At 0900 hours the next day, we meet with one of the large logistic ships promised. It spends the whole day resupplying everything from fresh food to luxury items. During this time, one of the shuttles left a few people behind on the USS Catfish. It's a group of men, and only one of them shows his face, revealing that he is hauntingly handsome. He never shares his name, just wants us to refer to him as "Head Agent". The only job description I've been given is that he is our only contact to his team. He kept eye contact with me the entire time, even when talking with Shariah. This is because we personally know one another; I knew him when he was a normal human.

  These men are part of some black operations team, and I don't know any of the team names. Shariah quickly picks up that these men are not a political espionage team; these men are going to go planetside to try and destabilize the Eternal Kingdom in any way they can. I don't know what they understood from the limited information we could send back home, but they seemed confident they could easily do this task. I will leave them to it, and I made sure they knew in this situation their salvation from me would come in the form of multiple megatons dropped on their positions. The Head agent only smiled and let me know that's what he was going to tell me to do anyway.

  While I do not know their exact team name, which means I don't know their standard mission parameters, I am fully aware that the ones still covering their faces are most likely nearly inhuman in visage.

  Marines, as inhuman as they are after all their augments, can still be identified as human with a single glance. Special forces or the intelligence agency's black operations groups usually look completely unrecognizable as humans in some cases. While it is entirely voluntary, their lives are impossible to return to afterward, but until the information we learned recently, a ripe age of 50 is quite normal to pass away at, so there really isn't retirement. All special operations guys and gals are perfectly designed to work in their intended role. SEALS, for the navy as an example, have their internals reworked to be like deep ocean cetaceans from Earth's oceans. Externally, they have extra thick insulating skin, black eyes that can see in near-perfect darkness with little difficulty, some kind of biological sonar, and in one batch, they literally had gills.

  These black ops guys most likely look like vampires or something, but considering they want to run a guerilla recruitment campaign, I assume their looks aren't that important. I bet they have all kinds of internal mods, making them very good at their jobs. I do my best to ignore the monsters around me as I explain how this deployment will be done.

  Rather than bring the Catfish, the three ships sent to the next inhabited system will be the 2 heavy cruisers and 1 of the battleships. The aliens respect size and power, so why not show them real power?

  In less than a single day, the 3 ships popped into the next inhabited system after 3 were found uninhabited. This next system is quite a bit different than the one we have interacted in so far. This one is loaded with ships. There are dozens of different sizes from the smallest 250-meter-long wooden vessels to 5-kilometer-long ships like that of the Shipmasters. Our sensors pick up 30 total ships in this system, and if past information is to be believed this is a sizeable fleet for the Eternal Kingdom and very clearly one set to attack our newly... occupied system.

  It also seems we surprised them quite badly as well because our optics began tracking hundreds of individuals scrambling all around the top decks of their ships like aquatic vessels from back in the day. There are no shots fired but I can only imagine the chain of command nightmare going on right now especially if their main commander is asleep somewhere or otherwise busy. A large enemy vessel popping in without warning always results in chaos, I just hope no one gets too gung-ho...

  Agonizing minutes pass as I have all weapons come online and have targeting solutions made for each target hopefully set to cover our retreat in hellfire. Luckily a stream of mana radiation reaches the battleship I am on and we link up with the alien message,

  "Good evening unknown human vessels... what can we do for you?"

  It's the distinct booming voice of the Shipmaster, but it's clearly filled with apprehension as he probably knows these three ships can do a lot of damage to the assembled fleet. I give him an impossibly painful pause of silence as I am given notification that the spooks have deployed from the USS Terrapin. No enemy ship notices the two tiny ships as they zip around the moon of the planet below and hide in its shadow. It is smart to wait until the ships before us disperse so they can find a window to head down to the planet to do whatever it is they are going to do. This whole secret black operation makes no sense to me because these are aliens, not humans, so how the hell can our guys recruit partisans or otherwise create sympathetic combatants within their society?

  I'm sure it will work out, especially since they all probably don't exist officially so when they die for whatever reason, no one will ever know or truly care. Kind of a sad thought if you ask me.

  I then respond to the Shipmaster,

  "Good evening Shipmaster, this is the Commodore, or I guess I am now a Rear Admiral. We have come to try and make peaceful coexistence a reality between our two people as we appear to have started off... rather unfortunately.

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  Are you available to make any diplomatic decisions or is there anyone available to make these decisions on behalf of the Eternal Kingdom?"

  There is a pause for a while and then the Shipmaster responds with a tone of voice I know all too well. The tone of voice junior officer use with their men after the higher brass has given what is generally referred to as "a dumb fucking order that's going to get us all killed." He seemingly parrots,

  "Well... I apologize Rear Admiral... There is nothing you or I can do at this time. I understand you may not know the full inner workings of our society but the Inquisitor you injured... well he just so happened to be the 30th prince of the King himself, so this means at the very least we are supposed to perform a retaliatory strike in retribution before any diplomacy can be done... or so I have been told we haven't needed to do something like this in over six-thousand years."

  Before I can respond with disappointment he asks nervously,

  "So... That longer ship you have... is it stronger than your others?"

  I quickly respond,

  "Many times stronger. If conflict is what your kingdom requires then the United States shall respond in kind. We will be waiting."

  I check my notes on what I was told to do for this diplomatic pony show and feel satisfied I've done all I set out to do as the only note reads,

  "Either delay any military response or piss them off."

  I have the three ships sit in place for a moment, giving the Shipmaster enough time to crap himself before he asks meekly,

  "Can we... I mean can we just recapture the system you took? It would most likely sate the rage of his Majesty."

  I think about it for a moment before looking back at my note and saying,

  "No. We are using that solar system as a staging ground and more reinforcements are on the way."

  Now I break the communication line and send a text note to the Black Ops guys wishing them luck as all three of our capital ships turn around and zip out of the system back to the safety of our staging area...

  POV Change, Black Opos Field Officer "Dracula"

  The Rear Admiral did his job wonderfully. He distracted the enemy long enough for me and my men to get into a safe position behind the moon. The two ships are cramped with all the extra supplies we have brought with us but they are needed so that we can survive in this hostile part of the galaxy.

  Our mission may seem stupid to most, attempting to create partisans out of an alien population but that's the kicker, we won't be the ones speaking with them.

  Part of our supplies are two small mobile manufactories utilizing the highest end of miniaturized self-replicating manufacturing. The only downside is how slow they are compared to the bigger ones. Using these devices we will create synthetic replicas of the locals and from there at first attempt to sow chaos, but if just creating inside people isn't enough we will then begin running a terror campaign with them as a destabilization event.

  During our long journey here, we trained with these replicas and found them naturally lifelike in how they talk and act, but they still feel strange to the touch. The fake flesh is quite spongy, and if you press hard enough, the lightweight composite skeletons just feel wrong. It's not perfect but we don't plan on replacing people, but instead act as separate individuals to avoid any nosy wives or family members. This operation will take months or years, but I feel we can disperse enough replicas to really get the ball rolling...

  Three days after we hid behind the moon we got our first openings in the patrols of the enemy vessels. Our two ships depart rarely burning, mostly coasting through the void. From intelligence gained through the Rear Admirals operations against the aliens we know their only way of detecting our ships is visual, so these two tiny shuttles will be difficult to see, regardless we take no chances by hitting gaps in their orbital patrols.

  Each ship heads to a different part of the planet, mine heads to a more secluded part focusing on the rural villages while the other ship focuses on the outlying settlements near the planetary capital, which we assume is the only major city on the planet considering what the Inquisitor told the Rear-Admiral.

  We slip into the atmosphere perfectly, avoiding as much of a trail as possible by breaking hard before even hitting the upper part. There still is a trail, but at least it's not a brilliant light that fills the sky, just a high-altitude trail for a few seconds, a very normal shooting star. My ship puts down in a secluded forest clearing and immediately we get to work in the darkness of the night, our modified eyes making it bright as day for us.

  Hours later we have a small tunnel dug to work as our home for the entire time we are planetside. Using special foam designed for radiation shielding we line the hole giving us a small pocket where EVA suits are not required, especially after setting up the intricate air system that both recycles the air we breathe as well as slowly filtering and storing radiation-free air. The only real issue is food, but we were designed for a long-term lack of nutrition, it will take ten weeks before we have a new supply of food, thanks to a small hydroponic farm that was sent with us. Using nearby foliage we hide the ship and the manufactory and begin scouting.

  We first focus on a small village nearest to us. It's a small agrarian community we gage to have limited access to metal of any kind. After days of observation, we have a detailed idea of what species make up the population of the village and find there are no mages there. We pick a species that appears to be quite populous and begin the process of making a replica. Based on observations we create what we believe to be a very attractive female of a fuzzy bear-like creature.

  The bots get to work and burrow into the ground and with a hissing sound begin tearing the dirt and stone into their molecules. Using these molecules slowly a replicant is built as the bots self-replicate and expand their network of tunnels, following chemical trails in the stone below in order to snake toward deposits of specific minerals. Because of the research done by the science team, our bots are able to utilize the matter found only in this part of the galaxy which makes our replicant highly radioactive, but apparently appears normal to the aliens as they can sense the radiation or whatever.

  It takes a week, but the replicant is created. We loaded it with all the local dialects we managed to pick up through observation and clothe it. Proud of our new "daughter" we send her out to start the most effective operation we know of to this day, our replicant heads out and begins honeypotting all the young men, the best way to create an army of extremists...