Final Transmission

Message received at 6:17:47 PM EST; viewed 7:57:32 PM EST; location: Earth Military HQ.
Attending personnel in audience: Planetary Governor Malachi Telara; Chief Intelligence Officer Leyll Prost; Science Officer Rosvear Hagen, psychoanalyst Anko Kobayashi; General of Earth Army Gordon Gilliam.
Logician/scribe Ballan Logis recording transcript of message as ordered by Malachi Telara.

Transmission begins.

This is the final transmission of the Mighty Enforcer, Class Delta. I am Captain Robert Keya, military ID 49277273, and… I am about to die. This transmission will travel across 20 light years, or 189,214,609,451,616 metric kilometres before it reaches any man-made receivers, and thus I will have been dead for twenty years if and when any human views this message.

Captain Keya pauses. Animalistic screams echo in the background.

We were observing our patrol route along the Terran solar system, in sector ZA 308T, when our electromagnetic scanners detected a faint anomaly occurring in the sector. We went to investigate and found more of these variants spaced around the first. We identified them as visual and thermal cloaks, far superior to our own, but with a small hemispherical area weaker than the rest, that allows electromagnetic radiation to escape.

At that point, we were fired on by the closest of the foreign ships. A massive condensed energy pulse crippled my ship’s propulsion drive. We could not hope to outrun them. However, the energy expenditure forced the alien vessel to drop its shield long enough for us to record visual data on it.

Captain Keya accesses an image of the alien ship and displays it on screen. The ship is festooned with corpses of several different alien races, chained together and mutilated almost beyond recognition. Attending science officer and xeno-anatomist Rosvear Hagen identifies one as an inhabitant of Silaxis IV, a close ally to the Earth Army.

Before we raised our own shields, we fired back with what weapons still retained function, but we were unable to pierce their ship’s armour. Even with our low power systems, they should have been slowed at the very least, but they kept on firing. Our onboard engineer posited that their armour must be made of a higher density material than our own, requiring high-intensity laser rays to puncture. Hopefully you can use this information against them when they attack.

Captain Keya pauses. The titanium-osmium alloy bay door is beginning to buckle against repeated strikes from a heavy object. Rosvear Hagen remarks that for an object to do this it would need to weigh over 1.5 tonnes.

We were contacted through broadwave transmission by the lead ship. They identified us as ‘the cowardly and decadent humans’ and informed us that they had ‘come to remove our weakness from the galaxy’. When I questioned them on this, they told me that… that we were not worthy to share a galaxy with. The leader informed us that we were to be boarded and we would die quickly, so as not to delay their genocide of the human race. My crew prepared to repel them, but…

Captain Keya begins alternately laughing and crying. Attending psychoanalyst Anko Kobayashi suggests post-traumatic stress causing euphoria as a likely explanation for this behaviour.

My crew is… already dead, save for my logician, who is plotting the transmission coordinates to Earth. We repelled several boarding craft and even shot a few from inside our shields, with narrow-wavelength lasers we equipped for vacuum welding, but they eventually broke through to our docking bay. My crew thinned their ranks with heavy weapons fire, but it took combined auto-rifle shots to pierce their armour.

Captain Keya glances toward the bay door. It has almost been bent into a hemispherical curve by repeated hammerings. He is now crying more frequently than laughing.

I am about to take one last stand against these alien bastards. I also instructed my engineer prior to his… his death to overload our power core. This ship is powered by promethium reacting with boron carbide rods. When my logician believes this transmission is safely out of range of any radioactive interference, he will lower the ship’s containment fields and… this will cause the nuclear fuel and fission products to mix directly with the coolant, causing a massive explosion that we believe will destroy nearly a seventh of the enemy’s fleet. I only hope that this makes some difference in your defence of Earth when they commence their attack. My logician will explain the details of the time delay between us. Please, if… if my family is still there, my wife Hana and my children, please… tell them that… I love them. Always.

Captain Keya moves away and begins to affix a small arsenal to himself from weaponry lockers. The logician of the Mighty Enforcer appears on screen. Anko Kobayashi remarks that he looks very calm for the situation.

I am Logician Akim Tarmin. Our faster-than-light communications array was disabled by the first attack that we were hit by. Thus, we can only send this transmission through electromagnetic broadcast systems. If, at light speed c, this message reaches the Earth, it will have travelled for twenty years. To this end, I have plotted a course based on the data we have on our onboard computers, to send it via satellites around several planets allied with the Earth Government. If this does reach Earth, it will provide some warning for the coming attack.

Captain Keya opens the bay doors and charges through shouting profanities at the oncoming alien attackers, off-screen. He clears the walkway with concentrated fire from a heavy automatic rifle and forces his way into the narrow hallway beyond, relentlessly firing on all barrels. Akim Tarmin continues.

Our biometric scanners were able to record data on the enemy when they boarded. Their weaponry and protective armour was superior to our own, and we also have visual data recorded from the close-quarters attacks our crew suffered on our ship. These files will be transmitted along with this visual message. A systematic scan of certain areas of the enemy transports, coupled with our engineer’s analysis of their propulsion engines allowed us to approximate their maximum speed at less than the speed of light, however, they are still fast enough to arrive on Earth a few years after this message would reach you. From my calculations, I posit that you will have a maximum of five Earth years in order to analyse this data and research effective methods of defending yourself.

I will wait a further two minutes after this transmission ends, and then I will lower the containment fields and discharge our nuclear fuel as detailed by Captain Keya. I hope this data gives you some warning. Any pro-action you take will only help your defence of our home. Knowledge is power.

Transmission ends.

Malachi Telara was silent for half a minute, staring into the screen that had just faded to black, and then turned and spoke to his chief advisor, a thin, frail man known as Leyll Prost.

“Exactly… how long did you say this message had been delayed?”

“Well, their logician did the best job he could be expected to”, replied the old man, “but there was no way he could have foreseen the astral phenomena that occurred in sector 56A of the Pilate Nebula over the last five years. One of the stars was emitting Cherenkov radiation which deflected this signal, and it was only by a miracle that it hit another satellite from our allies in the Maior IX Federation…”

“Save it, Prost”, snapped Telara. “I just want to know how much time we’ve got left.”

Whatever the old man’s answer may have been, it was drowned out by the first of a hundred explosions that shook the earth around them.