✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Three - Part XXXII: Aftermath

          Seven Earth days later...

          The firefight that broke out between the Daxut and human forces became a spectacle to the Satyrian locals almost right away. It was huge news—the humans, generally understood to be a peaceful scavenger race, made their galactic military debut by taking on the famously advanced Daxut, and they won, completely and utterly. Once the atom cannon blew open the top half of the mothership, it was over for them. Over ninety percent of the total population were either killed in the blast, gunned down by the human infantry, or simply chose death over dishonor and took their own lives. This was by design—using the blueprints Temet had provided, they knew they could devastate the Daxut by attacking the top half, but they deliberately avoided the bottom of it, where the prison decks were. Ledda and the Nova clones were the most notable casualties, but many others were lost, too. The Daxut had also tried to go down and execute the human prisoners before the GDF could get to them, but their numbers were stretched so thin as it was that they didn't get to them in time—the decision was made too late. The infantry liberated them, and they were taken to the medbay aboard the Trailblazer Zero to recover before being transferred to another vessel to take them back home.

          As the story spread, it also came to light how this sudden warzone broke out at all, and it quickly became a scandal in the wider intergalactic community. The Daxut had been abducting humans to use in their experiments and as a food source, even after contact was formally established and the continued success of Project SETI—and it was because Prime Sentinel Ledda wanted to raise an army to go on a widespread galactic conquest of her own. When one of the surrogates in Project SETI proved to be extremely fertile, he was targeted and abducted for the purpose of furthering this goal by cloning and impregnating him and placing them all in pods that greatly accelerated the birth cycle—but Gabriel had been tailing Nova from the start, and together with Temet's help, they managed to escape the Temetor One and warn the humans of their true nature and activities. In response, Project SETI was terminated and all offspring were euthanized, and the Global Defense Force was sent out into the universe to search for the Temetor One with a mission to destroy them in retaliation.

          Months later, when it became apparent that Nova was carrying another healthy Daxut egg, he left Earth with Gabriel, Julia and Temet to avoid the pursuit of the human government and their goals. The GDF began to look for them too and clashed with the Temetor One when both of them were seeking out rumors of the small group of humans on Satyrs. In the chaos, the group got away, and the human government established their own bounty on the four of them while they continued to hunt them down.

          Due to the successful stealth tether of one of the human combat vessels, they had enough information on the ship they were using to track them. However, the ACV did not stay tethered when Temet lightwarped away, and thus, they were unable to effectively give chase. The human fleet continued to track them throughout the galaxies and pursue them, but Temet kept the ship in perpetual motion whenever possible and it was proving difficult for them to catch up. They hoped that someone would want to cash in on the bounty and assist them in this task, even though the amount wasn't nearly as large as it was when the Daxut were behind it.

          It had now been roughly seven days since they left Satyrs, and they didn't really know where they should go now—they were wanted, and nowhere seemed safe. For the time being, they continued to wander and decided that they should find another Earth-like planet, preferably one that was deserted or without intelligent life. The Daxut vessel was capable of sustaining them for a while yet, with its recycling of water resources, bland-but-filling military rations and the gyroscopic engine, which could generate power indefinitely as long as it was in motion. Even if that failed somehow, it used solar power as a backup, which would allow them to make landfall at the very least.