Prologue: Derek


    The P027 solar system unfolded; a majestic golden star at the heart, mostly empty of all but the grim void of unforgiving space. One massive deep blue gas giant, its surrounding cluster of dozens of moons, and two smaller worlds, one closer to the size of the earth, another barely enough to be called a world, not much bigger than Pluto; and all completely devoid of life.


    As Derek seemingly floated in the endless void, he made small gestures with his hands. Practiced movements that bring up displays. Showing the relative masses of worlds; orbital trajectories. As he studied the two worlds of the inner system, he called out. "Icon. Get me every object here that has water, whatever form its in, and amounts."


    A tiny white orb flickered as it orbited the young man''s head, the AI-driven software processing his request; and projecting a long list of those objects in the system readings show with any amount of ice at all. Derek''s eyes kept being drawn back to that one world, only 7% larger than earth.


    With a gesture of his fingers, he zoomed in over the rough grey-red globe. Tiny bits of movement could be seen; no terran life could exist here, but those patches of grey were clearly moving; and with purpose. Herds of animals? Mobile forests, following the sun? As tempting as this world was, with its almost-there gravity, whatever those things were, they might be dangerous. Clearly everyone would be focusing on this world. Whether trying to adapt existing life to their own needs, or to wipe it out and bombard the world with enough ice to make it livable, its orbit and size made it the obvious candidate; even if its elements were highly toxic to anything from earth.


    He zoomed back out, shifting to one of the moons of the gas giant. As the Icon''s listing moved across his screen, a plan formed. These two rocks in the asteroid belt... here, and here. Very high water ice content. And with just a few months of pushing with a fusion torch, they could be put into the right path... But no. They''d hit too hard.


    Derek spent hours working out orbital mechanics; picking a long series of stellar objects, including the gas giant itself, to borrow raw materials from, to cause collisions, to seed with fusion engine arrays or photosynthetic bacteria. As he worked, his Icon; having adapted to his methods over numerous events; automatically brought up the sort of refueling equipment a given project would need; the best engine for the job.


    After hours of work, he believed he had everything he needed in place; two moons of the gas giant could be turned into worlds humans could live on without any sort of outside support... eventually. One would be a touch cold, with the seas that would eventually covering its surface being icy most of the year, the other would be almost perfect.


    Before he could move on to simulating the results, however... everything flashed red. His Icon blinked, and a message appeared.


    Derk cursed, tapping the Icon, hitting the glowing ''Save'' button... moments before the timer reached zero...


    And he awoke. Derek wasn''t the tallest of young men; perhaps a little under six feet; but his black-haired head almost scraped the ceiling of his apartment. The intense pressure in his bladder; unfelt while he was still in the sim; almost made him groan in pain before he rolled out of his tiny bed onto the floor and half-crawled his way over to the toilet. He gently removed his headset after taking a seat; the heavy, sophisticated orb of grey metal shutting itself off as he set it on the foot of his bed; and leaned back against the wall, relaxing as he relieved himself, listening to the steady whine of the air conditioner.


    Only bothering to pull on a pair of synthetic pajama pants, he rose, opening his refrigerator to fish out a meal bar, grumbling at the taste of rough protein. In the sims, everything tastes perfect. Or, well. Better. As he looked over the tiny efficiency apartment, the long-familiar despair of the real world sets in. No job. No hope for anything better than what he had now. But hey... at least he wasn''t starving. And continuing to win awards in the Outreach game kept earning him freebies and promotions for other games, so long as he kept playing; so that was okay.


    He opened the apartment door, his palm on the panel unlocking it, letting him smoothly slide it aside... revealing a long, gloomy row of hundreds of identical chambers. He slowly, groggily made his way down the hall; ignoring Mrs. Peterson, the old retired woman who always seemed far too interested in him, seeming to compare Derek to her son who spent so much time offworld she never saw him anymore.


    She seemed excited today. Afraid? Whatever it is, Derek waved her off as he headed on to the distant light... the outside hallway. The window. He leaned against the warm glass, staring down at the millions of cars, the other towering superstructures filled with their own people; imagining them just like his own. A wide ring of ''good'' apartments, with windows and balconies... surrounding hundreds of tiny cramped boxes like his own. As he looked up at the sky; even during the day the numerous structures floating in orbit leaving a vague haze over the daylight; he wished he were there. Really out in space, rather than buried in some coffin, dreaming. But he knew why that could never happen. That ship had sailed. And crashed.


    After a few moments of staring, he saw something. A light. A strange pinpoint that shouldn''t be visible in the daylight. As he squinted, trying to make it out, he noticed a strange quality to the movement of the cars and people below. Crowds moving. People... fighting? Trying to get inside. Mrs. Peterson had stopped yelling. Her door slammed. The light started to get brighter.


    The news. He needed to check the news. Derek turns from the window, running back towards his apartment. The hallway is completely empty now. Not even the rare handful of doped-up lunatics hanging out by the vents, blowing their vape clouds into the abyss. He reached his own apartment, not even bothering to shut the door before slapping his helmet back on.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Normally, the device wouldn''t even turn on with the door open. A safety measure, to keep him safe while he was zoned out. This time... it came up immediately.


    A beautiful, spacious home appears around him. A luxurious couch, a TV covering one entire wall, bowls of various snacks, a digital copy of his long-dead cat, Fluffbucket, his Icon floating in a slow orbit around his head... as the TV activates.


    A young woman, leaning forward. Her makeup is smeared, her dress ruffled. Built-in frabrications of the program to emphasize stress, trouble.  At the corner of the screen, a countdown timer. Showing two minutes. One minute fifty eight. "This is Kelsey Danvers for CNN on our final broadcast... Well, the artificially generated version anyway. When that timer ends, they reach earth, and its all over. The fleet is gone. Mars is gone. You booted me up with only two minutes and ten seconds to go. Not much point to warnings now."


    Derek was shocked. He didn''t have time for anger, or grief. He picked up FB, hugging her to his chest as he stared at the screen. The cat.. supposedly a complete digital copy of his old cat''s mind.. hissed and struggled, upset at the manhandling. He didn''t care. He let her claws dig in, as he stared at the countdown timer. He imagined his ex-girlfriend, Kelsey... the one whose likeness he''d programmed this newscaster AI to have years ago. She was in space. On the fleet. Did she die already? Or would she somehow be okay?


    For the last few seconds of his life, Derek held an imaginary cat and wished that, somehow, he''d been fit enough to make it to space. To join the fleet. To be somebody. A wave of light and heat suddenly hit... everything went white.


    Prologue: Kelsey


    Somehow, she''d always imagined space would be exciting, Kelsey thought, sitting against the wall of the bridge on the third shift of the UNS Shanghai. The Damage Control screen was up; predominantly a holographic display only she could see through her implanted lenses, showing a full diagnostic readout of the vessel.


    The Shanghai was perhaps 12 years old; one of the very first models of the Tokyo-class ships. Five hundred and seven meters long, a heavy blend of clearly alien technology with rough-hewn human ingenuity, this class had been developed when the treasure trove of technology the Survivor had brought back was still only partially understood; and as such wasn''t completely reliant on that technology to keep its crew alive and healthy. In addition to artificial gravity, the crew quarters were mounted to a spinning cylinder running down the spine of the ship. Advanced molecular conversion systems in life support to provide air and food were supplemented by onboard algae farms, capable of providing plenty of air and tasteless sludge for the crew to eat if everything broke down.


    Duty stations like her own were, of course, part of that cylinder; only the engineering and weapon sections were completely reliant on artificial gravity. Right now, she could feel that it was off. Nothing to complain about, but the steady spin of the vessel was mildly disorienting, even if she was used to it by now.


    She studied the damage readout closely; a few micrometeorite impacts had reduced the outermost hull integrity in section seven. Two holes in....panel Beta. A few keypresses, and a drone starts to slowly crawl its way along the ship''s spine, preparing to fix whatever gaps it finds; the automated systems already sealed the tiny space off, preventing much air from escaping.


    "No problems, captain. The Drone is en route to do a patch-job. I''ll suit up and inspect it myself once the chamber holds air."


    For a moment, the captain reviewed his own display, giving a slow nod. "We want to be at 100%. We''ve been in the strike window for six months now.. If anyone''s coming, today is one of the most likely days." His own display was far more complicated; showing the communications network with the dozens of other ships in the Ceres Project fleet; sixty ships running a steady patrol around the mammoth engines driving the project, as well as the smaller connections with the remainder of the UN fleet spread around the inner solar system.


    His display shifted. Warning lights. Directions. He didn''t need to say a word, as the point defenses came online, his crew, likely assuming this was all a drill, activating weapon and defense systems. As he started reading the data, expecting the warning he''d long feared, that the Enemy had finally arrived, the Survivor''s grim prophecy come to pass, and it was time for the fleet to rise to earth''s defense.. reality set in.


    Every signal emitter in the inner system had gone dark. His signals weren''t a direction to join up with the fleet; but rather warnings about battles already occured. Already lost. Every single defense fleet; from the smallest Mercury exploration support fleet to the thousands in earth orbit; had already suffered the same fate before he''d even become aware a fight was ongoing.


    As he made small, subtle gestures; engines warming up. Missile bays loading. Crew called to positions for what would in all liklihood be their final shift... he stopped. He could hear something. Music?


    ~Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the lord..~


    Where was it coming from? It was a signal. FTL, displaying the thousands of ships across the solar system... overwhelmingly outnumbered by the red dots of enemy ships.


    ~He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.~


    "Officer Danvers, isolate that. We''ve got a war to fight, even if there isn''t much time left."


    ~He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword~


    Danvers was staring at her own display. Showing the same thing as every other display in the ship. An overlay of the solar system. The red dots showing enemy vessels; long, sleek, almost organic-looking craft, all identical numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Already in control of every meaningful thing in the solar system. Eight hundred of them speeding towards Ceres, faster than the missiles the Shanghai carried. But the heart of the display.. "Sir, look at the sun!"


    ~His truth is marching on~


    Everyone on the bridge stared. The sun... was expanding. Whatever signal that song was on, was giving an FTL view of the sun as some sort of device... something that must have been there for years.. had been activated. Some desperate, vengeful ploy, ensuring that if humanity passed, so too would its attackers.


    ~Glory, Glory hallelujah~


    The alien ships turned. The intercept course vectoring away, attempting to flee the system. There was no point. No time. They could only see it happening because the display itself was being fed by faster than light sensor data; which should be impossible. Or perhaps it was all computer generated; predictions of events. Of a wall of firey death expanding out towards them at the speed of light. Maybe it was all a fake, an illusion?


    ~Glory, Glory hallelujah~


    ~Glory, Glory hallelujah~


    The ships that had been about to reach his command; a tiny splinter of that massive fleet that he''d just watched obliterate all of the Earth''s defenses; was swallowed up by that deadly wave.


    ~His truth is marching on~


    Danvers looked at her board. Looked at her hands, wearing the classic dark blue uniform of the UN space force. Something she''d worked so many years to earn. Something so ultimately pointless. As the wave of death overtook the ship, the last human life within the asteroid belt snuffed out instantly, she had one last thought; a wish for a final swim in the waters of earth.