#### Day 17 of Mission 1 ####

The lean figure of Major Sophia Villafana appeared from behind a towering blackish-red fern that was the color of drying blood. Despite her bulky white environmental suit, the biologist practically skipped a beat  as she moved from one plant to another taking samples. Her voice, usually calm, was almost bubbly.

“Oh, I definitely won. There’s super fauna with a dark red hew. Weaver is going to be so pissed when he sees this footage!”

Captain Amy Stone laughed nearby as the two of them pressed deeper into the prehistoric jungle. The oversized fronds blocked their vision beyond five feet in any direction, forming a dense, shifting wall of alien foliage. Their heat sensors proved useless on this new world – each leaf and branch were impervious to thermal imaging, and seemed to grow closer to black as they moved into the thicker portions.

“This jungle is amazing!” Villafana chirped over the comms, “You’d never know if there was something just feet from you. My sensors can’t penetrate the leaves. I can’t even see y–. Doctor, are you listening?”

A melodic voice, carrying a trace of irritation beneath radio static, broke over the two explorer’s comms. 

“Yes, Major. I hear you”. Replied Doctor Cadaval from their exploration ship. “What can I help with? It doesn’t sound like anyone’s been injured, and I haven’t seen any animal life captured for me to study.”

Villafina rolled her eyes behind her helmet and kept pace ahead of Stone.

“Relax, Doctor” she quipped. “I’ll find you something alive to study”.

Before Cadaval could reply, and before Stone could intervene in their banter, a soft notification pinged Villafana’s helmet HUD. It was a private comms request from Lieutenant Bazin back aboard the ship. She accepted the request, and her tone shifted to curiosity.

“Bazin – is Cadaval bothering you back there?”.

“No Ma’am. Sorry for the private channel, Ma’am.” Bazin began, his voice tinged with urgency. “The drone picked up vegetation rustling about a hundred yards from your position. Multiple sources, small, and moving fast. I’d advise caution and potentially return to the ship until we can identify it.”

Villafana glanced over her shoulder where Captain Stone stood a few steps behind, scanning the surroundings. With a flick of her tongue, Villafana activated the map overlay that appeared on the inside of her helmet, letting her see the landscape through the trees. As she found the direction Bazin had mentioned, she saw a sea of orange dots overlaid on her display growing as they approached.

“Understood,” Villafana murmured, her earlier cheer fading. Switching back to the open comms channel, her voice was steadier, though quieter.

“Captain, we might have company.”

The pair paused, their senses suddenly attuned to every rustle and creak in the alien wilderness.

Grabbing Major Villafina’s arm, Captain Stone pushed her back through the dense brush as the orange dots got closer. The foliage that had fascinated them now formed a wall that funneled them into a winding path back to the ship. The maze of blood-red ferns and succulents seemed to turn into bloody warnings about what was coming.

Stone’s heart thumped so loudly that she was sure everyone on the channel could hear as they moved. A whooshing sound began to drown out the sounds of their breathing, like a growing wind in a field of bamboo. As he stumbled over vines, the Major finally gave into her terror as it broke into her voice.

“What’s that? That can’t be the wind. The foliage is too big to rustle in the breeze like that.”

Stone didn’t answer, her grip tightening on Villafana’s arm as they retreated to the ship. The answer came moments later, emerging from behind a massive fern: a sky-blue sapient lizard clad in gleaming blood-red armor. Its slitted eyes locked onto them, unblinking. 

Villafana felt an unnatural weight behind the creature’s gaze – an intimate analysis that seemed to commit the women’s pause, their breathing, even their blinking to memory.

“What–” Villafana barely got the word out before the lizard acted.

The creature lunged, its spear – a weapon tipped with a jagged metal and covered in scalloped clam shells – struck Villafana square in the chest with a sickening thump that everyone could hear over the radio.

The hiss of air escaping the suit filled the comms channel, followed by silence as Villafan crumpled to the ground. The lizard’s gaze snapped to Stone with a predatory sharpness that felt almost surgical. The way it shifted its stance – it wasn’t just watching her; it was learning her. Somehow, she felt certain that whatever it learned in that moment would not be forgotten. Her instincts finally overpowered the fear, and Stone drew her pistol and fired. Four shots rang out in quick succession, the sound swallowed by the dense jungle and her screams. The alien lizard staggered back, the rounds embedded in its chest and head, before collapsing.

Stone didn’t wait. She bolted into the jungle, leaving Villafana’s motionless body behind. Her screams died as she sprinted, no longer trying to preserve the landscape around her. Despite her labored breathing, she barked orders with more urgency than she’d ever used before.

“Bazin!” she barked into the comms.“Get the ship primed and get the weapons online! Shoot anything that isn’t me! Something got the Major!”

Doctor Cadaval was the first to respond. His voice choked as he ran. 

“She’s not dead – I’m still picking up a pulse on her suit’s vitals! I’m en route to you two now

Stone hesitated, her legs still moving as instinct drove her back to the ship. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to keep running, to put as much distance as possible between herself and that creature, but the thought of leaving Villafana – still alive, possibly – gnawed at her resolve.

Engines spooled in the distance as Bazin readied the ship, and the Doctor burst through the ferns with a plasma blade swinging to clear the brush before him. Within moments, Cadaval burst through the foliage ahead of Stone and without pause shucked off the spare rifle and tossed it to her. 

Stone caught it awkwardly, fumbling before steadying herself. Despite her long training, she fumbled the gun before picking it up off the ground.

Her military training kicked in, and she checked the rifle quickly as she ran, her training taking over. With it pressed against her shoulder, she hurried behind the Doctor who blindly led the way into the jungle to rescue Villafana .

“Cadaval, get back here! We need to stick together, or we’re all going down.”

Cadaval’s voice crackled over the open channel, unshakable. “I’m not leaving her!”

There was something in his tone – raw, unyielding – that Stone hadn’t heard from him before. It wasn’t just duty driving him; it was something deeper. She’s seen the way he looked at Villafana. The way they teased each other. Now it all made sense. 

“Steve! There’s at least a dozen of those things running around here, and they know how to move through this jungle.”

He wasn’t listening. With unrelenting focus, his plasma blade sliced deeper through the jungle. “Hold on” he muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible over the comms but clear enough for Stone to hear.

 She flipped to a channel with Bazin and gave the order she never expected to give after moving to the Wayfinders Battalion. 

“Lieutenant Bazin, get the war drones in the air and make weapons free.”

Back aboard the ship, Bazin’s hands raced across the control panel until his eyes caught a glimpse of the sensor array. Orange dots, their positions multiplying like a swarm.

“We’re not dealing with just animals.” Stone coldly muttered. “Prepare for extraction.”

Stone never found out if her orders were followed.

The pair pushed through the dense, blood-red jungle, their breaths ragged from exertion. The HUD in Stone’s visor still marked Villafana’s last known location, a blinking blue dot in a sea of orange—the alien signatures multiplying ominously. As they approached the clearing, Stone signaled for Cadaval to halt. She spotted a figure looming over Villafana’s motionless body. It was one of the lizard aliens, its sky-blue scales catching the faint light filtering through the canopy. In its clawed hand, it held Villafana’s sidearm, the barrel pointed downward as if it were inspecting the weapon. The alien tilted its head, its slitted eyes locked on the pistol with an unsettling intensity. Its movements were slow, deliberate, almost…familiar. Stone’s stomach twisted as she watched. It wasn’t just examining the gun—it was remembering something, as if the knowledge of the weapon had been buried deep within its memory.

The alien stood tall, bringing Villafana’s sidearm up in a crude but recognizable mimicry of Stone’s earlier firing stance – one she’s trained for years.

Stone raised her rifle, aiming at the creature’s head. Before she could squeeze the trigger, a spear hurtled out from the ferns ahead, its jagged blade shattering piercing her clavicle in a spray of blood.

Cadaval froze, his breath hitched. He stood paralyzed between grief and fury, and muttered out a single “Villafana” before another spear flew from the canopy and impaled him through the abdomen. The weapon’s brutal force lifted him off his feet and left him crumpled beside Stone’s body.

The lizard approached Stone, who choked her final breaths and saw her eyes reflected in its narrowing golden eyes. Its unblinking eyes shifted from the pistol in its hand back to Stone.

Slowly, almost reverently, it repeated a word.

“Villafana”.

The name rolled off its tongue with clarity, the word lingering in the air and heavy with meaning that Stone and Cadaval would never understand.

Back on the ship, Bazin’s eyes darted to the life-sign monitors that blinked from green and orange to red. His chest tightened as the realization hit: they were all gone.

He reached down to his harness and began to unbuckle himself, the urge to save his friends overcoming the grim reality he’d received. He was about to leap from his seat and depress the release when a flash of blue pulled his gaze out to the jungle beyond the blunt nose of the craft.

A lone blue scaled warrior stood outside the ship, cradling one of his crew’s rifles in its claws with the barrel and sights clumsily, but deliberately, pointed at him. Guided by some internal knowledge it seemed to draw upon, it tested the weight of the stock, and the snarl of hatred that looked up at him was only eclipsed by the sudden muzzle flashes of the poorly aimed shots. The rounds bounced off the reinforced glass of the armored viewport, but the icicles of fear still caused Bazin to leap into action.

Bazin flared the engines and felt the ship lift off the ground as it cycled through the final steps to take flight. His eyes remained fixed on the alien warrior who had been joined by a half dozen of her allies, each standing around the ship in a loose ring. None attacked, instead focusing on the craft like academy students preparing for finals.

After a few moments, the warrior in front of him took aim on one of the thrusters and fired. This ship jerked slightly as the jet was pushed out of position before Bazin was able to pull it back into place as he fought the fear that was building to an eruption point. Another thruster was knocked out of position by a shot from behind him as thudding began to sound from the side and back hatches pushed him to give into the terror.

With a slam of a button on the panel to his right, Bazin sent flares screaming off the wings of the ship, and the thrusters ignited fully. The ship leapt into the sky on balls of flames, the wash of heat and the burning flares turning the jungle around it into a smoldering pyre for the fallen. As the pings of small caliber bullets faded, Bazin slumped back into his chair and began to shake as the adrenaline dumped out of his system.

As he stared out into the void of space, Bazin wept and whispered each of his friends names to himself. Villafana. Stone. Cadaval. They were all gone, and he was alone. He spoke each of their names and vowed to never forget them.

Below, in the burning jungle, the lizards would remember too – not through grief, but through a memory that pulsed within their very genes.

#### Day 236 of Mission 53 ####

Two decades had passed since Bazin’s near-death experience. It was a memory that still plagued him and often seeped into his dreams. Those terrifying moments always seemed within reach when he closed his eyes. The recurring nightmares were broken now by the shrill alerts on his comm watch as he climbed the ladder to the small bridge. 

His eyes, heavy with the residue of interrupted sleep and haunted by the recurring nightmare, struggled to focus from the abrupt wake up. Even before fully emerging through the hatch, he addressed the pilot.

“Lieutenant Jones, what’s going on? We’re in an empty system so there shouldn’t be anything important enough to get me out of bed.”

The young pilot glanced over her shoulder, her blonde ponytail the only visible part of her.

“Captain, sorry to wake you, but we’ve got visitors and they aren’t doing anything to indicate that they’re friendly.  No response to our universal hails”.

Bazin moved to the navigator’s seat on the left of the hatch, his haunted memories leaving a lingering shadow of unease as he pulled up the sensor readings. As the system’s largest gas giant loomed in the background, a ship – roughly the same size as the UDS Star Finder – was slowly approaching.  A few button presses later, the display on the screen zeroed in on the approaching craft.

With each click the ship’s outline and markings filled the screen, sending a chill down his spine. It was a crude copy of the ship he was currently standing on from his first mission. A single tally mark that had been painted onto the side of the cockpit by his first commander flashed into view, sparking the nameless fear he still harbored in his dreams. As the image sharpened, Bazin froze. This ghost was very much alive, and it was moving towards them.

 Despite the confused glances from his pilot and the lack of urgence from any of the AI systems, Bazin’s heart dropped into his stomach and ice ran up his spine. He knew what that ship meant and he needed to save this crew from his lost friends’ fate. Captain Bazin lunged forward and hit his hand down on the button to signal the marines and their Sergeant below the deck in the UDS Star Finder.

“Marines get kitted!” his voice rang over the comms “We have an unknown ship inbound. No response to hails. Assume hostile intent.”

With a savage flip of the switch, Bazin shut off the ship-wide channel before the Marines could respond or ask the questions that always came with these types of orders. As he disconnected the channel, his fear nearly overcame his trained composure. He met his pilot’s terrified gaze as he reached out and pressed the first column of oversized red buttons running down his console. The light throughout the ship snapped from their usual glow that matched the light of Sol to a deep crimson that made the steel bulkhead look like it was dripping blood.

A shrill, tinny automated voice burst through the ship along with a siren that woke anyone that hadn’t already been awake.

“Battlestations. All hands to combat posts… Battlestations. All hands to combat posts.”

The voice repeated the request a dozen times before fading into the clamor and chaos of marines filling the corridors of the ship. The Captain watched his crew leap into action from the cameras on the console. Marines sprinted to the armory, the scuffle of boots on metal deafening as they donned their gear.  Even the doctor, trained for emergencies rather than combat, rushed toward the med bay with no questions asked.

Bazin gritted his teeth and fought against every instinct to resist the urge to run or take over the ship controls and  turn tail to flee. The only assurance of safety he clung to was the time he’d spent on the larger combat craft in the fleet where he’d seen what they could do on the hunt. Humanity wasn’t to be underestimated, he told himself, as his eyes scanned the camera feeds, watching the crew spring into action.

The holo display in front of Bazin shifted from passive scanners to aggressive targeting crosshairs that zeroed in on the incoming craft, every detail emblazoned in harsh red. As the image sharpened, Bazin’s heart pounded with the recollection of that long-ago jungle planet. The lizard-skinned creature with its calculating eyes staring up at him through the windows. 

As the view cleared further, the craft began to look like a zombie version of his old ship. It was an amalgamation of strange almost wood-like texture and branch-like protrusions warped around a cold, unoriginal echo of his past. Almost twenty years had passed, and here they were again.

With a fleeting sense of hope, Bazin activated the transceiver, cycling a greeting in every language and format humankind had devised. For several seconds, the Captain and his pilot studied the screens in tense silence, expecting some sort of reply. Instead, an electromagnetic pulse slammed into the ship, frying unshielded cables, exploiting weak points in the hull, and rocking everyone aboard with a violent THOOM. 

The shielded core of the UDS Star Finder held firm, but turrets that had just emerged slumped lifelessly, drifting as the ship’s minor thruster adjustments sent them adrift.  Bazin barely had time to register the damage before warning alarms broke out like funeral bells, playing over and over, louder with each ring. Panic skittered beneath the surface, and tension tightened in his chest. A whisper of disbelief escaped him.

“No… it can’t”.

Through a murky viewport, the enemy ship lurched closer. They didn’t hesitate to kill, just like before. In the jungle they’d ambush him, struck, iterated, and struck again. That meant they’d hit again any moment – but how’d they advance their weapons this quickly?

With the screens killed by the pulse, Lieutenant Katherine Jones quickly unstrapped from her pilot seat and slid below the control desk, doing her best to reroute wires and the displays to the backup system. The next few minutes were a panicked flurry of motion as the crew on each deck struggled to save their crippled craft as the small dot turned into a well-defined ship that bristled with strange-looking weapons. 

“Jones! What’s the status of our engines?”

“They’re functional, Captain. But we’re going in the wrong direction. It’ll take us ten minutes to slow enough for a course correction, and we can’t jump toward the plane..”

Sparks crackled out of the terminal of the control desk, showering Jones in hot flecks as she rerouted wires. Bazin took a steady breath and started crunching the numbers in his head. They didn’t have much time before the next strike.

“We’re… We’re too close and a jump…  would rip us apart.”

Bazin forced his composure into his next orders. 

“Begin evasive maneuvers and push the engines to maximum. We’ll use the planet’s gravity for a slingshot.”

Before he could dwell on his orders, the sergeant of the ship’s marines stormed onto the bridge. With her striking presence and no-nonsense bearing, she’d long been the one to see the man behind the captain. The one haunted by dreams and whispered nightmares. She remembered those nights when Bazin cried out in the dark, and she’d been the only one to check on him. Though he never inquired about hers, he knew well that she harbored her own burdens too. 

“Chavez.”

“Sir.”

“What the hell did they just throw at us?”

Scurrying out from under the cables, face covered in tiny burns, Jones rebooted the system and quickly pulled up navigation telemetry on her pilot panel. 

“Captain! It looks like the ship is slowing far faster than should be possible. They’re swinging to present a broadside to us. ”

In that charged moment, the holo displays crackled alive and flashed warnings. Bazin and Chavez locked eyes and in a silent, shared glance, they both understood what was about to come next.

“Deja Vu.” Bazin whispered to himself.

As the enemy ship drew closer, a dozen smaller blips burst forth. Six missiles the size of watermelons, darting twice as fast as six shuttle-sized objects trailing behind.

Taking control of the ship’s damaged defensive systems, he fired a few rapid keystrokes and adjustments, calibrating what was left of the turrets and readying them for engagement. When the second wave of shuttle-sized objects appeared at the extreme edge of the turret’s reach, his eyes narrowed and he opened fire. 

The UDS Star Finder shook as bolts rocked out and reached the first line, narrowly hitting the inbound missiles which exploded in a field of ice and glass. Behind them, the larger enemy craft barreled through the dissipating mist at full speed.

Bazin’s fingers flew over the controls as he desperately tried to realign the turrets, but his frantic commands fell short. The defensive systems misfired; shots intended to deter the second wave veered off course. In mere seconds, the hostile boarding craft slammed into the UDS Star Finder near the hull’s center. The violent impact tore through metal, the cacophony of ripping steel overpowering the panicked shouts of the crew. With a jolt, the impact damaged the ship’s delicate artificial gravity system. The gravity stabilizers, powered by a central reactor and maintained by an intricate network of centrifugal generators, suddenly faltered as key conduits were severed. Warning lights flashed across the control panels as power surges overwhelmed the circuitry, and in an instant, the familiar, steady pull of gravity loosened. Marines and crew, caught off guard by the loss, began to see lighter objects float up into the air as gravity began to come undone.

Bazin’s hands hovered over the control, shaking. The brutal collision confirmed the worst: his defense had failed. On the holo display, he could see massive impact points across status panels, and the ship’s systems began to flicker off. Gravity was completely lost in lower decks, and only partially active on the bridge and neighbouring hallways. In the chaos that followed, Sergeant Chavez yanked the microphone free from its holder, her tone grim and resigned.

“Marines, protect the bridge. We’ve been boarded.”

Chavez’s eyes hardened as she secured her gear. With one last frustrated and doubtful glance at Bazin, she exited the bridge without another word, her boots echoing against the metal corridors as she set off to organize a perimeter defense against the boarding party.

Bazin remained at his console, his gaze fixed on the flickering holographic schematics and erratic sensor data. His mind raced, trying to unravel the method behind his enemy’s assault. Every adaptation they demonstrated appeared to be a calculated mimicry like their mechanical echo of the first interaction. They’d ambushed, like before. Took out propulsion, like before. There was a formula, a copied pattern and there had to be something to exploit in that.

Waves of panic and the flashing memory of his dying friends drove Bazin to action. He pulled himself free of the straps and pushed away from the seat, feeling the lax tug of partial gravity. He circled to the back of the chair and pulled his rifle free from the magnetic lock that held it in place. With the strap around his back, he pulled on the portable headset with comms mic and took a deep breath to ensure it worked. 

“Jones!” he barked, “keep this ship burning hard toward the planet for the slingshot maneuver. Once I’m out of here, lock this door, and don’t let anyone else in. I’m going to work with the Marines to repel whatever’s onboard. Be ready to detach the cockpit for ejection.”

Jones nodded in the affirmative and in her eyes he saw the same look he’d seen in himself reflected in the glass of the cockpit twenty years ago.

“I’m not watching people die from the cockpit again.” he muttered to himself.

Bazin stepped through the hatch and began making his way down the central corridor in leaping bounds between the walls. As he reached the central junction where the main corridor broke into three, he took the left, towards the cough and crack of gunfire. His small earpiece came to life with a hiss as he reached the range of the Marines’ comms and heard Sergeant Chavez’s steady, determined tone.

“–…isn’t working. We need another way to stop them. Rex, start with the ear popper.” her voice declared, edged with urgency.

Bazin pressed himself against the wall while covering his ears and closing his eyes. Despite his best efforts, a bright flash  of the flash bang grenade burned through his eyelids, and the pressure wave rattled his bones from down the corridor. When the ringing finally began to fade, he lifted his rifle and advanced to the next bend to regroup with the marines.

Rounding the bend, his heart pounded as amid the carnage, enemy shields advanced slowly; their crab-like blasters lashed out in a hail of energy bolts that ricocheted off the bulkhead, adding to the confusion. Chavez stood at the forefront of the fray. Her posture was defiant, her gaze unyielding as she fought with every ounce of strength to stave off the boarding party.

The seconds it took for the enemy to reach them seemed to take an eternity. Every desperate shot of energetic bolts and shrapnel-like rounds alike from the marines was met by the impenetrable enemy shields. Each attack deflecting harmlessly and leaving the invaders undeterred. With each volley deflected, the enemy closed the distance further, forcing the beleaguered defenders to fall back as they lost ground. 

In the chaotic melee, Chavez dropped her rifle and drew a knife, leaping forward in the low gravity to pass over the advancing creatures. For a suspended moment, both sides froze in shock as she moved in suspended animation – moving past the shield and lunging with the blade that struck true. The impact sent a spray of purple blood cascading across her uniform, and time fractured around her. But before she could launch another attack, the second lizard pulled a spear from its hip, its feather-adorned handle revealing a blade that glinted in the corridor’s red lights, and struck Chavez squarely in the chest. 

The corridor fell into a heavy silence, and Bazin’s mind reeled with the loss. Unhindered from gravity’s total embrace, Sergeant Chavez floated a few agonizing seconds in the air before she was unceremoniously cast aside and flung to a nearby bulkhead.

The sight of the black wood and feather-adorned handle, in conjunction with the blue-skinned arm of its wielder, sent ice down the captain’s spine. He knew this weapon from the footage he’d watched after the disaster of his first mission, its shape burning into his mind in the nightmares where he watched his friends die repeatedly. Fear overcame his training as he tried to escape the nightmare before him. Dispatching the last of the marines, the lead creature took deliberate steps and stopped directly above Bazin. Its cold, unblinking eyes were slitted and remorseless as they fixed on the fallen captain. 

Slowly, it raised a clawed hand, and in a voice that was both mocking and venomous, it uttered a single word:
“Villafana.”

In that moment, something caught Bazin’s attention—a subtle detail that broke through his stunned shock. The design of the alien’s pressure suit, the very color scheme of its armor, mirrored the suits his crew had worn when they first encountered these beings in the jungle. A sudden, horrifying realization surged through him: this was not an innovative, unpredictable force, but an enemy defined by relentless mimicry. They had observed, copied, and perfected the methods and weapons of their adversaries, evolving rapidly to counter predictable tactics.

Bazin’s thoughts raced as the creature’s eyes bore into him, and discreetly he fumbled the portable headset microphone on. 

“Jones. Listen carefully.” he muttered.

“Captain?” she responded over the comms.

“They’re not innovating. They’re mimicking.” he whispered. “Their suits, their tactics – they’re all reactive or replication”. From the jungle ambush years ago and Chavez’s sacrifice, one thing was clear.

“They’re caught off guard by anything radically different. Break the mold, they won’t be able to adapt in time”.

His mind churned with desperate strategies as the lizard shifted its stance, leaning down so its cold, lizard eyes studied every detail of Bazin’s face.

With a sudden surge of defiance, Bazin spat through the air, saliva hitting the creature’s armored snout. For a split second, the alien recoiled, its reptilian head jerked back in startled surprise. 

“Not expecting that, hey?” Bazin cracked with a mirthless smile on his lips, reveling in that brief, daring moment of subversion, his unexpected act challenged their mimicry. In the same instant, the creature’s cold gaze hardened. Like a coiled serpent struck, it recovered with lightning speed. A gleaming spear, its feather-adorned handle glinting malevolently in the emergency light, sliced through the air. Before Bazin could fully savor his defiant grin, the spear found its mark, plunging deep into his heart. The surge of pain was immediate and brutal, shattering his brief moment of triumph.

Back on the bridge, Lieutenant Jones flipped off the cameras as she was ordered. Her hands flew over the controls as she initiated the emergency separation protocol. In one swift, decisive motion, she disengaged the bridge from the rest of the UDS Star Finder, effectively isolating it and with it, Bazin and the creatures. 

With the unexpected propulsion, Jones arched around the gas giant and accelerated at near-peak velocity, blindsiding the enemy craft’s imitation that struggled to lock onto them. The crushing g-forces pressed Jones into her seat as the vessel executed its daring escape. With a final, decisive maneuver, Jones steered her vessel toward the jump point. As the light of a small-yield wormhole flashed into space, she slumped back into the thick gel seat, emotions overwhelming her. Tears mixed with the rage that tightened her fists. 

The enemy, for all its lethal mimicry, had a weakness. Now, with his revelation laid bare over the comm, the future of their defense and perhaps their very survival rested on the audacity to be truly unpredictable.

#### Day 13,542 of Mission 54 ####

“After its… ignominious return to the Sol System with its hull in tatters, the UDS Star Finder was retired here. It’s been here for the last thirty-seven years, allowing everyone to see this nearly extinct class of ship.

Captain Katherine Jones let the words hang in the air, watching the faces of the student academy tour group as they stood in the dim museum lighting of the old warship. Some looked enthralled, others bored, and a few had the wide-eyed awe of children who had yet to understand that history had real consequences. The Star Finder was more than a relic to Katherine though. It was a scar.

Her hands clenched behind her back as she forced herself to continue the script, reciting the ship’s tragic past with a voice that sounded distant even to her own ears. The words had been rewritten by naval curators to soften it for public consumption. The raw horror and the panic of the attack had all been stripped away.

“Please proceed to the airlock for your return shuttle.”

 It had been a long career for Jones after she left the Wayfinders Battalion to join the System Defense Force. Despite the quiet life that came with working and living in the Sol system, her sleep was still haunted by the blue reptilian faces she’d seen as they were thrown out into deep space along with her crewmates.

Her thoughts hung on that day as the most recent wave of children poured off the ship. When she was finally alone, she moved back to the place that had been her home for the last ten years, the captain’s seat of the UDS Star Finder. She sank into the worn fabric seat and let her eyes close as her memories consumed her and pulled her to sleep.

WEE-OO WEE-OO WEE-OO.

The blaring alarms of the early warning system meshed with her memories and dreams as she was pulled back to reality. Lights flashed in strobing red, and her heart raced at the repeating reality. She sat up and activated the sensor logs like her former captain had done thirty-seven years earlier.

Several pings appeared at the edge of radar range, erupting from the Solar System’s outer edge. Her decades of service in the Solar Defense Fleet kicked in as she leaped into motion and moved over to the sensor station. A few flicks of switches linked her ship to the thousands of sensor stations placed in that quadrant of the system.

The signal slowly resolved, filling in the details as the signal reached her from increasingly far away. As the sensor signal reached the incoming crafts, the nine ships began to appear on the forward display. Each vessel was the tree shape that was still burned into her mind.

Unlike the spindly ship she’d seen three decades ago, these were loaded for bear. Gun barrels stuck out from every arm of the vessel like branches and roots of a massive tree, with the barrel of their ion cannons sticking out of the front to look like it made up most of the body. She could even see the layered plates resembling scales along its hull as the ships became more detailed. Her hands trembled over the controls, memories of the last battle crashing through her like a wave. Bazin’s final, whispered realization: they’re not innovating, they’re mimicking.

She slammed her fist on the emergency channel button to open a channel with Solar Defense Command, praying that someone would listen before it was too late. An almost robotic voice broke over the speakers of the ship in response.

“ID number A7G3L49. We have an imminent threat inbound. I repeat, we have nine confirmed hostiles approaching the Sol System. They’re the same ones that took down the Star Finder thirty-seven years ago, and they’ve learned from last time. Get me the Intelligence Officer. Now.”

The reply was delayed by an infuriating moment of silence. When the response came, it was laced with bureaucratic exhaustion.

“This is a museum ship. If this is a prank—”

Jones nearly punched the comms console. “Listen to me, you desk jockey! This is not a joke. I’m transmitting past combat records and live sensor readings. This is ID number A7G3L49,  Captain Katherine Jones. Get the Admiral on call!”

“Apologies, ma’am. We get calls from kids on the museum ships all the time. Sending you over to Admiral Visna now. Please hold on.”

It was a relief that a friend was on duty, and she wouldn’t have to give much information before the fleet could react. Another pause. Then a familiar voice cut through the static.

“It’s always good to hear from you, Kat,” the Admiral greeted her. “but now isn’t a great time. I’ve got some problems that just reached my desk. .”

Her heart sank at the fact that no one else had identified the ships still hurtling toward Earth. With a deep breath, she did her best to remain calm as she answered his question.

“Visna, it’s them.”

Silence filled the connection for several seconds before the Admiral let out a string of curses. When he finally recovered enough to return to the conversation, his voice broke as he began barking orders to other people in the room.

“Sir?” she asked, trying to get his attention.

“…Activate the EMP deflectors and have the fleet scatter into a net formation. Tell them to stay away from the nose of these ships as they approach. Get the reserve activated and the security net online in the inner asteroid belt.”

As the sounds of junior officers scrambling filled the background, Jones’ hands flexed. They were responding to this wrong. The last time they fought, the humans had relied on conventional tactics. Predictable tactics. The lizards would see their maneuvers coming from a mile away.  She had to warn them.

“Wait, they have armor and countermeasures that nullify energy weapons – we should focus on conventional weapons and only plan on using them as screens!”.

“Kat, I need you to tell me if there’s anything else you can give me, anything you have about these ships. You’re the only person alive that’s ever faced these things. Get to a shuttle and get down here. We need you in the war room.”

Bazin’s words echoed in her mind again. They’re caught off guard by anything radically different. Break the mold, they won’t be able to adapt in time.

“I’m telling you right now, we need an ambush, not a firing line or a conventional screen. They know our main tactics and how to counter them.”

She sat back in the seat for several seconds, her mind fighting her heart’s desire for vengeance. She glanced at the sensors and watched as the fast-react fleet did what she told the Admiral not to do. The ships moved up into a loose square with two layers of ships facing the enemy ships to protect Earth and released a volley of missiles at the incoming targets. Jones shook her head. Humanity was walking into another routine disaster, step by step. She had to do something. 

Something different.

Jones cut the comms and gripped the armrests of her chair. The Star Finder groaned as she activated its aging systems, long-dormant weapons stirring. She keyed the ship’s navigation and turned toward the asteroid belt. If there was one thing she had learned from the lizards, it was that predictability was death.

At the edge of the battle, the lizard’s formation shifted to adjust their aim at the salvo of missiles barreling their way. Strange blue lightning crackled between their branches and built up at their cores before five streaks of energy fired an arc towards humanity’s defenders, instantly disabling the incoming missiles and fully crippling the frontline of the fleet. The lizards copied humanity’s strengths, but they didn’t know how to counter chaos.

 A sharp groaning rang through the Star Finder as its frame broke free from its place at the edge of the museum station. The engines sputtered and choked as it brought its primary reactor back to life, and with a final chug and a flash of lights in the cockpit, the Star Finder flared its engines and powered forward.

Jones bared her teeth in a grin that held no humour.

“Let’s see if you can learn this trick, reptile.”

The hulking ship pressed hard towards the enemy fleet and the asteroid belt at an arch that would flank them. Despite being in the space dock for thirty years, the engines roared with rage as they charged. Jones’ mind raced for an unconventional solution. The only thing that had worked, truly worked, in damaging their ships was an accident when she fled all those years ago: debris. Space junk.

Jones sat up straight in the pilot’s chair and spoke out loud even though she was alone.

“We’re going to need a creative option for this one. How about we pick up some backup in the asteroid belt?”

The ship didn’t respond in words. Instead, the sensors responded perfectly to her commands, targeting several space rocks filled with iron and lead. A smile crossed her face as a plan started to materialize. She leaned over to reach the copilot’s controls and activated the tow beams.

Jones extended the beams, locking onto as many dense asteroids as she could find. At first, they resisted, floating lazily in the void, but as the engines flared and the ship shot forward, they snapped into motion, dragged behind the Star Finder like a flail on an unbreakable chain. The moment she reached full speed, they began to swing on their invisible tethers. Each asteroid whipped in its own deadly arc like a shot from a shotgun with all the raw force of inertia and gravity.

She wasn’t bringing guns to a space battle. She was bringing a wrecking ball and anger issues..

From the cover of the asteroid belt, she roared toward the enemy fleet, engines screaming as she pulled the massive debris behind her like a meteor storm on a leash. The first enemy ship appeared in the viewport with weapon ports glowing, bristling with turrets, and ion cannons ready to erase anything in their path. The fleet still wasn’t taking her seriously, focusing their fire on the Sol Defense Fleet forming nearby.

“Since they’re ignoring us,” Jones muttered, hands tightening on the controls, “let’s show them what an ‘outdated’ ship can do.”

She yanked the flight stick, banking the Star Finder in a sweeping arc that dragged the three asteroids in a high-speed, spiraling swing. The nearest enemy ship opened fire as it spotted the Star Finder, but it was too late. With thrusters at full blast to increase her speed, the asteroids slammed into the first target, still being pulled by the tractor beam.

The first asteroid slammed into the lead ship’s outer branches, pulverizing the delicate sensor arrays and defensive turrets. More debris followed, smashing through the lattice of the ship’s plating, ripping armor free like leaves in a storm. As the flail dragged behind Jones, they scored a direct killing blow – hitting the ship’s hull dead center, twisting it like crumpled foil before sending it spinning into its own fleet and colliding with another craft that imploded from the impact.

They had learned how to fight lasers, railguns, plasma bolts – the clean, predictable war machines that humanity had fielded for decades. They had no defenses for a six-million-ton rock swinging through space at orbital velocity.

Star Finder rocked as enemy fire hammered its hull. Jones ignored the shaking and shuttering of the vessel as she held the path and checked the projections that appeared on the main view screen. She twisted the controls, keeping her ship moving so that the flail spiraled wider as debris dislodged from the tow beam. A second enemy vessel tried to bank away, but the asteroids were faster, shearing through a wing of weapons pods and detonating munitions in a silent, shattering explosion.

The aliens had spent decades mimicking humanity’s weapons, tactics, and ships. But this? This was something new. A third ship tried to maneuver, but by now, it was hopeless. With a controlled flick of the tractor beams, Jones released the last of the asteroids mid-swing so that the rocks careened forward with unstoppable momentum. It smashed straight through the ship’s midsection, cutting it in half.

She let herself relax as the warning lights began to light up the bridge and spoke to the ship like it was an old friend.

“They didn’t see that coming,” she murmured, voice calm despite the warning lights flashing across the bridge.

The enemy formation was shifting now, their movements more erratic, more defensive. They were already learning, recalibrating. They would find a way to counter her flail, but she wasn’t fighting alone anymore.

With a flash of light, the bisected enemy ships’ reactors erupted, consuming the space around them in nuclear fire. Despite the imminent death approaching her at full speed, the broad smile on Captain Jones’ face held firm as a flicker on her sensors caught her eye.. 

Three fresh reinforcements from the Sol Defense Fleet had swooped into the asteroid belt, mimicking her maneuver. At first, they’d stayed at a distance, wary. But now, chunks of rock torn from the asteroid field began to shift behind them. First slow, then gaining momentum, swinging into motion to create the flails like the one she’d performed. For humanity, there were still plenty of ships left…

And plenty of asteroids.

Jones’ breath hitched as one, then another, activated their tractor beams, and the explosion of the enemy craft enveloped her bridge.

“We can adapt, too”.