Cyrus Flagship, Bridge of operations.
The battle for Earth was a foregone conclusion from the very start. Humanity, as much as they could grow in the future, were simply too young to stand against the ancient civilizations that had made the stars into their domain since before humans invented language.
Commander Solon of the Cyrus Empire stared at the ongoing battle from the bridge of his flagship with unwavering eyes. Not a speck of regret, guilt or amusement could be seen in his red eyes, only utter boredom.
"What a joke, their weapons are rudimentary at best...is this how low I have fallen, to be relegated to such a simple task?"
He pressed his flat fingers against his forehead in frustration. As he recalled the misfortunes and treachery that had dragged his name through the mud and utterly destroyed his honor, his blue skin started turning purple in anger.
"Crimes against sentience...what a load of shit. The Ordinal Command just made me into their scapegoat when questioned by the galactic community and now I have to pay the price!"
The holo-table trembled as his fist collided against it.
"I can't even find pleasure in annihilating such a puny species, let's just wrap this up quickly"
Their combat capabilities were so unfairly unbalanced that the Cyrus didn't even needed a strategy or formation. The only orders he gave to his men was to be cautious of friendly-fire and to run rampant.
They're courageous though, I'll give them that. From the moment the battle started to now, a few hours later, they hadn't suffered a single loss, on the contrary the humans fleet was little more than scraps by now, and yet not a single ship had attempted to retreat.
Even now, human fighters were fighting like rabid dogs and falling like insects by the second. Cruisers and Destroyers kept firing their laser and kinetic cannons even when splitting in two. Not a single escape pod had been launched from any ship. Not that they would let them escape, but that was beyond the point.
"A shame, they have a warriors spirit, but at least their resources will be of use to the Cyrus Empire."
He saw as the last human vessels holding the line fell to plasma fire. The wreckage of hundreds of ships was not even an obstacle to the Cyrus vessels, their shields simply further broke the debris as they passed through.
With no more warriors to stand against them, one hundred Cyrus vessels began descending down to Earth, crossing into the atmosphere of the planet as they prepared their plasma projectors to glass the surface, while the rest of the fleet remained in outer space. Heat gathered under the Cyrus vessels, the plasma projectors came alive with purple light emanating from their openings.
"Fir—!"
Just as the order to fire was about to be given and doom was to befall the rocky planet, the ship was rattled by a sudden impact. Lights flared, metal creaked and soldiers were thrown against walls or the floor.
Even the burly Commander Solon couldn't stand upright, falling onto his back and rolling backwards. His old bones could have broke from that kind of violent fall, but his years of experience made him move almost instinctively to roll correctly and avoid injury.
Most of his men were rattled and bleeding from the impact, some were even unconscious. There was confusion in the eyes of the young, but not on his.
The moment when a hunter thinks it has secured his prey, is the moment they're most vulnerable.
Solon had carved those words into his heart. Even when he himself thought they were about to sink their fangs into the throat of the enemy, he didn't let his guard down.
"Seems like I underestimated their weaponry. I didn't expect these primates to have something in their arsenal that could pierce through our shields..."
Solon stood up, dusting off his uniform as he operated the holo-table to assess the damage. Although the shields had been pierced and the ship was shaken, the hull had only received minor damage, meaning that the shields had at least fulfilled their function. With a hand motion, the image on the holo-table changed to show him the entire fleet. All the one hundred ships that were advancing first, including his, were halted by the sudden attack, but only one had been destroyed.
What the...they have enough powerful weapons to break the shields of a fifth of our entire fleet in one go?
The thought was both concerning and confusing. It had only been the flagship that had been struck, he would have simply thought the humans wanted to disrupt the chain of command by killing him with their most powerful weapon. But seeing as they had halted a hundred ships in a second, it raised the question as to why they hadn't done so before, and instead waited for their puny fleet to be massacred.
Maybe an in-atmosphere weapon?
Curious and worried, he operated the holo-table and scanned the planet, searching for the weapons that had struck his ships, however nothing came out.
Optical camouflage? No that would still be picked up by our radars, and the humans can't possibly have that technology...maybe something like the Bagworm the Fessans use could hide from our radars, but how could the humans get their hands on it?
Confused but with no other alternative, he ordered for the energy of all ships to be directed towards powering up their shields once again, and then ordered for his men to find the weapons, even if they had to rely solely on their vision.
It was as he was looking over the surface of the planet that he spotted something strange in the sea. There was a portion of it that seemed to be unnaturally elevated, as if there was a mountain made of water itself, and within it, a strange sphere was permeating the water around it in blue light.
They hadn't seen that thing before when they performed a preliminary scan of the planet when they arrived, nor did it resemble anything he had seen before.
Staring at that thing, Solon had a sudden, bad feeling, as if he was being watched by a predator. Most other commanders would probably dismiss the feeling, but he had been a soldier and a commander for almost two centuries, and knew to trust his instincts.
"All vessels, enact evasive maneuvers now!"
As if the enemy had been awaiting their reaction, the moment the vessels began to move they were struck again. The flagship managed to evade a direct hit and kept their shield active, however not all ships were as lucky.
Holding unto the holo-table, Solon stared at the image of the anomaly in the ocean, his knuckles turning pale from the strength of his grip. This time he had seen it clearly, what attacked wasn't a plasma, laser or kinetic weapon...it was water.
Large beams of water were shoot out from the ocean anomaly, almost as fast as a laser barrage, piercing the skies like accurate needles. The attack was directed at all ships like last time, but it semmed to mainly targeted those that still hadn't powered up their shields after the previous attack
Unable to perform quick evasive maneuvers inside the atmosphere of a planet, the shieldless vessels were much like sitting ducks. Solon saw as one of those beams of water pierced through one the vessels, caving in the frontal part of the ship and exploding soon after, likely from having destroyed the main reactor.
Just like that, in a single instant over thirty powerful Cyrus vessels which hadn't been damaged even when fighting the human fleet head on, were utterly destroyed, with no possibility of the crew surviving.
It was hypocrisy, but he felt deep rage setting within him.
"Fire at that thing, destroy it!"
At his orders, a barrage of laser fire was shoot from the frontal cannons of the remaining ships, all directed at the sea.
Solon believed it to be some kind of weapon that used the water as a projectile, and so he expected that by hitting what appeared to be the core the whole thing would shut down. However things didn't go as he expected.
The glowing sphere extended thin strings from it's surface, like roots quickly expanding under the soil. Large tentacles of water rose from the sea, the glowing strings extending inside them like a nervous system.
The laser that weren't in trajectory to the core were ignored, simply evaporating bits of liquid upon contact with the great mass of water. Meanwhile those that were in trajectory to the core were intercepted by the tentacles, even though some of these were damaged upon impact, they simply grew again. Fighting a weapon made of water in the ocean was a losing fight.
How did the humans develop such a hellish weapon?
Solon was confused, but at least he knew the reason why it hadn't been used during the battle with the human fleet. Seeing how fast that thing shoot out the water, it would most likely evaporate when trying to leave the atmosphere, if it even had the reach, and even if that wasn't the case, it would freeze once it was on the coldness of space. Realizing this, Solon wanted to destroy that weapon from above the atmosphere, where it couldn't reach them, but he also realized it would be complicated
The plasma projectors can't reach the surface from above the atmosphere, and bombs will just be shoot down by that thing...I guess our only option is to overwhelm it.
"Retreat! We'll join up with the rest of the fleet and descent all together!"
Directing most of their energy into the energy shields, the Cyrus vessels began a slow ascend. Even though Solon wanted to leave the range of that weapon as soon as possible, ascending quickly would cause the shields to weaken as they left the atmosphere, and could easily be brought down with a single shot by that thing.
He expected to be bombarded by attacks of that ocean weapon as they ascended, but contrary to his expectations, the glowing core and the tentacles submerged underwater, disappearing from his view.
Are the humans so stupid that they think we're simply retreating?
He couldn't believe that the humans would make such a stupid assumption, but he wasn't one to point at the flaws of a gifted blade.
They kept ascending slowly, as they were worried about a trap. However as they reached the half point, the sea suddenly 'erupted.'
The ocean seemed to have exploded as something massive flew up from the depths to the sky. The sunlight illuminated the surface of it's gargantuan body but it couldn't reach the deeper insides, there, only a glowing sphere and it's nerve-like strings brought light.
The elongated body of the creature casted a shadow on the ocean. It started relatively thin at what would appear to be a head, thickening at the middle of the body where hundreds of water tentacles writhed, before thinning down again, ending in a long tail from which thin but longer tendrils extend.
The gargantuan creature reassembled the polyp stage of a jellyfish, with the addition of a fish-like tail with elongated thin tendrils at the end. What appeared to be a blue, glowing nervous system could be seen from outside, with it's origin, the glowing sphere, located at the center of the body and a large concentration of 'nerves' located in the head, as if simulating a brain.
That thing...how is it flying?
Solon was stunned as he stared at the beautiful yet horrifying giant floating above the sea. Anti-gravity technology was the first thing that came to his mind, but not only did he not see any such machine in or near that thing, but he also didn't know of any such machine that could lift such a massive body of water up into the skies.
It can't be...a psychic monster?!
Only psychic powers could explain what he was seeing. Psychic weren't precisely rare in the galaxy, there were a handful of sentient species that had some degree of psychic abilities. But non-sentient entities that could use psychic abilities, and to such an extent were rare, and almost always catastrophic. Hence, they were commonly called psychic monsters, things to be avoided at any cost.
"ASCEND FASTER NOW—ACK!"
He yelled an order with absolute terror in his voice, before being thrown far away from the holo-table against a wall as the ship was suddenly struck. Not having the leisure or time to dwell on the pain, Solon quickly stood up and ran back to the holo-table even though he was bleeding.
Emergency lights flared up and warning alerts were displayed on the screens, but Solon, with a hand motion over the holo-table, forced the warning and emergency lights to turn off, instead showing him the scene outside.
The massive psychic monster was rapidly flying up towards them, shooting water beams from all points of it's body. Some vessels were lucky enough to survive the first hit without entirely losing their shieldd, and we're retreating faster, but the rest were falling like flies.
Vessels were exploding one after another, and he didn't know when it would be his turn. Hurried and desperate to survive, he operated the holo-table, redirecting all their energy to their propulsors to escape the atmosphere as soon as possible, even if he wrecked the precious flagship.
However, before he could retreat much, the flagship came to a sudden halt. Utterly confused, he looked up from the holo-table at the screens that gave him view of the outside from the bridge. There, he saw it up close, and his eyes were filled with terror.
The creature's tentacles had gripped the fleeing vessel, stopping it's movements entirely. That monster, severely times bigger than the flagship, kept still as if observing them..no, him.
The monster brought the vessel closer to it's body, and as Solon stared at the blue, glowing core, an invisible slit opened in the surface of said core, and within it, a blue, human-like eye stared back at Solon.
That was the last thing the Commander saw, before being crushed to death.