The Phantom Fleet

A freaking coffee

The truck caravan from Catharina showed up a few kiloseconds later. Me and Black Helmet had regrouped with the bulk of the Sirians and the marines that eventually emerged victorious from the wreck. Black Helmet introduced me to a couple of them. I was led to a still pressurized chamber where I peered through the porthole and saw dozens of wounded unsuited people waiting for life support to arrive. The Lunes were pretty quick setting it up. They had to laser-cut the hull to extract them. Big operation. I didn't participate. I was among the first to unsuit and get access to the food printer. Three-layer sandwich with a steaming cup of joe, thank you very much. All the while on the dial with Axxo who was nice enough to keep me updated.

The Martians had fallen back after Space Force had reclaimed the Moon's orbit. We managed to bring enough presence in the region to discourage them from regrouping and giving it another go. We'd been telling them that the phantom fleet didn't have anything of outstanding value since you reported it. They eventually corroborated it from the distance and withdrew instantly, probably patting each other on the back. "Your problem". The Terran administration wasn't so keen on it. They were arguing with the Martians that the refugees were everyone's responsibility, and that just because they had crashlanded in Terran jurisdiction didn't mean that the Martians could just leave it to us to worry about. We still hadn't relaunched a fleet of observation sats, but we estimated the Sirian population at tens of thousands. Many times more than the Moon could absorb. We'd need to launch them off to Earth and that was going to cost heaps. Of course shipping them off to Mars would be even more prohibitive, so the argument was more that Mars should help foot the bill. Fat chance... Half our respective fleet had been pulverized in the skirmish. It was going to be expensive enough to rearm. We were unlikely to put a lot of effort in dealing with the refugees. The Lunes were already hysterical over it, and Earth's sacred union had already started to fissure. The Terran media was already playing the silly game of which overpopulated continent would be volunteered for the Sirians' relocation. The Sahara desert was the top contender so far. Meanwhile, the Martians were probably celebrating their defeat laughing at us like mad.

Bollocks. I couldn't even finish my delicious sandwich. The war over Ceres had been one pointless territorial tantrum. But this one was even more nauseating. We had won a rotten apple. The mooned Sirians were going to divide and drain us when we needed to regroup and rebuild fast. The Martians were going to take the most advantage they could from the situation. I had almost died a couple of times to help earn us the privilege of dealing with a bunch of helpless starving bums. That'd certainly earn me a freaking medal.

I was still brewing bile over all this when I was joined by a huge figure that I couldn't help staring at for seconds. Skin was as black as their suit had been. Long ears and nose, high cheeks, dark violet eyes. I couldn't tell whether male of female. It came to sit in front of me eye to eye. I was standing. This was embarrassing. I looked away. The Sirian opened its mouth and spoke something in a deep soothing voice. I pinged Saku.

Turned out it was Black Helmet in person sitting in front of me. Their real name was something like Boohoo, I didn't bother registering. I couldn't get myself to look up at them. I was pissed. They were thanking me. In the name of the whole Sirian people. Official-sounding and all. I hoped it'd be over soon.

"Most of my tribe died in the wars." they said, "Of the ones that came along, two of my family didn't make it to the Moon's surface. So I am sad and angry, but at the same time, I am happy and excited. The wounded are being taken care of, most of us did survive and the Sirian race will endure."

I nodded silently. Whatever a tribe was.

"We brought redundant copies of our wikipedias. Our culture has a lot to contribute. We're looking forward to payback."

I thought about the black holes they had found in the Oort cloud. Their faster-than-light ship designs... Maybe there was a way we could turn the arrival of these guys to our advantage...

They continued: "In gratitude for your role in protecting our flagship and hastening the resolution of the conflict, you're granted the fingerprint for extraordinary accomplishment. That's the highest ranking fingerprint in Sirian levelling."

"Saku, what is that?"

"What you think mate. A freaking medal."

THE END