Hard Luck Hermit

“For the past two years, the people of Hakit have lived on the front lines of a potential invasion, wondering when invaders might descend from the stars.”

The commander of the planet’s military, an elderly woman with streaks of black in her green hair, pounded a podium for emphasis. Like all of her species, she had coarse, almost scaly skin and broad frames with massive, powerful limbs. Corey found it hard to believe that such a powerful-looking species were afraid of anything, but apparently the Hakiin were a fairly peaceful people. Living on the border of the known universe, and especially the border facing the presumed location of the Horuk, had changed that. No one knew if the Horuk even had any interest in invading again, or when that might happen, but the border species were not taking any chances.

“This space station will be our shield against the Horuk invasion,” Commander Sto Keli shouted. She gestured clawed hands towards the shining interior of the new station. “Three forms of long-range plasma artillery across eighty-eight gun installations, along with forty short-range ballistic guns. Three layers of reinforced hull playing, and three-hundred sixty degree kinetic shielding coverage. I dare the Horuk, or any other invaders, to even make a scratch on this station!”

The crowd cheered at her defiance, and Kamak and his crew joined in with some polite applause. Kamak was just glad he’d managed to weasel his way out of having to give any kind of speech. He wasn’t a good public speaker even when he had anything good to say. Right now, he had nothing good to say.

The PR portion of the event ended, and Kamak waved goodbye to the crowd as he and his crew were ushered back into the control room along with many of the other VIP’s. Thankfully they were spared the indignity of small talk.

“Now you’ve seen everything the station has to offer,” Sto Keli said to the crew. “You are some of the few to have engaged the Horuk man-to-man and lived. What do you all think?”

“Well...Farsus, you’re the expert,” Kamak said. “Tell them your take.”

Farsus cleared his throat and stepped up to a screen that proudly displayed the station schematics. Since the first (and so far only) battle of the Horuk Invasion, he’d been researching what little information was available about the aggressive species. While the info was threadbare, Farsus was still probably the universe’s foremost expert on Horuk.

“I regret to inform you that your station is unfortunately lacking,” Farsus said. “While acceptable and even impressive by standards of conventional warfare, the station is not equipped to challenge Horuk invasion.”

Farsus turned and started indicating towards different parts of the stations chematics, focusing his attention on the guns first.

“These slow-firing artillery cannons are useful against warships, but the Horuk employ shock troop tactics by launching dozens of expendable boarding craft towards large targets,” Farsus said. “Ideally you would have not one station but dozens of orbiting weapon satellites, each with multiple small weapon emplacements.”

With the exterior defenses dealt with, Farsus pointed out the hangars and station interior

“These flaws could be compensated for with a large contingent of fighters, but your facility is only equipped to handle larger vessels, for troop loading and deployment,” he continued. “By the time any such reinforcements docked, the station would likely be lost, as you have open hallways with very few chokepoints or lockdown barriers to bottleneck the Horuk hordes.”

Farsus turned his back on the blueprints and folded his hands behind his back.

“All things considered, I would call this station all but useless against a concerted attack from the Horuk.”

The room was dead silent, as generals and politicians alike stared at Farsus. His broad red chest deflated with a heavy sigh.

“I take it from your complacent silence you were already aware of this fact.”

“Esteemed Farsus, it’s only been about one and a half rotations since the invasion,” Sto Keli said. Her planet had a slightly slower year than the galactic standard. “Even Centerpoint hasn’t finished modifying its defenses yet, and their resources are far more extensive than ours.”

“This station has been in the works for the better part of five years,” another military man added. “We’ve added guns, yes, improved defensive capabilities, but such an extensive rework of our systems would be frankly impractical.”

“But you’re selling this thing as the ‘shield against the Horuk’,” Doprel said.

“Esteemed guests, we’re well aware of the potential Horuk threat, but we are all fairly confident we have time to prepare,” Sto Keli said. “A significant portion of their military and logistical resources were vaporized in the Bang Gate explosion, not to mention the loss of leadership. If your stories are to be believed—and we, of course, do believe you—then Esteemed Corey Vash personally chopped their supreme leader in half.”

Corey nodded. He had, in fact, bisected the Horuk leader with its own laser sword. He was pretty proud of it.

“We’re not stupid enough to think the threat is completely negated, but the Horuk should be disarmed and in disarray long enough for us to finish the long-term preparations we’re making,” Sto Keli said. “And while those preparations are being worked on, the least we can do is create the feeling of safety for the common citizen.”

“The illusion of safety,” Tooley scoffed.

“We understand your concerns,” Sto Keli said. “As I said, we have plenty of preparations in the works, many of which line up with Esteemed Farsus’ recommendations. But, at the moment, this station is all we can offer the people back planetside. We’re just trying to help people sleep a little easier at night.”

“Whatever you say, commander,” Kamak said with a shrug. “You asked for our appraisal, and you got it.”

“It’s appreciated,” Sto Keli said. “All space stations and weapons aside, the universe does sleep safer knowing people like you are on the job.”

They all shook a few hands and accepted the “thanks of a grateful populace” on their way out the door. Kamak took his seat on the Wanderer and rubbed his ridged forehead as they flew away.

“If we’re what’s helping people feel safe, they really do need every gun they can get.”