"What do you mean 'the station is missing'?" Captain Sandra Diaz of the spaceship Survivor demanded, her voice querulous. "Space stations don't simply disappear into thin air!"

"I tell you there's nothing there," insisted her navigator. "We're in the right place but... I've rechecked the co-ordinates, three times. It's gone."

"What about Cylon? Has anything happened to the colony?" asked Paolo Benini urgently. Benini was the leader of the current group of would-be colonists. He'd been invited onto the bridge to get another glimpse of his new home before transferring to the station to board the shuttle down to the surface. But that wasn't going to happen now.

Lex Vandenberg, the Survivor's second pilot, looked up from his screen. "The colony has gone, too. I can't find any sign of it. The dome and everything under it has been totally destroyed."

"A quake?" asked Sandra, doubtfully.

"More like they were attacked," answered Lex, bringing up images of the scoured site, which only days before, had been a thriving community.

"Attacked? By who?"

"There's no-one else this far out."

"I hope you're not going to suggest we're looking at a raid by Space Pirates!" Sandra couldn't help saying in disgusted tones.

Everyone was well aware there were no such things in real life. Holovids to one side, the colossal amount of money and resources required to launch an interstellar ship meant space travel was the exclusive domain of governments and massive corporations. Not to mention the years of advanced scientific training required to operate one. No, the boozy, hard-living pirate characters beloved of so many, were purely fictional.

"And in any case, what would be the purpose in destroying the whole colony? It's not like anyone can live there now."

"And there wasn't anything worth stealing—no gems or rare minerals. To my knowledge, mining hadn't even started." The crew added their contributions to the discussion.

"I tell you, the colony was attacked," insisted Lex, stubbornly. He knew people called him paranoid behind his back but that was what it looked like to him. He scanned the area where the colony had been, again. Everyone crowded around to stare over his shoulder. Was that black jagged shape the remains of part of the dome? It was hard to tell from up here, good as the scanning equipment was.

Sandra frowned. The only way to tell for sure was to send down a survey team. With over a thousand people missing, there was really no choice—she had to investigate.

Eager to prove his point, Lex piloted the shuttle down to the surface, his senses hyper-alert to any threat. A small team of scientists accompanied him, including Paolo and his husband Gianni. Lex couldn't help wishing he had a few more military types on board, armed with rocket launchers or something equally powerful. Instead, he had a bunch of scientists. He could only hope whoever (or whatever) had done the damage, would be long gone.

Lex stayed close to the shuttle as the scientists, protected by air-tight bodysuits, investigated the charred ground. "It's obvious they were attacked... lasers by the look of things. The very rock is scorched," Lex told Paolo.

Paolo bit his lip. Transport to and from Cyon was strictly controlled. No ships had been here since the Survivor left a couple of weeks ago. He knew there was no way any person could have done this. Far more likely to have been an explosion, an accident.

"Hmm. We'll see what the investigation turns up. Everyone back on Luyten, and Terra for that matter, will want to know all the details."

The scientists took their time scanning and recording the entire area which the dome had occupied, but it didn't take very long. There wasn't much to see. There were certainly no survivors, not even a corpse or a piece of one.

Lex took his party back to the ship as soon as he could. The back of his neck had been prickling the whole time he'd been on Cyon.

"There's nothing more we can do here," said Sandra as she welcomed the returning team and their grim news. "We'll return to Luyten, immediately."

~~~

Red laser beams tore the sky apart. Ships armed hastily and too late, struggled to launch, only to be picked off like practice targets when they neared the invaders. Their burning shells continued on mindless paths through space, empty of life, and beacons of destruction.

Once the ships were eliminated, the invaders bombarded the cities, pounding them into submission. Then they launched the ground troops, armoured creatures striding through the ruins, eliminating anyone in their way. It wasn't a conquest, it was a massacre.

~~~

The Survivor returned to Luyten a week later, after a quick trip to Terra to report personally on the Cyon tragedy. They were accompanied on the return voyage by three large mining ships, scheduled to harvest the mineral resources of the system's asteroids.

Switching back from FTL drive into empty space near Luyten, the crew of all four ships froze in appalled horror. It was almost impossible to believe the scale of destruction. Every city on the planet had been destroyed, debris hung thick in the skies.

Above it all, twenty-six grey ships appeared to be in sole possession of the ruined planet. The ships were like nothing anyone had seen before.

"Aliens! Murdering bastards!" hissed Sandra.

She opened a communication channel direct to the mining ships. "Captains, we're facing an invasion. Can I count on your support?"

"You sure can!" came the speedy replies. "Some of my crew have—had—families down there."

"Use your heavy lasers!" she instructed the miners. "Let's tear these fuckers to shreds!"

Without hesitating, the miners powered up their heavy-duty lasers, powerful enough to split an asteroid in half. They fired without further ceremony, destroying the three nearest ships before General Shuh realised what was happening.

"We're under attack, General!" screamed Brok.

It was a cumbersome job, manoeuvring a large vessel in space, but slowly, Shuh turned his ship around to bring his weapons to bear on the intruders. He swallowed a gulp as he realised how much larger they were, far larger than those ships his fleet had destroyed earlier. Still, big as they were, there were only three—they were grossly out-numbered.

"Fire!"

Red fire flashed.

A hit! Flames erupted from the side of one of the giant ships.

Shuh smiled briefly, before his own vessel was sliced in half like a ripe pelon.

The big miner continued firing, despite being hit. Inside the ship, crew worked frantically to seal off the damaged section and allow the fires to burn themselves out. Sandra kept the Survivor back, out of the way, allowing the miners a clear line of sight on the alien ships. Time enough for her to step in if the miners failed.

The alien fleet fought back but it soon became obvious that the miners had access to more power. Their lasers had a longer range, slicing into the alien ships before they could draw near enough to attack. Once again, the space over Luyten was filled with broken and burning ships but this time it was the aliens who were the victims.

The invading fleet fought to the last. There was no attempt to surrender.

Sandra gazed triumphantly as the last crippled ship drifted powerlessly across her bow.

"Gotya! Now we'll find out where the friggin' hell you came from! Lex? Take a boarding party. Arm everyone. I want you to check every vessel that isn't in tiny pieces. I want captives. Stun them if you have to but we need some alive."

All in all, they took forty-nine live prisoners. Twenty-six hundred had left Tok.

No-one really expected to be able to understand a word the aliens said, but before Sandra had a chance to even attempt to interrogate anyone, a ship from Terra arrived, full of officials, to take over.

The instant Terran authorities learned that an alien species was involved, they claimed jurisdiction. Every last scrap of ship was gathered up and all the captives transported to Terra under maximum security.