching those same stars.

Decades of blood-born knowledge reached an epitome. The first working fusion drive was born under the firm and attentive gaze of all humankind.

The name of the vehicles that would spread life across the faraway firmament was then decided...

Those would be called torches.

...

I had seen them a few times before. Always from a distance.

The recordings, although old and twodimensional, were something resembling a religion for everyone I knew. No one said it, but we all reconned.

There was a certain magic in being able to gaze at the deep blue flames lit within the belly of those roaring engines.

A certain hope sparked whenever one remembered the seeds of mankind were waiting for a simple close approach in order to bloom across foreign planets. To spark the seed of civilization under a brand-new sun.

Everyone revered and respected them beyond words.

Torches would stop the worlds on track, they halted needless evil, and fascinated the curiosity we all had inside us in equal measure.

Whenever a new torch was lit. Everyone stood back and prayed.

...

So what was the nature of those unmistakable blue embers shining in the sky?

[ Kevin, come see this... ]

I said in a low voice, still unable to process what was going on.

[ Vaam, where is that damn tin can? We need it to lift this fucking thing soon, or we will be freezing to death at night. ]

Mack replied, his voice as apathetic and disgusting as always. It would have bothered me at some other moment. However, I didn't even entertain his childish remarks.

[ Kevin. Here, now. ]

I said, this time making sure I was heard.

My eyes remained glued to the stars, shaking in horror at the subtle notice that what I thought to be mere delirium was not. Those flares were going brighter by the second.

Kevin didn't answer...

[ 086097097109, second warning. Return to action before further measures are applied. ]

| Fuck. |

That mechanical, artificial voice rumbled inside my skull like an ancient curse. The handler detested uncompliant miners, and wouldn't hesitate to cause us unbearable pain if the opportunity ever arose.

Still, I didn't care. I simply gritted my teeth and bore the tearing pulses on my skull.

[ KEVIN!!! ]

I shouted through the communication, a deep sense of impending doom growing inside me. The eerie quiet silence of the vacuum took over my ears.

| No one cares, nothing... |

I counted them then and there.

One by one, I decided to count how many of them there truly were.

A brighter one in the middle. Then another three paler ones. Then nine. Then eighteen. Then...

...

Something hard pressed against my shoulder.

It was strangely warm and calming, a hand. The old man's hand rested on my side, his bone-white glove dirtied with fresh-freezed oil from the dead motor.

The reflection wouldn't let me pinpoint the exact spot where his gaze had been set. But Kevin knew better than anyone where each star stood in the firmament. I knew he was staring right at them.

[ What in... ]

He said to himself, almost forgetting the fact we could hear him mutter.

Mack, Martha.

Both of them had left whatever they were doing and were now standing right beside us too. Their heartbeats ramped up as confusion leaked through their minds.

[ Squad W312, you have abandoned position. Last warning. ]

That had been a while ago, the handler's warnings had halted by now.

Even though the pain was scorching and unbearable. Even if the insults hurt, they did not move us.

That artificially induced misery would not bother an old calloused squat such as Kevin, and the three of us were way too prideful to comply with our human babysitter.

For a couple of minutes, no one dared speak.

...

The old man was the first one to find the courage to snap out of his daze.

[ They are growing brighter. Those cannot be leaving torches... ]

He said, his voice laced with a rare hint of uncertainty. Martha and Mack exchanged nervous glances behind my back. Sweat building up on their foreheads.

[ What do you mean brighter? Those can't be torches, Sir. Torches are a one-way trip, they don't come back. ]

Mack said, his tone ignorantly confident on his own drawn conclusions.

...

Kevin's hand raised, his finger pointing upwards.

[ That plasma escaping from their reactors. They are burning at full capacity, they are decelerating. ]

Kevin had always been a sharp man. The glint in his eyes was dangerous like very few others... Yet it didn't take an expert to note he didn't know what was going on.

We had all seen chemical rockets and vehicles launching. It was a common occurrence on the moons. One just had to look up at any given moment to easily spot a satellite, station, or manufacturing facility spinning in orbit.

What we were seeing had nothing to do with those.

The possibilities were many... It may have been a secret military operation happening, an unannounced fire test for a new web of torches... It could have been many things, but very few meant anything remotely good.

[ Get back to work, we will finish as soon as possible and head back to base. ]

Still. We could not just leave. That would not do. Work had to be finished at all costs, or our lives would be the ones at risk.

[ Tssk. ]

Giving one last look at the anomaly in the sky with the edge of his vision, Kevin turned around, disappearing behind the large shadow of the dead driller.

Without uttering a word. Martha and Mack all returned to their tasks.

Martha woke up the hibernating all-terrain, four-legged carrier: the mule. She operated it to attach the broken engine on its ample back. While Mack and Kevin began to modify and fix motor_2 to the best of their ability.

By the looks of it, this driller head still had enough rocket fuel to get back to orbit, where it would eventually be reassembled and redeployed somewhere down here.

That didn't mean we could just overlook fixing it though...

| Statistics, Statistics, Statistics. |

Statistics were always important... Always.

Without statistics, people would not be able to reach other stars. I reminded myself as I attempted to concentrate back on work.

Connecting my pannel to the monitoring port, I accessed sensitive information about the driller's status.

To be honest, the machine was already as good as dead drilling-wise. So the number of 'important analytics' that I should copy and recover diminished substantially.

| I have to record the data on raw deuterium collected along its lifespan... Then there is downloading the critical failure logs in detail, and also the sca- |

...

For some reason, my body froze in place.

...

There was no sound.

The only proof something had ever fired was the elongated shadow that extended through the ground for a single fraction of a second.

I turned around, my head pale, drained from blood as I let my scanning device fall flat to the ground, shattering its fragile screen in the process.

[ Did anyone just see- ]

Grrglch!!!

Like silent, holly thunder, the ground vibrated and resonated only seconds after the fact, with unnerving godly might.

My face immediately turned toward the epicenter of the silent death, only to be blinded by unexpected oncoming fire.

Sparks lit from the barrels of the colossal orbital defense cannons established along the sides of the faraway city. Their coil gun systems throttled at full capacity, launching thin tungsten rounds at near-light speeds...

Shp-

The vacuum shook as the thunder rods escaped the surface of the dwarf planet, accurately impaling the decelerating blue lights from millions of kilometers away.

I gazed up. Charon, the smaller twin moon was just the same, the mirroring body trembled as the colossal turrets spread on its surface finished processing their trajectory calculations.

The horizon of oncoming lights flickered with pale chemical explosions as the atmosphere inside the targetted torches burst into colossal flames.

[ SHIT! What is going on!!! ]

Martha screamed through the communications channel, her voice shaking as the rumbling ramped up with the fire of a third orbital turret.

Several more tungsten rounds soon made contact with the unidentified fleet, smashing through their thin alloy cover, piercing their cargo holds and fusion drives, then coming right out the other side without so much as a scar.

[ Why are they firing the orbital defenses!!! Those are not supposed to be used anymore!!! ]

Mack too shouted, devoid of his usual overconfident self, and instead showing something akin to fear.

How not show fear though..?

Those were old weapons built centuries ago. They were historical leftovers, not usable weapons of war, they were never meant to be used again.

Yet they were right now, and to what point? A simple eye glance would tell.

Whatever was coming towards us far outnumbered the capabilities of the barely functioning surface-to-orbit turrets installed on both moons.

For every cyan spark that burst on the horizon, four more lights ignited from the darkness of space.

What's more, their speed...

| They are going fast... Very fast. |

What had been a few mere minutes ago a dim, almost undetectable spot within the sky, now resembled a colossal web of bright blue lights. Each one of them sparking and lighting as they neared the system-

| A second sun... |

...

Such was the brightness and might that radiated from those engines.

[ Vanm! ]

[ Vaam! ]

| Did I hear... Something. Is someone calling my name? |

[ Vaam!!! ]

Someone gripped my wrist with inhuman strength, so hard I could almost feel the blood inside their hand pumping through the spacesuit.

My gaze flickered, for some reason I was unable to stop gazing at that nearing doom.

[ This is not time for bullshit, Vaam!!! ]

Jerking me aside with his powerful arms, the old man forced me to leave the warmth of the cabin. The intrinsic beauty and nature of the lights looming in on the horizon seemed to be fundamentally shattered as the cold outside crept through my suit.

[ We are returning to base right now!!! Martha, drop that motor from the mule, it's dead weight! Mack, go pick up all the important equipment! ]

Kevin exclaimed, his voice quivering with unfiltered authority in a failed attempt to hide any other emotion.