Chapter - 2: First Contact

A.D 2132

Geostationary Orbit Prospecta,

USS Donald Trump, Bridge, 2155 hrs.

'Sir we are seeing unusual readings near the edge of the System.' A sensor operator reports to Captain Anderson.

Anderson with a Stern look declares "All hands, we are now in condition yellow. All personnel should be aware and ready to execute appropriate security measures as needed."

A chorus of Yes Sir's came from the bridge personnel, who scurried about readying weapon systems and preparing to move towards the anomaly if ordered.

"Captain massive spikes in gravity detected near the rim of the system, an object is detected in our radar map" warned a crew member.

With another frown on his face Anderson announced "All ships move to intercept the Unidentified Object"

"Yes Captain" announced both the crew of the Donald Trump and as well as its three escort destroyers.

The group's afterburners were activated and they started to move towards the anomaly at a moderate pace.

The Four ships soon found themselves face to face with a small Frigate sized object, most likely a ship of some kind but the design was extremely unusual for a ship with the bridge of the ship on the lower belly of the ship and the top having what seemed to be launch ports for some type of projectile weapon without any of the visible turrets or even launch bays common in human designs of the size.

"Sir there seems to be an unusually designed ship in front of us "announced one of the bridge crew.

Captain Anderson in response ordered the crew to hail the ship and ask for their intentions for infringing on sovereign American space.

But even after waiting for a few minutes no response came from the alien ship much to the crew's dismay.

"Captain the alien ship is powering up its engines and presumably its weapon systems" a worried officer reports to Anderson.

"Goddamnit! All hands Weapons Systems, prepare for combat manoeuvres, show those unknown bastards the might of the American Navy."

The Alien ship started moving towards Prospecta ignoring the American ships in its way with the Donald Trump and the destroyers chasing after the ship in hopes of intercepting it but the small alien frigate turned out to be far swifter than anticipated and they were unable to prevent the ship from escaping through their encirclement making a beeline towards Prospecta while releasing up what seems to be some type of energy.

"Sir they are charging towards the planet, we are unable to chase them even at flank speed, what is the next course of action sir?"

Anderson with a grim look decides '' All hands Fire at Will! "

With the order the Captain the Donald Trump fires its Spinal Mounted Railgun, shooting a high velocity slug towards the alien ship but the slug is stopped near the ship's body by some kind of energy.

"Captain, Attack Ineffective, some energy absorbed the shot before it hit the ship's hull" a worried Gunner reported.

Anderson although astonished by the presence of the shield gives out further instructions "So, they have some kind of energy shielding, alright then destroyers launch missile swarms "

The three destroyers launch their Mk.5 Janus swarm missiles which immediately hit the shielding completely disabling the shield, in the first few hits with the rest tearing through the hull in cascading explosions completely obliterating the ship.

Captain Anderson announces with pride "Alright Men mission accomplished, the enemy vessel has been neutralised and the planet is safe for now!"

An atmosphere of happiness and proudness took over the ship with all of the crew satisfied having prevented any attacks on American territory.

But alas it was short lived with the ship blaring alarms only a few minutes after the destruction of the alien ship.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Alarms rang throughout the ship signalling something much much worse to come.

"Sir We are reading 1! No 2! NO! over 1000 identical gravitational anomalies in the system" shouted out an extremely worried crew member looking towards Anderson with fear.

"What, who is it then, the Russians, the Chinese or is it the Indians? "

"No Sir, the designs do not match anything in our arsenal neither does it fit the structural design of other countries "

"Then where are they from?" Anderson spoke frustrated by the sudden appearance of an armada of unknown ships on what was supposed to be an easy-going guard mission.

With a serious look the XO went near Anderson and whispered "Captain this is most likely a first contact scenario and we may have completely destroyed any chance of a peaceful resolution!"

Anderson fumed at his astronomical error "Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Pull back all ships to the planet's gravity well, we'll call for reinforcements from Sentinel's Reach, until then we'll protect the planet for the evacuation of the Capital City to be finished."

"Yes Sir" a steadfast response came from the crew.

...

Prospecta,

Nova Heights, Capitol Building 0900 hrs

With the Winter beginning in Prospecta , Governor Maxwell was comfortably working in his office with the heating turned up when suddenly ,a woman dressed in a black tailored blouse and a knee-length skirt came sprinting into an office and immediately sat down on a chair ,while panting she said "Governor Maxwell it's an emergency, the Patrol Group just informed us of an imminent invasion from unknown hostiles , they are advising us to evacuate the Capital and leave the Planet as soon as possible."

Maxwell, understanding the severity of the Situation announced "Sound a General Alert and declare a State of Emergency then clear a path to the Spaceport and start evacuating the woman and children first".

"Yes, sir I will be on it right away" the woman confirmed and scurried away to inform the ministry of telecommunications about the general alert.

...

Garrison HQ

A tense atmosphere permeated the training grounds after the announcement of the imminent invasion of the planet, having planted the seed of doubt within the minds of the populace.

But one overly enthusiastic marine spoke without any consideration for the atmosphere and had to say "Man you think we'll get to see any action on the ground?"

"Dude do you really need to jinx us! it's bad enough that we need to evacuate the planet, do you want to fight the enemies without any knowledge of their strength or firepower, also if the Donald Trump loses the fight in space which it probably will considering we are outnumbered 250 times over, we will be vulnerable to Planetary Bombardment as this planet doesn't have any Surface to Space batteries."

"But still, it will be so unusual to actually fight so far out of the state's territory right near the edge of human civilization."

Suddenly the Drill Instructor and the base Commander walked onto the Podium and started the briefing

"Attention! Soldiers, today our task will be to evacuate the elderly, children and disabled from the outskirts of the city to the space port while creating a safe corridor in case of attacks from the invaders, we will not be having any air support as most of them are engaged in evacuating VIPs from their safehouses and while you are assigned armoured assets, they would not be able to assist you inside the city premises due to entry bridge being incomplete.

One sergeant raises her hand up, "Yes Sergeant, what is your query?"

"Sir, would we be allowed to command MECs for the operation?"

"Yes, all ground assets are at your discretion, use them as you see fit"

"Sir Yes Sir" the 5th Combined Arms Division replied and moved towards the outskirts to escort potential civilian assets.

Geostationary Orbit,

USS Donald Trump 1300 hrs

"Sir we've organised a small defence net with mines followed by deployable stationary turrets near the asteroid mining belt" the destroyer, thunderbolt's captain conveys to Anderson.

"Alright our best bet would be to just try and hold the line long enough to retreat as it seems transmissions are being jammed by the enemy and due to the lack of quantum relays there is no possible method to contact Sentinel HQ"

Alright Anderson thought to himself and announced, "All hands-on deck! Ladies and gentlemen, we face an unprecedented threat. We know that the task before us is difficult, and that the odds are stacked against us. But we are not afraid. We have trained for this moment, we have prepared for it, and we are ready to face whatever comes our way."

"We will fight with honour, with courage, and with determination. We will not give up, we will not give in, and we will not be defeated. We are the defenders of this planet, and we will do whatever it takes to ensure that the news of this new foe makes its way to our peers."

"May god be with us!"

A unanimous cheer arises immediately following the speech with the morale of the crew higher than ever as Donald Trump and its escorts move into position to face a foe who outnumbers them 1 to 250 in the enemy's favour.

...

The alien fleet moved slowly, through the asteroid belt, manoeuvring to prevent collisions but all of a sudden, their smaller vessels, which nearly passed through the asteroid belt, exploded into white bursts of flame hitting the cleverly laid minefield on the exit of the belt.

But even the mines seemed to be fruitless as the larger ships switched positions and went to the front of the formation and tanked the hits of the mines with their energy shields without any major damage.

The largest of the alien vessels presumably their flagship ,the Dreadnought sized behemoth was over 7 km in length surrounded by thick layers of armour and armed with massive projectile weapons protruding out its sides, unlike American designs it seemed to lack the iconic Spinal Mounted Railguns but instead used massive side mounted lance like structures as its primary armament.

...

USS Thunderbolt,

"Captain, the minefield has been rendered ineffective by the enemy's larger ships!" informed the Sensor operator

The captain knowing that it's impossible to cripple the aliens gave orders "Move the ship to starboard and launch the Janus Swarms towards the dreadnought, we must take it out before it fires its main weapon"

A chorus of yes sirs came and soon after the swarms were released towards the massive alien warship but the ship immediately fired spherical balls of energy towards the missiles which exploded in bright blue electric sparks after touching the swarm destroying most if not all of it.

"The swarms were intercepted Sir, Your Orders!" the sensor operator asked with worry but before a reply could come the alien ship had fired its main guns, obliterating anything in its path including the Thunderbolt.

The crew didn't even stand a chance as the superheated plasma beam hit the ship's armour immediately melting it off and piercing through the superstructure of the ship causing the reactor to explode in a massive explosion.

...

USS Arizona,

"We have lost the Thunderbolt!" a scared operator informs the captain fearful for their own ship which had got its missile tubes melted by enemy plasma from the attack which had caused the destruction of their sister ship.

"Retreat to Prospecta Orbit we'll make our last stand near the planet "the captain orders the ship's crew with a heavy heart feeling regretful for the loss of the thunderbolt and its crew.

Both the Arizona Class Destroyer's hastily retreated to Prospecta but the Liberty was destroyed by concentrated fire from the alien ships before it could manoeuvre out of the way of an EMP Bolt which disabled its engines and put the veritable nail in the coffin.

The alien Dreadnaught and Battlecruisers gave chase to the two surviving American warships and moved close enough to the Ice Planet to launch their dropships for a planetary invasion.

...

Prospecta,

Outskirts of Nova Heights,

1800 Hours,

The 5th Division had just finished clearing out the last inhabitants of Harmony Grove, when suddenly a loud shrieking noise came from the skies, and then massive cylinders of forged metal fell from the skies.

The drops pods had been intercepted near the Capital City by its anti-aircraft turrets but everywhere else they had disrupted supply lines by injecting themselves in between formations, destroying whatever they landed upon.

Even though the American Colonial Guard prided themselves upon their drone warfare systems and immaculate joint mechanised operations, they were caught by absolute surprise when the enemy had ignored all their preparations and dropped shock troops behind their lines.

"THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!" Three drop pods landed near Harmony Grove and ejected out twelve creatures wearing odd looking biomechanical suits without any distinctive separation in organic or mechanical matter with tetrameric hands carrying what seemed to be guns.

"Open Fire" a group of marines hidden inside a nearby foxhole shot at the aliens with assault rifles but to no effect, since the suits seemed to be safe from small arms fire.

"Lieutenant, our rifles and frags don't seem to have any effect on the suits!" a worried young corporal informed his CO

Lieutenant Jim was distraught by the Suits' imperviousness since armoured assets were quite far off and they lacked any anti-tank armaments, so he decided that their only hope would be the nearby Mechanised Exosuit Combatant Platoon thus, he decides "Call in the MECs corporal the rest of us will hold them off till then."

"Yes, lieutenant I'll be on it right away!" says the corporal and runs towards the village centre where the MEC's were defending the evacuation corridor.

...

"Brrrt! Brrrt! Brrrt!" was the sound of two MEC's clearing the centre of the village defending a group of evacuees from the suits armed with Vulcan Mk 10 Gatling guns which shred through the enemy armour like a hot knife through butter.

The corporal came running towards the two MECs into proximity radio range and shouted into his radio "We urgently require additional support to defend against enemy shock troops, requesting that a MEC unit be sent to our location to provide direct support and eliminate the enemy Heavy Infantry.

The two pilots looked at each other and agreed to follow the corporal to relieve the marine squadron from its guard duty and decides to request permission

"PC do you read me over"

"PC reads over "Platoon command replies

"PC, this is Galileo 1, received a request for support at Point Alpha, moving to support over."

"Galileo 1, you are authorised to provide fire support alongside Galileo Squadron for the retreat from point Alpha to Point Kilo Over"

"Roger that over "

About 10 MEC's alongside Galileo 1 moved towards the open fields leading to the forests outside harmony grove to support the marine platoon.

...

Near the Forest,

The marines were unable to deal any significant damage to the suits but managed to disable one by throwing anti-tank mines at them although the counter attack led to the death of four marines.

All of a sudden, a woman carrying a boy in her arms came running into the battlefield from the forest with tears in her eyes shouting "Help! Help! Heeelp!".

Lieutenant Jim immediately leaped into action and ran towards the woman, some suits turned towards him and started shooting nevertheless Jim took cover by crouching behind a rock and threw a smoke grenade in the middle obscuring the suits field of view while he managed to sprint towards the mother get them to safety behind the rock but, the smoke as well the darkness prevented him from noticing a suit right behind him who punched him in the stomach knocking his wind out.

"Ahhhhh! " Jim Screamed out and flew a few metres from the rock straight into the enemy's line of fire.

Lying there with all of the suit's guns pointed at him Jim thought to himself" So this is it huh! this is how it ends, well at least I'm leaving doing what I thought was right. Ahh, I wish I had visited once home once more "he reminisces about his home on Sentinel's Reach and closes his eyes waiting for the inevitable.

But it never comes; instead, loud explosions surround him and when he opens his eyes, he sees the MEC's gunning down all of the suits around him.

"Lieutenant, I brought the Reinforcements" the corporal shouts happily from top of a MEC while waving at him.

"Damnit corporal lance never before have I been this happy to see you "he says while tearing up.

"Lieutenant! "says Lance and jumps from the MEC to hug him but Jim avoids it by moving out of the way and he falls flat on his face with both of them starting to laugh out loud.

"Let's go! "Jim says to lance with an arm around his shoulder and return together to the Platoon Headquarter near the City's Central Bridge.

Only a few hours later massive beams of light were seen as plasma hit the ground near the bridge glassing everything nearby including the HQ.

The fate of the 5th Combined Arms Division remains Unknown but is assumed KIA

...

Nova Heights, Capitol Building 2300 hrs

Maxwell sat in his office looking out of his window seeing the night sky lit up by plasma beams and Gun Fire as his beautiful city was being reduced to ashes by enemy assaults and planetary bombardment and pondering how he had arrived here in his early days.

Flashback,

It was the early days of the planet's discovery, in the winter of 2122 right after the foundation of the first habitations on the planet's surface, the American senate had decided it was worth mining the helium-3 out of the planet due to its high purity and concentration in the planet's naturally occurring mountains.

The Senate wanted to be one step ahead of the Russian's who had recently set up a mining colony just 50 Light Years away from Prospecta, so to prevent the Russians from gaining an advantage they launched an expeditionary fleet to find out any habitable resource rich planet's nearby leading them to Prospecta which got its name from the ancient American Gold Rush Era's Digger's called Prospector's.

Maxwell had arrived on the planet as a young twenty five year old, alongside his father who had been the Foreman for New Monty Mining Corporation's mission to the planet under the directive of the government to discover Large Helium-3 Deposits on the Surface of the planet.

Lacking any sort of organised government, the foreman was pretty much the de-facto leader of the group, thus he led the expedition into mountains, and after weeks of searching and digging they had found a deposit large enough to last a few decades.

Within a few years the once barren planet became filled with life as more and more people came over from the over populated core planets in search of a better planet, this led to the founding of Nova Heights in 2125 as well as the appointment of the first Governor, Maxwell's Father James Douber.

But Misfortune struck soon afterwards as a political rival of James rammed a car into him, killing both of them immediately.

Maxwell had mourned the loss of his father greatly, but the planet could not be left without administration and due to lack of candidates for the position of the governor, Maxwell who had stepped up for the position won the elections by a landslide and became the new Governor.

Over the years he had become weary of the position but was unable to leave office as the planet had stopped growing after the initial demand for helium died down leaving it fairly underdeveloped in all regions outside the Capital and after the death of the previous Governor, the newer electoral candidates were both lacking and few in number.

With a small population of 3 million, the American government thought it would be a waste of money to establish Static Space Defences on the planet, leading to the current disaster of having no protection against Planetary Bombardment.

...

Maxwell had decided to stay on the planet even after the last ships left the spaceport and ordered all personnel to abandon the city and leave as fast as possible.

He had lived most of his life with the planet and its people and with his father laid to rest here, he wanted to end his days peacefully doing what he had always done.

As the clock struck Midnight as the last of the AA turrets collapsed and the entire city was glassed by the alien's plasma lance killing anyone who had survived the initial bombings of the city.

...

Far Orbit Prospecta,

USS Arizona, 2400 hrs

The crew witnessed in Horror as the Alien Dreadnought fired its plasma lance onto Nova Heights, the plasma with its torrid heat turned the silica in the soil to a glass like substance turning anything within a 10 km radius of the city to glass, forever annihilating any chance of rebuilding the city.

"Captain We must leave now; we can't risk evacuating more people from the planet." the XO reported to the captain extremely worried for their futures

"Men it's been an honour to serve alongside you. I never thought I'd have to make this announcement, but the time has come for us to abandon ship. The enemy vessels are too fast for the Donald Trump to escape from, and our noble warship has already lost its primary thrusters and armaments I have no other choice but to sacrifice our ship by ramming it into the Dreadnaught and cause enough destruction to prevent it from firing its lances at the Civilian Ships long enough for them to warp into an allied system.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your dedication and hard work. It has been an honour to serve with you.

Crew, as my final order, find the nearest dropship and join up with Captain Anderson's!"

"May God be with us".

Soon after the announcement all crewmates left the ship on its dropships towards the USS Donald Trump save for the captain and a stubborn Engineer.

"I ain't leaving the ship in this lifetime cap, I've spent too much of my life on this old girl to leave her alone in her final journey" the 80 year old Chief engineer spoke with his head held high with pride.

"Alright then chief, put the Cold Reactor on overdrive we'll need the power"

"Roger that Cap! "The chief engineer replied while disabling safety measures on the reactor.

The Arizona put its reactor at 200% output and moved at ramming speed towards the dreadnought, ignoring every other ship straight as an arrow into the enemy lines.

The dreadnought turned to shoot its EMP Bolts but the Arizona on overdrive was too swift for the slow bolter turrets to hit instead allowing the ship a small window to launch all of its swarms at minimum clearance, guaranteeing a hit onto the shield of the dreadnought.

"BOOM! BOOM!" The missiles hit the shield and caused it to flicker, seeing a chance the Arizona charged towards the keel of the ship.

While charging a transmission came from the Trump "Kendall! turn the ship and retreat right now, I did not order you to do anything like this and I will not be having one of my oldest friends die under me, please come back immediately!"

"Sorry Anderson, but I can't risk letting you die, someone needs to inform the high command of this threat, and remember no matter the decision you took before, every one of us decided it together so please don't blame yourself!" Kendall replied and with a sigh of relief went onwards.

"KENDALLLLLL! NOOOOOO!" Anderson shouted into his microphone but the connection had already cut out.

Back on the Arizona,

"Chief, thank you for staying with me till the end! let's end this once and for all" after replying to Anderson ,Kendall rammed into the dreadnought causing a massive explosion as the nuclear reactor exploded in an intense flash of light and heat vaporising the dreadnought's port side, triggering a chain reaction within the ship setting of ammunition and fuel, causing it to explode in a brilliant red.

With the destruction of their flagship the aliens in confusion stopped chasing the remaining vessels, allowing them to charge up the Alcubierre drives and warp out of the system towards Sentinel's Reach alongside one and all survivors of the disaster.

...

TBC