Arcadia Rising (Incomplete)

Prologue

"The radar center missed their check, Sir." Private Miles said sweating with anxiety.

"That's a common occurrence private. Have you reached out to their command personally?"

"Yes sir, Captain Briggs did not respond."

"Ok, well-" Frank was cut off as the private interjected, "The forward security base also did not respond sir, and neither did their Captain."

Frank reached down picking his chair up thinking through the information he had just been given. As he sat the chair down he stepped away from his desk walking over to the communications monitor that Miles and Davis had been working at. He picked up the phone sitting on the center console and began wordlessly dialing a number before putting it up to his ear.

"Fleetcom. Fleetcom this is Charlie 1-1 over," he spoke into the phone.

"Charlie 1-1 this is Fleetcom, over."

"Radar Sierra 1-1 is not responding, and Foward Camp Kreat is also not responding. Do you have anything on your planetary scope? Over."

"Standby Charlie 1-1."

Frank sat there patiently waiting, silently praying to himself that they would come back with a clear radar. Yet, wondering if they came back clear then why did the stations miss their check-ins and follow up?

"Charlie 1-1 this is Fleetcom."

"Go for Charlie 1-1."

"We aren't reading anything on planetary, follow up again with the stations, I repeat we are all clear in orbit."

As Frank raised the mouthpiece of the phone to speak again a sudden deafening blare filled the room echoing off the empty walls and metallic communication monitors of the room. The lights shuttered to black and slowly reignited into a dark gleaming red. Frank quickly raised the phone and in a nearly shouting voice said, "Fleetcom the base is under attack, I repeat the base is under attack. Recheck that radar!" as he awaited a response he began shouting orders at the technicians in the room. "Private Miles get on comms, Davis take the other men to the armory and get geared up!"

Everyone began rushing to their positions with Davis leading the other technicians in a run down the hallway to retrieve their rifles. As the organized chaos filled the room Frank could hear his heartbeat in his ears as everything began rushing to the forefront of his mind. He breathed in through his nose letting a ragged breathe out through his mouth in an attempt to calm his nerves. He could hear a vague buzz in his left ear.

"Charlie 1-1 do you copy?"

Everything snapped together at once and he could hear the sound of Private Miles radioing to headquarters. In addition to the banging of footsteps on metal as Davis and the other technicians rushed in with firearms.

"Fleetcom this is Charlie 1-1 I copy, over."

"Charlie 1-1, we are still not reading anything on the radar. Wait, standby...no. That's impossible." Frank could hear the thud of the fleetcoms unit headset collapsing on metal. Muffled voices began talking in the background before quickly escalating into shouting. A crackle occurred as the headset was picked up. "Sierra 1-1 their entire fleet is here, the whole fleet! Red dawn! Red Da—" An unmistakable sound could be heard, the sound of everything entering a vacuum as a deep guttural rumble rippled through the air over the microphone as the microphone went pure static the entire base shook. Frank slowly set the phone down as he walked to the one window in the entire room.

Peering out he could see the U.T.F.S Teran Freedom in the sky. It was not its normal elongated silver beauty ripe with ridges outlining the different rooms of the ship. You could not see the United Teran Federation seal crest across the middle of the ship. Not the hanger bay burrowed deep beneath the ship. Nor the large cannon that sits between the two perpendicular bows. No. All Frank could see was the implosion shattering across the sky as a blue beam penetrated through the ship into the fusion core.

Captain Frank Ward's mouth could only gently fall open as he watched a ship he had believed to be an indestructible, a genuine towering fortress that could propel itself through space, split into pieces in orbit. A tear formed in his eye as he watched the bow of the ship now stricken from the rear careen through the atmosphere towards the Arcadian colonies skyscraper. A building housing hundreds of apartments, hundreds of office spaces, and even more businesses. A building of people totaling thousands. As the bow exited the atmosphere Frank didn't even react as Specialist Davis and Private Miles walked up beside him watching through the dirt-stained glass of the communications center.

What felt like hours was only mere seconds as the bow turned end over end crashing directly through the upper half of Arcadia tower slicing directly through the metal and concrete support beams like the clean break of an ankle, sending the upper portion in a direct path downwards into the rest of the tower. Rock, steel, glass, and every resource used to build the tower imploded inwards as if a plant was going back into the ground. The tower finally fell silent with a ploom of smoke billowing upwards in a mushroom-shaped aroma.

Through all of this, Frank never looked away, encapsulated by the collapse of the tower he only noticed the oval-shaped ships brimming with tan scales, engines sticking out of the back like the tale end of a beetle, and a laser cannon directly in the mid center forming a ring, when the cannon began to form a blue light. The Captain watched as the light formed into a flame trickling into a spiral before ejecting itself forward from its housing in a direct line towards the communications center.

He tilted his head and a small smile crossed his face knowing his career would not end as boring as he thought it would. Despite the sadness that consumed his heart knowing the lives of the two men behind him who had yet to even cross the halfway mark of their twenties would end, he let the happiness of a fulfilled career consume him. The warmth of a life well lived filled his body in a way that he did not sense the blast tear apart his uniform, ripping through it like a wet cloth, he did not notice as his skin was sheared from his body at scolding hot temperatures, nor his feel his bone turn into smoldering ash as the beam ripped the building apart like a thousand-degree knife.