Ab Initio

In the beginning, there was nothing. In hindsight, they had been overconfident -- lone guards stationed around the base perimeter, smoking and periodically slapping at themselves to keep themselves awake constituted easy pickings for any moderately well-trained group of special operations forces.
This was not quite the work of any such force. Special-op forces killed select people, torched whatever they could and evaporated. They did not also strip clean _ heavy trucks had gouged deep ruts in the hill leading to the base's main entrance. The scavenge crew sent found no survivors. They also found no bodies, no weapons, no supplies, nothing usable and that was not the worst of it. The worst was that it was like looking into a black hole _ they had found no footage of the event. Every last bit of surveillance equipment had been painstakingly ripped out and taken. And it was that nothing that scared: rumors of the fates of the unfortunate men would take weeks to quell.
With nothing better to go on, base commanders were put on alert. Keep a low profile. Be alert for any unusual occurrences and report them promptly. Contrary to what you may have heard, treat Earth forces as if they were extremely dangerous.
Two Earth weeks later, the second base went down. A battleship was lost along with it. And then things began in earnest.
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"So men, do all of you understand your orders?" It was a rhetorical question: all men would answer yes and did. "Dismissed."
Going back to the command cabin at the head of the ship, he thought of rank and file men were lucky that way; they only had to worry about what you told them, never mind understanding why. The first part of their mission, the part they all knew, was easy enough: retrieve as much Vitalumis as they could. The second part he'd kept to himself so far: they'd find out about that bit soon enough if things went as planned.
The main lights were off; thin blue light from the front screen shaded cabin objects and silhouetted people. The caveway ahead narrowed obliquely and the pilot rolled the craft to get it through. He put a hand out to the wall to stabilize himself and took his seat once they were through. Even if this was not his idea of a respectable mission, things were going splendidly _ they now had several years' worth of Vitalumis on board with two more storage sites left to go. One more, once they reached the end of this underwater tunnel.
Without the second part of their mission, Commander Gorak would have called the operation a success and ordered them to head for the transfer ship now orbiting Phobos. His other orders: draw out and destroy the enemy force that has destroyed two of our bases. With this war machine, I destroyed eighteen Rigan squadrons. It is not baitfish, but a Spectran Officer did not refuse his orders. They had seen some ground forces, but nothing like what they were looking for and that despite having made a very visible entrance at the first site, nearly half an Earth day ago. Even baitfish is not put on the hook alive. There was nothing comfortable about waiting for some enemy to appear, particularly when that enemy had not left so much as a fingernail of 1500 men.
Turning possibilities over in his mind, Gorak began to tap out an idle tattoo on his armrest. If they got through this and the next objective without meeting significant opposition, what then? Most likely send what they had out to the ship and set course for a very high-visibility target. Somewhere towards the back of the cabin, a couple of men muttered. Gorak listened in. That was another thing about men; they always underestimated how far behind your back was far enough: "Our Commander seems rather wired."
"What do you expect? He's waiting for the super force, the ones that they think wiped the Aramis out, to show up. I know I'm not looking for them."
"Should have guessed something was up or we'd have left this stupid planet already. He told you?"
"Don't you have eyes?"
He smiled to himself. If men were any good, they'd divine most of what was going on before you told them. It could be useful sometimes. It had certainly helped him promotion-wise.
Draw the enemy out. Well, if the enemy didn't notice this entrance, they would have to be dead. "Surface!" he ordered, and swallowed trying to keep the pressure in his ears if not even, then at least not painful as the warship rose through the main shaft of the extinct volcano, smashing through the metal and dirt capping its caldera to look down on Caledonia Field, Earth's main point of distribution for Vitalumis and the site for Storage Vault Six. The central disc of the capping steel went bouncing down the slope like a manhole rolled by a bored workman.
It was hard to see how anything could threaten them: self-contained, amphibious and agile, fast despite her heavy armor _ she easily did half Terran escape velocity in high atmosphere _ and armed with two ultra low-spread gigawatt lasers, it would take serious opposition to give this ship any trouble, which the few dozen tanks now milling into a semblance of an attack formation below was not. He reached for the two-way radio. Nevertheless... " Tana Group, are you ready?"
Affirmative.
"Final instructions. Start collection from Storage Silos H-10 on the far side and work your way towards the ship. We will provide covering fire. Waste no time _ I want us airborne in 25. Is that clear?"
Yes, Sir.
"Go!"
 It could not have gone more perfectly if he had read it straight out of a military textbook at Officer's Training.
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They were nearly on top of their last objective when it showed up. The bizarre aircraft cut across their nose, then banked and returned for a more leisurely pass. And again. At last, some action. "An Earth ship on our tail? Fools; they'll be sorry they found us. They're powerless against our prismatic reflector."
The pilot tracked it so it was in front of them. It made no move to evade, leading on a wide arc that led over open ocean. He reached for the target system. Unless this was the vanguard, this would be easier than he had dared hope. A textbook mission indeed. There, he had it now, locked on broadside.
"Disintegrator ready," he announced. The cabin was already silent. The silence sharpened and held its breath.
"Get set..."
He depressed the firing button until it was flush with the console. All that happened was that the alarms for a critical error in the laser system went off. Crom. Sabotage? " Someone tampered with the prismatic system. Check it out!" Two men left. He turned back to the screen. The craft was no longer in sight. That could
not be coincidental. "And turn on all surveillance cameras."
Two minutes later, the men sent to check on the system had neither returned nor called in. He sent a few more.
"Sir, on Camera 96!"
Gorak hurried over. A white figure stood in the farthest right of the screen. Then it vanished. It updates every 0.5 esec. He must have stepped back out of range. "Check Camera 95."
"It's on 98 now, Sir." He cannot be moving that fast. "Maximize the refresh rate, imbecile." Turning around, he jabbed a finger at the man behind the communications console. "You! Put me through to Spectra immediately."
You have news to report, Commander Gorak?
"We have found parasites."
Excellent. You have your orders, but first, let us see them.
"It shall be as you wish, Sire."
 The second group of men called in. "We have found the men. One is merely unconscious, but the other one put up a fight. His neck is broken."
The one on screen was in the middle of the ship; there had to be at least two of them then. Crom. Opening the comlink so he addressed everyone, he said, "Return. All men are to stay on standby out of the way of the enemy."
"But Sir, if I could get reinforcements, I could flush the intruder out and neutralize him. If we do nothing they could damage our main reactors."
"When I want your opinion, I will give it to you. The Vitalumis is too precious for them to risk destroying and that is safely stored. Return at once."
The second one, a female, was picked up on Camera 16, uncomfortably close to the command cabin. Once she moved down the vessel, following a trajectory that took her roughly along the spine of the ship, he dispatched a team to try fixing the laser.
Watching them was an exercise in how not to design a surveillance system. Even with the refresh rate maximized, their movements were still dramatically jerky _ the white-clad figures would freeze in frame for a moment, look around, then cover so much ground that the camera could not smooth out their action. In the no-man's lands between cameras they would switch direction. It could be that those areas just happened to be at junctions (if you considered, as they appeared to, catwalks three or four levels up junctions) -- or they could be aware that they were being watched. So young. So destructive...
Three men started wagers on just where the male, from the way that one looked around (as if this place belonged to it) he suspected that this was the leader, would reappear. He put an end to that.
An external camera picked up the enemy craft. Cloud tops wisped over its wings as it shadowed them, maintaining a position beneath them and to their left. Looking at it did not make it less strange. Tiny in comparison to this ship, but much too big to define as an aircraft proper. Toyish, with stubby wings, garish red-and-blue coloration and what looked to be a square cross-section. Gorak had the ship taken higher for the thinner air of the lower stratosphere, where they could turn faster. If they were going to fight, they would take every advantage they could. The sunlight gleam on the toy's fuselage ran up then down its wings as it made a course correction; otherwise it maintained its exact position. Shadowing them.
The radio beeped at him. "Commander Gorak speaking."
We have an initial assessment for the damaged prismatic reflector system.
"Go ahead."
It is bad. The targeting system has been completely destroyed, but it should be possible to rig it for a maximum power blast if we can align the beams so they converge.
"Get what range you can. How long will it take to fix the system properly?"
No idea. We will do our best.
To the pilot: "Make a course correction for Center City. Our ship is large: before that pair _ he indicated the shapes flickering from screen to surveillance screen _ finish their search of the ship, we can have a real target."
The ship eased into a very gentle right bank, beginning to parallel the coast. At a point that was currently just cut off from view by the curvature of the Earth, the pilot would be putting the sun behind them and then be diving to skim over the mountains and burst over the city.
The enemy leader appeared to agree with his assessment; once he reached the bottom of the main gantry, he opened the door to let the ship on board. Excellent. Gorak reopened the comlink. "Our enemy has grown overconfident. Let us give the young parasites a fitting welcome. Every man, pick a weapon and be on hand at the gantry. I want snipers along the topmost catwalk, move, move!"

Air soughed into the gantry from the dilated iris in its floor, chilling it. The toy ship was parked to one side and three more of them were on the floor. These ones wore no white. Overall, they looked barely old enough to be enlistable, but one was really, really young. Or really, really short. They appeared to be bickering. Their advantage has been in their ability to insert themselves with stealth and they have just thrown that away. Now they shall see what we can do. They finally looked up
and realized their situation.
Perfect timing. "Aha! So Earth sends children against us _ against the most powerful spaceship from the Crab Nebula!"
They failed to startle. The male in white, that was definitely the leader, pointed at him and barked back, "We're getting tired of your invasions," as if that should be a threat. The smallest one added something he could not quite follow.
Insolent ones. Fortunately, my orders say nothing about bringing you back alive. He held his right arm straight out from his body. The snipers were in position _ when he brought his arm round to point at the intruders, they would be dropped right where they stood. Blanket fire from the lower tiers would obliterate them. "Prepare to surrender yourselves, children. Our Supreme Ruler will be highly amused when we bring you back."
The leader had words for that too. "Hate to disappoint your ruler," he began as they jumped on top of each other to form an untidy pyramid, "but you can take him this message, just for laughs."
He really could not understand the little one added. No matter. He started to bring his arm round.
They turned into the wind.
Men tumbled by, scrabbling for any handhold they could find. A group of three went by, clinging to one another. A rifle bounced off his head before spinning off into the colorful maelstrom rising up from the floor. The wind pushed him along the floor on his knees.
The wind turned back into people. People-like things at any rate, hitting, shoving, leaping, swinging, twisting from catwalk to catwalk, attacking men. Disoriented and disorganized, his men were falling to them. Falling to them with laughable ease.
I have to stop this. He started to ease himself up to order them to regroup and stand firm. A soldier hit the wall beside him and slid down it.
Instead, he ran.
"So, do you still have a problem with my age?" He looked up. The leader was there, balanced on a parquet, wearing an easy, mocking grin.
"W...who are you?"
"The name_s G-Force and we're here to put an end to your thieving ways."
It was not the wisest time to speak or thing to say, but his hand was upon the safety door. "And how do you propose to do that, child? Break more wind?"
It got rid of the smile. Even from here, he could see the G-Force leader's cape stiffen until its feather elements were almost spines. Another smile appeared, taut and nasty. "Oh, we can do a lot worse than the Whirlwind Pyramid. Want a taste?"
He flew at him. Gorak went for the door. Door, don't fail me. It didn't. Closing it behind him, he could feel it shudder from the impact. With luck, that would hold them off at least long enough to report back to Zoltar, who would not be pleased.
Zoltar was not pleased. "Incompetent fool. You have failed your mission. You know what that means?"
Gorak, who had never been found incompetent in anything, raised himself from the prostrate position long enough to nod and answer, "G-Force possesses...strange powers."
Zoltar went on as if he had not heard. "I must report you to the Great One."
Gorak remained resting his forehead against the steel floor. The Luminous One's judgement would come soon enough. It would be along the lines of 'A Spectran Officer does not abandon a fight. Remain and die with your men if need be.' The way things had been going last that he'd seen it was doubtful that there would be any fighting men left now. He fingered a mini-grenade; after setting the main bomb to go off, he would find the loud-talking G-Force leader and if he were not cut down, cling to him and take him with himself. Let it be his turn to feel fear. His breathing stilled; he was calm. Focused...
Zoltar returned. "The Luminous One has deemed your hide to be of more value than your sacrifice. Destroy the worthless scow that is the Space Terrapin and return with what you have."
 Hope came back into the world and agitation tagged along with it. What did he have? The head and neck section of the ship, along with two non-functioning lasers and just enough fuel to make it to Phobos. His men _ any of them still alive were on the wrong side of the door.
I never thought I would hate the autopilot... Even the pilots had left to join the fracas. Good men: he should have ordered them not to leave. Idiots. This is a sad way to return, but at least I will be rid of G-Force and their damned whirlwind pyramid.
The capsule circled the main body of the ship, confirming that the engines were indeed beginning to power down. Satisfied, Gorak activated its self-destruct sequence. He was wasting fuel by circling the craft, but it was like an accident _ he could not leave without seeing the end.
The ship stalled, listed and started to fall. As it fell past mid-cloud level, it started a slow end-to-end tumble. Its belly was visible to him for a moment and, could it be? The Earth ship looked to be trapped in the iris. Further down, another complete tumble and yes! It definitely was the enemy ship.
The ship disappeared into low cloud.
For a moment, nothing happened and his heart began to sink. Then the cloudbank flashed phosphorous white and a jet of solid flame geysered up into a mushroom cloud. No enemy ship appeared.
Maybe I won't go back in disgrace after all. It was not funny, but alone in the cabin, Gorak began to laugh. Dementedly.
The flames moved.
It froze the soul even as it seared itself across the vision _ a vast bird-like entity made entirely out of flame. Ignoring the capsule, it arced across the sky into the sunset.
He wept.
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Sometime after Commander Gorak reported his failure but before he showed up to give his excuses in person, Zoltar sat reviewing what images as had been sent back. One could hope that Gorak had had the presence of mind to keep at least a briefcase of Vitalumis in the escape capsule with him. It would be plenty. One thing good had come out of the mission. The enemy had shown himself, and he had shown himself to be flesh and blood. In the still image on the screen before him, the enemy leader had seen something above him; the beak-visored helmet was canted in an almost aquiline gesture.
G-Force. He would remember that name.
In time, they would remember his.