Annihilation: Love Conquers All by Saxon Andrew, Derek Chiodo

avoiding confrontation. How far are we now from that ship?”
     
    Mikado looked at his console, “We’re eighty miles away and maintaining that distance at one-third speed, sir.”
     
    “Maintain that distance and speed. Don’t let them get close enough to hit us with a beam to prevent us from using our star drive. Have you been able to detect anything about that ship’s armaments?”
     
    “Yes sir. Their screen came on right after they entered normal space, however, our sensors determined that they are heavily armed with both missile and energy weapons before their screen cut off our vision. The power of their screen is quite strong. It’s about the size of a medium Cainth battleship and they are matching our speed; so far they have not attempted to communicate,” Lieutenant Mikado said.
     
    Ensign Kelley said, “Sir, they’re sending us a message.”
     
    “Put it on audio.”
     
    “. . . will drop your screens and prepare to be boarded,” a voice said in standard Alliance. “If you resist, you will be destroyed.”
     
    Captain Kosiev turned on his com and answered, saying, “This is the Directorate Ship Moscow and we are inside our territory enforcing Alliance rules. You have entered our space without permission and I will not let you board my ship. I have contacted our Alliance ambassador to inquire as to who you are and what you’re doing here.” Captain Kosiev knew that every ship had standing orders to self-destruct before allowing the Alliance any access to Coronado technology. He could not allow his ship to fall into the Alliance’s hands.
     
    “Then prepare to die,” the voice said, and the ship fired ten heavy high-speed missiles.
     
    “Sir, do we want to show them the capability of our screens?” Lieutenant Alverez, the weapons officer, asked while watching the huge missiles coming from the strange ship.
     
    “No, I don’t, although I think they’ll learn if they get into range to discharge their energy weapons at us,” Kosiev answered.
     
    “Then why don’t we just destroy the missiles and run or just jump away?”
     
    “Because I have a feeling that if we don’t stand and fight, then someone else is going to be attacked, later and if we destroy those missiles the next attack will have more than just one ship and more than just ten missiles. If we jump out, then we also avoid our duty to defend the twenty-light-year limit.”
     
    “But that ship is at least ten times our tonnage, and each of those ten missiles is just about half as long as our ship. Do you think that this is an attempt to determine our strength, captain?” Ensign Smith asked while adjusting Moscow’s acceleration.
     
    “Yes, I do, and I believe that other object we detected is a ship sent there to record whatever happens. It’s aces to deuces that the object we saw first is a ship powered down and doesn’t think we can see them. I also believe that if we call in additional ships that the next attack will be even greater and might be further inside the twenty light year limit.”
     
    Mikado watched his screens as the missiles came closer and said, “What are your orders, sir?”
     
    Kosiev knew that the time of peaceful coexistence was about to end. He could avoid risking his ship and jump away from the attack, but then he would leave the invader inside Directorate space, and that was just not acceptable. He decided that if peace were to end now then he would do his best to make sure that whoever planned this attack would not get any information. It ticked him off that he was being attacked without doing anything to provoke it. It was just another example of humans being attacked for no justifiable reason.
     
    Kosiev stared at the main screen and asked, “How long till missile impact?”
     
    Mikado looked at his board and replied, “Twenty seconds, sir, at our current speed. We could probably outrun them at three-fourths speed.”
     
    Kosiev looked at his helmsman and said, “I don’t want