Throughout Inhabited space and in the Quarantine Zone

The distress signal flared out like a beacon. It hit all allied commands like a lightning bolt from the blue, sending garrisons to high alert and medical and evac facilities into overdrive in preparation. Three new receivers also lit up, showing an unrecognizable code, until an unknown system process translated it and flashed clear instructions. These instructions awoke subroutines that had been programmed in via deep genetic implanting from the race’s creation.

Back in the Sol system, the signal lashed through the solar system, awakening facilities that have slumbered since a time long forgotten. These sudden rumblings and network intrusions caused the current inhabitants of Mars, Mercury, Luna, several larger asteroids, and a few of Saturn and Jupiter’s moons all to get a rude and sudden awakening. Confusion ran rampant as alarms started blaring and forges started making parts for vessels that were now under construction at an accelerated pace. People asked what was going on but no one had an answer.

On the Askillion, the signal hit the comms station, awakening similar coding. The first to notice was the Comm officer, Skip, and just before the alerts went off, he managed to slap the intercom and blurt out, "Ma'am! Incoming distress call, source unknown. It is labeled as Priority Alpha."

The nav officer called out next, his tone frantic. "Ma'am! Our course just altered drastically! We are moving away from our intended destination of Epsilon Terentus and are reading as heading on a course to a point above the Galactic Plane. ETA Six Minutes. I cannot override, ma'am, I am locked out of my controls."

There was silence at first. Then the admiral busted through the door to her ready room, metal shrieking as the door failed to open fast enough. Her uniform was not in its normal state of prim and proper, as though she had been relaxing while waiting for an update. That and her sudden egress through what was now left of a door did not help the image. However, it did draw everyone’s attention to here and she took advantage as she began issuing orders.

"Navigator Ulen, keep trying to get us back under local control. Skip, show me this message. Captain Jorgenson, alert the Airedales and tell them to have everything spun up and ready."

"Ma'am when you say everything, you mean all of it, right? Even SAR?" Jorgenson confirmed before he relayed the order.

She nodded an affirmative and pushed a button on the comm station. "Colonel Haskel, we have a situation. Get our ground pounders ready, just in case we need to repel boarders or board something." The response was prompt, though there were two voices in the background bickering, with a Scottish burr in both, and the entire bridge crew heard bagpipes playing as well.

"Aye, ma'am. I have sixty-some odd men that can act as raiders if need be. They have some arms that will be useful due to our, uhm, new physical situation. The rest will be ready for repelling boarders." The colonel’s voice rose to be heard over the background noise.

Linze nodded to herself. "Ok, tell your raiders to be prepped at the boarding ram launch tubes in three minutes, hard vacuum ready."

"Roger that, ma'am. Haskel out."

The line went dead and she shook her head as Skip punched up the message, showing a jumble of alien text that slowly translated to readability.

[This is a Priority Alpha Alert from M5A97LAR20. Massive Dark-fleet inbound from extra-galactic origin. Situation untenable, we are outnumbered and desperately require assistance.

Repeat

This is a Priority Alpha Alert from M5A97LAR20. Massive Dark-fleet inbound from extra-galactic origin. Situation untenable, we are outnumbered and desperately require assistance.

Repeat]

The Message was apparently on a repeat cycle and only a few minutes old. Skip frowned and punched up a new message on a secondary screen and a third on a tertiary monitor, which revealed itself as a video message from the comms relay.

[To M5A97LAR20 From GalCon MilCom Everything is being sent that can be spared. Holdout for at least three hours if you can, a possible internal threat has appeared. May the Creators protect us all.]

On the third screen, Ensign Vorschal, who had been patiently waiting his turn, started speaking when he saw the admiral looking in his direction. "Ma'am A signal just blew through our buffers and was relayed home. Our IFF just updated and the unknowns have been marked as possible friendlies." He caught his breath before continuing, "We also got a fast transmission from something in the SOL system. We might have backup soon enough, ma'am."

The admiral nodded then said, "Keep me updated when you have more intel. Our ETA for the location of this distress call is now a few minutes." The younger officer nodded and signed off as another video took his place.

A harried looking man in a lab coat started speaking in an Indonesian accent. As a new com line opened. "Admiral, whatever was in that code has awakened bits of code in the system. The plasma lances have stabilized, along with a few other jittery systems. We have also received a massive data dump that is translating now, at least zettabytes worth of data, ma'am. It has filled the Tertiary and Quaternary Databanks."

He looked deeply unsettled. She worked to ease the scientist’s mind. "Take a deep breath and relax a moment, then find me info of what we might be facing, if you can. We might be entering combat here shortly." The man in the lab coat swallowed hard as he heard that and he nodded his head as he signed off.

Captain Jorgenson coughed softly to getLinze’s attention. "Ma'am, all squadrons are prepped for rapid deployment, standard loadouts. Also, all batteries report ready to fire and the PDTs are in action standby. Both manual and automatic control reading nominal, despite altered physics."

She nodded and sighed before straightening her uniform jacket and sitting down in her command chair. The timer continued counting down as she activated the shipwide PA. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are at general quarters. We are entering an unknown and most likely hostile situation. All combat personnel to battle stations! Pilots, you are free to launch as soon as we drop from fold space!"

Across the vessel, klaxons started to blare and lights turned red as men and women ran to their stations. Those who were off-duty pulled on their battle dress as they moved, sometimes hopping on one foot as others slipped on their insta-seal helmet collars before they were slated to drop from fold space. Sections reported fully ready as the launch bays reported the first squadrons of interceptors were ready to launch. Everything else was ready to go at plus five and plus ten.

Just as the timer reached zero, the massive vessel shuddered as it decelerated and dropped from fold space. Armored marines slipped ghost silent onto the bridge taking up security posts. Space gave a deep, throaty roar when the seven miles of human war potential called Askillion ripped a hole in space-time and entered through a purple orifice in space.

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