TA4

==Chapter 4 - The Armada==
Space Walk
SLS Beagle, Exploration Cruiser
Sol Star System, Terra's Orbit 
Wolf Empire
3167 CE
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"We're going to need a bigger boat."
Primary phase, was getting the Clanners out of the danger.  That was the main and primary thrust.  Sharon floated in the void, Old Earth below her feet, the SLS Beagle, formerly the LCS Beagle, floated ninety kilometers above her.
The quote came from some ancient movie about a giant marine predator.  It didn't really fit, but it strangely did.
Contemplate the problem: A massively superior interstellar civilization is killing upstarts.  They gray-goo'ed a few planets anti-spinward, and coreward, they're using improbably large forces to disrupt and detonate suns.
She walked through the memories of the briefing materials, the imagery from former enemies, and her own understandings of physics, mechanics, and logistics.
That much EM flux should be visible from here...and maybe it will be in a few centuries or millennia. Sharon began to think to herself.
In a few centuries or millennia.  That was the problem.  No information, but they've been closer than that.
They can't be that much older than us.
She floated, trying to force her mind into that null-zone.
They can't be that much older than we are.  Maybe a few centuries at most. she thought
Why are they attacking?  and so extravagantly?
The attacks aren't regular, there's no follow-up.  They find a civilization and they exterminate it, but not to claim land.
Conquerors would have made some more noise.
So xenocide, but what's the advantage? she continue to think to herself.
"We're going to need a bigger boat." said to herself.
No.
Amphibian. Reptilian. Mammalian. The human tree.
but that was competition for territory, for mates, for food...
"Obscurity was the secret of our success." Her Grandmother had said it.  "There are those who can't survive ANY competitors, at least, so they believe.  We did it for a time-buying out or sabotaging competitors, stealing their customers, routes, work...their inventions and patents even.  It's business as usual."
Competitors?  One way to win a competition is to out adapt an opponent.  The other, is to crush them before they become a threat. she continue to think.
Star league formed, the first thing they did was invade smaller states. 
Comstar forms, and executes Operation: Holy Shroud, to prevent competition.  Thousands of millions of pages of knowledge were gone overnight.
Billions dead, to preserve a monopoly.
It gripped.  "On the Gripping hand, we don't know where they are...but when we find 'em, it's going to be a war." Sharon muttered to herself.
We need a scout with longer legs.
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