2. Invasion

Written July 6th, 2023

Central Calendar, Day 8 Month 12 1639, Vauxnia Islands

Everyone had come out to see what was happening. Even the early winter drinkers in the tavern had taken their cups out to find out what was going on. A smattering of clouds made it difficult to truly ascertain anything high in the sky.

“Is it Mu testing another airship?”

“No, this doesn’t sound like them. I go there on the ship, and they sound completely different from this. It’s got to be the Mirishial’s magic jet fliers.”

“No, this definitely sounds like a mechanical Mu aircraft. Those engines are everywhere in the cities.”

From the clouds descended a single mechanical fighter, approaching at a very steep angle. It was unlike anything the villagers had seen in Mu, with a single set of wings and a metal and glass cockpit. Lacking the upper wings of the Mu biplanes, it was definitely not something from the friendly Mu.

Suddenly, dozens of them followed and broke through the cloud layer, all flying directly towards the coastal village.

“This isn’t Mu! They must be attacking!”

Panic spread through the small crowd, and rightly so, as the lead fighter let fly some of his ordinance. The 20mm cannon rounds arced into one of the houses, blasting the wood beams supporting it to splinters and spreading roofing material over a wide swath.

Most of the people ran away from the destroyed house, but some were injured, and others simply lay there, unmoving. On the beach, large gray metal ships had snuck through the heavy ocean fog up onto the shore, lowering their frontal ramps and letting out a contingent of troops and metal vehicles.

A few of the people had been armed, a normal thing for the wilds of Vauxnia, but they stood no chance against the automatic fire directed at them.

Flagship Capelin, 100km West of Vauxnia

“I told you this place is basically uninhabited. Mu trades with them for their small oil reserves, but this will be a perfect staging area to surround them.” Savlik’s dark, beady eyes glistened as he listened to the radio reports from the pilots.

Rear Admiral Hannaz agreed. “We’ll have to get the construction crews working overtime, there isn’t any infrastructure here to work with.” Massive mechanical diggers, cranes and other vehicles were ready to be transported by the second amphibious assault ship, solely dedicated to building up airbases and fleet facilities on the barbarian islands they conquered. Tankers and supply ships would move in to fill cisterns with fuel and populate runways with aircraft, but the building would be done before they arrived.

“Sir, the landing craft report that the island is theirs. We aren’t getting any signals from the southwest, so Mu hasn’t retaliated. This should be an easy one. There’s no way the natives have any resistance left after this.”

Vauxnia

All the men had been gathered by the docks, the women and children by the main general store inland. Namys, the leader of Vauxnia, had been taken into the dock facilities, the largest and nicest building still mostly standing.

Half of the buildings were demolished and a third of the population had been brutally killed. When a group of men decided to fight back, they were mercilessly slaughtered, their bodies ruthlessly tossed into one of the burning buildings at the edge of town. The small landing force they sent was over double the size of the entire village, and they walked around gawking at the buildings and people around them.

The invader’s equipment seemed even more advanced than that of Mu, with smaller rifles that shot bullets in a stream instead of one at a time. It was the heavy metal cars that really drove home how hopeless it was, though. One of the defenders had fired the island’s only cannon at it, and it shrugged it off like it was nothing. It may be a small cannon, but it still should have done something. Seeing that they had no chance, the villagers were despondent in their newfound captivity.

—

No one bothered to show Namys any kindness, and she was roughly shoved into the chair across from a tall, skinny human in a dark grey suit.

“I, Egon, will begin this ‘diplomatic meeting,’” he chuckled. “As we were fired upon, this island will be taken without conditions by The Empire.”

Egon was sorting through papers as he spoke.

“We were fired upon first! Your aircraft destroyed one of our houses before we–”

“Enough. I’ve had enough of dealing with you barbarian tribes for the past month, you’re all the same. A couple of muskets, maybe even a real hunting rifle, a cannon or two. You are nothing compared to the might of The Empire.” He finally found the paper he was looking for and reached into his jacket’s breast pocket for a pen to write something on it. “You will sign this. Either that or we kill you and find someone who will.”

Namys’ eyes widened as she read what was on the paper.

• The islands of Vauxnia will fully submit to the rule of Gra Valkas Empire.

• All current leadership will be disbanded, to be replaced by a member of the Gra Valkan Foreign Affairs Bureau.

• All residents will forfeit their welfare and rights and be conscripted into the Gra Valkan military.

• Any residents that resist, spread propaganda unfavorable to The Empire or otherwise displease the leadership shall be tried and punished post haste.

• Freedom of speech and movement will be surrendered.

• Gra Valkan citizens shall be under Gra Valkas rule, and Vauxnia shall not interfere.

I, ______________, hereby relinquish my duties as the ruler of Vauxnia and hand full and irrevocable control to the Gra Valkan Empire.

Signed on the 8th day of the 12th month of 1639: ______________

“So…you want to enslave us?”

A dark fire lit up behind Egon’s eyes. “Well, yes.” The smile spreading across his face made the hair on the back of Namys’ neck stand up.

There was no choice. Mu and the distance to the main continents had kept them out of reach or want of most of the civilized powers, and yet here they were, forcefully invaded by an empire they had never heard of, with technology that rivaled the great powers.

Egon tapped his fingers on the table, “I’ll give you until the count of ten, or we’ll get someone else in here.” He looked behind her and she heard the rattle of metal as one of the soldiers behind her straightened up. She took the pen and signed, hands shaking as she did. “Good, good. Now, take her away. We need to get these savages ready to work.”

Rough hands grabbed her by the arms as they escorted her out of her own office. Feeling the sheer weight of what had just happened, she had trouble walking to the general store. The bodies by the beach had been cleared out already, but as she walked across the village, she passed no less than a dozen dead friends. Some men, some women and some even children, their corpses left unceremoniously in the streets. A man that had been hiding in one of the houses was dragged into the street in front of her.

“Please! No! Don’t hurt my family!” He shouted as they tossed him to the stones that made up the road. Namys heard a bone crack as the butt of a rifle came down on the man’s arm.

“What do you think we are? Barbarians like you? No, we won’t hurt them.” The soldiers nearby laughed. From inside the house Namys could hear a cacophony of screaming and laughter. The first soldier raised his rifle, holding the end of the barrel to the man’s chest. “We just got word that you lot don’t have rights anymore, so we’re allowed to do this. We’re not even hurting any people!”

The crack was unexpected, and Namys stopped as her entire body tensed up. The man fell limp to the ground. Screaming still came from the house, unaffected by the violence outside.

“What are you looking at? You’re supposed to be getting down to what you savages call a store.”

When she arrived, she couldn’t even make eye contact with anyone there. There were less women there than when they were first captured. She dare not think about what happened to them.

The Skies Above Vauxnia

“You all saw that, right? Holy shit, whatever is happening out there is worse than I’ve seen in some jungle planets. They look human, some of their equipment even looks like some of the stuff we see in ancient history books, but they act like pure animals.”

Casey couldn’t believe the optical feeds. He actually reset them twice during the invasion, hoping that he wasn’t seeing what was actually going on. The enemy had been using a primitive version of radar, but it would have a hard time detecting even the survey ships angular surfaces, not to mention the range.Their planes didn’t appear to have any radar themselves, and they were only getting radio waves from the large ships to the west. Everything pointed to some kind of conquest, just like a Corpo on a mostly terraformed world.

Half the population of the island either lay on the streets or was burning in the destroyed buildings right now. The research team didn’t really have any intention of getting involved, but after seeing this they were all disgusted. Some of the Simulacra had gone through horrors before entering their robotic bodies, and what unfolded below brought back heavy memories.

Clem, the ship’s pilot, looked at the other three while they hovered and scanned the terrain below. “We have to do something, don’t we? I’ve seen war crimes back when I was a military pilot, and that’s textbook.”

“But we have no way to legally do anything. If we interfere, we’re just picking sides and we’d be interfering with what seems to be a sentient race.”

“Yeah, but they honestly look human. If they’re human, do we have to follow the same protocols? Everything we have talks about alien species. They’re probably just some really early colonist group that’s been here for a couple decades, maybe even a century, judging by their tech. If that’s the case, then the standard non-interference protocol no longer applies.”

It was a tough decision. Planetary interference was a huge taboo for the United Systems Frontier, and everyone knew it.

“What if we make contact with them. Casey, you’ve got a face, so you should head down there and try to talk to them.” Casey instantly regretted his polyplast face. “If anything happens, we can swoop in and pick you up right away. Their planes are slow, nothing that we’ve seen should be able to catch us, unless they’ve to a trump card stowed away somewhere.”

“And what if they do?”

“We’ll give the defense team a call and have them head over here just in case.”

The colonies were all relatively far from other civilized groups, so most didn’t have a heavy military arm or anything of the sort, but if a Corpo came to the same planet the frontier base would be able to request a contingent for self defense. For them it was a comfortable life, but with no space-based assets, they all seemed to get a bit bored, and many of them eventually started doing other work: helping with samples, maintenance, and some even starting businesses in the base. The weaponry at their disposal was light, but enough to properly defend from almost any land- or air-based threat.

“And what if they have space-based assets?”

“If they did, we wouldn’t be here right now. Here, let me check your jump kit and we’ll get you some of the ship’s emergency supplies.”