Silent Message

Posted on Fri May 30th, 2025 @ 12:54am by Captain Liarra Von

Mission: Swing State
Location: Ithao System

A ripple, barely perceptible against the tapestry of stars, shivered into existence as an object emerged from warp—silent, needle-sleek, and blacker than the vacuum surrounding it. It was no ship. No lights, no markings, no registry. Just a purpose-built machine, no larger than a Danube-class runabout, gliding cold and unannounced into the outer edge of the Ithao system.

With fluid precision, the missile adjusted course. Tiny vernier thrusters puffed briefly, aligning its slender frame with the third planet—a jewel of greens and blues and pearlescent cloud bands, home to a civilization that had only achieved warp capability recently. Their first emissary to the United Federation of Planets having returned only months before.

The missile dipped, unseen and unheard, through the outermost orbiting debris. It shimmered for an instant — a ghost-light that rippled across its hull — and then vanished from ordinary sensors. The cloaking device was crude, uneven in its lattice of scattering fields. To those scanning casually, it would appear as nothing more than background radiation. To those not scanning at all, it was invisible.

Silently, steadily, it glided inward.

Its trajectory was smooth and unerring, curving toward the inner system. A cluster of defense satellites orbited the fourth planet, their simple AI routines oblivious. Even if they had detected something, they were not programmed to understand what it meant.

Ithao Prime loomed ahead — a jewel of a world with oceans tinted violet by native chlorophyll, and long, rose-colored continents. Orbiting it, its largest moon: Tiroth, cratered and pale, its surface blanketed by ancient impact scars and newly constructed observatories.

The missile angled toward Tiroth’s nearside.

And then — the shimmer returned. Not to cloak, but to arm.

Deep within the missile’s core, tritanium bulkheads shifted, unlocking a containment lattice. Magnetic fields hummed, realigning to stabilize a payload of pure antimatter. There was no warning. No transmission. Not even a signal to confirm targeting.

It accelerated.

Ten thousand kilometers in less than a second.

It struck the moon’s surface with precision, thirty meters above the crust — just enough for maximum dispersal.

The explosion was a sphere of obliteration, violet and white, carving a scar across the moon’s crust. The antimatter reaction vaporized rock, threw regolith into orbit, and sent a shockwave rumbling invisibly through space.

On Ithao Prime, night-side skywatchers turned their eyes upward—just in time to witness a silent bloom of fire on Tiroth's face. A second sun, cold and violet, swelling then fading to darkness, leaving behind only a plume of ash and uncertainty.

No warning. No declaration. Just annihilation.

And no one knew who had sent it.