Lock Your Doors

"We're getting reports all over the galaxy of an invasion of spiders. This is not a joke, this is not a prank. It is unknown at this time where they have come from, or what they want, but entire planets have fallen to them, be alert, lock your doors, and hopefully we can all make it through this." The announcement was playing on repeat on planets across the galaxy, the war of the Spider was in full force. The young tech watching it play out in front of him was in horror at the unfolding disaster.

"Turn that shit off." Command Jodel was tired already of the current crisis. She'd been in charge for less than twenty four hours after her command had been eaten and the young RIG commander was already done with the day. What remained of her command were either too young to be considered valuable, or too old to be considered a threat. She was sitting there watching the reports add up and it was looking awful across the board. At current estimates they'd be overrun in a week. High command was offering her nothing they were too important securing the emperor and his family. From all across the Empire reports like her's were not unique. Jodel would never have figured she'd be killed by spiders, something else sure, but gigantic spiders definitely felt like a new one.

"What do we do sir?" Jodel didn't know, up until hours before she'd been a Lieutenant in charge of garbage disposal.

"Lock the doors, keep weapons ready, kill yourself before they take you?"

"Not really inspiring sir." The tech was barely out of training, Jodel saw him try to load his weapon earlier and he jammed it both times.

"Fresh out of inspiring rhetoric, bout the time a huge spider ate my bosses head on a conference call is when I stopped imagining we'll be saved." The tech slunk in his chair and Jodel went back to check what limited arms were left when they raided the armory and felt her own heart slumping. She had six people and four rifles with three side arms and a limited amount of ammunition for any of it. She was considering just killing herself right there when the slumped tech chirped up.

"We got a message!"

"Great on screen." Jodel was worried what she would see. Instead she was greeted by a bald black man with a red beard.

"Greetings, could you lower your defense grid my ship is damaged and I need a place to stay." Trezlan's words were not reassuring, nor were they welcome, but the idea of some other idiot landing on planet to be eaten by the spiders did bring a smile to Jodel's face.

"Lower the grid, I want to see what kind of idiot wants to land here in a massacre." The young tech slumped again, but Jodel watched with intent on the docking bay which was one of the first places over run. At least she'd be entertained in the end.