“Sir, that transmission from NBNN that I have been monitoring? They just announced the president will make an emergency broadcast in 15 minutes. It is going to be broadcasted on all devices in America.”

“Excellent work Lieutenant. Any other news?”

“More than I can track Sir. The most common rumor is Aliens have appeared around Jupiter, but everyone seems to have a different idea. The rumors are endless Sir.”

“Even if it is Aliens what’s the big deal? Don’t we already have Aliens near Jupiter?” Nate Brown the Cherry Barbs Navigator asked.

“Amoebas and single celled organisms under ice are a hell of a lot different than something the size of a city appearing in a burst of radiation.” Lieutenant Commander Bannon said.

Commander Frazer stood at his console looking at the data. The Chinese fleet they had been following were at full burn and after 30 minutes were just starting to accelerate away from American space. His own ship was not able to make the same maneuvers without being seen and was quickly being left behind. The Minnow class ships may have excellent stealth systems but even a blind person would see their exhaust plume and heat signature if they put their main engines to a full burn.

The Minnow class stealth ship was the greatest stealth vessel to ever enter service in any nations Navy.

While the EU and the United Kingdom had experimented with the technology; negligible successes and mounting costs saw to it that the programs were eventually cut. The Chinese and the Russians never even bothered to try to develop the technology, simply preferring to make bigger ships with larger and more guns. It didn’t matter if people knew where you were when you could put a dozen 20-kilogram slugs through their ship from a half million kilometers away.

The United States however had long enjoyed the first strike ability that submarines could give. With the push into space and the creation of Space Forces there was a lot of support for research into a ship that would allow for both unparalleled scouting and a first strike against enemies. While the project was incredibly expensive it eventually paid off with the creation of stealth plating and the Mark 1 Stealth Probes.

Although the first use of the technology was for an unmanned probe that only saw limited production the ability for the Mark 1 stealth probes to easily fool all known and even theorized detection methods meant that soon plans for a cruiser sized ship were soon underway.

The initial design called for a 400-meter-long cruiser to be made with a half dozen large turrets each with 2 guns, point defence guns, 12 missile ports, 12 drone launchers, all with enough nuclear weapons to decimate half an enemy fleet with their first salvo.

Unfortunately, the larger the ship and the more externally mounted weaponry, the more difficult and expensive it was to ensure the stealth would work correctly. In the end the design had to be scaled back. The Minnow class as it stood now was the result of that.

Disliked by the top brass and disowned by the very admirals that pushed for them originally, the Minnows were incredibly expensive to build and maintain and were of very little use in a first strike capability against a fleet.

Instead of a 400-meter-long cruiser with 24 guns on 12 turrets they were a 125 meter long frigate with 4 guns on 2 turrets, and none of them large enough to damage a capital ship using standard rail gun rounds. The drones were completely cut, and the missile ports reduced from 12 to 4. Even the number of point defence guns were drastically reduced as they greatly increased the cost of the ships. The only true innovation the Minnows had aside from their stealth were the slingers.

Created as a way for a Minnow to get a first shot in without completely abandoning stealth they can toss an unguided stealth nuclear mine towards their enemy, in the paths of enemy ships, or simply on commonly travelled routes. Given the fact that the mines were unguided, and the slinger had a very limited speed the ship would need to get very close to use it. However, the slingers produced no heat, or energy and a ship could in theory use them without spoiling their location.

For all that the Minnows lacked in offensive power they worked extremely well as scouts, proving able to almost effortlessly slip behind enemy lines to watch fleet movements, or production. This combined with their laser communication system gave the Minnows their new role in the navy. By following an enemy fleet, they could send almost real time updates back to high command ensuring that American Fleets could never be surprised.

Should a battle break out they would be able to send real time data on enemy ship positions to friendly units, even helping to account for an enemy ships dodging attempts by watching their thrusters, as well as providing targeting data for nuclear missiles, the main armament of the American fleet.

With even rail gun rounds having a travel time of sometimes over 60 seconds before they arrived, the ability for a ship to receive more accurate data on where enemy ships would be and to send their 2nd or 3rd shots to where enemy ships would be was incredibly valuable and could theoretically change the outcome of a battle.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on who you spoke to there had been no conflicts between any of the great powers and so far, all naval doctrine was entirely theory.

“Sir!” Lieutenant Alyx Green said. “I’m picking up a message from Admiral Jacobs himself.” The crew of the Cherry Barb stopped talking immediately. “Confirming codes… Codes have been confirmed, patching it through now.”

Due to stealth ships being hard to find, even for their own side, it could be extremely difficult to communicate with them when they were on missions. In order to ensure they could be contacted several different ways to get messages to them had been devised. The simplest was to transmit an encoded message to a wide area. When a stealth ship received the message, the ship could respond to either any communication satellite or a specific one to let command know their orders had been received and set up real time communications if necessary.

“Put the message through.” Lieutenant Green

With a that the message began playing onto the Command Center. “Commander Frazer, this is Admiral Jacobs you are to leave your current assignment immediately and report to Ares station at your maximum possible speed. I repeat you are to report to Ares station for resupply and new orders making your maximum possible speed. In order to ensure your fastest travel time, we have obtained permission for you to travel through EU controlled space. You are to turn on your transponder and answer any hails from EU forces, but they will allow you passage. Confirm receipt of orders with L-Com System on the Rushmore using current codes. Jacobs out.”

Commander Frazer and Lieutenant Commander Bannon looked at each other. The EU allowing a military ship to travel through their territory? While trade partners the EU and America were not the close allies they once were, and the EU took their neutrality very seriously. For permission to have been asked for and given so quickly showed how the seriousness of the situation.

“Brown you heard the Admiral, plot a course back to Ares using the most direct route and maximum speed. Coms send receipt of transmission and orders to the Rushmore.” Captain Frazer said before picking up his microphone. “Also get me ship wide.”

“Sir, if we go to full burn now, we’ll show up on every scanner in the solar system.” Lieutenant Brown said.

“Brown, do you really think that now is the time for you to be trying to use that thing on the top of your neck? Do you honestly think you an Admiral cares about the opinion of some Lieutenant on a frigate? Keep your opinions to yourself and follow orders.”

“Yes, sir.” The Navigator said somewhat sullenly as the Lieutenant Commander stalked across the bridge looking for anyone else who thought they knew better than an Admiral.

“..new orders, we are to make our maximum possible speed to Ares Station. This will mean we are abandoning stealth and we will be using a full burn. I repeat all crew should prepare for a full burn in 5 minutes.” Hanging up his received he looked to Brown and said, “How is that course coming along?”

“I have it all plotted in sir. It should take us 27 days to make it to Ares Station, pretty much a straight shot sir.”

“How long would it take if we had to detour around EU space?”

“Just over 4 weeks sir, 32 days Sir.” Lieutenant Brown responded.

“How much work do you think it took the government to get us through EU space so quickly?” the Lieutenant Commander said to Commander Frazer.

“If this was business as usual? A lot, but if Aliens really did appear near Jupiter? Well it could be everyone is being much more agreeable with each other. This detour won’t even save us very much time. Looks like we’re going to be sent into it now Pounds.”

“Whatever the hell it is.”

The two of them sat in their crash chairs and prepared themselves for the initial gee forces a full burn would entail. Once they had finished decelerating and started on their new course the inertial compensators would be able to handle the forces but for now the couches were still necessary.

“All crew prepare for deceleration in 10 seconds.” The Helm officer Joshua Faulkner said as the crew all strapped themselves in.

The Cherry Barb used her gravity thrusters to orient herself the correct direction before her main thrusters powered on and she slowed before accelerating away.

As soon as her main engines started every scanner in the nearby Chinese Fleet was trained on the small ship that appeared off their stern. A few gunnery officers even painted her with active lock-ons as almost every Captain on the Chinese fleet had their evening interrupted by terrified Junior Officers letting them know they had been shadowed by an American Vessel for who knew how long.

“Green, as soon as it starts, I want the Presidents broadcast on my terminal.” Commander Frazer said.

Although the only sound behind him was a slightly strangled gurgle he took that as a yes. Some people just did not handle gee forces very well.

After a few moments the face of the Steven Green the President of the United States of America appeared on his terminal.

There was a moment of silence before he started to speak, and commander Frazer used this to take a good look at the Commander in Chief. His hair had become considerably greyer in the last few weeks, but aside from that he looked calm, collected and not at all just like world war 3 had been narrowly averted barely a few hours ago.

“My fellow Americans, as many of you already know several hours ago a burst of exotic particles and radiation was detected in the vicinity of Jupiter. This burst contained types of particles that have never been recorded in Human History and our best scientists had only just begun to theorize that they could even exist.

Shortly after the burst was detected every telescope in the system that could be, was trained on Jupiter. This is what they saw.”

At these words President Steven Grahams face was replace with a still picture of small cluster of objects against a backdrop of Jupiter. The resolution was good enough to make out several distinct objects, although they were small enough that it was impossible to make out details.

“As you can see here a small group of objects moving under their own power were spotted in the vicinity of Jupiter, shortly after their appearance they altered their course to Jupiter. At last count we can confirm there are 25 objects of various size, with the largest two being at least 15 miles in diameter. Currently there is no indication that they are hostile. However, as our forces were already at a heightened state of alertness this will be continued until further notice, additionally the National Guard has been mobilized in order to help maintain order.

As an event of this magnitude effects every man woman and child in the solar system, I have reached out to not only our Allies but also China, Russia and every nation on the earth. All parties have agreed to cooperate and to share all information we learn on the Unknown Visitors as well as prepare a joint operation to Jupiter to meet them. While every Nation we have spoken to have expressed an interest in joining the operation, unfortunately due to the distances they will be traveling as well as the potential danger the initial operation is likely to face, only those powers with sufficient space forces will be making up the initial task force. Make no mistake ladies and gentleman, this is a verified first contact scenario with what appears to be intelligent life not of this Solar System. There can be no understatement regarding the importance of this event.

All parties have also agreed that the growing tensions in the Asteroid belt that were threatening to erupt into war must not be allowed to escalate. To this end new talks are being organized as we speak in order to ensure that Humanity will be moving forwards together to meet these new peoples.

Currently the closest group of Humans to the unknowns are the crew of the Europa Project who have been studying the moons of Jupiter and the life they have found there for several years. As this is a scientific crew that is made up of people from all corners of the globe, I cannot think of a better crew who could make first contact on behalf of all of Humanity.

While this event brings an answer to the question of whether or not there is other intelligent life in the Galaxy to and end, we must nonetheless exercise caution and restraint in the coming days. We must not allow ourselves to give into fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of each other, or fear of the future. We must stay true to the ideas that have always sustained us. That together we are far stronger than we are apart, that the Human spirit will always persevere and triumph over all adversity. God bless you all, god bless these United States and God bless all of Humanity.”