Original Fiction Tintagel

[bintananth]

Viole, The Baroness of Ilsa, was extremely unhappy - to put it mildly. Today was her 17th birthday and supposed to be her wedding day.

Oh no, the universe did not grant her that peaceful happy day. Some human asshole had decided to use a salted nuclear weapon on a planet her fiancé was visiting.

She was pissed and out for blood because her fiancé was murdered by a war crime.

She'd used her aristocratic rank and influence to obtain a Letter of Marque and Reprisal, recruit a crew, and buy a mothballed obsolete battleship.

The Vitor Meg wasn't anything special to write home about: roughly 17,000 years old, very slow, and her four 12 petawatt resonance cannons aren't all-axis. The shields leave much to be desired, but ... she still vastly outclasses practically everything in the Virgo Supercluster that's not a Llyrian capital ship or heavy cruiser.

She's on her way to Earth and the reactor waste heat at redline exceeds the total amount of sunlight the Earth gets. That waste heat is going elsewhere in the form of gamma rays.

If Viole isn't talked down before she reaches Earth every galaxy within millions of light-years will have a present-day example of what happens to the biosphere of a planet when a large Llyrian warship goes to battlestations close to one. It won't be pretty before the Vitor Meg opens fire and will get much uglier after she does.

A snowball at the center of a star that's about to start turning iron into nickel and explode has better chances of surviving the supernova which might result in a black hole than humanity does of surviving an upset Viole.

Thankfully for humanity, her fiancé's grandmother - Junior Captain Lindiwe - is in the Sol System and doesn't want bloodshed.

 

[bintananth]

A/N: Fomalhaut is the star system the long-running webcomic Freefall is set in and the first Google search result I got for a star 25 light-years from Earth. Six light-seconds is dangerously close to a planet the size of Earth when opening a jump point. 25 light-years is pushing it in terms of the Constel's jump distance.

Low Earth Orbit

Lindiwe sprinted into the Constel's CIC and, while panting, loudly proclaimed, "I have the ship."

Captain Anewe was not going to argue with a visibly distressed Llyrian making demands. "The ship is yours. What happened?"

"In a moment. Sound General Quarters. Communications, I need as many open broadcast channels humans use as you can manage calling for an immediate emergency evacuation of Earth. Helm, get us six light-seconds away from Earth as soon as possible, any direction will do. Engineering, prepare for an emergency jump. Navigation, lay in a course for Fomalhaut.

Anewe merely snapped his fingers and said, "Move it!" when he sensed hesitation from from his CIC crew and was met with compliance.

His questioning and expectant look wanting an answer was met with, "The most dangerous thing within 100 million light-years is headed straight towards Earth an I'm not sure if I can stop it."

"What would that be?"

"An an angry Llyrian teenager with a battleship and permission. Today was supposed to be her wedding day."

****

Captain Riina of the TSS Arethusa was alarmed.

The small Chizoban warship he'd been watching while it orbited Earth had just spiked its reactor and was moving away from Earth with alarming haste while flooding communication channels saying that Earth needed to be evacuated.

He opened a communications channel demanding an explanation and for them to stop.

He did not like what he was told.

"This is Junior Captain Lindiwe of the Llyrian Empire. You killed my grandson and I am trying to save you from the fallout. Get out of here! because if I fail your home world will be rendered uninhabitable within a day and billions will die."

"I'm going to need more than that."

"His fiancée has been granted permission to exterminate humanity and is headed this way. If I can't calm her down before she gets here your species is doomed."

"Surely you can't be serious."

"Do not quote Airplane at me. I watched that Earth movie before Voyager 2 got a gravity assist from Saturn."

"Can we help fight if needed?"

Lindiwe sighed. "What's your maximum effective weapons range?"

Captain Riina mentally debated with himself before deciding that honesty was more valuable than keeping highly classified information secret in this instance and said, "7.2 light-seconds."

"Sadly, no. The first time I fought you I opened fire at a little over 40 on a ship that had been disabled from about 9 light-minutes by one missile. That ship was a light cruiser with escorts. The ship headed towards Earth is a battleship."

Captain Riina frowned. He'd read the TSS Calypso's after-action and damage reports. His sensor operators had also told him that the Constel possessed things that were causing his ship's sensor suite to throw errors and crash when actively scanned.

He ordered his communications officer to contact General Volske on a secure channel and was told, by the general, to transfer the call to his ready room and be alone in it.

****

Brussels, Belgium, Earth

General Volske waited for Captain Riina's call to transferred. He was worried because if what he was hearing on the news was correct a Chizoban destroyer was panicking.

That Chizoban destroyer was almost certainly how the Llyrian he'd recently met got to Earth and now he was getting a call from the Captain of the TSS Arethusa.

"Who's in charge of the Constel?"

"ID's herself as Junior Captain Lindiwe of the Llyrian Empire. Described what happened to the Calypso."

"Any oddities with that ship?"

"Just a malfunctioning shuttle bay door and our active sensors keep crashing when they sweep it."

Volske pinched the bridge of his nose. "That door was not malfunctioning and Lindiwe is who she says she is. Let them go."

****

Fomalhaut

Captain Anewe was worried. The Constel was almost out of fuel, not within range of any Chizoba communications relay, and would be running on battery backup within a few hours.

He really hoped Lindiwe knew what she was doing and praying silently to The Author (i.e.: God) for his hope to be true.

The sensor operator chirped up with, "Jump point forming." A few seconds later, "Llyrian silhouette, 15,500tons."

Almost instantly Lindiwe said, "Helm, close to 50 light-seconds, best possible haste. Comm, hail them, all frequencies."

After a few seconds, "Channels are open, we're broadcasting, It's two-way." was the acknowledgement.

The the sight and sound of the sobbing girl on the other side of the channel was tragic.

 

[bintananth]

Low Earth Orbit

Captain Riina left his ready room with determination and returned to the TSS Arethusa's CIC. "Sound GENERAL QUARTERS. Helm, get us to minimum safe jump distance yesterday. Sensors and Navigation, figure out where they went and plot a course to follow. Engineering, prepare for an emergency jump."

He was ignoring what he'd been told and doing what he thought was right. A Llyrian Captain's confidence be damned, he wasn't going to allow a tiny Chizoban destroyer take on a Llyrian battleship threatening Earth alone.

"They jumped to Fomalhaut."

"Helm, follow them. Engineering, initiate jump as soon as a course is locked in and we're safely clear of Earth. Don't wait for my order."

****

Fomalhaut

Riina saw a Chizoban destroyer and what appeared to be a Llyrian battleship roughly 50 light-seconds apart.

"Helm, put us directly between them. 6 light-seconds from the Llyrian ship. Don't give the Llyrian ship a clean shot at that destroyer. We can take hits. It can not."

"Y-Yes S-Sir". was the hesitant reply.

"Weapons, prepare to fire. Do not fire unless fired upon. Communications, open an all frequencies channel."

The sight of a sobbing teenager being hugged and told "It'll be ok." by a dark-blue haired woman who could only be Junior Captain Lindiwe made him wince.

****

Lindiwe gave the sobbing and angry teenager a hug. "Viole, please calm yourself. Going down the path you're on will not bring my grandson back and you will be reviled across space and time if you continue. I can not stop you. Only you can stop yourself."

"But why? Why did they do that to him?"

"Humanity is young and foolish, just like you are. Eventually they will mature and grow out of it, just like you will."

"And if they don't?"

"They will continue down the path they're on and go extinct entirely on their own despite our warnings."

"How?"

"You've passed your history lessons and read the news. You do know what type of FTL they're researching, don't you?"

Viole sniffled, wiped the snot from her nose, and nodded.

"Then you know what happens to a species which doesn't realize that contorting spacetime in that particular manner is a disaster looking for an excuse?"

Viole nodded again.

"Tell me."

"They blow up their star and go extinct."

"And?" Lindiwe prodded.

"We blew up a supermassive black hole and destroyed our home galaxy. We got very, very lucky."

Lindiwe squeezed tighter, "It'll be ok."

****

Captain Anewe watched the conversation with awe and fear. He really wished all of humanity could see what was occuring in the Constel's shuttle bay.

That two Llyrians, one of whom was young enough to be his daughter, could talk about blowing up a supermassive black hole, destroying a galaxy, and saying it was an "oops!" in a "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" manner made him wonder what other lessons they've learned the hard way and simply called history.

He was quite aware that the 50TW Llyrian museum piece his ship was equipped with had "no user serviceable parts inside" from his society's perspective and the sane part of his mind told him that the things found during Alice's Adventures in Wonderland usually weren't worth the trip down the rabbit hole.

That they were discussing reality knots unraveling in catastrophically destructive ways his society didn't even have the physics to understand in his presence gave him no comfort whatsoever.

 

[bintananth]

A/N: Bringing this ship back and Llyrian society is matriarchial if you haven't guessed that by now.

[BHB2007] 11 ... 700 light-years from Earth

The two still-forming newborn stars were unaware of the Llyrian light cruiser on standby visiting them and taking in the spectacle. They could't be aware of it because they weren't lifeforms.

"This will not be fun." Senior Lieutenant Kirika, the LRS Hailee's XO, announced to the bridge crew.

She'd just received orders directly from her Captain to get the Hailee to the Sol system and take up a position four light-seconds from Earth that's no closer than five light-seconds to Luna.

That's well within humanity's weapons range and they're likely to be hostile ... but that wasn't her real concern. The Vitor Meg was the real problem.

She had orders to destroy the battleship if it entered the Sol System and the idea of opening fire on a fellow Llyrian did not sit well with her. Especially since there wouldn't be just one Llyrian on the ship. There would be several hundred.

Even worse, each of the Vitor Meg's four resonance cannons were twice as powerful as each of the Hailee's three and outranged hers by six light-seconds. Her only advantage was the 40 FTL anti-ship missiles she carried and it would take thirteen to breach the shields and scratch the paint on the hull plating.

No one in the Virgo Supercluster who knew what a Llyrian battleship was capable of looked forward to facing one in battle. She hoped Senior Captain Nunhle had been contacted and was within jump range because the LRS Sashe is the only warship currently in the Milky Way Galaxy with resonance cannons which outrange the Vitor Meg's. The Sashe is also the only one in the galaxy capable of winning the Llyrian starship equivalent of a "one-on-one knife fight in a telephone booth" against her as well.

"Sound general quarters. Raise shields. Navigation, lay in a course for the Sol System. Engineering, prepare for jump. Helm, put us four light-seconds from Earth and five light-seconds from Luna when we get there."

****

Brussels, Belgium, Earth

President Pascale was having a bad day. Some asshole alien caused a planet wide panic and jumped out, followed shortly after by the TSS Arethusa.

To add to his migrane a Llyrian warship had just jumped into the Sol System, was headed straight towards Earth, prepared for battle, and only a few minutes from Earth.

According to the Secretary of the Fleet that ship has the same silhouette as the largest of the six which shot the TSS Calypso full of holes, the largest of which were 6 inches in diameter going from stem to stern.

It was also calling him on the Presidential emergency line.

 

[bintananth]

A/N: A bit to explain how Lindiwe would recognize a quote from !Airplane. Llyrian warships also don't bother with stealth. Power output is too high and you aren't hiding that much waste heat.

Senior Commander Lindiwe had a month of leave. She wanted to spend it someplace quiet and relaxing. Being recognized as Llyrian was something she did not want to occur.

The first restriction ruled out every planet belonging to a society hers had open relations with. It also ruled out almost all of the ones belonging to an interstellar society hers had not openly contacted yet. Currency exchange would be a headache. The tourist visa using a passport saying she was from a society hers had contacted would require an exchange of diplomatic favors, which was not done for something like a vacation.

Her next concern was the local environment. She wanted one benign enough for a casual stroll outside without an environment suit. She narrowed down the list of potential vacation destinations:

- Surface gravity close to Llyrian standard (25.8 ft/s^2)
- Atmospheric pressure close to Llyrian standard (12.8 psia)
- Atmospheric composition ... breathable without dangerous concentrations of unhealthy things
- Surface stellar insolation spectrum
- Safe background radiation levels
- Comfortable surface temperatures
- Flora and fauna compatible enough with Llyrian biology for the local cuisine to be edible

That narrowed her list down quite a bit. Of the remaining candidates most had a complex tool using sentient life form. The ones without one were eliminated here.

Now to pick one:

- advanced enough that wireless communications wouldn't be considered magic
- primitive enough that flawlessly forged ID and currency won't be easily spotted
- too primitive to spot a jump point or a cloaked stealth shuttle left unattended for a month on the surface
- visibly similar enough for her to pass as one
- vocally similar enough for her to speak their languages
- linguistically similar enough that her accent would only be considered "a bit odd"

She'd picked her vacation destination: Earth. It was the only one left.

And that is how Lindiwe wound up in a theatre in St. Louis showing !Airplane in 1980 without anyone on Earth even suspecting there was an alien on Earth or that the planet was about to become a somewhat popular "get away from it all" Llyrian tourist destination.

****

To this day the total number of humans who can say with certainty that they've personally met a Llyrian face-to-face on Earth can be counted with one finger.

General Volske figured out how Lindiwe got to Earth orbit undetected - the Constel - and that she had a shuttle so slippery she could park it somewhere in Brussels to meet with him completely undetected off the record.

He also guessed, correctly, that the shuttle wasn't the cause of the TSS Arethusa's sensor problems.

 

[bintananth]

Senior Lieutenant Kirika did not waste any time once she had the human President on the line.

"Present Pascale, order your military to stand down. I am not here to fight you. I am here to protect you. The warship headed toward Earth is commanded by one of my cousins.

"She is angry. She has the 2nd most powerful warship in this galaxy. She also has permission to exterminate you.

"I have orders to stop her and I will lose.

"Do not fire upon the LRS Hailee and I will not fire on you. We will stay about four light-seconds from Earth and five light-seconds from Luna.

"That's pushing minimum safe distance and as close as I can get without damaging your biosphere."

President Pascale did not believe anything the arrogant forest-green haired woman with weird ears said.

 

[bintananth]

Senior Lieutenant Kirika looked at the holographic display with dismay.

A human warship had parked itself so close to the Hailee that there were only a few inches between the wingtip of her starboard radiator and its rotating gravity section.

The Hailee's passive shield bubble was cutting right through the core of four of the human warship's eight reactors.

"Helm, get us to a safe distance. Comm, override their security and open a broadcast channel."

Kirika took a deep breath while waiting for the Communications Officer to say "Channel Open."

When she exhaled she said, "Senior Lieutenant Kirika to Terran Warship. You're too close. Our passive shields are damaging your reactors. You need to do an emergency shutdown. We are moving to a safe distance, and will go to full shields."

I am also requesting permission to come aboard so we can talk face-to-face."

****

Captain Johnson had placed the TSS Pheobe as close to the LRS Hailee as he could. He was satisfied that both Earth, Luna, and everthing orbiting them had 44,000,000 tons blocking anything the alien ship might try to do.

His crew was attempting to figure out how to board it but was having problems because the alien ship had no external hatches aside from what appeared to be a hanger door too small to admit a shuttle.

And, suddenly, he - and everyone else on the TSS Pheobe - had his ears flooded by what sounded like an upset pre-teen.

He flinched when he heard, "I am also requesting permission to come aboard so we can talk face-to-face."

He queried "Comm, is whatever they just did 2-way?"

"Yes. Hold on ..." was the reply. A few moments later. "They're using our codes, the Mars-Luna FTL relay, and our PA system."

"What?!? Engineering?"

"Reactors two and six are showing signs of imminent prompt criticality but are still stable. The others don't look good."

Everyone in CIC looked at Captain Johnson for an answer. He sighed and said "SCRAM the reactors, tell them permission to board is granted."

****

When the Llyrian shuttle was safely ensconced in one of the Pheobe's hangers Captain Johnson did not know what to expect.

He and the Marines there for security were not expecting what appeared to be middle-school age girl with mishapen ears and purple eyes to get out of a lightly built shuttle smaller than the Pheobe's escape pods.

"Captain Erik Johnson, Senior Lieutenant Kirika. It is a pleasure to see you again." with an outstretched hand was the last thing he was expecting.

His look of absolute confusion was met with "You don't remember me? We played together when we were children. I was 'that weird girl' your older sisters didn't like when my parents took a vacation on Earth. I was born in the galaxy your astronomers call Andromeda".

 

[bintananth]

Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri, 1980

A crowd had appeared around what appeared to be a Bell X-1 when Senior Commander Lindewe got back to her shuttle.

The stealth system had malfunctioned and people were taking pictures. Lindewe knew what to do and what to say.

"That's not an X-1", which was the complete truth. "That's an art project.", which was a complete lie.

"Let me show you."

The crowd followed her and watched as she opened the hatch. She let them peer inside and all they saw were blank panels instead of the maze of gauges, dials, instruments, and controls they were expecting.

All but one left.

After she closed the hatch she turned and saw a man just standing there. He said "You and I both know that's not an art project."

Lindewe thought for a moment before replying, "If I told you the truth you would not believe me."

"Try me." he dared.

Lindewe sighed. "Very well. That is a spacecraft which was built in another galaxy on a planet your astronomers have not yet detected and I am not human."

"You'll have to do better than that."

Lindewe thought for a moment and made a decision. "Do you have a hankerchief?"

"Yes, why ?"

"Give it to me for a moment. I will return it."

When he did she pulled a pin from her hair, pricked one of her fingers, let a drop of blood soil it, and handed it back.

"Examine the cells. Much is the same but the number of chromosomes is not. I have 17 pairs. You have 23 pairs. I am not human."

The man considered the handkerchief and the seemingly insane woman before him. "I'll see here you tomorrow?" he said as he turned to leave.

"You will not. All will be gone by morning."

The next morning the man returned. Three imprints in the ground were the only traces of the shuttle which remained.

The drop of Lindewe's blood was never analyzed.