Simon looked down at the silver cup he was holding in his hand. It had contained coffee, an ancient drink that most people no longer drank. It provided a temporary high but then, the drinker would crash back down and generally, feel bad for long periods of time or until said liquid was ingested again. He knew it was bad for him, scientists had known for almost as far back as history could record. Their planet was on the edge of a solar system consisting of three planets and a large star. Exploration missions had been sent to the other planets and they had managed to put a team of two onto the nearest planet. Simon was one of the workers on that original mission, working as a monitor at the National Space Command Agency. It had been nearly 12 years since any form of space travel had been attempted.
The NSCA had had a dry spell. No new technologies had been developed to increase flight efficiency or to increase maximum speeds on their spaceships and, though computing had advanced, there was nothing new to control and as such, there were no real advances. Simon however, was working on a technology; one that had shown great promise. An inter-spacial communications system - it was two way and designed to help probe for alien life in other systems.
He put down the coffee cup and opened schematics on the transmitter. He began to tweak certain settings and as he did, a simulation of the item was shown in front of him. Thirteen and a half minutes later, he finished. On his keyboard, a strange device with almost 100 individual characters on it, there was one button that stood out. It was bright red and in the top right hand corner. After quickly scanning over the plans with a slight glance, he pushed it. Suddenly, the item simulation glowed blue and then dropped to the platform below. It had become real.
He picked it up and examined it carefully to check it was as he designed. It seemed to be. He wired it into a power grid and activated the transmitter. It searched and searched for signals. After a minute or so, it latched onto something. Simon was excited, it must be close, he thought to himself. After hitting the transmit button, he spoke into a microphone.
"Hello, my name is Simon. I'm from Ceti 2. Can you hear me?"
He set the message to repeat three times per minute and sat back to see if anything would happen. After an hour or so, he fell asleep.
When he awoke three hours later there was a response.
"Ceti 2, we've tracked your signal to this planet. Prepare for our landing." A voice said.
He looked at the time index of the signal. It was received almost an hour and a half before. He moved quickly to the phone, beside his office window. As he lifted the receiver, he noticed a bright light outside the window. Almost two miles down the road was the Government security center. In the case of any attack, they'd be the first to respond. However, it was gone. Instead, in it's place, was a roaring inferno. The fire licked at the sky and smoke poured from the peak outwards.
He ran to the video transceiver to try and find out what was happening. He turned it on to footage of a shadow in the atmosphere. A reporter stood under it and told the story of what had taken place.
"...and then, almost five minutes after it appeared, the landing craft sped at the NSCA building. Naturally, the defence agency launched a full scale effort to stop the aliens. A missile barrage proved ineffective but our air superiority craft managed to bring down this invading menace. However, in retaliation, the main vessel opened fire on the agency. It's currently believed that there are no survivors..."
Simon felt sick.
"...And this is news just in," said the reporter, "after several attempts to best them in the air, our Government has surrendered to these alien aggressors. We are, from this day on, a part of The G Rebellion Empire."
