[h2]Sidosido, Earth[/h2]
[i]Arise, ye workers of all nations,
Arise, oppressed of the Earth!
For justice thunders condemnation,
A better world is in birth![/i]

Loudspeakers across the capital city of the Terran union played its anthem, which contrary to what European media outlets had once said was not actually a daily occurrence. Throngs of people filled the city streets, which were completely barren in terms of cars. Unlike most of the older cities, Sidosido was designed from the beginning to be the face of "New Terra". Cars were simply not allowed on streets, which were reserved for pedestrian traffic only in order to imitate the streets of cities before the invention of cars. Tunnels beneath the streets held a vast network of subway tunnels which allowed the residents of the city to move freely and quickly throughout the city. Lower still were highways, on which cars could travel. It was inconvenient for in-city car travel, but then again, nobody really used cars for anything but long road trips.

The city itself was situated in a land that had once been known as Mauritania. Not the most predictable location for the capital of humanity, especially when one takes into account the fact that it was built in the Great Wastes as opposed to Niger-Kordofan. Less out of any sort of consideration for development of the region, but instead as more of a massive middle finger to the fascists that had turned everything in and around North Africa into a nuclear wasteland.

It was not a sensible decision. Fitting, as the Chairman had little love for the sensible.

Deep beneath that giant city, trains rushed about in their tunnels in a desperate attempt to deal with the massive influx of tourists. The only sound within them was the humming of their maglev systems and the same music being played on the loudspeakers outside. Once again the exception instead of the rule. Usually the music being played was either the latest pop song or some obscure song chosen for uniqueness or innovation or for simply being extremely obscure yet good enough to be played in public. The engineer of the train ended up choosing the song two out of three times, so people ended up with getting an idea of the guy's personal taste.

Some, such as Cleo Williams, even chose their daily routes based on who they knew drove the trains. And that's how you end up with entire trainloads of people singing along to songs performed by Stepfords back when they still used voice samples to sing and sets of mirrors as "holograms". On that day, however, the train engineer's tacky old Stepford music from the 2010's was absent. Nobody was complaining, of course. To sit through a set of generally well-made songs was the least they could do to honor the millions that fought and died in the Great War of Liberation.

The train came to a stop at one of the city's many stations, which was situated just underneath the Red Square. It had been named after its old counterpart in Moscow, which had been destroyed by European forces during the war. Though losing such a historic place was a shame, at least the government didn't need to differentiate between the two.

Cleo walked up the steps-she never took the escalator or elevator-and stepped out into the square. It was always bustling with people, but now more so than ever. The entire 3rd Spaceborne Expeditionary Force occupied the center of the square, with thousands of people looking on from stands and floating platforms launched to allow a view of the event for everyone. A good twenty thousand soldiers stood in the square, with multiple tanks and light vehicles standing by with their crews. 

The city's clock, which towered over the square, struck twelve and the entire unit began to march. It was unlike most military parades. There was no long opening ceremony, no color guard march, just the 3rd and the countless units that would follow it. Rather than have a select few carry the flag, soldiers throughout the 3rd carried dozens of flags. The General, a Stepford by the name of Fiel, marched with her own troops at the front of the formation. She carried a flag that was held static in the air, as if the wind simply didn't affect it. That flag was the original one hoisted over the Forum Magnum on Pluto, and of course had wires in it to give it the appearance of waving when planted on a planet or moon without any atmosphere.

Cleo started recording a video on her phone. Her neighbor was going to be jealous of her good view of the whole parade.

[h2]TPV [i]Saltsgaver[/i], Ceres Orbit[/h2]

"How come Fiel gets to go but I end up getting called over to Facility-fucking-419?" Said Fergus MacLean. His griping was somewhat justified-he was the Terran Union marshal-but both he andthe Chairman had agreed that the 80th anniversary of the victory should only include those directly involved. And when the flag was planted on Pluto, he was on a wild goose chase for the warships the Europeans had allegedly built on the planet. He never found them, because they probably didn't exist. "What the hell do they want with me anyways? Unless they've found the answer to the Fermi paradox or accidentally created Roko's Basilisk I really don't see why the Marshal needs to get involved. I'd rather be on Zarmina, it's even fall there. The leaves come in so many different colors."

"I swear, you sound almost jealous." Said one of the bridge crewmen. He had been swerving direct under Fergus for years by then, and knew very well that he didn't care about how he was spoken to.

"Hey, I agreed to not be in the parade too. I just wanted to watch the opening ceremony from something other than a tablet."

"Marshal!" Yelled a Slavic man barging into the bridge, a wireless headset atop his head broadcasting his position as a communications or sensors officer. He had left one ear uncovered by it, presumably so he could actually hear other people. "Put the ship on alert, now!"

"What? Why? Is there-"

"SOUND THE ALARM!" He yelled again, and this time Fergus did so without asking any questions. The ship's lighting dimmed to show the lighting on the control panels better, and the harsh buzz of the alarm filled the battleship's corridors.

"Okay, what the hell is going on here?" Asked Fergus, pushing himself up out of his chair and latching onto one of the many handholds on the ceiling. The artificial gravity always deactivated while the ship was on alert, to allow a larger range of movement for the crew. "Has the Network blown up Ares Station or some shit?"

"No, we've gotten a message from a ship that just warped into the asteroid belt out of nowhere. They're just a few hundred kilometers from us!"

"What kind of ship? How did we not notice the particle fountain when it dissipated its bubble?"

"They weren't using an Alcubierre drive, its some other kind of FTL system! The design isn't like anything we've ever seen!"

"Punch in the coordinates and put it on the display!"

The man pushed himself off the wall towards the nearest console, and put the strange vessel on the main viewscreen. He was right, it definitely wasn't a Union or Network ship.

"Sir... they've sent a message too."

"Play it!"

The man gave the necesarry order to the ship's computer system, and the transmission played through the bridge's intercom speakers.

“I am Poppy, a diplomat of the Eternal Union, is this Sol? Is Earth still in existence?”

"Couch the Alcubierre lance!" Yelled Fergus.

"Yes sir!" Replied one of the many men seated beneath the main command platform. "Releasing tertiary and secondary safety locks, reorienting bow!"

"Get me a full-spectrum scan on that vessel! LADAR, Infrared, White-Juday, hell go ahead and override Facility 417's network and have it do a worldline approximation!"

The entire bridge began to bustle with activity, and multiple different images appeared on the main viewscreen to represent the results of the scans and calculations. A detailed topography of the odd vessel, a map showing heat distribution (which had a massive spike near the center of the ship-perhaps an incredibly powerful reactor or plasma weapon), and a graph that looked much like a funnel with some parts of it completely blacked out. Finally, there was the White-Juday space-time warping map. It wasn't like anything Fergus had ever seen. It sure as hell wasn't a warp field, nor was it a gravity well. In fact, with his limited knowledge of space-time warping it wasn't even something that could exist.

[i]We're fucked.[/i] Thought Fergus. [i]That sort of scan result... they're more advanced than we can even imagine. Let's hope they're as friendly as the name of their diplomat seems.[/i]

"I don't like the look of that infrared map, keep us on alert but... I'm opening a channel. If I give the word, fire the Alcubierre lance and eject the ship's recorder."

[i]How do they even know who we are? Did they listen in before coming here? No, they asked if Earth still existed... oh good God almighty I hope this isn't what it seems like.[/i]

He keyed in a set of commands and brought a blank screen up on the main display. If the other ship was willing to and capable of showing themselves, then he'd be able to see them.

"This is Marshal Fergus McClain of the Terran Union, currently in command of the Terran People's Vessel [i]Saltsgaver[/i]. Yes, you have entered the Sol system and are just a few light minutes from Earth. We've never heard of this... Eternal Union, but you seem to have heard of us. Plus you speak at least one of our languages perfectly. Now, why are you in our space, especially so deep in it? How do you even know this is our space? I apologize if I'm being inhospitable, but this is all very suspicious and I don't want to get killed on Victory Day, so I must inform you that your vessel is currently targeted with a high-power particle lance that [i]will[/i] destroy your vessel if it is fired. Do [i]not[/i], I repeat do [b][i]not[/i][/b] open fire.