Shadow

Jardan leaned against the wall of the darkened alley. His face was worn and beaten down by time; his possessions, though clearly valuable when new, were ruined by long use and abuse. It was nearly noon, but it was still as dark as night in the grimy alley - the rest of the city, too, Jardan knew. It was hardly ever light these days.

Humankind had reached a glorious peak; the starlanes were created and sent men to the stars at last, every day seemed (looking back, at least) to hold within it the promise of a better tomorrow. Then, on an outer colony world remarkable only for its triple-gas giant system and the scientific installations surrounding them, outer detection platforms began to vanish. Probes were sent to investigate; they vanished, too. The scientists were evacuated, and military ships were sent to guard against this alien threat. They kept on full alert at all times, sensors scanning for the slightest anomalies and guns kept constantly powered.

They vanished, too.

When outer satellites began to vanish from the colony system connected to the triple-gas-giant star by star-lane, the reaction was swift and determined. The entire population of the colony was evacuated - a testament to human ingenuity and compassion. Meanwhile, nearly every military ship in human space was sent to the besieged system, alongside refitted merchant ships and the personal yachts of the very rich. There they orbited the evacuated colony world, as sensor after sensor failed, engineers and scientists laboured to concoct some countermeasure, and the Shadow crawled ever closer.

They vanished, too.

The travel-lanes, one of the greatest and most lasting achievements man had ever created, were deactivated and dismantled. People fled in the days before the star-lanes closed; from moons to planets, from outer worlds to inner, and from outer stars to innermost: Sol, Earth's star. There, those who fled watched as the darkness swept in, despite all efforts to contain it, and began to move towards ancient Earth. Panic was rampant; witch-hunts began; but politicians proved their worth, soothed the people in their darkest hour, encouraged unity against this terrible unknown. Humanity, at last, stood as one against a common threat.

Jardan leaned against the alley wall, watching as darkness fell. He knew all of this very well. He was there when it started, after all; when, shortly after his revolutionary experiment with the Macro Particle Accelerator in the triple-gas-giant, the sensor arrays began to disappear. He was there with the scientists on the outer colony world, striving to undo that which he had somehow created. He was there in the flight to Sol, leaving the brave souls of the colonies behind to return to the bosom of Mother Earth. He was there in the great panic when the darkness came to Sol, fleeing mobs armed with torch and noose. And he was here now; reduced from brilliant young physicist to back-alley vagrant, or interstellar villain. He watched as the Shadow fell over Earth at last, a curtain separating life from death, or just one state from another. Despite himself, he smiled.

(This story was, of all things, partially inspired by this upcoming game.)