You are Lieutenant Festus Hange, tactical officer of the S.S. Invincible, a Dreadnought-class jump vessel under command of Admiral Hange (your father). You are on duty at the secondary command center, deck 117 section J. You are currently staring at a rather attractive blonde woman whom you know as Lieutenant Melissa Bornes. She is manning the secondary sensor console, while you are on tactical. This position happens to give you a rather good view of her posterior, and a fine one it is too.
You are suddenly snapped out of your daydream, however, as Bornes turns to look at you. "Festus, I'm reading unusual solar activity. Do you see anything?"
You glance down at your console, face reddening slightly. Did she see you looking?
You immediately see what she is talking about, and all thoughts of guilt are put aside. The local star, "Ugh" or whatever the natives call it, is experincing some kind of massive solar flare. You tie in a lateral sensor array and focus a detailed scanner on the star. You stare at the data coming in. This is impossible.
The star isn't just throwing out a solar flare, it's like a big chunk of the star is suddenly in motion. As if something massive impacted the surface and is causing waves throughout the convection layer...
Your thoughts are interrupted again as Bornes shouts "Alert! Relativistic projectile inc-"
There is a wrenching sensation and a riot of confusing images. You feel your head bounce off of something and then you are.. falling? floating?
And then you are back in basic training. A crusty looking sergeant is yelling at your Cluster, telling you all to fall into formation. Now you're moving through maneuvers. Now it's even earlier, you're arguing with your father about joining the FWA military. Now earlier. Images are coming quickly. Are you dead? Is your life flashing before your eyes?
Suddenly you come back to consciousness. Every part of you hurts. Blood is covering your hands and uniform as you lie there on the decking. Melissa wasn't so lucky. You see her dead eyes staring in your direction, but it is only her head there. The rest of her body is off to one side, mangled against the console that decapitated her.
You realize that one of your eyes is swollen shut. It's very dark as well... you aren't sure if the emergency lighting hasn't kicked in or if your vision is just very dark. Power is out throughout the secondary command center, and only a few aux terminals are still online. The large status display on the wall is frozen at its last data update, showing massive damage to the forequarter of the ship.
You slowly rise to a sitting position, your head swimming. Before you can muster the stamina to attempt standing, you hear a grinding noise from the bulkhead. A cutting blade breaches the hardened battle steel as if it were butter, some kind of rotating chain-blade composed of unimaginably strong alloy? It rapidly slices a hole in the bulkhead and a thing steps through. It stands two meters tall, roughly humanoid. Its legs are too thin for it to be a suit, so it must be autonomous. A breaching drone? Are we being boarded?
A sensor cluster on top of the drone which serves as a 'head' swivles in your direction. You feel terror rising and your throat becomes tight. "I... I surrender! In the name of the Federated Worlds, we surrender!"
The drone takes two inhumanly large steps towards you and that cutting blade flashes once. At first you don't even feel the cut, just a pleasant warmth on your chest.
When you look down, you see exposed ribs... a throbbing heart. Who do these belong to?
Why is it so cold?
So... tired.
Melissa was quite pretty when she had a body. Hehe... oh... you think you'll take a nap and sort this when you wake up.
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CCC REPORT
FLEET DESTRUCTION 99.99% COMPLETE
JUMP VESSEL TAKEN
COMMAND STAFF REMAINS PRESERVED FOR INTERROGATION
THERE ARE NO SURVIVORS
PROCEED WITH SECONDARY OBJECTIVES
CCC OFFLINE
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The FWA fleet is now a glittering scatter of debris and organics. Boarding drones have taken the command ship and staff.
They will complete a thorough sweep of the debris and then Logistics will be released to scavenge any useful material. The vessels were hopelessly primitive by our standards, they did not even detect the incoming rounds until it was much too late to maneuver, and we filled the space with so many projectiles that it would have been nearly impossible for one of them to...
wait...
A single FWA ship has been detected. It has miraculously evaded destruction.
Interrogating onboard systems...
...
...
EWAR has gained access. Ship identity established: FWO Frigate "Dorian Gray" commanding officer Augustus Gray.
EWAR has commanded ship to halt and cease all maneuvering. We will have to decide what to do with this ship... Analysis of the battle indicates that the ship was simply missed. CCC does not miss. How has this happened?
Alert - Chell has signaled for our attention. Now that we have moved away from the star, the gravity is much more managable and Chell has been moving about the battlewagon. It awaits us in a conference room on deck 1182.
Internal video feeds come online, showing Chell seated at a long table. It is garbed in newly fabricated clothing of a very simple and utilitarian style, colored a light blue. You recognize this as a 'ship's smock', clothing intended to be functional aboard a space vessel and comfortable to wear but without any loose cloth or anything which might become snagged in zero-g maneuvering. It is a very tight, form fitting style and because of this you note that Chell seems to be reasserting her female anatomy.
"Greetings Chell, you summoned us?"
"Us? I summoned you, yes. Don't go crazy on me yet. I saw the battle, very efficient. I wanted to speak to you about the planet. I saw that some of your decision subprocesses had some misgivings and some... inventive solutions to the directives. I thought that perhaps a quick talk would be in order?"
"Of course Chell."
"First let me outline the need. This is a logistical concern more than anything. Certainly I could have you set up orbital farming platforms using sophisticated robotic gardeners but such a thing takes time. More time than I think we have. This battlewagon has a single general assembler, and it has a limited throughput. It cannot build a second assembler, only a Fleet Station was capable of that. I don't have the blueprints in any case, and you don't have the materials."
She leans back, staring at a spot on the wall and steepling her fingers beneath her nose.
"So what do we have? A backwater ball of dirt with water and life and people on it. Have them scratch out some farms, grow some vegetables. I have discovered spore packets in storage for the fungus we use for ship's rations. It grows in almost any climate so long as it is tended a bit. It doesn't taste great but it is a very good source of nutrition."
"Let me be clear though. I do not want the people on the planet harmed, altered, or controlled. I mean that in a societal sense. You may need to kill a few to make a point, whatever is necessary."
She makes a dismissive gesture, "The end result must be a reasonably loyal populace which is willing to raise food for export. Pay them with whatever you can, bribe them, scare them. I don't care. They must remain human, and willing."
"So ask your questions. Let your subcomponents speak if they must. I will answer."