"We don't know sir." The soldier/crew member said because that was the truth. When they first came in order to take the mission, they thought it would be a walk in the park and now they were looking at a ship that seemed to have the technology to even detect their arrival from beforehand.
This could only happen if someone had the technology to travel the stars like them.
"Sir, I think they sent the signal after knowing about us when we received them in Zora." Each Colonel always had three advisors and an assistant to help with any missions or military operations. The civilization might have been based on monarchy but surprisingly the military was based on democratic values. As the troops' rankings rise, so do the weights of their votes for regimental commanders.
Although it was a fairly complex system, it ensured that military personnel were heard during routine operations. This was a very odd system since in the military, rank was important because a soldier had to pay focus to and follow orders from their superiors, which they did, but in the end, it was the soldiers who selected them.
"No. The machine was made by a civilization which would send the signal once a civilization either reached the 'Star system' scale which or someone manually triggered it. The signal generator was built with the ability to measure the amount of energy being emitted to the planet. It was a quite unusual and vintage signal generator." The Colonel answered the advisor.
"Yes sir, that is the point. That device is outdated. Perhaps the signal was sent a little too late." stated a different advisor.
".."
The spaceship simply stood there in front of the Argo spaceship as they conversed.
"Hello.. Is somebody in there?" Everyone in the Colonel's ship heard someone speak out of the blue through the speakers that had been put in their spacecraft. The Colonel and the two advisors were startled to find they had been looking down on another civilisation all this time because they believed it to be beyond their capabilities.
Everyone on board the ship tensed as soon as the speakers turned on because they couldn't imagine someone else could communicate aboard a spacecraft built by a galaxy-ruling culture. If it had been possible, the shock of it would have caused their mouths to fall to the ground. They weren't prepared for how serious things were.
"Is anyone there? I believe I am talking in your language and the accent should be fine." Speaking through the spaceship's speakers was Kaylee. She had been silent for some time and was anticipating a reaction or at the very least, a potential desire to communicate.
There was none, though. She had to make the initial contact by herself, therefore.
"How.. are.. you.. able to hack into our speakers?" Colonel got his wits back at the end and spoke out loud.
"Hello. You could at least introduce yourself by saying hello. Don't you think so?" While the speaker was still on, Kaylee responded. Everyone in the alien spaceship knew that it was this bee system that was talking because the small drones seemed to be flying around in sync when Kaylee spoke.
Just like those old simple Winamp Visualizations, only in this case instead of windows screen it was a 3D holographic movement in the huge table at the center for everyone to see. While others sweated bullets, several of the crew's aliens swallowed. Hacking their system implied that far more powerful individuals were involved.
"Uh.. Hello.. Nice to meet you." As the Colonel spoke, his accent became more audible. Well, at least the language barrier was removed.
"Yeah. So I just hacked into the speakers and was able to take a rough look at your purpose of arrival. I won't go into detail about how I did it because you won't get it. Since it is a hostile situation, I will ask this, are you sure you want to invade the star system?" Kaylee enquired.
"Who are you, exactly? Where did you come from? How are you able to hack a galactic ship and though I haven't traveled far and wide in the galaxy, I have seen a fair share of spaceships and none of them look like yours. Why are you guarding the star system?" By the end, when the Colonel had spoken so much and so quickly, he had caught his breath.
"How about you reply my question first and then I will answer yours." If one could pay closely, Kaylee's response this time had a slight variation in language tone. She seemed to be enjoying herself as she posed these queries.
"You already know the purpose of our arrival so why are you asking this again? Why? Do you want to stop us? No matter how powerful you are, you are just one spaceship while I have 10s of them. You might also come a galactic civilization but so do we. We can easily defeat you." The Colonel gradually regained his former assurance when he realized that they were only up against one spaceship.
The bee spaceship was able to access the speakers and perhaps a few other systems, but the navigation and weapon systems were completely functional because they were always kept apart and isolated from other systems in order to protect them from the veiled attack that the bee spaceship attempted.
"Oh no. You misunderstood me. I'm not here to hold you back. You can go ahead and conquer." Kaylee said as the spaceship soon started moving away from its position. The Zorians were taken aback by this as they had anticipated some sort of conflict with the strange spaceship given that it had actively hacked into their system.
"Are you serious? You just broke into our system, and you expect us to look it over and disregard it?" The Colonel now exuded complete confidence.
"Oh, so you want to fight me?" Then Kaylee responded.
"Fight? No. We are going to decimate you." The colonel yelled. He had previously been embarrassed in front of his soldiers, so he needed to make a strong statement now. But in the next moment, three more Argo ships appeared in the hologram and they all appeared in FTL speed so much so that their arrival couldn't even register properly in their radar signal.
The Colonel and others in the main bridge were knocked off their feet by this.
"You have 10 spaceships and we have 4. You certainly have more firepower here. But if you oppose us, it won't be simple for you. And you have to conquer too. Are you certain everything will happen without a hitch?" Kaylee for the first time threatened the Zorians.
This made the Colonel choke upon his next words. He wanted to say that their fleet will definitely win which was the logical explanation until and unless the Argo spaceships proved to be too powerful. Additionally, the fundamental problem was that a star system with such sophisticated spacecraft as the observer could not be a basic star system. Something must have caused a civilization to come here and assume the job of watcher, hence there must be something here.
Even so, it might be a trap.
The Colonel gave the matter much attention and discussed it with his advisers for a few Earth minutes before choosing not to enter the star system and to send only one spacecraft there to have a look.
They would be able to tell if it was a trap or not, and even if it was, they wouldn't lose much.
"Fine. We will not talk on the transgressions that you have just committed and tried to look into our files but after we are done with conquering this small and pathetic planet, you and me will have a chat." Captain said.
"I'll be here waiting," That didn't appear to bother Kaylee in the least.
A spacecraft eventually became separated from the entire fleet and flew by Pluto. To get to Earth, it just traveled at 60% of the speed of light without any AW technology.
The other Zorians were aiming their weapons at the four Argo spacecraft in the background, but they made no weird moves, and even the Argo spaceships' laser cannons were turned off. This was a very tense moment for the Zorians, and more so because the Colonel didn't seem like he wanted to speak with the bee spaceships that looked identical to each other and appeared out of nowhere.
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"Supreme Commander. You sure you want to do this?" Robin received a covert message from Kaylee inquiring as to why he was allowing the spacecraft to join the solar system.
"It will be fine. Did you shield Bespin away from their telescopes?" Robin responded by asking.
"I sent 40,000 drones, covering the city and obviating it from view. In recent months, the Terrans have done a fantastic job making the metropolis as covert as possible." Kaylee answered.
"Then let's have some fun."
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Read 30 chapters ahead on my p@treoncom/thelightedghost