“Good,” Ted said.  He smiled, inwardly.  As tiny as the alien settlement was – although he couldn't escape the feeling they were missing something – it was still the first alien world to be attacked by human forces.  Ark Royal and her crew would go down in the history books ... absently, he wondered just who would be writing the histories of the war.  Humans ... or the aliens?  “Launch the first spread of unpowered missiles.”

He settled back in his chair as the flight of blue icons darted out from the icons representing Ark Royal and headed towards their target.  Unpowered as they were, not even Ark Royal could track them, but as long as they kept their drives deactivated they would follow a strictly predicable ballistic course.  Long minutes ticked away until the missiles finally entered attack range and went active, bringing up their drives and lancing towards the alien station.  There was a brief flurry of activity as the aliens realised the danger, too late.  The missiles slammed home, blasting the space station into flaming debris.  Ted watched, emotionlessly, as the debris started to de-orbit and fall towards the planet below.

Too much firepower, he thought, ruefully.  If they’d realised the alien point defence would have been so pitiful, he could have saved a handful of missiles.  But at least we killed it.

“Target destroyed,” Farley reported, with heavy satisfaction.  “I say again, target destroyed.”

“There's nothing large enough to pose a threat to the ecosystem,” one of the analysts added.  “The pieces of junk should all burn up in the planetary atmosphere.”

Ted kept his thoughts to himself.  It was quite possible that there had been human POWs on the station, humans who had been killed without ever knowing what had hit them.  There had been no choice, he told himself; the station had to be destroyed as quickly as possible.  But he would never know for sure if humans had died because of him.  The thought would torment him for the rest of his life.

“Launch starfighters,” he ordered.  “I want orbital space swept clean.”

***

Kurt put thoughts of Rose out of his mind as the starfighter lurched forward and crashed out into interplanetary space at a colossal speed.  Ahead of him, Alien-One glowed in the inky darkness of space, surrounded by unblinking stars that seemed to gaze pitilessly at the tiny humans infesting their domain.  He shivered, helplessly, as he looked back at them.  Most humans, even starship crewmen, didn't really comprehend the true vastness of space.  He and his fellow pilots, however, knew it all too well.  They were utterly insignificant on such a scale.