As the Void angered the Humans

Cynthia has lived on this ship for her entire life. The VAL Constance was a long-range freighter, outfitted with a strong fusion reactor and a medium-sized FTL jumpdrive. In addition to that the VAL Constance had four ballistic canons with fifty shot each, more than enough to got rid of pirates but not to fight a longer battle or even in a war.

The woman was part of a crew of five, six with the captain, her father. Her mother died due to lung cancer. Never smoked, ate healthy, trained her entire life and died of lung cancer.

"Harvey?" She pressed a button on her console. "You there? How are the systems?"

"Purrs like a kitten. The repairs were utterly needed."

"Good. How is the vacuum around the cargo?"

"As much atmosphere as my parties." laughed the twenty years younger man into his mic.

"So... none." grinned Cynthia and the mic broke off because of Harveys laughter.

She called the captain and reported to him the status of the systems. Raul was pleased with her report and ordered to prepare to fall back into sub-light speed. Which was technically not correct, they couldn't get faster than light and so every human ship was at sub-light speed, but it sounded better when someone was faster than light.

With a howling screach the VAL Constance fell back into sub-light and the voidness of space and the stars came back in front of the windows. In the far, far distance the red-orange sun of the Sylphid solar system emitted her pleasant light. Hopefully their cargo and the seeds were useful to the living plants of those planets.

Then something blipped on her long-range scanners. A vessel. No, a few vessels sat between them and the main planet of the solar system, their destinations.

"Uh, Captain..." Cynthia brought up what the scanners and cameras could see. Those ships were long, partly spicky and had purple runes covering the black hulls.

"What are the Voidwalkers doing here?" Captain Raul opened a line to hail the Voidwalker ships, but he only got static out of the speaker and then glittering purple light were to see. "Oh sh..."

He never could finish the sentence or say how he loved his daughter or how sorry he was. He only could activate the SOS beacon, before the purple laser barrage cut through their systems and the VAL Constance burned out in a white-blue light as the fusion reactor ignited.

---

"The VAL Constance was the first vessel to be destroyed." said the reconnaissance officer, holding up his datapad. "Six others were to follow."

"What happened?" asked John while munching away his sandwich; he hadn't eaten for days.

"We are not sure, but apparently the Voidwalkers set up a blockade around the Sylphids solar system and demanded surrender to them."

"Surrender? Just that?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Ah, damn it. - Did they attack?"

"Yes, Sir. Fired a few laser barrages, destroyed critical infrastructure and killed a few dozen citizens."

"Besides the surrender, what are their demands?"

"Surrender, Sir. Nothing else."

"And killed human traders..." John gulped and rinsed with strong black tea. "Did we made contact with them?"

"Yes, Sir. At least we tried. Our ships were shot too, but not destroyed."

"Any demands?"

"No, Sir."

John sighed, rose from his chair and cleaned his hands. "Alright. Send me your data, I'm going to annoy an Admiral."

---

"What are ye suggesting?" asked Admiral Buchanan, a scottish descendent with a good posture and an artifical beard he only wears during official meetings. During duty on ship beards were not allowed, so he had modeled one after his original beard and it was a long, impressive styled red flame of a beard.

"Well, we are not recreating Braveheart." smiled John and earned a dry chuckle. "We are going with Guerrilla-Tactics. Well, not really. We are going with hit-and-run-tactics at the same time."

"I don't understand. Ye want to attack multiple systems at the same time?"

"From different sides at the same time." John projected a 3D model of the solar system into the air, with asteroid belts and the Voidwalker fleets. During the last weeks they had deployed a lot more fleets just to freighten the poor Sylphids. And then he showed multiple entry points of human warships. "I say we come from every side. Long-range scanner indicate that they don't move much and only a few smaller vessels - I would say attack fighter - move between the larger ships."

"And then?"

"We weaken them with our railguns and turrets. And once we..." He paused. "Lemme translate that..." Another pause. "After we shot them up ready to storm we nuke them out of orbit."

"Sir?" Admiral Buchanan frowned. "Ye want to shoot them up? No negotiators, no peaceful solution?"

"No." John sighed, waved with his hand and the projection vanished. "I mean, officially we aren't really connected to the Sylphids, but they are basically plant people. They only have solarpunk technology because the Lyranians thought it would help them. Wouldn't you help a kitten?"

"I would." The Admiral nodded. "Okay, I see ye point. Is the Empress okay with this?"

"Otherwise I wouldn't be here."

"Okay, then ye have my fleet. Show me what are we going to do when."

---

Admiral Buchanan removed his beard, washed his face and then made his way to the bridge of his ship, the VAL Hammerfall. Had nothing to do with the long lost power metal band, but it was the strongest ship in the Second Fleet and wasn't outfitted with only one, but two railguns, a lot of larger and smaller turrets and a few missile launcher including six nuclear warheads.

The VAL Hammerfall was 1.8km long, had thirty decks and her armour was as strong as one would expect from the flagship of the Second Fleet. That means it could withstand a lot of plasma fire, some laser barrages and small debris or asteroids.

"Report." demanded Buchanan as he entered the roomy bridge. Reports indicated that they were two minutes out from dropping into the system. The Space Ripper - the FTL drive - was already attached to the secondary cooling system so they could jump again the second the nukes would hit.

One minute out. The railguns were hot, so the bullets could fly the second they came out of the hyperspace. The Voidwalker had no idea what will hit them in ten, nine, eight...

"Drop!" yelled the navigator and they dropped out of the hyperspace. Their Artificial Intelligences started to process the data and the Voidwalker where at the place they were expected.

"Ready to fire, Admiral!"

"Understood. - Railguns? Aim."

"Railguns have them in their sights."

"Fire. - Line turrets? Give 'em hell."

Two dull UMPF were to hear and the ships hull vibrated, then the stakkato of the line turrets were to hear. Besides two very bright blips of the railguns the human eye couldn't follow the bullets, but they could see the impacts on the long-range cameras, followed by a hailstorm of smaller bullets.

They could also see a lot of other blips hammering into the various fleets of the Voidwalkers, purple laser tried to shoot, but missed nearly entirely.

Then the VAL Hammerfall jumped again. Only the blackness of space was to see, reports came in, the Space Ripper was stable, but might have to cool off once they fall back into normal space.

"Alright, arm the nukes." commanded Buchanan.

Thirty seconds.

Just in time the lights for the nukes hit green as they felt back into normal space. The cameras and scanners showed the fleets in disarray, partly burning, partly already falling apart.

"Okay, lets give them the last blow." The Admiral sighed. "May the gods have mercy on their souls. - Fire the nukes."

"Nukes underway. Shall we jump, Admiral?"

"No, just...turn the brightness down, would ye?"

The screens and windows got darker as the Intelligences blacked out the windows. Five, four, three, two, one...a small blip, then really bright blue-white lights before the ships hull vibrated again.

"Report." commanded the Admiral again, but except from a bit radiation the VAL Hammerfall was untouched. The engines lit up and they came closer to inspect the damage.

What was left of the Voidwalker fleets was burning, smoldering rubble. Scan showed no survivors. Reports from the other fleets came in and from the other points of attack all over the galaxy. They have decimated the entire Voidwalker fleet in just two days with only a minimum of effort.

"Now... lets see how thankfully the Sylphids are. Can someone hail the Undying One?" smiled the Admiral.