Leave no witnesses.

Leave no witnesses. That’s what you do when you’ve got something to hide.

It’s also something well beyond the capabilities of Chagothian raiders. When we started losing outer colonies and there was no trace of who perpetrated the crimes, we knew something else was going on. All technology at each colony was entirely disrupted and destroyed leaving no records, something we knew was possible only for major players in the galaxy.

The right combination of EMP blasts, magnetic pulses, and other dirty tricks could permanently fragment data and electronic technologies beyond recovery, even if hidden in bunkers deep underground. Raiders theoretically had the technology but on a very limited scale and only rarely used it. They could fry the electronics and data of a station, an individual ship or two, or a few buildings, but not an entire colony. The cost and power requirements were simply too high for a raider to be profitable using them. Penetrating hardened military data bunkers was most certainly beyond their capabilities, yet that was happening to our colonies.

At the third colony destroyed, someone had installed an old film camera set to take two photographs per day; once in the morning and a second image in the evening to document the changing skyline as the colony grew. The camera system was entirely mechanical, a labor of love by a hobbyist intrigued with ancient technology. It captured an image of Chagothian raiders, or at least their ships parked on top of a few buildings. Unfortunately, the limits of the film only allowed us to identify the shape of the ships, not any clan markings. It was the first clue, and we began quietly manufacturing and installing film cameras based on the hobbyist’s design at all other colonies.

At the fourth colony destroyed, we captured images of the raiders themselves looting the colony. Again, the quality from the film cameras wasn’t sufficient to identify individuals or clan markings, but the tripedal Chagothians with their distinctive energy lances were unmistakable. Yet strangely, the images also showed that technology continued to function after the raiders left.

We were able to determine from the images that all electronic or powered technology suddenly stopped approximately two days after the raiders had left. In one image, display signs and lights were on in buildings. The next image taken some 8 hours later showed everything turned off, including streetlamps and other safety assistance which should never go dark. It was clear there was another party involved, and one that was being careful not to cross paths with the raiders or land to leave any traces whatsoever. And the precautions didn’t stop with anything and everything on the ground.

Anything in orbit was cleared, including the few mechanical cameras we parked there. All we found was wreckage of anything human made or even vaguely metallic, suggesting they weren’t aware of the mechanical cameras and instead targeted anything potentially not of natural origins. Everything was burned by lasers or energy weapons which don’t leave identifiable traces, unlike plasma weapons where you may be able to identify a signature that at least points to a species of origin. Again, raiders don’t waste the time obliterating anything in orbit. Too much time, and not profitable.

Someone was trying too hard to hide their involvement, and we knew it. Yet we still couldn’t identify who, nor did we have any viable clues. 

The Terran Confederacy had strained relations at best with three different Galactic Council species. The Verilians, Chi’tek, and Shelsa all opposed the expansion of humanity openly within Council sessions yet always stopped short of invoking any military or punitive actions. Despite space being vast and there being more than enough places for all races to expand peacefully, those three races were exceptionally territorial and dead set against any “younger” race from expanding. Was it them? One of their allies? Or someone else? And why? At this point, we had more questions than answers.

The Galactic Council? We were provisional members but not yet full voting partners despite human space being entirely within GC territory. Not exactly the best luck but simply circumstances beyond our control. Earth was the only bright spot in the middle of what most species would consider a galactic dust bowl, not economically viable enough by their standards to explore or colonize.

When humanity popped up as a spacefaring race it was a bit awkward, and we were offered a provisional seat in the Council while more formal arrangements would be considered. After all, while they had missed our growth we established over 20 major inhabited systems over the course of 300 years and were no longer a bit player on the galactic scene. It was just a random quirk in how we developed FTL communications based on wormholes rather than quantum relays that meant we missed each other's signals before a GC scout ship stumbled across a Terran Navy patrol. Provisional or not, the destruction of multiple colonies in such a short amount of time is something they should offer assistance dealing with if they followed their own bylaws.

In speaking to the council, we withheld the fact that we knew the destruction of technology and the raids happened at different times but made it clear and even invited GC inspectors to review the damages themselves. There was no hiding the blatant actions to leave no witnesses, living or technological. In return for our reports, they fed us a line of bullshit.

“Raider attacks are an unfortunate reality in space,“ the Chancellor said. “The frequency of the attacks is above normal, yet not entirely out of line with expectations. Use of technology nullifying methods is new and unprecedented and has been forwarded to the Security Committee for review.”

Raiders using full blown miltech, and it isn’t an emergency? Or much of a concern? A level of tech used only in combination with planet killer platforms. Not something you want garden variety raiders playing with. In old Earth terms, this response boiled down to “Oh, we understand someone is running around with a stockpile of nukes and using them but it isn’t a big deal.” 

Since technology disruptors aren’t the sort of thing allowed out in the wild, very likely someone had misplaced a few important toys and the Galactic Council was covering their butts so they wouldn’t have to admit and take responsibility for the damage caused. Just your typical load of horseshit and politics going on behind the scenes they didn’t want to admit to. At best, they would report that a Chagothian fleet had been destroyed and remains of illicit technology found.

We found it more likely the Galactic Council would investigate, resolve the situation in the dark, and withhold any information from us. We would only discover the truth if our colonies stopped being attacked. 

What bothered us the most is the timing. All of these colonies destroyed were new and with less than 3 years of existence. The challenge for new colonies is that it takes 2 to 3 years to establish power generation capabilities for FTL transmission relays. The system would be in the dark until the relays came online, leaving communication limited to visiting supply ships and random military patrols. Unfortunately, the vastness of space and limited resources meant that colonies would often have a lag of at least 2 to 4 weeks between visits. It would make a colony a juicy target for raiders if they stumble across one.

To a layman, this might seem overly dangerous to leave colonies unguarded. In reality, the risk is rather low. You don’t announce colonies until they reach sufficient critical mass, which is generally well after FTL relays are in place and you can rapidly transit in military forces if there’s a distress beacon. While recruitment for colonies is done openly, staging areas and final destinations remain classified. As long as operational security is tight, there shouldn’t be an issue. After the destruction of the second colony, the spooks and security forces were on high alert.

This, of course, created a further puzzle that perplexed us. Who was leaking the location data? And why? What was the purpose of destroying our colonies? There was a larger game being played, and until we learned more about who was involved we could do little more than quietly expand the Terran Navy and hope we gambled on the right mix of vessels to meet the actual threat. We desperately needed more information and sadly knew that would likely come from the destruction of another colony.

This explains why I’m hiding in the middle of a large asteroid hollowed out to contain a monitoring station and a glorified life pod strapped to an FTL drive. This system has an asteroid belt .25 au from the main planet, perfect for mining operations to build and expand the colony. It also provided a convenient place for an observation hiding spot. In the event the colony is attacked and destroyed, I would have the ability to capture evidence and then return to report.

Most of us referred to the duty as punishment. You would be placed in the asteroid for five days with no contact from the outside. To ensure no radio signals could lead to the discovery of this little hidey hole, no transmitters of any sort were allowed. You couldn’t even bring your personal datapad as it had outgoing communication capabilities, so being in this rock meant you had whatever data was on the local drives plus anything you brought with you. Oh, and a crappy AI if you wanted someone to talk to, which we all eventually would to avoid going mad. It seemed paranoid and over the top until today. 

I had been in this rock for just over three days trying not to die of boredom when an alarm blared and the vidscreen I cut off the movie I was watching. The screen now displayed three words that made my blood run cold.

INCOMING FTL SIGNATURES.

I rushed to the monitoring station to double check the logs. I prayed there was a supply ship someone had forgotten to program into the system, or that this would just be a random military patrol coming unannounced. Unfortunately, our luck had run out.

Telemetry data revealed a full fleet of Chagothian raiders, including two ships which immediately began broadcasting FTL jammers. This was not part of the typical raider playbook, and the station AI informed me the tech was Nilgri’ch. I had just over two minutes to ponder the mystery as the receivers waited for the radio signals to cross the roughly 130 light minutes to get to my position. 

I couldn’t remember much about the Nilgri’ch beyond they are one of the newer races in the Council, and more typically kept to themselves. Strong enough that their voice carried weight yet rarely interested or involved in matters which didn’t directly affect them. Could the raiders have stolen tech from them? Had someone provided it to them? Or was it just a huge red herring to throw us off in case we happened to detect it? No matter the reason, possession of FTL disruptors was strictly limited by Council Law to government militaries only. And there were two of them on Chagothian raiding vessels!

I couldn’t continue that train of thought as my brain went into a full blown panic. My home was under attack. The person I loved, our friends, our coworkers, and even the assholes in administration who never processed payroll on time. They could all be dying while I was in the dark counting the light seconds until conventional radio signals would pick up where the previous FTL data left off.

Nervously I paced in front of the command console watching the estimated timer count down from 30 seconds. 29. 28. 27. The timer couldn’t move fast enough as panic grew in my mind. The realization was dawning that even if I could see what was happening, I was powerless to do anything about it. I was a miner, not a military officer. There was no emergency line I could call. My job was now to watch. To witness the possible destruction of everything I held dearest.

Did I really deserve to be the one here? Was mouthing off to a supervisor who got pissed I took an extra 5 minutes taking a shit really appropriate justification for me to be the one inside an asteroid and possibly be the only survivor of a colony of over 50,000 souls?

Before I could let runaway thoughts overwhelm me, the main screen flickered. 

RE-ESTABLISHING DATA STREAMS. ALIGNING TIMECODES AND PROCESSING. DISPLAY COMMENCING IN 3… 2… 1…

The displays came back to life and seemed to pick up just a split second after I lost the FTL data streams, almost like I had simply stepped out of time for just over two minutes when the reality is that I was now gazing into the recent past. Even if I had the capabilities to do something, the delay in observation guaranteed my reaction time would be too severe to have any consequence on the outcome.

Taking a deep breath, I did the only thing I could do. I double checked that all of the data recording and backup systems were operating properly. I ripped my eyes from the display screen and plugged a datapad into the main storage device. I copied a small sample of the video and data for review on an independent console. Plugging the datapad into the console, I confirmed all data was correct. I repeated the process with the backup write-once permacrystal system, and the secondary storage device. The data checked out as identical on all three platforms, so whatever happened next would be accurately recorded and backed up. 

I then turned back to the main display screen and did my job. I stood witness to the horror unfolding before me. I made notes of what I saw as tears slowly fell down my cheeks.

• Chagothian fleet maintains FTL inhibitors. Approach to colony estimated at 30 minutes.
• Colony has scrambled all mining and patrol vessels from the surface and appear to be gathering for defense screen.
• 100 engine trails detected as mining rigs on full burn to return to the colony. Telemetry suggests all vessels aiming for a rendezvous point 250 km above the planet to act as a combined force. At sublight speeds, the effort will fail as it will be hours until they are in range of the raiders. They know they’re dead, but at least they get to do something.
• Colony mining and patrol vessels engaged the enemy, attempting to concentrate efforts on the vessels with the FTL inhibitors. Patrol craft attempted to provide cover including suicidal ramming tactics. Total failure despite heroic efforts. Our team could only bring a knife to a machine gun fight. One raider vessel sustained damage.
• Bombardment has begun. Experiencing occasional data interruptions as ordinance hits broadcast sites, but can confirm that is collateral damage as the raiders target the population not infrastructure.
• City sensors confirm the presence of chemical and biological agents consistent with Chagothian raiders, but at concentration and distribution far in excess of standard attacks. Overkill tactics. Raiders are now launching multiple drop ships.
• Initial ground forces estimated at least 1000 raiders in full battle armor. They have established control and a perimeter at the star port. Have captured clear clan markers on both vessels and ground forces via starport surveillance, although feeds cut after raiders gained access to security rooms.
• Had to laugh. What are humans good for? Throwing rocks. Mining vessels dragged asteroids with them and hurled them at the raider fleet. They might have been hours late to the party, but they came to make an impact. Hopefully literally. Sadly none hit, but forced the raiders to break their defensive formation. Still outgunned and only having mining lasers, numbers worked in our favor. 3 of the raiding vessels destroyed, another two damaged. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Clean up that mess, fuckers.

After that, I stopped taking notes as my mind grew numb. All human spacefaring vessels were destroyed. The raiders had complete control of the system and were dispatching more drop ships. The remaining feeds only revealed coordinated efforts to loot and kill. The only blessing is that I never saw the remains or murder of anyone I loved, but that didn’t change the fact that I knew it happened.

Emotion overwhelmed me. The loss was terrible, but more painful was the fact I was powerless to do anything but watch. At least my fellow miners had thrown rocks and caught the raiders off guard leaving them bloodied. Our colony did not go quietly into the night, yet I was not a part of that effort. I simply sat and watched. And I was expected to continue to watch and do nothing.

I went to the spare room and screamed with rage. When anger ran its course, I broke down. After hours of outpouring of emotion, I felt empty. Just a husk, not a living sapient being. I went back to the main display console and stared at the screens blankly.

Nothing had changed in my absence except that there were more raiders on the ground, and the AI told me it was now over 5000 landed raiders. There were pockets of resistance, and I was able to see one particularly effective engagement where some of my colony mates had set up and used a pair of mining lasers to devastating effect. With four lasers connected to a backup generator, a team of about 20 people set up a crossfire near the main administrative building. Try as the raiders might, battle armor isn’t designed to take sustained fire from lasers designed to break up asteroids. I smiled with every raider cut down and the growing pile of enemy dead, until the raiders took the coward’s way out and called in an orbital strike. 

I saw other valiant last stands all end in tragedy either from orbital strike or from overwhelming force, yet with my mind emptied of emotion I started to notice details. The raiders were all in full armor and much of the armor looked in good condition. 

That just wasn’t right. Raiders used modified space suits, not actual armor. I remember that clearly from the training sessions from the Terran Navy when I applied to join the new colony, and those training sessions were recently updated after the other colonies were destroyed. Armor was custom made and only available to the raider elites. So how did they all get full armor, and why did it look relatively new and in good condition?

A new feeling started to rise within me. Cold determination. 

There is more than one way to fight a war and information is power. I had one advantage I could use in humanity’s favor - time. Given previous colony attacks, I would likely be here for at least another 3 to 5 days before I could launch. If I just delivered my data and my account, analysts would need time to review everything and come to conclusions. However, if I gave Terran Command an indexed report like I had done many times for a mining safety inspection, it would give them a huge head start. Something they could trust and act on while the analysts did a full verification. 

I began to scour through the footage of the attacks looking for clues and oddities. Small details became apparent. The Chagothian armor used GC military style life support recharge ports, and as a miner and a colony spacer I was trained to recognize and use them. We needed to know how to connect in case of a rescue or salvage operation. The military style port looked like a standard GC, except with an extra power conduit. From training, my understanding is that the military style was only used on Galactic Council military and government ships with civilian police and other authorities using standard ports. The extra power line served only for rapid recharge of military equipment, which no civilian enforcement had access to.

It might be a feature the raiders would want, but getting replacement parts for the ports or the rapid recharge systems would be difficult as they were limited to military and government use. Why would raiders get things they can’t easily salvage or replace through normal means? And if the Chagothian armor I saw these bastards wearing had military hardware inside that justified the rapid recharge systems, that raised even more questions.

Looking closer at the raider vessels, I flagged images and vids for my report that stood out. The overall design of the vessels matched that of raider designs we had seen before, yet a closer look revealed some oddities. Scratched panels that supposedly showed battle wear didn’t line up. I compared it to battle damage our mining crew had inflicted before they were destroyed. I’m no military expert, but in the damage our crew did you could see minor damage to the armor plates next to the major battle damage. A direct hit rarely entirely ended within a single section of armor plate. Something would spill into the next, even if only a small scratch.

On images of the raiders taken before any engagement, you could see old battle damage but the plates around the damage had no scars or imperfections. No damage at all, despite clear evidence a hit had likely extended beyond the primary damaged plate. If this were isolated to just one or two visible scars on different ships, you might be able to argue there could have been more damage around the visible area and the proper repair was to replace the surrounding plates and leave the visibly scarred but still functional one. Yet it was all the battle damage on every ship. A clearly damaged plate with all the surrounding plates lacking any scratches. Almost like someone had bolted the scarred plates on and not considered scuffing up the surrounding pristine plates to make it convincing.

Was I being paranoid, or was this just further proof someone was trying too hard to hide exactly who and what was going on? I didn’t know, but I felt an analyst should take a look and rule it out.

Looking for details at least kept my mind occupied for the next day and a half and off the horrors inflicted upon my colony. And then I was alone in the system. The raiders packed up their loot, made a final sweep for valuables, then unknowingly left me behind as the sole occupant of the system and a living witness to their crimes.

I thought watching the raiders destroy my home would be the hardest. It wasn’t. The waiting was worse. We knew the raiders were only step one, and the cleanup crew to destroy all evidence came later. I could hardly contain my frustration. Running on the treadmill? Tired me out but couldn’t prevent thoughts from entering my brain as I stared at the blank wall. Watching a vid? I couldn’t go ten minutes without something reminding me of friends or family lost. Rewatching the attacks to try to find more details? Just a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I had already found and documented what I could. Sleep? Not an option. The quiet just reminded me I was alone, and my mind wouldn't shut up trying to fill the empty space. 

For the next 38 hours, I climbed the walls. Paced the tiny observation station. Collapsed in random places when my body was overcome with exhaustion. Ate only when my stomach growled painfully. All the while the muscles in my shoulders and back became more and more tense with anticipation. I needed to know what would come next. I had to see who was responsible, and then get the hell out of here to inform Terran Central Command. Yet all I was allowed to do was hurry up and wait.

And then it happened. Notification from the signal receivers that there were FTL flashes. 

I ran to the main console and brought up all incoming data. I still had optical data being transmitted from satellites around the planet, and indications were that the incoming craft had translated into the system close enough to the planet to be visible. I switched over to the camera feeds and double checked all data and backup systems were recording. 

I set the display to split the screen between 4 camera views, with 3 locked onto the incoming ships. Lacking controls I could only use digital zoom on the incoming streams, which were thankfully high enough resolution to still get a clear image.

The first ship was a Shelsa patrol craft. No surprise there given their open hatred towards us in council sessions, which was the same situation with the second ship - a Chi’tek destroyer. The third vessel turned out to be a Forka gunship, impressively armed for its size and one of the few Galactic Council military vessels the Terran Navy had any respect for. What was shocking is the Forka had recently signed formal trade agreements with us which looked to prove lucrative for both sides. Why were they here? And none of these vessels were large enough to host the technology disruptors which would eliminate all digital traces of what happened to the colony had I not been here to witness and record events.

My answer came a moment later. The three vessels started to clear satellites and other technology from orbit of the planet, leaving no doubt of their involvement. This wasn’t a random “we just happened to be in the neighborhood and discovered something awful” situation as I lost two of my camera feeds to attacks on satellites from the Forka and Shelsa. I still had two live vidstreams as there was a flash and a large vessel entered the system.

My stomach twisted into knots at what I saw. A Denaria Starfire Platform, unmistakable and only 1 of 3 the Denarian government had ever built. A true planet killing dreadnaught and the only class of vessel which the Terran Navy truly feared of all Galactic Council military ships observed. 

The Denarians were our friends. Our guiding hand within the Galactic Council, helping us navigate the political pitfalls and traps. The staunchest ally speaking in support of humanity joining the council as a full member. And here they were. I held a small glimmer of hope they were here to assist and would quickly dispatch the three interlopers.

I watched as the first action of the Starfire Platform was to launch an implosion mine, drawing together nearly all the debris from the destroyed raiders. The immense capital ship then launched something at the combined remnants, but before I could get a read a burst of static interference came in on all channels. In the midst of the interference, there was an EMP pulse that knocked out over half my receivers and made clear the interference was intentional to cover the signature of whatever nuclear or other weapon was used in that moment. 

When my data streams recovered, I had only one remaining video stream which quickly showed the debris field had been destroyed.

This was not misplaced technology falling into raider hands. This was a powerful leading member of the Galactic Council acting against us, and one that claimed to be our friends. The only xeno race we had informed of our new colonies as we bought and utilized some of their technologies in construction, so now I understood how they knew my colony's location.

Immense electrocannons started to glow on the bow of the Starfire Platform and then flash. I lost all of my remaining data streams as the weapon disrupted even heavily shielded military grade observation points on the surface of the planet. I had done my job. Witnessed the fall of my colony to supposed raiders, only to discover the entire Galactic Council was likely against us.

Did these races think humanity weak? Did they not review our histories? It’s publicly available data that for nearly two hundred years our colonies fought one another, and it was only 50 years ago that we combined under a single consolidated government. The cause? The use of a planet killing device that ended a conflict between Rigel VI and Astrodominus III by obliterating all inhabitants of Rigel VI. We saw that we had stepped too far when billions died, and we finally decided to find a better way as one. Humanity has always had a history of military technology leading civilian and only recently had we reversed that course. This didn’t mean we didn’t have more than skeletons in our closets.

Our old governments were paranoid. Military shipyards weren’t in systems but instead were FTL capable platforms hidden in the stretches between systems to prevent discovery. We had over 50 of them in mothballs, alongside multitudes of other vessels which had formerly been used to blow ourselves up. The Galactic Council would soon find out an unpleasant truth. Humanity knows war. Just because we packed up our weapons and put them away where they can’t be seen, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. 

There was further stupidity at play here. While we lived in what the rest of the galaxy considered a dust bowl by comparison, it didn't mean there weren’t plenty of systems with resources to exploit. Humans have always been good at exploiting resources. And with inhabited systems having populations in the billions, we would have no issues finding volunteers to fight.

They could have chosen peace. They could have accepted humanity as another friendly trading partner. There's more than enough space for everyone, and humans are happy to adapt to less hospitable systems.

As they cleaned this system of all technology recording their presence, they missed me in a tiny observation post. A witness to their crimes against sapience. One who would not go quietly into the night.

A full day after losing all remaining signals from the colony, I launched a small observation drone connected to a 1km cable and carefully piloted it out of the asteroid field. With the hard line connection and passive sensors built into a polymer body less than half a meter wide, I could safely observe with little threat of detection in case any of the sick bastards decided to stick around to admire their handiwork. After watching for an hour to be sure all enemies had abandoned the system, I got into my shuttle and launched.

As I aimed towards the Terran Navy outpost at Omega 3 and engaged my FTL drive, I came to a conclusion.

I had the data. I was no longer a witness. I knew the truth and would make it known.

I am now the herald of their apocalypse.

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I hope you enjoyed the story! I figured I was past due to provide a bit of straight HFY to balance out my normal style of silliness and snark.

If you need a dose of less serious, check out the latest Haasha tidbit or head over to my author Wiki & Series list for other stories where no bagpipes or squirrels were harmed during the writing process!