Chapter 3 - Where It All Began
Universal Year 7638 – Day 254
Location: Andromeda Galaxy, On a Guardian Warship orbiting Planet Nivoth
The sound of heavy footsteps hurrying towards the Captain's office could be heard distinctly among Crewmen hustling to their stations. It was a man in his late twenties, carrying sheets of paper that looked like reports of some sort. Knocking on the door, he said "Sir, a distress call has been made. It's the Indorix Cluster, again."
"Come in" a rough voice answered. The Captain was seated on his chair going through some documents when the messenger saw him.
"Those damn nitwits again." the captain sighed "It's the third time now. If it's a fake alert again, I'm gonna blast a hole in their heads myself. Relay the report to the bridge and ask the Alrin to dispatch an advance unit."
The messenger put a clenched fist to his chest as a salute and left quickly. Seeing that this distress call took priority, the captain put the documents back on the shelf behind him and left his office.
The Captain strode towards the bridge of the Prophet, an S-Class Warship of the Guardian Force. The Prophet was still larger and more powerful than other Warships of the S-Class. It could easily devastate 20 A-ranked Warships by itself and even obliterate whole planets. That's the kind of firepower that the Prophet had.
The Andromeda Galaxy had discovered that there were intelligent inhabitants in other Galaxies much like themselves about two centuries ago. That gave rise to the insecurities of invasion which in turn resulted in the formation of a space defense force i.e. The Guardians.
Space was just like a planet on a huge scale. There were many races, many species of organisms. And vast reserves of new metals and valuable substances waiting to be discovered. But that also meant that there were races that assaulted others for more power and more resources, of course. The Inter-Galactic Alliance to uphold law and order had just been formed, so they did not have enough power to subdue such criminals. So every galaxy and large solar systems which had smart organisms, had their space forces which led to a violent race for power.
Every race was heavily researching ways to enhance their military power. But there was one galactic force who discovered a godlike power. The Sentinel Space Force of the Milky Way Galaxy. Repeated tests and centuries of research led them to use Antimatter explosions as weapons. This power is no joke. It has the power of obliterating whole solar systems in a single shot. Antimatter missiles were, by all means, an SSS-Ranked power. And the power of Antimatter explosions did not end there. There were rumors that it had the potential to open momentary gateways to other dimensions. It was like a superior method to warping which instead of shortening distances in the current dimension it blew a momentary hole in the walls of dimensions allowing dimensional travel. But if it meant that if we could cross dimensions then it also meant that whatever resides in those dimensions could cross that gateway to ours too. That power was destruction redefined.
Because of these unknown outcomes which could result in galactic destruction, the Sentinel Space Force shut down all further research regarding weaponizing Anti-matter and stored away all files of research in classified locations in the Milky Way. This power made the Sentinel Space Force and Milky Way one of the most powerful among the cluster of galaxies, second to only the Guardians and Andromeda galaxy which ranked the first because of its size and a freakishly large space force.
The Guardians had now received a distress alert from the Indorix solar system and dispatched the Prophet towards its latest assignment. Light from the Indorix 12-A, the star of the Indorix Solar System, shone across a man's face who was standing on the bridge of The Prophet. The man was impatient, holding a report from the advance unit he sent earlier. A strip of cloth above his pocket on his uniform had his name embroidered on it, Horus Steward. The badges which now shone brilliantly due to the bright light from Indorix 12- A indicated that this man was a Captain.
Horus Steward, the Captain of the Prophet, an S-Ranked Warship always had a stern and proud look on his face. But as of now, his face exhibited a great deal of shock due to the scene in front of his eyes. He couldn't believe it. The seven planets of the Indorix Solar System that were supposed to be in front of him were not there. In their place there was just debris, floating through space. But there was a planet left. A dwarf planet to be exact, which orbited Indorix 12-A some distance away from the other planets. It looked like something great exploded. The captain looked at the dwarf planet and thought that it was spared due to being a bit too far away. That dwarf planet had inhabitants the last time he visited this place so he gave orders to approach the planet. The Captain realized upon closer to the dwarf planet that the explosion had reached it too. Half the planet was blown away and reduced to debris like the others.
The first thought that came into the Captain's mind was that this explosion could only have been due to a supernova, but Indorix 12-A was still there. Then the only possible way for this to happen was an Antimatter explosion. The analysis report that was handed to him just confirmed his suspicions. He came back to the bridge after instructing the other crewmen to run further tests on the debris collected and report it to HeadQuarters. The door to the bridge opened after the Captain put his authorization key in the input. The Technical Sergeant was the first person he saw after the door opened. The Sergeant had tears running down his face seeing the rubble that lay in the space in front of him. Horus recalled that one of the planets destroyed was the sergeant's home planet.
He glanced at the scene again and said "Sentinel Space Force" while gritting his teeth in anger. The people present in the bridge understood what Horus was thinking. The Senior Master Sergeant came up to Horus and said "Yes, sir. This certainly seems to be orchestrated by them."
That event marked the start of a war that lasted for 10 long years. Endless bloodshed, cities and planets devastated, small races pushed to extinction. Planets and Galaxies going up against each other. This situation went way out of hand for the Inter-Galactic Alliance. Some even took advantage of the situation and looted the battlefields after the war, robbed resources disguised as the soldiers of one or the other faction. This war took everybody by surprise.
The Sentinel Space Force denied any part in the tragedy that occurred at the 64th Sector that used to be the Indorix Solar System. But due to being the only galactic force that possessed Antimatter technology and being the ones who invented it in the first place, believing them was out of the question for other galaxies. Every galactic force that believed that they were in danger because of the Sentinel Space Force joined the Vanguard Alliance formed by the Guardians of the Andromeda against the Sentinels.
The Sentinel Space Force couldn't keep on denying their involvement in the Indorix tragedy while the Vanguard Alliance went on laying waste to their outposts. They had to fight back. It was surprising that the Sentinel Space Force fought against and kept the whole Vanguard Alliance at bay all by itself. But the damage was irreparable. Keeping the war going was hard and both sides incurred very huge tolls. The Sentinel Space Force couldn't keep up the fight because their resources won't hold out forever and the Vanguard Alliance was trying to end the fight before the Sentinels could attack with Antimatter.
At the end of the war which went on for 10 years, both sides had become so weak that a third party could probably intervene and take over them. They realized this and felt the need to form a Non-Aggression Pact right away but the Vanguard Alliance could not make themselves do this because of their great hatred towards the Sentinels. The Vanguard Alliance had taken some more hits from Antimatter missiles during the war which had just fueled their hatred even more. But the Antimatter missiles which were used against them were nowhere as powerful as the first, those barely had the power to destroy an Alpha Outpost on a planet. This meant that most of the military facilities that the Vanguard Alliance had conquered were in charge of Antimatter technology. Now, the Sentinels had almost lost their ace card against Vanguard. But neither the Sentinels nor the Vanguard was in any condition to keep up the fight. And even if they kept on fighting, they risked their whole galaxies plunging in disaster and other enemies invading. So, a Non-Aggression Pact was formed and in this pact, none of them would attack each other.
The Vanguard at this point had developed an intense hatred towards the Sentinels because of the destruction of the home planets of many of their people. They had decided that as soon as their force recuperated from losses, they'd strike hard and fast at the Sentinel HQ, Pheron 857. The Sentinels had more or less anticipated that they'd be hit so they tried to maximize their defense and grow their military might while they had time.