Despite the oncoming human fleet, and Cparitay’s offer-slash-promise of aid... that situation is not going to resolve immediately. I am at a complete loss for what we’re doing next, even.

“So, Cparitay,” Sylvia begins, breaking the building silence, “what exactly do you expect to happen next? You know, apart from the matter with the other fleet that’s approaching us?”

“That would depend on you humans as much as on me or my own kind,” the chuckle-rattle again comes through under the translation. I’m starting to really appreciate Cparitay’s sense of humour. “Something down the lines of us finding one able to speak for the Humans, bringing them to meet with the others who speak for each of the Many, and finally they can put their heads together and work out minutiae. And that process will probably go on for at least thirty years, while everyone else just gets started on the actual work of building trade relationships in the meantime, but the process is, apparently, important.”

“Hum.” Sylvia wets her lips. “I’m pretty sure there’s someone like that, but you’d have to go farther into human space to find them.”

“Indeed? Well, I guess we might even start on the meantime already, since we’ve got this other thing to wait for right now. So, what sort of ind-” The translation stops, though there is some (still completely unintelligible to me) exclamations that follow before the transmission cuts entirely.

I’m inclined to agree. The human fleet, so far flying in stable formation, has shattered, the flagship vessel putting on speed that the other craft cannot match, and the others spreading out into a cone behind it

They’re still significantly distant, but seeing them move means their signals are also about to arrive. And, while the first cluster of transmissions are thoroughly encoded, huzzah for military secret-mindedness, it ends with an open declaration from two ships at once. Instead of hearing both at once, I stop the free playback of them and begin listening to Spaerets’ message first.

“Congratulations,” he spat out the word, “You have convinced my subordinates of your authority. But all you have convinced me of is that you are exceptionally unfit to be left alive. Had you let me handle whatever remained of this situation, had you seen my skill in managing these alien’s expectations of us, well... There might have been a place for you, a nice little spot for your observations of their scheming nature in my report of it all. But you have robbed me of it. The aliens, so they claim, will defend you, and the ships which should be under my command are now refusing to join my last attempt at striking down their insidious offers. But I think they shall have trouble with the hand I shall deal them. Spaerets, signing out of this system’s insufferable comms network. May you rest better than you have lived.”

Sylvie lets out a long groan. “Well, he’s definitely an ass.”

“No question there.” I shake my head in agreement. “No question at all.” I set the second message to play.

“Hail!” The speaker is definitely male, and sounds cheerful, but in that mode where someone is trying to sound upbeat when they don’t feel it. “Ash, and Cparitay, both. So, uh. My ostensible commanding officer has gone a little bit nuts. I am next in command of this fleet; thus it is kinda my duty to establish what I think is the situation. He is rogue, and the military will understand your actions – particularly with the conversation we had just now. I don’t know quite what he’s planning, but... it might be an impact event. We’ll be doing what we can, but we’re in older ships, we are going to be left behind if he manages to escape our reach. Vilav out.”

“Oh, no,” Sylvia and I both say at once.

“Oh, no,” I repeat.

But neither of us make a further move. We simply see Spaerets’s ship, putting on ever more speed, pulling away from the rest of his former fleet. The allied alien fleet, at least, has begun moving towards the oncoming fleet.

With a soft curse word, Sylvia opens the transmission again, “Cparitay, turns out we have a rogue agent, I guess. You need to stop him, or this whole planet is dead. At least all the humans of it.”

“The more you can slow him down, the better any impact would be,” I add. “And, also, turning speed. He’s going to be too fast to be agile, our ships are a lot more mundane than yours, at least when it comes to propulsion.”

“Propulsion!” Syl jumps, “Your bubbles! If the engines are gone, consider your bubbles to drag him off course!”

The return line crackles to life, and the layered voices reply, “Watch Guardians Ash and Sylvia, I hear you and we shall attend to your words with speed as we are able. You shall be safe. I am Speaker Itacpεqrri. Cparitεi is now elsewhere.”

“I understand,” I nod. “We shall await your victory, I guess.”

“We shall listen if you speak,” Itacpεqrri replies, and then their line closes once more.

I reached over, and closed our own line, but could do nothing more than watch the screens.

The now scattered human fleet is trying to get into a position where they could fire and know what they were hitting, or maybe better yet, know they weren’t going to hit the planet. The former flagship, now rogue ship, had a significant acceleration advantage. The distances were growing fast, though the fleet had started out tightly-clustered enough that they still had some chance of stopping this before it got out of hand.

Two of the fleet ships stop thrusting and coast for a long second, and then great shafts of light spear out, the spinal weaponry pouring every single newton available into the effort. The shafts, leaving behind either screen-damage or a trail of ionised plasmas, lance for the flagship, and miss.

The flagship responds, row upon row of missiles spreading out in a great wave towards the fleet behind it.

Point defenses along the entire hemisphere of the fleet begin trying to deal with the approaching missiles.

I back away from the screen, not sure if I want to see any of the details of this. But I find I can’t look away.

One of the ships that had stuck somewhat in formation with a smaller ship begins to coast, the support ship managing to snipe out the few threatening missiles for them both. After the requisite pause, a greater spine-shaft fires from it, seemingly on target again, but the last two had missed, so there was a degree of accuracy we couldn’t get from the screen before us.

It does not miss.

The flagship is splashed in vivid colour, with a backspray of blue-green cloud erupting from the contact point. The colour of oxygen, stripped of everything and let loose into the aether. Not a clean hit on the engines.

The colours were too beautiful for the sight.

My heart pangs at the thought of what has happened on the ship. I'm okay. I'm okay. It isn't that bad.

Another half-dozen ships begin to coast, and I turn away. I stumble to the couches, and slump down to the floor, leaning against whichever couch it is. I give the screen another dull-eyed glance, and see a wreck of a ship, skewered by four new shafts of vicious light. Parts are now decidedly shattered off of it, but the engine is still burning brightly with its own glare, and the ship is now somewhat lighter for the losses. It is still gaining speed, faster now, still on its path of destruction. But only the destruction of this planet.

The spwihicpεa, though, are only now arriving, the runaway pace of both sides having cut down the travel time wonderfully, though with only each action to view, the time may have passed quicker than I felt it.

“We have this. Thank you,” comes the burst of a translated message from the newcomers to the battle, and after a moment, the human ships begin to come about and slow their scattering paths.

I watch the bubble-enveloped ships take positions, and then they open fire, cutting-torch lasers that seem to slice the sky itself.

The engines were no longer functioning after that. Any crew present is dead. The remaining pieces of ship are small enough they would probably burn brightly, perhaps even partially survive the descent, but would pose no threat to the planet.

But the spwihicpεa do not move. The wreckage splashes upon the bubbles, seeming to get twisted into the walls, but then it is simply... absent, except for a lingering glow at the bubble’s surface.

All that is left is the clouds of ionic gas, which are slowly starting to blow away from the star.

The alien ships turn, each one facing close towards the sun, and then they drop their bubbles, and a great cloud breaks into existence, a tumbling scatter of something the cameras we have could see nothing about. The cloud is moving at a very appreciable percentage of light, and would soon enough be swinging wide around the star to depart into the deepest parts of space.

The threat was gone. And, admittedly, one ship was a light price to pay.

I feel Sylvie settle down beside me, an arm draped over my back.

I wish we could have paid nothing. Needless...