Chapter 2: Where We Were Now

Both the Dern and us had 'protected' the home world. The 'surrender' by the Dern was followed by celebration on our part but fear and mass riots by the Dern. That was to not to last long. A double edged announcement was made on both worlds at near the same time.

All acts of war, on both sides were just that, acts of war. Dern and Vink alike were forgiven all wartime activity. It was hoped a time of healing would take place. New identity cards were to be issued to Dern and Vink alike. There would be no difference in rights or benefits. Too many on both sides had paid that awful price for this. The home planets were now open to all. Abandoned farms, land, houses, and businesses were open to everyone to re-claim on a random lottery basis. To speed the integration effort, Dern were required to mate with the survivor of whoever was the former owner, Vink too had to bid on only former Dern assets. In the case no former owners had survived, the State could assign a rating to it.

This was the good news, now the bad. Advance sensors had identified scout ships along our now combined territories. The race had been named the Klaxon, and they had been deemed to be invaders. We could only surmise they had seen the fighting between us and now considered this the best time to invade. It looked like we would now be in a fight for our combined lives.

A council was held on both worlds. Several conclusions were reached, they were:

1- That our own scout fleets, or what was left of them, should commence to discover all they could about the Klaxon, post haste.

2- That we were never to be able to protect all the former planets, both home worlds and two dozen others would be held on a priority basis, each home world to be held until the end.

3- Repairs to the fleets would concentrate only on those in the best condition.

4- Two competing designs, combining the advantages and weapons systems of both races were to develop a prototype. The chosen design would then be assembled at the fullest production possible.

5- Probes, weapons platforms and defense installations were begun at once, based on existing technology. The one exception to the rule was to try to restore the AI that had saved us. It was the least we could do.

6- That on all planets that were not to be protected, inhabitants would be evacuated to one of those selected as resettlement areas. It would take a long time.

All hoped that we would have enough time to develop and produce enough for this new war.

Once the prototype ships were created, we got another surprise. Both were different and unique. Several advances had been made in both designs. No winner could be determined. Some observer, not part of either development team, made an obvious comment. "Why not combine them?"

This is what we did. The new ship was called the Viking class. It's characteristics would allow both attack and support for planets under attack. A new AI too was developed, it and the AI that saved us were combined in the hope we might recreate that anomaly again.

We were not all working together. Factions on both sides were vying to exterminate the survivors on the other side. The last thing we expected was sabotage from our own, but this is exactly what would occur.