Nineteen Years Ago

  “Another ship’s coming through the Rift, sir. No life signs. Same as the last two.”

  General Tan stood watching as the holo-viewer projected an image of the Rift on to the command deck’s bulkhead. It was a live stream, capable of showing any data that the commander of the starbase, Rift One, required. The holo-viewer’s current projection, a floor to ceiling image of the Rift from the station’s perspective, where it stood guard a mere fifty thousand kilometers from the tear, made the general feel as if he was floating in space.

  “Sir?” came the tentative follow-up, the sensor tech unsure if his commanding officer had heard him.

  “I heard you, sailor.”

  There was no reproach in the statement, just resignation. He knew what he had to do; Tan just hated the outcome he was sure to follow.

  “Send it to the marines. Tell them to board the craft.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  He could hear the command staff relaying orders around him, preparing to send good men off to die. All because a goddamn protocol. The report that the marines had launched came at the same time the general saw it with his own eyes on the holo-stream.

  Gotta love the Navy redundancy.

  He watched in silence as the marine detachment swiftly approached the enemy craft. The ubiquitous sounds of the bridge faded as he focused on the holo-stream, his breath held.

  Maybe this time would be different.

  General Tan knew the lie even as he told it to himself.

  Damn it! I should’ve pushed back more. The admirals don’t know what it’s really like out here!

  The Barrier was the Solvonus system’s main line of defense against the enemy. It had protected them for millennia. The Rift, a tear in the Barrier that surrounded the Solvonus system, first appeared four hundred ago. Suddenly, without explanation. It had reawakened the fear of the collective consciousness. The fear of the Interlopers, the ancient enemy that had chased them from their home system.

  At first, there had been numerous attempts to navigate the Rift to see what was on the far side of the Barrier, but to little effect. The Rift proved to be all but impassable. Spiking radiation and unexplained fluctuating gravitational forces pulling any drone or manned vessel apart. The empire had built a space station at the Rift, establishing a long-standing research contingent. Over the long decades and centuries, interest in researching the phenomenon waned, and the imperial navy took over caretaking duties.

  In the years since, Rift One became a last stop for officers who had fallen out of favor. They hosted sporadic scientific teams trying to tease out the secrets of the Barrier. Otherwise, they were left to their own devices. The station slowly fell into various states of disrepair as its caretakers lost any sense of hope or duty, confined as they were to the backend of the star system.

  There had been sporadic updates and retrofits done on the aging station, but it was always at the bottom of someone’s priority list. Even during the War of Power, the Great Houses acknowledged a token need to maintain the station.

  That changed six months ago. The first ship to emerge from the Rift had set the station on high alert. Most of Rift One’s personnel were unaware of what the klaxons and lights meant. Their last activation before any of them had been alive. The alien craft had been derelict, the gravitational forces of the Barrier pulling the vessel back into the Rift after being detected by the station’s sensors. That incident had been the catalyst to provide new clarity and purpose for the crew.

  The ancient enemy had found them.

  They reactivated mothballed systems and HellFires, bringing them through hurried maintenance cycles. The Navy’s admirals expedited additional personnel and equipment requests, sending General Tan to oversee the overhaul of the station and its defense. Rift One was operating at peak capacity within a few short weeks. When the Imperial Navy decided something needed doing, it knew how to cut through its own red tape.

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  However, after that initial incursion, which caused the Solvonus military complex to explode with activity, there were no further sightings of the ancient enemy as the weeks turned into months. The admirals, tucked safely on Senovar, far from the Rift, were discussing recalling personnel when another ship emerged through the fissure. This one, maneuvering under its own power, refused to respond to hails from the station’s controllers.

  The protocol, established after the first incursion, set predetermined machinations to work. It stated that any craft breaching the Barrier was to be boarded; the occupants detained and questioned. Marines, dispatched per protocol, launched on newly built Wing Carriers; designed after the Navy’s top tier star-fighter, the HellFire. Instead of a single pilot craft, it came equipped to launch with a squadron of marines, and with the ability to dock with another ship.

  The command crew on Rift One stood in shocked silence as the enemy ship detonated in a brilliant explosion the minute the Wing Carrier made contact and docked; the squadron lost in the blink of an eye.

  Over the last year, the same routine had played out time and again. Periodically, ships bearing the dreaded designs of Interlopers would emerge through the Rift. Some would be derelict, slipping back into the Rift. Increasingly, a ship or two would emerge under power. The alien craft would attempt to evade Rift One’s defenses, making their way further into the system. Each time, Wing Carrier’s or the station's plasma guns would intercept the enemy craft. Both ended in destruction of the enemy craft. If they attempted a boarding, the enemy self-destructed, the marine squadron taken in the blast.

  And for nothing.

  “Airlock engaging, sir,” a second lieutenant said from where he was monitoring the squadron’s progress.

  The general cringed. Silence descended on the command deck, everyone waiting for the expected report of an explosion.

  A moment passed, the silence stretching out, then another.

  The general let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and turned from the view of the Rift to the command deck.

  “Report.”

  “…Sir,” There was a pause. “The marines are in, sir. We aren’t receiving a video feed. The alien ship is composed of an unknown material causing some communications disruptions. However, we’re receiving reports on the voice channels.”

  General Tan walked over to his command chair and sat down heavily. Finally, they may get some answers. And, more importantly, maybe this time, the marines under his command wouldn’t die needlessly.

  “Sir!”

  Every head swung to see the second lieutenant standing up at his station, his agitation evident.

  “The marines are under attack! They’re taking heavy fire and are trying to return to their craft!”

  Goddamn it!

  No one said anything. The command deck tensed, everyone looking at either the lieutenant or the general.

  For his part, Tan sat still, watching the hologram, wishing it shown more than the exterior of the two ships. The general knew he was not an active participant in this situation. There was nothing anyone on the bridge could do for the marines fighting their way off the alien vessel. So he sat, waiting, trying to project a calm he did not feel.

  “Sir, the marines have casualties but have reached their Wing Carrier and are pushing off. I’m getting reports that the attack suddenly stopped once they retreated to their craft.”

  Thank the stars for small mercies.

  “Sir, the alien craft has exploded!”

  “The marines?!” General Tan asked, having seen the explosion for himself, fighting to keep the dismay from his voice.

  There was a pause while his command staff assessed the situation.

  “Sir, the Carrier Wing took a direct hit. They’re venting atmosphere, but the marines are kitted out for deep space and can withstand the depressurization. They’re reporting one casualty and various injuries. None seem to be life-threatening.”

  “Have medical meet the marines and tend to any injuries!” General Tan said, his emotions getting the better of him.

  He knew he was being emotional, however, at the moment he didn’t care.

  “Detail a crew to comb that wreckage and see if we can find anything useful. I want the squad leader in my office for a preliminary debrief within the hour. I want to know what was different this time and how they got on board.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  General Tan's after-action report to the admiralty gave few answers and raised even more questions. The marines had made their way inward, towards what they presumed to be the alien bridge, when they encountered heavy fire from secluded automated positions. The attack forced them back to their ship. Once they began boarding, preparing to push off, the heavy fire had ceased.

  Nothing of the alien craft was recoverable; the explosion, like the others over the months, had atomized the enemy vessel. Analysis of space in the explosion's vicinity recorded the same elements, some known others not. It was the same each time an alien ship self-destructed. In this case, the analysts presumed the vessels fail-safes had malfunctioned. That was why the marines had boarded the ship before being repelled.

  In the almost two decades since those first encounters, alien ships periodically emerged from the Rift. Occasionally, the marines boarded a vessel, only for its automated self-defense system to repel the borders.

  In the past year, there had been an increase in ships emerging from the Barrier. Some were under power and supposedly crewed. Each instance ended the same way; The Interlopers retreated through the Rift, the craft self-destructing, or the station's plasma guns blowing them to atoms.

  Unknown to any Navy personnel were the extra crewman or two that would occasionally disembark when the marines returned to the starbase. They would wait until the medtechs rushed the marines to the infirmary and the deck crew began crawling over the HellWings, affecting repairs. These individuals would blend in with the hanger crew, disappearing into the station without a trace.