Hellfire in the Heavens (I like the title:))

Klingon Hamlet

Dropping from hyperspace in ten seconds, my ship announces.

I duly strap into my pilot seat. Drop-outs always hurt more than jump-ins.

A bright red clock ticks down until it hits zero, and then, the universe explodes. Everything around me becomes a ghost, transparent in light and matter. I float in the darkness, and the ship is no more than a fading memory.

Another explosion, and I am back in real-space. The rainbow light of hyperspace peels away to reveal black space dotted with millions of tiny crystal stars, all winking merrily. In the midst of it all hovers mighty Earth: a bright blue ball of beauty, lush green and golden continents flowing across her face, capped and tailed by the whites of ice and snow.

I smile and press a button.

Four little stars appear on my viewport, holo-projections intangible and yet oh-so-important. They drift casually from the corners of the screen and converge at the centre of the globe.

Target locked, confirms my ship.

My smile broadens, and I press another button.

Firing Subspace Spikes.

Four pillars of red-hot energy blast out from each corner of my ship and dart straight towards the centre of the Earth. They hit the atmosphere and although they themselves are too distant to see from my position, I can make out the heat-trails of their atmospheric entry. Like blazing arrows, they burn through Earth’s last buffer and strike the planet’s surface.

In my mind’s eye I see the quartet slice through the flesh of the world and dive straight towards their intended target: Earth's core.

Contact, says my ship, and now I am laughing. I picture the chaos down there: millions of helpless people panicking and screaming, all unawares of what is about to befall them, of what I have done.

It is gloriously funny.

Four will not accomplish my goal. I fire four more.

They, too, launch across the cosmos, and I watch them shrink to pinpricks, only to explode midway between my ship and the planet.

I frown.

“Ship, identify source of destruction.”

Analysing, my ship replies, but I already know. Neutrino lasers.

Two giant war-cruisers covered in the crests and flags of the united planet raced towards me, guns blazing.

My ship is not made for combat. I punch the Emergency Binary Coda into my data-pad and send the signal straight to the two behemoths bearing down on me.

No response.

I input the sign of truce where I come from: three lights and then one, all transmitted across the full universal spectrum. Their only reply, if it even is a reply, is firing a wave of neutrino missiles right at me.

I hit the eject button, but even as I feel the defense field wrap around me, I know that I am as doomed as my ship. I am going to die, and so is-

*
*
*

Captain Lambert of the UNITerran Defense Corps watches the strange vessel crumble under a hail of neutrino missiles, and exhales loudly.

“Nicely done, gentlemen. Identity?”

All departments report in: Unknown.

Lambert shakes his head slowly, gazing in concern at the shattered fragments of an unidentified intruder-ship.

“We'll soon find out. Turn us about gentlemen. Let’s see what state our world is in.”

A young man turns, barely out of his teens and eyes wider than Saturn’s rings. He holds up a datapad and Lambert takes it impatiently.

“What is this?”

The cadet stutters and stumbles and his face glistens with sweat.

Lambert sighs and reads it through, and again, and again.

We saw you, it begins. We know you. We watch you, it says.

We stood back and felt the pain of your suffering.

We gasped as you plunged your swords and lasers into one another’s hearts.

We applauded your final progression to spacefarers.

We saw what was coming and sent our fastest ship, our smartest mind.
He will fire spikes of light into your planet’s core.

It is for your own good.

"Do not be afraid," Lambert reads out loud, as alert lights and sirens swamp the now-panicked bridge crew.

On the main screen, a giant solar flare spits out from the sun and reaches hungrily for the Earth, while the final words echo through Lambert's mind and soul:

These spikes will shield you from the coming fire.