It’s the only way in and out of the heliosphere, so some of the Interhelios top rankers—Admiral Macavoy was here from Juno for a routine contract renewal tour—insisted that the slip point has to be retaken. Reinforcements could get ambushed as soon as they slipped in. A bunch of folks said that the Admiral was trying to cut and run, because of her earlier Full Defensive Evacuation order.

To keep it short, the Gallant and some other GuardCorps ships tried to run the Invader blockade.

We got split from the rest of the fleet, and were run down by an Invader ship—they have some kind of fusion impulse system, and they burn harder and faster than we can. 

We were boarded. The force comprised several HT1, the smaller six-limbed aliens, but the main assault force was something new. Some things, plural. Hostile Types 4 and 5, though we’re going to need to give them names, I think; there’s more types than folks can keep track of.

There was a big alien, but not really like the creature in the footage from Latterly Bay. Not quite as massive, but still as big as a zeo. Less mobile, with multiple limbs like the HT1s. Not as aggressive, either, and the weaponry is different. You can judge from the images, but it looks like a variation of the technology. It held back rather than charging in like the others.

The other type is also hard to describe. Sort of humanoid, but only in the roughest way. They were bigger than our troopers, much more mass, but our Soldats and Stormers held their own. These aliens had a “morphic physiognomy”—they didn’t have normal bodies; their tough flesh shifted and moved around, changing shape. There is structure there, not just big jellies, but none of them are the same, and their bodies grow and lose limbs and appendages. Some had multiple heads or faces. Smaller versions, like sentient bits that had sloughed off them, carried equipment and attended to the commander. 

The weapons were cruder than the blaze attacks, but horrendous. Toxic, radiological pulses and beams, acidic sprays. Really nasty stuff that we stopped using after the New Earth Tyranny.