“Before all else, be armed.” – Niccolo Machiavelli
Inbound toward Meme Empire system Gliese 370, thirty-six light years from Earth
Ink-dark and cold, robot recon drone R-35 cruised through the
interstellar void, as stealthy as Earthtech could make it. The tiny
ship soaked up electromagnetics and analyzed them, seeking specific
conditions as it approached the target star system at an
appreciable fraction of light speed.
Just before crossing the stellar boundary, its fate took an ill turn.
Directly ahead, a Meme Sentry waited. As black as the human-built intruder, the alien watcher detected the incoming drone’s impact on the standing wave of hot shocked plasma that existed, as with all star systems, at its stellar wind bubble boundary. This anomaly was sufficient to catch its attention; the semi-intelligent Sentry broadcast an alert, launched its available hypervelocity missile, and immediately began gestating another.
A living creature in its own right, the tiny shark-like weapon consisted of little more than a rudimentary nervous system and an advanced fusion engine, allowing it accelerations far in advance of any human technology. Its one goal in its short life was a kamikaze crash into its designated target at high speed.
R-35 had no defenses, but detected the launch in time to dump its memory, upload all data to its transmitter, and broadcast an encrypted signal burst. It had no chance to evade, as its enemy lay dead ahead. The Meme Sentry’s living missile hardly had to maneuver to intercept it. The collision of the two tiny vehicles annihilated them both in a burst of impact fusion.
Unseen, sibling drones R-05, R-15 and R-25 collected the transmitted data, relayed it via comm laser to the approaching EarthFleet dreadnought Conquest, and all continued silently inward toward the orange dwarf star, and humanity’s monstrous enemy.
With this tiny opening salvo, EarthFleet’s first bid for stellar conquest began.