War Amongst the Heavens

Date: November 12, 2048
Time: 1223 hours
Location: high orbit, New Dawn manned-observation satellite

“This can’t be right.”

Professor Sofia Cruz went through the readings again, running every program and mathematical calculation she could think of. At first she thought the instruments encountered a minor glitch like they did many of the three months she’d been on the station. These were all easily corrected and nearly all ways short-lived—a regular occurrence.

The readings she was seeing now . . .

She turned away from the screens that she’d been staring at for the last forty minutes and connected to the station-wide com. “Doctor Johannes, could you please come to the control room?”

“What’s wrong Sofia, can’t handle a little stint at the controls?”

Sofia sighed inwardly. She liked Johannes and respected his work in deep-space exploration and space colonization, a field in which his contributions might one day lead to something feasible. She also respected him as a man, despite his many, many flaws. He was one of the most intelligent people she’d ever met, but he was so damn sure of himself it bordered on arrogance. Not that it wasn’t warranted in a way…

“This is serious, doctor. The instruments are picking up some strange readings.”

The comms were silent for a long moment. At least a full half minute passed before they came back to life.

“What kind of strange readings?” he asked over the comms.

“I honestly don’t know. It’s almost like there’s a satellite out there and it’s sending a signal.”

Another pause.

“I’ll be right up.”

Sofia closed the link and turned back to the monitors. Whatever disturbance was causing the anomalous readings was getting larger. At first it had been just the size of a small satellite. Now, it had grown to cover an area the size of a small asteroid and was growing exponentially in size every few seconds. It was something nigh-unexplainable that simply shouldn’t have been possible.

And in the next second, it vanished.

Sofia was in the process of trying to locate it again when Johannes floated into the control room, jumpsuit half zipped, blonde hair a mess. He looked like he’d been working all night for the umpteenth time since their tour aboard the station. The bags under his eyes seemed larger than they were the day before and he seemed older than a man in his late forties should have.

“What seems to be the trouble, Sofia?” he asked as he took hold of the chair to stop is momentum and came to a rest next her. He scanned the monitors and didn’t see anything. A few seconds earlier and he would have seen how a massive signal network suddenly appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared into the void.

She could almost hear the arrogant smirk in his voice and it irritated her to no end.

“Damnit, John, I . . .”

She was cut short when the instruments detected a massive object that hadn’t been there until literally a second ago. Proximity alarms wailed briefly before the object crashed into the station and all but obliterated the construct, venting its crew of thirty-four into the outer atmosphere. Most were killed instantaneously while others live for a few short seconds.

None of them saw the ominous shape that spelled their doom. They didn’t see what could only be described as a great leviathan of gleaming metal propelled by gouts of plasma and energy. They didn’t watch as the leviathan slowly settled into stationary orbit over the Earth, the hints of intelligent design, or even the other impossibly monstrous forms following suit. The unfortunate crew of the New Dawn would never know that humanity had just learned it was not alone in the universe.

They became the first casualties of the day, but they would be far from the last.





It took less than four minutes after the initial arrival for the bombardment to begin. Beams of energy lanced from the gaping maws of a dozen spacecraft and struck every major capital across the globe. The central governments of every nation were wiped from the face of the earth in a matter of moments. Hours later, major population centers were targeted and decimated in the same fashion. What little information was available was shared between the few leaders that remained and several military responses were organized while several of the objects descended to the surface.

The second wave of the assault began twenty-three hours after the bombardment as the vessels disgorged hundreds of armed ground troops and materials of war into the devastated areas, establishing beachheads and attacking the populous. National military forces clashed with those of the extraterrestrials an hour later, often resulting in devastating defeats for humanity. Humanity lost over a quarter of its collective territory within the first week, which prompted remaining world leaders to unleash their nuclear arsenals. Most of these attacks were met with little success due to the vast technological superiority of the invaders, though a single ship terrorizing the Siberian tundra was disabled long enough for forces in the area to destroy it.

But even as humanity tasted its first decisive victory, a third wave of ground troops descended from the ships remaining in orbit. This third wave established massive bases in the previously created beachheads on every continent. However, there was a glimmer of hope when the enemy ships retreated to a position between the asteroid belt and Jupiter. Even so, humanity was outmaneuvered and outgunned by almost a five to one margin, and the war shifted focus from counteroffensives to holding actions as nations sought to establish “safe zones” for civilian populations.